We've got a new name - Carpe Diem West. And there's a story behind that.

We started the Carpe Diem - Western Water & Climate Change Project three years ago because we could see the collision coming between the realities of climate change and the old ways we've managed water in the American West.

Since then, it's become clear that this collision is the most urgent and fundamental challenge facing the American West. We've now decided that our work of finding cooperative solutions to this water and climate challenge will be the exclusive focus of our nonprofit's expertise, talents and connections.

This month we merged the nonprofit, Exloco, and its Carpe Diem Project, into a single organization with the new name Carpe Diem West.

On the Carpe Diem West website you'll find our new report on innovative approaches western cities are using to restore headwater systems. And you can join the conversation on our new blog, In the West.

Looking back over the past three years - and ahead to the tough choices we're facing in the American West - here's the rest of the story: Carpe Diem West's Network is comprised of extraordinary group of western water leaders who are the driving force in all the work we do. You can read about them on the website. And, below, you can see what they are saying about Carpe Diem West.

Cheers!

Kimery

A thing I love about Carpe Diem West is that it already connects water and climate change, and I think we need to continually talk about this connection. I also like the kind of people Carpe Diem pulls together - it's a collage of experienced, smart folks trying to get their heads around these issues. Carpe Diem functions as a catalyst, which I think is huge.

- Rick Cables, US Forest Service

Carpe Diem doesn't bring groups of different stakeholders to the table just for the sake of talking, or for dumbing things down to reach agreement. Other people are doing that. Carpe Diem's strength is that it uses the different backgrounds of stakeholders as an engine to generate new ideas that can actually help solve problems. To a water manager, that's a valuable thing.

- Laura Briefer, Salt Lake City Public Utilities

Most of the reliable water supplies in the West are already allocated -- now, the issue is how scarcity is to be shared. The old model of competition will result in conflicts, competition, stalemate. . . . Carpe Diem provides the opportunity to collaborate and address difficult climate change and water management issues in the West.

- Rick Holmes, Southern Nevada Water Authority

The great thing about Carpe Diem is that they get both sides of the equation -- the science side and the human side. And they know the ground. So when they come up with an idea you tend to pay attention, because it's not going to be some pie-in-the-sky solution air-dropped from 30,000 feet. It's going to be something that works to protect these specific resources, in these specific places, and these specific communities.

- Karen Knudsen, Clark Fork Coalition

The Carpe Diem process requires a leap of faith - by its very nature the project's outcomes cannot be predetermined. But if one is serious about wanting to invest in smart people working to find a sustainable path forward, it's a leap well worth taking.

- Steve Whitney, Bullitt Foundation