Op-Ed: Climate Change Threatens Arizonans

Op-ed by Dr. Richard Carmona
Published in the Arizona Daily Star on September 20, 2021.

Over the past three months, Arizonans and the nation have face three challenges we know well, but the dial on all three seem to be turned up. Last month, the federal government declared that the long-standing drought has reduced the Colorado River – and Lake Mead, which feeds – to new lows, sparking cuts to our water supplies that will hit Arizona farmers in 2022.

At the end of July, 22, wildfires were burning, fueled by the ongoing drought, and record heat. This year is forecast to be a wildfire season like last year’s, one of the worst in a decade. And in June, we saw a heat wave that set new records, with Tucson hitting 115 degrees and shattering a 125-year-old record, with new broken temperature records around the state… READ FULL ARTICLE>