Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Exploration Is Cool.So, last week I left the house like this: The grand plan was to meet Josh, drive the fat-tire bikes up to the Peak to Peak, ride down on singletrack/dirt roads, then ride the skinny tire bikes back up for the car. You know, a little something-different adventure. We got off to a rocky start, […]
- Sometimes Gadgets MatterIt’s not often that I credit an improvement in my riding to equipment. In fact, I’m willing to bet that a lot of issues with most folks are operator error rather than the need for some expensive toy. But this time, I’ve got a few exceptions. Sunglasses, for me, are a tough purchase. Not only […]
- Exploration Is Cool.
- Edgy Veggie
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What’s gross in Boulder? EPA’s interactive map knows
Somebody alert the local paper: Boulder’s not perfect.
In a feat of data mapping that makes us happy we live in the future, the EPA has gone ahead and mapped “information on enforcement actions and cases from 2009.” Which is to say that if you were naughty last year, we can see your house from here.
You can click the EPA's map for lots of charts and numbers.
Forget cutting calories. Cut energy and water use in 2010.
Installing a low-flow showerhead is an easy way to cut water use in 2010.
It’s that time of year — when we think about what we wish we could change.
Some things are easier New Year’s Eve resolutions than others.
Losing weight. Hard. Quitting smoking. Hard. Training for a marathon. Hard.
But going green(er) can be (relatively) simple.
Installing low-flow showerhead. Easy. Shopping with resusable grocery bags. Easy.
Check out an entire list of attainable green resolutions at Daily Camera.com.
So many ways to get green-ducated
The University of Colorado at Boulder just added a “sustainability certificate” for working folks in its continuing education department.
About 100 sustainability programs — minors, majors, certificates, etc. — have been added at schools across the country just in the last year.
The program fits into a larger trend as green areas of study are booming at colleges and universities nationwide. There are about 200 sustainability majors, minors and certificate programs across the United States — half of which emerged in the past year, said Paul Rowland, executive director of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
CU’s continuing education department is debuting the new “sustainability management certificate” in January to help professionals put a green edge on their existing expertise.
Program Director Geoffrey Rubinstein said he expects the program to attract employees of mom-and-pop shops, larger companies, local government, nonprofit agencies and schools.
“It will be valuable for individuals who want to focus on sustainability in their careers, but also for organizations that recognize the importance of sustainability to the health of the planet and their organizations’ bottom lines,” Rubinstein said.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.
A message for skiers and boarders: global warming = less powder
Maybe the message that global warming will cause large-scale displacement of people in Bangladesh doesn’t really resonate with you.
Perhaps the fact that coral atolls in the Pacific — whole countries like Kiribati and Tuvalu — are predicted to be completely consumed by sea level rise doesn’t really concern you.
But maybe this little fact about global warming will hit home with you: climate change = less power, a shorter ski season and fewer resorts.
That’ the hope of a Boulder-based group called Protect Our Winters, or POW, that’s hoping to motivate the winter sports community to do something about global warming.
Check out the video above to get a feel for their message, visit the group’s Web site, or read more about Protect Our Winter’s efforts at DailyCamera.com.
After the presents & the feast, don’t forget to recycle your tree
Cliff Hathaway recycles the family Christmas tree last Janauary in Boulder | Daily Camera
After the presents are opened, the chestnuts are roasted and the carols are sung — don’t forget to recycle your Christmas tree.
(Assuming, of course, that you didn’t go eco with a live, potted tree that you can plant. Or, that you didn’t buy a petroleum-based fake tree.)
If you live in Boulder, you can get rid of your tree just by sticking it in your curbside composting bin (even if the lid won’t shut.) If you can’t stuff it in the bin, then you can just lean the tree against it instead.
If you went big this Christmas, and your tree is over 6 feet tall, your trash hauler would love it if you’d cut it into at least two pieces.
If you don’t have curbside compost, you can drop your ornament- and light-free tree for free off at the city’s Yard Waste Dropoff site at Western Disposal, 5880 Butte Mill Road.
Boulder halfway to zero-waste goal
A kindergartner at Heatherwood Elementary school in Boulder drops her banana peel into the compost bin during lunch time | Daily Camera
About 50 percent of Boulder’s waste is being diverted from landfills, and instead, it’s getting recycled and composted.
Beginning last January, Boulder made curbside composting and single-stream recycling — where you can mix cans, bottles and paper together — available to everyone in the city.
From January to August this year — the period of time for the city’s study — Boulder residents composted 1,987 tons of yard waste and table scraps, while recycling 4,997 tons of paper, plastic and glass.
Combined, the efforts represent about half of the 14,000-or-so tons of material disposed of by residents during those eight months.
Kara Mertz, Boulder’s local environmental action manager, said it’s a huge achievement for a city that seeks to become “zero-waste.”
“We’re halfway there,” she said of the residential efforts.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com, or learn about what can and can’t be recycled and composted at BigGreenBoulder.
Check out at the library to check out your energy use
Kill-A-Watt meter by P3.
Now you can check out a power meter when you check out your books at the Boulder Public Library.
(Assuming you do still check out books at the library….)
The city of Boulder just purchased 18 Kill-A-Watt meters that can be checked out for three weeks at a time.
To make it work, you plug it into the wall, and then plug your appliance (fridge, cell phone charger, laptop, etc.) into the Kill-A-Watt.
The meter tells you how much your devices pull off the grid — even when they’re not on.
Read more about the library’s new service at the Daily Camera.
Are LED stop light bulbs too energy efficient?
In Boulder, about two-thirds of stop lights use energy-efficient bulbs.
In the push to save more energy, towns and cities across the country — including Boulder — have begun installing stop lights that use energy-efficient LED bulbs instead of incandescent ones.
The lights are so efficent, in fact, that they don’t give off enough waste heat to melt out the lights during winter storms, which some police in the Midwest say have caused accidents in some parts of the country.
In Boulder, city officials say they haven’t noticed more accidents.
Joe Paulson, a city transportation engineer who specializes in signals and lighting, said the LED lights are more likely to ice up than incandescent bulbs, though even the hotter-burning incandescent lights can get frozen over in driving winds. …
Paulson said LED lights also have safety advantages, like burning out less frequently and being more visible at sunrise and sunset.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.
Confused by climate change? CU prof offers free course
With the United Nations climate change conference under way this month in Copenhagen, many journalists face the challenge of covering an extremely complex issue. To help journalists — and anyone else who is curious — understand climate change, Tom Yulsman, an associate professor at the University of Colorado’s School of Journalism & Mass Communication, has created a free, four-hour, online course titled “Covering Climate Change.”
CU journalism professor Tom Yulsman has created a free online course called covering climate change.
In today’s Daily Camera, James Collector asked Yulsman five questions about the science of climate change and how journalists are covering it:
1. What exactly is the climate change debate?
There is no one debate. Reporters fall into this trap, and readers fall into this trap of accepting that there is just one debate. There’s science, and there’s policy. Within science, there are dozens of debates about the various risks that we can expect over the future. There’s not terribly much debate on the big question whether humans are causing climate change. There’s pretty robust agreement on that. Within policy, there are all sorts of debates. There are even debates about how should science inform policy-making decisions.
Read the rest of the interview at DailyCamera.com, or read Yulsman’s blog at CEJournal.net.
CU students screen short flicks on climate change
From left, Carson McDonough, Patrick McGlynn and Matthew McAllister produced films as part of their "climate change and video production" class at the University of Colorado | DailyCamera.com
Students from the University of Colorado who participated in a class on film and climate change will screen their own global warming flicks tonight on campus.
Matthew McAllister flips off the lights when he leaves his dorm room. He refills his water bottle instead of buying plastic ones, and he rations himself one paper towel when he dries his hands.
But a single flight to Washington, D.C., that he took this semester for a political science course canceled out his efforts, the University of Colorado student says.
He calculates that he would need to recycle 708 aluminum cans to offset his portion of the carbon dioxide emitted by the plane.
“While I would like to think these small, conscious efforts make a difference, the truth is I know they don’t,” McAllister says.
For a course on film and climate change, McAllister produced a short video about the challenges he has with his carbon footprint, as well as environmental equality. (His portion of CO2 for the plane trip was about the same amount that an average person in Tanzania uses all year).
