Nature is Nonpartisan: The Urgency of Now

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February 24, 2026

A Letter from Chris Lane, CEO, Aspen Center for Environmental Studies

Dear ACES Supporters and Those Who Care About Nature:

This is the second installment of a new quarterly letter from me. My hope with this letter is to update you on ACES’ environmental work as well as issues facing nature and our environment around Aspen, the Roaring Fork Valley, as well as our country, since they are all connected.

Just like nature, this letter is intended to be nonpartisan and apolitical because I know that ALL people, regardless of political, religious, or cultural affiliation, need nature!

Yours truly in working to protect our natural heritage,
Chris Lane

 Nature is Nonpartisan: The Urgency of Now

Life is filled with powerful lessons. Two from my youth have informed the last 50 years of my life and are pertinent today.

I remember my first real (albeit traumatic) connection with nature. On my 8th birthday, my mom gave me a sling shot. As fast as I could run outside, I loaded it with a big rock and aimed it from my hip at the first thing I saw, a nearby robin, thinking “this will give it a good scare.” To my shock, the rock hit the robin broadside, dropping it to the ground, breaking its wing. I picked up the broken bird, shrieking in pain. Horrified by what I had done, I vowed to take care of this bird until its wing healed. I gathered a shoebox, grass as a nest, a bowl for water, and brought him worms each day. But traumatized by a monstrous kid staring at him for 4 days in a row, he would not eat or drink. On the fifth day, he died. I was devastated and, worse, ashamed. I secretly buried him in my back yard and said a prayer vowing to never harm a bird again. I’ve spent much of the rest of my life—and career—trying to make up for the environmental sins of my Tennessee redneck childhood.

And second, I remember the first time I participated in the democratic process this country was founded upon. I was 18 years old and voted for Walter Mondale who got trounced by Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. While my guy lost big (525 to 13 electoral votes), I remember the pride I had in knowing I at least had a stake in the outcome. I felt empowered on a grand scale for the first time.

These two simple lessons set a foundation for how I aspired to live the next 50 years of my life:  to protect nature, and to embrace our democratic processes. These are nonpartisan, American, values. Who wouldn’t support them?

And these are more critical to ACES’ work and our society than ever before.  Our mission of “educating for environmental responsibility” extends beyond just the science of natural systems and the implications of not protecting those systems. It includes being a decent, kind, thoughtful human who cares about both the natural and civil world around us.

Former NRDC head, Gus Speth hints at what I’m getting at when he said, “I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address those problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy – and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation – and we scientists don’t know how to do that.” But at ACES we do. These sentiments reflect our work to help bridge the gap between science and culture.  

Our Environment (Nature)

Is environmentalism in America dead as we know it?

What about our air—as we ramp up fossil fuels production and repeal limits on mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plants? Our water—as we remove protections for millions of acres of wetlands and streams? Our climate—as we revoke the landmark “endangerment finding” (scientific conclusion that greenhouse gases are threatening public health and therefore requires those gases to be regulated) and stall literally hundreds of solar and wind energy projects (totaling 73 Gigawatts of generating capacity—enough to power 54 million homes)? Our land—as we open more than one billion acres of federal lands and waters to oil and gas drilling and remove protections on 58 million acres of roadless forest lands?

The way I see it, when you peel back a few layers, there are really two kinds of people: Those who are environmentalists, and those who are not environmentalists—yet.  

If you are a hunter or a birder, a wilderness camper or a Colorado 500 motorcyclist, a forest bather or outdoor recreationist, a gardener or farmer, or just someone walking through a park or greenspace in your town, then you certainly care about nature and most likely are an environmentalist.

On a national level, we can debate some of the details around deliberately dismantling in real time some of the key pillars of half a century of environmental architecture (regulations) designed to protect nature from humanity’s impact while also protecting humans dependent upon that nature. But what is undebatable is the intention behind this defunding and deregulating protection of nature—America’s natural heritage.

That intention is based upon a false premise: that nature is somehow hindering business, profits, growth, GDP. Renowned conservationist and former US Fish and Wildlife Director, Mollie Beattie, declared decades ago, “…there is only one conflict and that is between short term and long-term thinking. In the long term, the economy and the environment are the same thing. If it’s un-environmental, it is uneconomical. That is the rule of nature.”

Taking care of our environment, of nature, is a lesson I learned as a child.  Adults must make it a “top 5” issue when they enter the voting booth, as Natives Outdoors CEO, Dr. Len Necefer recently detailed in his heart-wrenching piece, “America is Out of Environmental Ideas”. Sadly, climate change currently barely cracks the top 10 of “Issues Americans vote on” and other aspects of our environment such as air, land, wildlife, water don’t make it on voter’s radar.

 Democracy

What is arguably the most effective solution to these environmental challenges we face? Democracy!

If we hope to protect the things we care about (and remember, hope is an action)—nature (public lands), wildlife, clean air and water, a stable climate—we probably need to open our apertures. In other words, we need to rethink how we can be most effective to drive change, which meets ACES’ mission.

For example, ACES’ Tomorrow’s Voices program provides a college credit course for local high school students as they explore the cutting-edge intersection of social justice, democracy and environmental issues while discovering the power of their own civic voices. In other words, now that a student has all this knowledge (and power), what are they going to do with their one precious voice on this one precious earth? Can they make society better or help their neighbor? These are questions we must all be asking ourselves daily, no matter your age.

ACES’ leverage comes not only from of our science and education programs, but also from our influence on visitors to our community, accomplished by our naturalists, educators, interns, agriculture staff, scholars in residence, and guest lecturers.

People often say they feel powerless today. But you can affect change! What levers do you have? What actions are you going to take to protect what you love? This is not a partisan question because democracy and nature are not partisan.

You can support not only ACES, but also some of the leading organizations working in a nonpartisan or bipartisan way on what are generally considered sensible governance, much of which is tied to simple constitutional law. This includes organizations like Issue One and Democracy Forward. ACES supports the work of organizations like The Wilderness Society, working to protect our public lands, as well as the League of Conservation Voters, Earthjustice, and Natural Resources Defense Council. You can too.

You can use your own influence in your family, life and business to advocate for stable and democratic governance—because without that, our natural environment is in peril.

None of this is partisan or political. None of this is pessimistic (as they say, a pessimist is just an optimist with more information). I acknowledge that much of this is difficult: it requires action, showing up, working hard…so it goes with all things of import in the world.  

As I reminisce on the life lessons from my youth of protecting nature and participating in our democracy, I feel the urgency of now, this moment in time. I hope you feel it too.