350 Colorado Markets Local “Grassroots”, But Operates As National Lobby Arm

By: Green Leap Forward Staff | Commentary, Green Leap Forward via Substack

In Colorado politics, one pattern is impossible to miss: whenever a bill, ordinance, or rule touches energy – whether at the city council, county commission, or statehouse -someone from the organization 350 Colorado is likely there. Their members sometimes testify in groves, often with the same prepared talking points.

And whenever lobbying records are published, their name almost always appears.

The group bills itself as “the largest Colorado-based grassroots network” fighting the “climate crisis.”

But its constant presence in policymaking reveals something deeper: 350Colorado is less a spontaneous scrappy community uprising and far more a professional advocacy machine.

Its very name was imported from luxury belief coastal activists’ national-level group 350.org. Its leadership is dominated by out-of-state transplants. Its biggest checks come from private sources, “progressive” organizations, or Silicon Valley billionaires. And its agenda — from fracking bans to electrification mandates — is dictated by the national 350.org organization.

The consequences are not abstract. This machine has lobbied for policies that helped erase oil, gas, and coal jobs in communities from Craig to Greeley. It hired four separate lobbyists to try to defeat nuclear legislation (HB25-1040). And its green Malthusian wish list — from “green” building codes to renewable carve-outs — has helped drive Colorado’s energy costs sharply upward, making it more expensive to live, work, and do business in the state.

This is the paradox: a group that markets itself as “Colorado-based” and “grassroots” turns out to be neither.

They’re instead another organization full of largely outsiders using newly colonized Colorado as a stage for their ideology, while everyday Centennial Staters pay the price.

The Myth of “350”

350 Colorado’s about page describes the number as, “climate safety: to preserve a livable planet, scientists tell us that 350 parts per million (ppm) is the safe upper limit of CO2 in the atmosphere. Currently we are at 415ppm and rising 2-3ppm every year.”

As, British economist Charles Goodhart famously said, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” The origin of 350 goes far beyond just a measure or target run amok.

The origin of the “350” began long before the establishment of 350 Colorado and closer to what activists said than what the scientific evidence shows. As climate scientist and professor Roger Pielke Jr. notes, there was “essentially no science behind it,” but the number caught on.

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