Climate Change

Earth’s climate is changing. This is nothing new. Over the past 800,000 years, Earth has cycled between ice ages and warmer periods eight times. What is new, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate.

Scientific information taken from ice cores, rocks and tree rings—as well as satellites and instruments—all point to this acceleration. Global temperatures rose about 1.1° C from 1901 to 2020. And NASA scientists say the summer of 2023 was Earth’s hottest in recorded history.

Although a 1.1°C (2°F) temperature increase may not seem like much, it makes a difference in weather patterns. We’re seeing more frequent and intense weather events in the form of heat waves, droughts, hurricanes and wildfires.

Images of Mother Nature’s power flood our news feeds, newspapers and broadcasts. What may not be so visible is the impact of climate change in our everyday lives. From the spread of diseases and effects on crops, to population displacement and loss of livelihoods, climate change disrupts the lives of individuals and communities in ways that may be felt but not always seen.

In this story, we talk to DU professors about their research and climate change and how the two intersect. Some have been studying this for years, others just recently, but all hope to find ways to mitigate the impact of climate change that’s become increasingly present in their work.

Working on the front lines for environmental justice

Climate change does not affect all people equally. Some groups are more vulnerable due to social and economic factors like income, education, health care access and housing. As professionals dedicated to supporting marginalized communities, social workers are being asked to play a key role in the fight for environmental justice.

Lisa Reyes Mason, an associate professor and interim dean in the Graduate School of Social Work, is leading the charge.

Reyes Mason has been studying the intersection of climate change and social justice since 2008. She says that climate change led her to be a very interdisciplinary researcher, starting as a PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis. From day one, she began seeking collaborators in other disciplines, mainly engineering and geography. Their projects were at the nexus of extreme weather, climate change and people.

“In that work, I really focused on … social vulnerability, social justice, community engagement,” she says. “I’m seeking the voice and input of everyday people.”

Since coming to DU in 2020, Reyes Mason has been focusing more on public speaking and training and helping social workers and social work students connect the dots between climate change and their profession.

“Within social work itself we've had this shift where, now, there are social workers in so many different areas of practice who are saying, ‘This is showing up. I don't know anything about this. What do I need to know?’”

Since 2015, environmental justice has been a required competency for all U.S. social workers. Now every graduate in the field has some knowledge of environmental justice issues and how that might interface with their work.

“Our code says that we should be pursuing social justice through what we do as social workers,” says Reyes Mason. “So, we need to be thinking about [the pursuit of] environmental justice as part of what's needed if we are going to create conditions for all people to be healthy and thrive.”

Reyes Mason calls climate change a “threat multiplier” for many communities.

“There's already difficult, challenging, unfair living conditions that a lot of people or communities whom social workers work with are experiencing and the climate crisis is like another piece of that context that's making things worse,” she says.

For example, social workers in some Denver Public Schools routinely deal with heat days and school closures. These schools tend to be in older buildings and have a higher concentration of lower income families. School closures put stress on parents who may not be able to leave their jobs, or fear that if they do, they could lose their jobs if they need to be home with their kids.

According to Reyes Mason, social workers address these types of issues from three levels of practice. Those working at the micro level provide direct, clinical practice or therapy, such as child welfare. Those at the meso level work on community organizing and activism for a greener, cleaner environment. Macro level practitioners work on government policy and intervention and focus on changing structures or systems that historically impact disadvantaged communities.

As for Reyes Mason, she will continue to use her voice to lead and advocate for climate justice and help prepare social workers on the ground.

Climate change enters family planning discussion

Nicholas Perry is a clinical psychologist who had a eureka moment while working with a couple in his small private practice in Denver.

“The couple was trying to make decisions about whether they wanted to have children. And the wife really wanted kids. That was an important goal for her in her life. And the husband was sort on the fence. And one of the reasons he articulated feeling hesitant about having kids is climate change,” says Perry.

The man loved being outdoors, Perry adds, but he was struggling with feelings of grief over global warming and was worried that his future kids wouldn’t have the same kind of experiences in nature that he had growing up.

“There are other reasons, but this one really jumped out at me and kind of kicked on my scientist brain,” says Perry, a research assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and member of DU’s Center for Marital and Family Studies.

Perry, whose work focuses on sexual and gender minority health and health disparities through the lens of romantic partners and families, started wondering how couples talk about climate change together, if they do at all, and how that may influence their family decision making.

“The idea that climate change might be affecting families really caught my attention,” Perry says. “It’s a new area I'm exploring for the first time.”

He dug around in journals and research literature but didn’t find anything in the family science space on climate change. So, he applied for a grant through DU’s Professional Research Opportunity for Faculty Fund and was awarded funding last summer. Perry and his team will start the study this winter. Their goal is to interview 30 couples from the Denver area, half in a lower socio-economic status, and half higher.

“We know that climate change is going to impact, or is already impacting, disadvantaged couples and families harder and faster, partly because of the environments they live in and resources they have access to,” says Perry. He wants to know, through his research, if more disadvantaged couples focus less on climate change and family planning because they are dealing with more immediate concerns like paying bills.

Perry says there has been growing attention in psychology on how stress from climate change can impact mental health, from anxiety and depression to post-traumatic stress disorder. But the family relationship piece has been absent, and that is what he hopes to uncover.

Legal response to climate change issues

Ask Kevin Lynch what today’s most pressing environmental concern is, and he will say, emphatically, climate change.

Lynch is an associate professor in the Sturm College of Law and the Ronald V. Yegge Clinical Director, and he teaches the Environmental Law Clinic. His career has been focused on environmental law issues related to climate change, air quality, water and energy policy. 

For years, Lynch and his colleagues in the law clinic have worked on environmental issues along Colorado’s Front Range and Western Slope. The clinic became involved in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in 2012 when Longmont voters banned the process of extracting oil within city limits.

Since then, Lynch has written a series of articles on fracking issues, such as when oil and gas regulations lead to the taking of private property under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, similar to the use of eminent domain.

Recently, he’s been studying the effects of climate change on water resources, namely the Colorado River, which provides water to over 40 million people in the southwestern United States. The Colorado River starts in Rocky Mountain National Park and is an important water source for the state. However, most of the water is sent downstream under the Colorado River Compact of 1922.

The pact governs the river’s flow between seven southwestern states and is based on conditions at the time, which Lynch says were unusually wet.

“They allocated more water rights on paper than water actually exists in the river today,” he says, adding that predictions point to a possible 40% decrease in river flow this century due to climate change.

Lynch wrote a short piece on this topic for the Environmental Law Institute, entitled “Adapting to a 4°C World,” and recently expanded the piece for a book chapter to be published soon. He also works on behalf of clients who are concerned about the building of more dams and diversions along the river when there simply isn’t enough water.

Biodiversity, wildlife and endangered species issues help fill the law clinic docket. Lynch points to climate change as a driver of acidification and ocean warming that may lead to the collapse of ocean ecosystems. In Colorado, extreme weather can have a devastating effect on plants and animals that exist only at high altitudes.

“As the climate warms, it pushes them up further to higher altitudes, but eventually the mountains stop and there won’t be anywhere further for those ecosystems and individual creatures to migrate to,” he says, leading to a potential extinction event.

While some of Lynch’s research is litigation based, his environmental work has always been grounded in climate change. Since joining DU in 2009, his writings have evolved from pushing back on incorrect claims from industry, to a more positive approach on what can be done proactively if the government were to meet this challenge and take action on climate change.

Lynch has long written about fracking and related issues of regulation and property rights, and has recently expanded to water rights and rights of nature. As long as climate change continues to be a problem, Lynch and his colleagues in environmental law will continue to push for solutions in the legal realm.