As we head into 2022, you can’t help but witness massive construction cranes dominating the Denver skyline. Each is equivalent to another 40-story apartment building or a skyscraper pushing into the brown cloud above the city. When you drive along Sheridan, Wadsworth, or many other streets, you see endless construction of condos crammed into every nook and cranny of the Denver area.
Last year another 100,000 people joined Colorado. They escaped the crowded east and west coasts. In 2020, the major metropolitan area of Denver (not including Boulder) reached 2.9 million. Demographers show the city will grow to 4.7 million by 2050. Colorado is at 5.8 million in 2022, but projections show it will hit 8.7 million by 2050.
In other words, Colorado faces an endless nightmare of “exponential growth” for the next 28 years. And yet, few talk about it, understand its accelerated consequences or ignore it in favor of ever-increasing growth.
The next question: what is Colorado’s human carrying capacity?
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How many more humans can Colorado live before our water runs out? What happens when that tap you turn on in the morning runs out of water?
How do you deal with the toxic brown cloud over Denver becoming twice as deadly with 2,000,000 more people, a net gain, by 2050? What kind of heavy metal diseases, lung cancers and asthma problems will children and adults face when breathing chemical air 24/7 with every breath ?
What about the current traffic jam that has every Denver resident smoking in their car while crawling along I-70 or I-25 all day trying to get to work? What about more than 25 accidents a day because of this stalemate?
Has anyone thought of solving I-70’s summer and winter traffic nightmare at campgrounds and ski hills? Friday afternoon it is blocked from the Evergreen exit to Summit County.
Go home? What a total disaster for everyone! If it snows, a 90-minute trip turns into four to five hours. At some point, with 3,000,000 additional people, no solutions! And our fate will become irreversible and insoluble. Once these figures become apparent, we become victims in this Faustian bargain.
What about overcrowded and overcrowded campsites? What about ski slopes that are too dangerous to ski or snowboard because they equate to beehives? What are the sailboats doing on Lake Dillon with 1,000, 2,000, or 5,000 extra boats added on a weekend? Have you seen the lines climb to the tops of the 14er? What about accelerating “catastrophic climate destabilization” with each added person in Colorado? How much worse will it get?
To respond: Much worse! Why is no one asking these questions?
Speaking of questions: What about “Quality of Life”? Do you think your kids will enjoy a quality of life with this horrible demographic hanging over them? What are you doing about it? Just let it continue?
Has anyone thought of a discussion about making Colorado the first state to adopt a Colorado Population Stabilization Policy… Colorado Quality of Living Policy… Water Carrying Capacity Policy Colorado… Colorado Clean Air Policy… Colorado Stop Animal Extinction Policy and other policies needed in this area?
Because if we don’t, we will become victims of our own growth policies that will end up degrading our cities for lack of water, energy and resources.
Don’t you owe your children a better future than the one that weighs on them? Shouldn’t we change course to ensure the citizens of Colorado have a sustainable, healthy, and prosperous future?
Frosted Wooldridge lives in Golden.
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