My name is Bret Moffett and I am the author of the Salt River Manifesto.
At heart, I am an environmentalist. I care deeply about the natural environment, and I have grave concerns about the future of our planet. I have no doubt that anthropogenic climate change is real. I have no doubt that a massive extinction of the world’s existing flora and fauna is underway. I fear it may soon be too late to reverse course and stave off an ecological disaster that will threaten all of us.
At the same time, I spent 20 years working at one of the country’s largest engineering firms – five of those years as its CEO. We permitted, designed, and helped build the very projects that are so often at the heart of the ecological crisis we face: fossil fuel power plants, interstate transmission lines, and natural gas pipelines. Yet, without those projects and others like them, modern life as we know it simply would not be possible.
And so, I have often wondered, how do we balance these two apparently opposing forces — the natural environment and the built world — that are both essential for human life?
This is not just a rhetorical question, but a timely one considering the environmental challenges facing my home state of Arizona: wildfires, the water crisis in the Colorado River basin, rising temperatures, air pollution, and severe weather to name a few. I decided I would study the Salt River in south central Arizona by traveling its length to answer this question for myself. Along the way, I would document my journey with words and photographs.
This website is the real-time product of my journey.