This Site is currently under Construction, Please excuse our dust!
A Warming Climate Affects Us All
What’s this?
Climate related aspen death on the
south slopes of Grand Mesa.
We want to Thank Mark, Sienna, Doug, Devon, Kathleen, Bruce, Kathie, Patsy, James, Erin, Connie, Nancy, David, Jody, Madaleine, Bob, Gabriel, Kaydee,Janet, and Carol for supporting us at The Farmers Market and Flex-Rec celebration
Calendar
We Are
Citizen’s Climate Lobby
Montrose
CCL-Montrose is a local grass-roots nonprofit organization. Our mission is to work with partners to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the Uncompahgre Valley.
It’s up to us to take action
The time has come for individuals and communities to make the changes needed to address the climate crisis. When global and national efforts aren’t up to the task, we can still make progress in our own lives and in this valley.
What’s this?
A modest Montrose summer harvest:
gardens and farm fields don’t grow well
when temperatures get above 90 ° F.
Our Climate Is Changing
Here in the valley, the weather and climate are getting less predictable with less precipitation. That means more drought and hotter temperatures.
Climate Change is becoming climate chaos
The weather patterns we have depended on for reliable precipitation and moderate temperatures are becoming less predictable and much hotter. Snowpacks are diminishing, runoff is coming weeks earlier, late spring freezes are damaging aspen, oak, and fruit trees.
It’s Getting Hotter Here
Temperatures in the Uncompahgre Valley have increased more than almost anywhere else in the continental US. Data collected over the last 130 years shows it has warmed more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit on average.
What’s this?
A summer afternoon in Shavano
Valley. Scorching temperatures, drought
and wildfire smoke make life harder
for farmers and everyone else.
What We Do
We connect people with information about climate change, its impacts, and commonsense solutions. By leveraging partnerships and finding common ground, we facilitate solutions in the valley.
Getting the word out
Our aim is to provide the public and partners with information on home weatherization, electrification, renewable energy, incentive programs, and more. You can find information through our website, in our newsletters, farmer’s market booth, local government meetings, and multi-group socials.
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Our organization has worked throughout the valley to educate, to partner with organizations, and to bring issues to light for discussion
Farmer’s Market
During the summer months, we have a booth at the Montrose Farmer’s Market where we provide information about climate, GHG emissions, local impacts, and actions individuals can take.
Climate Action Plan
We wrote a Climate Action Plan that addresses Energy use, Buildings, Transportation, and Agriculture and specific actions that can be taken with partners to decrease GHG in The Uncompahgre Valley.
Working with local governments
We gave public testimony over a 2 1/2 year process with Montrose County on solar power regulations, and have written several articles Thanking the City of Montrose for their solar roof, The City of Delta for their electrification of the Armory Building, and Delta County for their approval of The Garnet Mesa Solar Field.
Resilience advisory board
We are currently working to increase our support across the Valley by asking individuals to sign a support letter. With enough support we want to propose a Resilience Advisory Board to local governments to review projects through a climate change lens.
Call list
We are organizing a call list to make it easier for groups in the valley to support one another’s missions where we have overlap.
Organizing around issues
Datacenters
We are working to identify the facts about datacenters and have discussions to find out if we, as a Valley, want a datacenter here and if so under what conditions.
Supporting Agriculture and agrivoltaics
The agriculture community has been hit hard by recent droughts with 72% of operators saying they have been directly effected. Our current winter shows our snowfall is 50% of normal so there will less water this summer. CCLMontrose wants to work with the ag community to pursue opportunities with agrivoltaics. Solar panels will cool the ground meaning less evapotranspiration. In addition forage can be grown under the panels for animals to graze and seek shade. This has been done in Delta with 1500 sheep grazing under solar panels at Garnet Mesa Solar Field.
Promoting projects that decrease emissions
We have written articles in our local newspaper that have applauded the City of Montrose for installing a solar garage at its new Public Safety Building, and an article about the City of Delta for restoring the Old Armory building and electrifying it.
What’s this?
Increasing wildfires across
Colorado drove up the cost
of home insurance and may lead
insurers to drop policies.
What You Can Do
As an individual you can help by weatherizing your home to keep heat in, driving less and biking more, using electric appliances instead of gas ones, reading about plug-in solar or solar leases, talking to your neighbors about how to reduce the use of carbon based energy and so much more.
Press the Learn more button to see more specific actions you can take to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in the Uncompahgre Valley
It’s up to us to take action
Local efforts will bring local results. We, as a community need to make the changes needed to address the climate crisis. When global and national efforts aren’t up to the task, we can still make progress in our own lives and in this valley.
Our focus right now is to increase community support for our efforts, to develop ties between non-profit groups to help each other and to let people know we are opposed to datacenters in the Uncompahgre Valley.
You can download our datacenter info sheet
add your name to our ‘we need your help’ call list,
sign our support letter
What’s this?
Smoke columns from the July
2025 fire that burned 90% of
the South Rim at the Black Canyon
National Park.