Category: Climate change

No help for flooded out Paradise Hills homeowners after massive June 20 deluge

An intense and fast-moving storm on June 20, 2024 in Grand Junction caused a massive flood in the Paradise Hills subdivision, filling residents’ homes, back yards, basements and crawl spaces with muddy water, ruining their drywall, carpeting, cupboards and flooring, crashing down fences in yards and drowning backyard chickens. Senior meteorologist Tom Renwick of the National Weather Service in a story on Colorado Public Radio called the storm “incredible.” He said, “We couldn’t see more than maybe five feet out the door. It was remarkable.”

Remarkable, indeed.

One affected resident, Darla Green, attended a Paradise Hills HOA meeting right after the flood and estimated that 60-70 homes were involved and the damage they described cost well over a million dollars.

So far though, Paradise Hills residents have been left totally on their own to recover from what was essentially a man-made flood caused by totally inadequate drainage.

The right wing’s Project 2025, to be implemented in a 2nd Trump presidency, will impose Christian nationalism, restrict reproductive & LGBTQ+ rights, dismantle the FBI & DOJ and move America towards a more authoritarian regime

The stakes couldn’t be higher for the entire country, as Trump supporters have created comprehensive plan to curtail American freedoms, impose Christian ideals on all citizens and end human and civil rights as we’ve known them in America if Trump re-takes the presidency in the November general election.

Mesa County Public Library to offer class on how to tell good sources from bad on the internet

The Mesa County Central Library will hold a very important 90 minute class Monday, June 24 from 3:00-4:30 p.m. on how to evaluate online sources for credibility and authoritativeness to help boost internet users’ ability to tell fact from fiction.

This class is sorely needed in Mesa County, especially by Republican local elected officials who have demonstrated a lack in the ability to tell  credible sources of information from websites that peddle lies and false information to readers.

In 2020, Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland displayed a chilling inability to tell fact from fiction after she publicly promoted the Infowars conspiracy theory that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control was intentionally inflating the number of Covid deaths. Rowland wrote on her her social media that hospitals were being pressured to inflate the numbers of Covid deaths because it meant they would get more funding. The truth is that hospitals make money by treating people, not by listing specific causes of deaths on death certificates. At the time, Rowland’s false theory was being promoted by Laura Ingraham of Fox News — one of Rowland’s most frequently-cited news sources. Fox News has a reputation for knowingly

Stephen D. Daniels, Janet Rowland-appointed Chair of the Mesa County Board of Public Health, is a prodigious spreader of disinformation on social media, including about vaccines and gender issues, without citing credible sources. (Photo: Mesa County)

telling lies to the public.

Rowland’s new Director of the Mesa County Board of Public Health, Stephen D. Daniels, is also prodigious spreader of lies and disinformation on his social media. His posts target a wide range of subjects including the U.S. Department of Justice, gender issues, religion and the efficacy and safety of vaccines, including ideas spread by anti-vaxx presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who claimed that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to attack caucasians and Black people, and to spare Jews.

Janet Rowland, whose college degree is a bachelor in Bible studies, is running for a 4th term as County Commissioner, after lying to the public on her social media about Covid topics and never apologizing to the public for spreading disinformation. (Photo: Janet Rowland campaign website)

In 2019, while still a State Senator, Ray Scott cited a full-on wacko nutbag information source in a tweet about climate change in which he wrote “NASA admits that climate change occurs because of changes in Earth’s solar orbit, and NOT because of SUVs and fossil fuels.” To support his claim, Scott cited an article published on a website called “NaturalNews.com.”  NaturalNews.com had been discredited as an off-the-wall, full-on wacko conspiracy website and was rated #1 on the list of the Top Ten Worst Anti-Science Websites. Scott also said that studies about climate change made no sense and that we “have better things to do” than to address the crisis.

Let’s hope some of these Republican elected officials attend this talk.

Former State Senator Ray Scott cited a full-on wacko website as a source of information on climate change in 2019. The site was rated #1 on a list of the top ten worst anti-science websites.

Republican CD-3 candidate Jeff Hurd straight-up lies in new TV ad

Scene from a new Jeff Hurd ad titled “Fight for American Energy” that’s running on local TV

We had hoped that maybe Jeff Hurd, a home-grown Grand Junction Republican running to represent Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District in Washington, D.C., might be a slightly more honest politician than we’ve had in the CD-3 office for several years now, but Hurd just disappointed us all.

He put out a new TV ad two days ago in which he straight-up lies to viewers.

Hurd casts himself as a strong proponent of fossil fuels in the ad, showing piles of coal and people filling up their cars at gas pumps. But he lies to viewers right out of the gate by making a false claim that “Biden is waging war on American energy.”

Whether we like it or not, that’s hardly the case.

Once-pristine Hanging Lake defiled by mudslides and debris

Photo of Hanging Lake taken yesterday by a Denver-based CBS News helicopter that was covering the I-70 mud/debris flows. (Photo credit: CBS)

A CBS News helicopter flying over I-70 through Glenwood Canyon to film the mud and debris slides yesterday posted a devastating photo of Hanging Lake on Twitter that shows the once amazingly pristine, crystal-clear lake now full of muddy water.

The the amazement of many, Hanging Lake survived the massive Grizzly Creek fire unscathed last year, but it has taken a serious hit this summer from the thunderstorms that are now washing massive amounts of debris and mud down the mountainsides.

In Facebook video update, CDOT says Glenwood Canyon has 10 different debris slides between No Name and Dostero

CDOT photo of Glenwood Canyon today

Upwards of ten separate debris slides occurred last night in I-70 in Glenwood Canyon between No Name and Dostero as a result of thunderstorms, the Colorado Department of Transportation reported in a live video update on Facebook at 3:30 p.m. this afternoon.

Modern-day Republicans oppose progress

Results of a news quiz printed in today’s Daily Sentinel demonstrates the backwards thinking that is the hallmark of conservative, right-wing Republicans.

A short blurb in the Sunday, Feb. 8, 2020 Daily Sentinel offers a lesson on why Republicans are such harmful elected officials.

The Sentinel has a regular weekly news quiz on Fridays, and gives the results in the following Sunday paper. An item today stood out for what it demonstrates about the ramifications of conservative Republican views not just for the western slope, but for society.

History shows that if Republicans had their way in the last century, most of America wouldn’t have electricity.

Citizens protest Pendley at new BLM office in G.J.

Protest Jan. 2 at BLM’s new offices on Horizon Drive.

About 35 people turned out in 27 degree weather to protest a visit from Acting Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) William Perry Pendley, a right wing anti-government zealot who was appointed to head the BLM without Senate approval.

Pendley was scheduled to visit the new Grand Junction BLM office on the morning of its first opening day.

The protest was at the BLM’s new offices at 760 Horizon Drive, which is also the same building that houses the corporate offices of oil and gas purveyor Chevron.

State Senator Ray Scott cites full-on wacko nutbag source in tweet on climate change

Ray Scott’s September 17, 2019 tweet citing NaturalNews.com, a conspiracy-theorist website that rivals InfoWars

One of the most dangerous things about Colorado State Senator Ray Scott is that he can’t tell the difference between credible sources, authoritative sources of information and paid promotional research or websites known for trading in wacky conspiracy-theories.

Case in point: On September 17, 2019 Senator Scott posted a tweet saying “NASA admits that climate change occurs because of changes in Earth’s solar orbit, and NOT because of SUVs and fossil fuels.” To support this claim, Scott cites an article published by a website called “NaturalNews.com.”

So… what’s the problem?

NaturalNews.com is not anywhere close to being legitimate scientific website. In fact, it’s the polar opposite. It is described as “a conspiracy theory and fake news website” that hawks dietary supplements, promotes alternative medicine,” makes “tendentious nutrition and health claims,” promotes “fake news, and espouses various conspiracy theories.” NaturalNews.com is as far from an authoritative, legitimate science-based website as you can get.

Sen. Ray Scott sponsors bill to eliminate price break for low-income energy consumers

Colorado State Senator Ray Scott

Last week State Senator Ray Scott embarrassed Mesa County residents and made a fool of himself by actually saying out loud on the Senate floor that climate change has led to “massive improvements” in our climate.

Now Scott is co-sponsoring a bill, SB 19-250 (pdf), that will deal a blow to low income people served by Black Hills Energy, the gas and electricity provider for residents of Pueblo, Canyon City, Ordway and Westcliffe. Scott’s bill would do away with a two-tiered rate structure Black Hills Energy put in place in 2017 to help low income energy consumers by giving them more protection from a state-approved rate increase that happened that same year.

CMU hosts climate change denier this evening

This article is reprinted in with permission from the author, , of the ColoradoTimesRecorder.com.

Colorado Mesa University is hosting climate change denier Steve Goreham this evening, for a speech titled “Energy, Climate Change & Public Policy.”

Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese promotes tonight’s speech at CMU by climate change denier Steve Goreham

Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese promoted the event on her Facebook page.