The temperature outside was a pleasant 76 degrees, sweet relief from the 90-plus days of late, and I was taking a walk. I passed a large house with three air conditioners roaring outside as if there were no tomorrow and wondered if maybe there isn’t. Ironically, it was the same day that Greta Thunberg posted […]
climate
Posted inNews, Opinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Denver should declare a binding climate emergency
To avoid the dystopian impacts of the climate crisis, members of Denver’s City Council are right to take swift action to reduce the City’s carbon emissions so soon after many were sworn in for the first time. Their sense of urgency deserves praise, as does the work of Denver staff and citizen advocates to build […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Environment, News, Outdoors
How a small Colorado town fought the Japanese beetle and won
PALISADE — In 2003, Brant Harrison needed a project. The Palisade peach grower was part of an agricultural leadership program and needed something good. Around the same time, he attended a meeting hosted by Colorado State University about a new insect found in the area: Japanese beetles. They’d found a few in 2002. “The next […]
Posted inEnvironment, Outdoors, Water, Wildfire
Climate change is transforming Western forests. And that could have big consequences far beyond wildfires.
LA VETA — From her family’s summer cabin north of Walsenburg, Camille Stevens-Rumann could see the glow of the Spring Creek Fire on the ridge to the south in the summer of 2018. “It was pretty spectacular, my 4-year-old was excited,” she said This past June, Stevens-Rumann walked a burnt slope near the town of […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, News, Outdoors
Gunnison’s farm season has grown by 28 days. The proof is in “Barometer” Bartleson’s weather records.
Bruce “Barometer” Bartleson pulls a tattered brown folder from a china cabinet and runs a finger down a column of faint figures on the top sheet of paper. He stops on one line: on Dec. 12, 1901, the numbers show, the high temperature in Gunnison was 44 degrees. The low was 22. Bartleson’s eyebrows go […]
Posted inEnvironment, Growth, Opinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Western states buy time with a 7-year Colorado River drought plan, but face a hotter, drier future
As Midwest states struggled with record spring flooding this year, the Southwest was wrestling with the opposite problem: not enough water. On May 20, 2019, federal officials and leaders from seven states signed the Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan, a sweeping new water management agreement for this arid region. The plan is historic: It acknowledges that […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Outdoors
Acres of destruction left by Colorado’s historic avalanche season are also delivering climate change evidence
A stunning avalanche season saw thousands of slides snap mature tree trunks like twigs, wipe historic buildings off the map and radically alter Colorado’s mountain landscape. But the big slides that splintered conifer forests and felled massive aspen groves also delivered an important new scientific resource to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center and U.S. Forest […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Climate action requires smart growth, not Lakewood’s plan
On Sunday, Dr. Gary Wockner published an opinion piece in this publication claiming Lakewood’s recent “Slow Growth” ordinance — capping residential development to 1% and requiring council approval for 40+ unit developments — is not only a smart move to tackle the explosion of growth but also an effective climate action plan. He’s simply wrong […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Energy, Environment, News, Politics and Government
Acres of barren Boulder soil are headed to rehab (and that might just help fight climate change)
Walking toward the western edge of his farm, Marcus McCauley pauses to roll a cigarette, lighting up before jumping the fence dividing his property west of Longmont from the neighboring farm. A coyote walks across the far end of the 120 acres, traversing a patchwork landscape of exposed dirt and low greenery, pocked with prairie […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Water
Colorado’s drought is at its lowest level in at least 19 years
The drought outlook in Colorado is the best it has been in at least 19 years, with the smallest area of the state being listed under some kind of dry status since June 5, 2001. That’s according to nearly two decades of U.S. Drought Monitor data, which has been recorded since 2000. “This is the […]