Tuesday, September 15, 6:30 pm – 8 pm. Water Policy, Quality and Management in New Mexico. We have assembled a tremendous panel for our discussion of the water challenges facing NM and what I am learning to be a truly shocking challenge facing NM. We all realize that we are a drought state and that with global warming and the growing climate crisis, we face an existential challenge here in NM. What many may not appreciate, is the degree to which we are fiddling while NM burns and how even if we wanted to address this challenge, we would do so with both hands tied behind our backs.
We will have the foremost water expert in the legislature, Rep. Melanie Stansbury on the panel along with one of the foremost water management experts in the state, Norm Gaume, the former Interstate Streams Commission Director. Also joining us will be David Gutzler, a researcher and professor at UNM. David’s work focuses on the predictability and variability of weather and climate and extreme weather events, southwestern U.S. monsoon season, long-term climate change projections, wildfires and summer precipitation, and weather and climate fluctuations affecting southwestern North America.
The fourth panelist will be Theresa Cardenas who is a founder of the Noble Renewables Group of the West; a social enterprise advocating for environmental and social change by providing strategic guidance to organizations. Formerly, she worked in partnership with the Union of Concerned Scientists, Climate and Energy Program in New Mexico to help advance clean energy policies in a legislative, regulatory and advisory setting. She is the current President of the Middle Rio Grande Water Advocates. She is a 2013 fellow of the National Hispana Leadership Institute and Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
For obvious reasons this discussion may well be the most important one Retake Our Democracy has ever moderated.