Wallace Stegner Lecture – serie

Warnings regarding our unsustainable lifestyles have become so commonplace that eyes glaze over at the mere mention of the topic. Chip Ward aims to change that. Seeking to convey the importance of living sustainably, he reframes the discourse to point out the consequences we face and the choices we are making. Ward says we must recognize that we are bounded by the limits of a finite natural realm, that “after years of driving economies, we must learn to dance with ecosystems.” The dancing lessons he offers here are eloquent, original, and compelling. Urging us to build resilient communities, he concludes: “When we practice that awkward dance of mutuality that is the very signature of a democratic culture—the dance where we share, learn, listen, reconcile, invite, reciprocate, step towards one another and embrace—we may be received with rough hands and a tenuous grasp. But if we have the courage to engage honestly and if we take our dancing lessons to heart, we may become not only resilient but grateful, humble, and reverent. Wisdom and grace, or business as usual? The choice is here and now.” Chip Ward is a political activist, writer, and former library administrator. He co-founded Families Against Incinerator Risk, HEAL Utah, and other grassroots groups to raise awareness about the links between environmental quality and public health. He is the author of two books and numerous essays

Originally delivered as the Stegner Lecture at the 2020 annual symposium of the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment, Jessica Fanzo here explores how, in the context of the broad global trends of population growth, climate crisis, and inequitable food availability, food systems need to be re-oriented to ensure they can produce enough food to nourish the world. This re-orientation includes moving toward on-farm sustainable food production practices, decreasing food loss and waste, addressing poverty by creating jobs and decent livelihoods, and providing safe, affordable, and healthy diets for everyone. At the same time, food systems must decrease the pressure on biodiversity loss, conserve land and water resources, minimize air and water pollution, and lower greenhouse gas emissions. This is a lot to ask of an entrenched system.Food policy is central to changing systems, and bold policies must be applied to accelerate and incentivize economic, societal, and technological transformations towards a more socially just and sustainable global food system. But policy decisions come with synergies, trade-offs, and sometimes unexpected consequences. In a world of uncertainty, we must seek global solutions to human and planetary health.

Law and the Living Colorado River asserts that the so-called Law of the River—the vast assemblage of interstate compacts, international treaties, federal and state statutes, regulations, contracts, and other legal documents governing use and management of the Colorado River—ignores the needs of the river as a nested system of aquatic and aquatic-dependent ecosystems. Although society now recognizes and appreciates the natural values of the Colorado River, the Law of the River remains fixed in service of human economies like irrigation and hydropower. Robert W. Adler contends that the law must respond to changing values that prioritize natural systems alongside human ones. He proposes acknowledging the legal rights of the river itself, following the recent movement to recognize rights of nature in other ecosystems around the world. Recognizing that U.S. law has significant barriers to that proposal, however, Adler borrows from aspects of international water law to propose as a shorter-term strategy amendments to the Colorado River Compact that would enhance protection of the river’s environmental needs and values.Adler delivered this lecture on March 17, 2022, at the 27th annual symposium of the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment, jointly sponsored by the Wallace Stegner Center and the Water & Tribes Initiative | Colorado River Basin.

The Great Salt Lake is deeply tied to the identity and history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As Latter-day Saints settled in the Great Basin, they relied on the Great Salt Lake for industry and recreation. Bishop W. Christopher Waddell explains that today, given the crisis faced by the lake, leaders of the LDS Church consider preserving the Great Salt Lake to be a sacred duty to care for God’s creations and a “critical issue for our state and citizens of Utah.” The LDS Church strives to positively impact the lake and continually improve its water-wise practices by working with local and community leaders, reducing water use at meetinghouses and facilities by utilizing sustainable landscaping principles and effective water management, and donating permanent water shares that will preserve water currently flowing into the lake in perpetuity.

The Great Salt Lake ecosystem is on the verge of collapse due to unsustainably large water diversions, the ongoing megadrought, and climate change. Plummeting lake levels will result in a cascade of tremendous economic, ecological, and human health problems if no action is taken. One consequence of particular concern to the public is the potential for exposure to arsenic-laden dust emanating from the exposed portions of the Great Salt Lake lakebed. Framing the Problem explores how climate change has affected the lake, the consequences of low lake levels, and potential strategies for saving this ecological oasis.

The lands and waters of the American West encountered by European colonizers were not “untouched” or “wild” as some have recorded, but rather the result of a broad range of Indigenous land and water management techniques. To assume that western-based scientific knowledge is superior to Indigenous wisdom can be a barrier to meaningful and lasting collaboration. We must work together if we are to heal the land that we have collectively sullied.

Bonnie K. Baxter explains the trophic structure of Great Salt Lake food chains and resulting impacts from recent years of a shrinking lake and corresponding increases in salinity. Moving from the foundational organisms to brine shrimp, flies, and ten million birds reliant on the lake, Baxter illuminates how salinity and desiccation can affect each level of a complex ecosystem. Presented in the context of current science, she explores the pressures of persistent water diversions and climate change and provides a cautionary tale of a lake on the brink of collapse. Baxter’s hopeful tone, sounding the lake ecosystem’s inherent resiliency, is a welcome voice in the climate conversation and a plea to help save a lake that can survive with a little help from its human neighbors.