Letter from the CEO

The Time the Earth Stood Still

LETTER FROM THE CEO

The COVID–19 pandemic has allowed our planet to take a short breath – while we hold ours. It has taught us something about the power of nature and the fragility of our lives.

Trying to conduct even the most perfunctory daily functions – coordinating work and family responsibilities, maintaining mental and physical fitness, and even getting food on the table – without coming within six feet of another human – is not easy. But these will only be temporary.

While the pandemic will have many lasting impacts on all of us, I have four hopeful observations.

First, the unwavering altruism and community spirit shown by residents of the Roaring Fork Valley. Local philanthropists, including ACES donors, raised $3.5 million in only a few days for the 2020 Rescue Fund. Aspen, Pitkin County, and Snowmass governments dedicated $7 million to help locals through financial uncertainty.

Neighbors helping neighbors. Teachers helping students. Our tireless medical workers giving everything they have. Financial assistance. Food access. Human grit! These humanitarian efforts represent Aspen and our valley–wide communities at their best, revealing our true character.

Second, while this outbreak is unlikely to lead to long term change in land use, air and water pollution, and carbon emissions (e.g. carbon emissions dropped only 1.3% during the 2009 financial crisis; scientists today predict a carbon reduction due to this pandemic in 2020 of 8%), I witnessed something that suggests we could someday solve the climate crisis.

Solving it will require literally every government on earth and all their citizens to unite on dramatic carbon reduction efforts and vast upscaling of renewable energy. This has always seemed impossible.

But this pandemic has shown us something remarkable about our will to survive that we may have never seen in human history. It suggests that, if and when we set our minds to something, we can unite as global citizens of our one and only planet around a cause that threatens all life as we know it. We can do it. We will do it!

Third, while the coronavirus will not reverse the ravages of climate change, it is allowing us to see with our own eyes how quick the natural world is to reclaim the planet we have trashed given the chance. We have seen how clear the waters of Venice can become in the absence of motorboats, how clean the skies from New Delhi to New York can become in the absence of cars, and how audible the songs of birds are in the absence of commercial activity.

Fourth, COVID–19 taught us that in this bizarre and newfound battle between politics and science, science wins. Just as our leaders had to learn that the epidemiological science around COVID–19 was real, scary, and accurate, our leaders will also learn the same applies to climate science.

Science, not politics, must direct our policies, whether it be COVID–19 response or climate change mitigation. We are learning the hard way that we must trust environmental scientists as we do doctors and professionals who have decades of education and work experience in their fields. Science must be the foundation of our health and environmental policies. Anything less is irrational or demagogic.

At ACES, we know we must live in harmony with natural systems in order to not only survive, but also prosper since “our economy is the wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.” ACES’ job is to teach people about that connection.

As you’ll see in this report, ACES has had one of its most mission–driven years ever. We celebrated our 50th anniversary and are now 80% toward completion of our $12.5 million capital campaign. With these funds, we will be providing new environmental science education at schools in Rifle, New Castle, Glenwood Springs, and more. These classes may contain a future president or an environmental visionary! We will be expanding our outdoor field science programs to more underserved communities. We will renovate the Catto Center at Toklat to become a world class wilderness retreat center, where we will change minds by changing hearts. We are restoring aquatic habitat at Hallam Lake and reintroducing native cutthroat trout. In addition to growing even more local, sustainable food, we will create online regenerative agriculture education that will span the globe. And, we will improve upon our physical facilities that, like our organization, are 50 years old.

Science, not politics, must direct our policies, whether it be COVID–19 response or climate change mitigation.

During this time of change, like all species, we are adapting. Our staff is resilient. Our morale is high. The work to protect our natural world is ongoing because you can’t “cancel nature.”

The human race cannot stay cooped up indoors forever - but we can use this moment to rethink our relationship to nature. We can ponder what it truly means to share the planet. We can resolve to change the way we live.

There is no “social distance” required between humans and the natural world. It is the one place we don’t have to hold our breath.

Chris Lane

Chief Executive Officer