On an unseasonably cold night in late January, more
than 250 Phoenix-area residents packed the Arizona State University
Kerr Cultural Center in Scottsdale. There, they found more than
just physical warmth: High Country News was
sponsoring a heated conversation on the uncertain future of their
desert kingdom. Author and moderator Craig Childs posed the central
question: In an era of climate change and global instability, would
Phoenix, population 4 million and growing, continue to thrive, or
would it decline as its predecessor, the Hohokam civilization, did
some 1,300 years ago?
The panelists were cautious, but
somewhat optimistic: Prolonged drought would challenge Phoenix,
said Rita Maguire, former director of the Arizona Department of
Water Resources, but the city is preparing by storing large
quantities of Central Arizona Project water (from the Colorado
River) in depleted aquifers.
But what if the Colorado
River dries out as radically as some scientists predict? The state
would get creative, said Maguire and attorney Grady Gammage, a
research fellow at ASU’s Morrison Institute. First, it would buy
out the remaining agricultural water in the Phoenix Valley (farms
still use most of the valley’s water), and then it might build
desalination plants on the Pacific Ocean for California, in
exchange for its neighbor’s share of the Colorado.
“I
don’t think water is necessarily the limiting factor on Phoenix’s
growth,” said Gammage, who has a penchant for provocative
statements. “The limiting factor might be the quality of life. How
many people will want to live here when the nighttime lows in the
summer are 100 degrees?” Last summer, Phoenix topped 110 degrees 31
times, with nighttime lows in the mid and upper 90s. Climatologists
blame the heat on an “urban heat island” effect created by all of
the heat-absorbing pavement and rooftops. Gammage predicted that
Phoenix’s population could rise to between 5.5 and 7 million before
conditions got unbearable. State Rep. Chad Campbell said the time
to slow down growth and embrace green land-use patterns is now; he
said he will push the Legislature to put some teeth into the
state’s tepid growth management act, so local officials can turn
down or modify proposed developments.
Slowing down growth
won’t be a priority, the panelists concluded, until residents are
hit hard by water and power shortages. But judging from the turnout
at the event, and the audience’s pointed questions, I’d say many
locals are ready to act now. Planning for a world with a rapidly
changing climate is not just a problem for urban areas. As M.
Martin Smith and Fiona Gow explore in this issue’s cover story,
park managers and scientists are struggling with how to respond to
ecological shifts caused by climate change. Should they
aggressively intervene to preserve dying populations of animals and
plants, or just let “nature” take its course?
What is the
right answer? Intervention may be the best option for some species,
but the primary strategy for protecting biodiversity remains
unchanged: Keep as much land as possible undeveloped so plants and
animals can freely move in response to climate change. That’s a
strategy more Phoenix leaders need to embrace.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Planning for uncertainty.
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