Infrastructure protectionAmerican West's changing climate means
economic changes, too The State of the West Symposium, hosted by
the Bill Lane Center for the American West and the Stanford
Institute for Economic Policy Research, featured a discussion of
the Western United States’ future of extreme heat, declining
snowpack, and what it all means for the region’s industry,
electricity generation, and policy Intense heat. Disappearing
snowpack. The environment of the American West is going to be
hard-hit by climate change. Rising temperatures are not good if
you are, say, a delicate salmon egg or a mountain yellow-legged
frog. These changes, however, also carry consequences for the
region’s economy. A Stanford University release reports that
these effects were at the forefront of the climate change panel
at last week’s second annual State of the West Symposium.
Speakers pointed to the effects of rising temperatures on
agriculture, the snowpack’s effects on hydropower generation,
and the ways in which California