Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- And Now, Back to Your Local News…Since the weather’s getting better, I’m sure we’re all totally jonesing to get onto the trails, but in general, they’re a mess. It’s a bummer to see nice singletracks get trashed and widened, so like all of you, I’m grinding my teeth in annoyance while I try to be patient. The good news is that you [...] […]
- Downieville, Take ThreeOkay, well, things went pretty haywire in race promotion after the registration debacle. The organizer received so many hateful emails and comments about the mishap that it made him wonder if he should even bother putting the race on. I can’t blame him, really. In his shoes I might do the same thing. It sounds [...] […]
- And Now, Back to Your Local News…
- Edgy Veggie
You are viewing the archive for the Environment category.
DIA sewage spill of 1m gallons may head for Barr Lake
The largest airport in the country, with the “greenest” parking lot, is in a bit of environmental trouble: a DIA raw sewage spill may have sent a million gallons of disgusting into waterways that can feed into the Barr Lake fishery and bird sanctuary (enjoy that, bald eagles).
A DIA sewage spill sent a lot of gross out into the world -- where will it land? | flickr user luschei
Beetle-kill wood from Colorado is hard to come by
Boulder-based Berlin Flooring recently replaced flooring at the Chautauqua Ranger Cottage with Colorado beetle-kill pine wood. Other groups have had a hard time finding contractors who use local beetle-kill pine wood. (Nicholas Duckworth )
More than 40,000 acres of forest in Boulder County have been devastated by pine beetles — and more than 1.5 million acres across the state.
That’s a lot of dead trees. And, it seems, a lot of people are interested in using wood from beetle-kill trees for flooring, furniture and paneling. But as it turns out, it’s easier (and cheaper) to get beetle-kill wood — which has a pleasant blue stain — from other Western states with larger existing lumber industries than from Colorado.
Compared to Canada and other states with more established lumber industries, Colorado has smaller mills, fewer logging arterial roads and skinnier diameter trees. Canada beats the market in price and quantity for many reasons, including subsidy programs, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports.
The end result for Colorado is a smaller variety of finished beetle-kill wood products, higher prices and fewer finishing capabilities — like kiln-dried as opposed to air-dried. Many contractors demand kiln-dried beetle-kill wood for its resiliency. Read more
Two Colorado-dwellers up for Treehugger awards
Treehugger's Best of Green Awards -- voting is open now.
Waylon Lewis and David Quilty, of Boulder and Denver respectively, are up for Best of Green Awards over at Treehugger in the category of Best Ambassador of Environmental Culture. Via elephantjournal:
The Treehugger Best of Green 2010 Reader’s Choice Awards include 40 prize categories across 8 main topics, and there are some great names and friends of ours! that have been nominated, like Eco Salon, Derek Markham, Bike Portland, Nau Clothing, Bill McKibben, Huffington Post Green, Alexandra Cousteau, and many many more.
It’s vote-driven, so get on out there and make it happen for your local greenies, if you’re so inclined.
(One former winner lives in Colorado, too.)
What does it take to make a change to a hiking trail?
The Boulder Reporter presents a look at trying to make a change to one of Boulder’s many trails — in this case, Goat Trail, which hooks up with the Sanitas Valley Trail a bit northwest of Boulder Community Hospital.
I don’t know much about the issue in question, but either way, making a change at all doesn’t sound all too easy… (FYI, the map on the story’s page is rotated; it is oriented so that the top part of the map points west).
They presented their opinion that the trail was too steep, erosion-prone and dangerous, and offered an option that would substitute an easier path from Hawthorne up and over the ridge.
Read on about The Great Goat Trail Debate.
“The Cove” Oscar coverage roundup: cameras, speeches and the new “Cove” TV show
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…
In addition to the recent news development from the “Cove” team busting a restaurant serving illegal whale meat, here are some tidbits of “Cove” coverage from the aftermath of that film’s big Oscar win in the documentary category.
Plenty has been said about Ric O’Barry’s unfurling of a banner reading “TEXT DOLPHIN to 44144,” by folks like Mother Jones, Treehugger, the Huffington Post, Ellen DeGeneres, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (which gave the acceptance speech an award for “Fastest cutaway”), Louie Psihoyos:
Still, Mr. Psihoyos said, “it’s hard to get all huffy about that stuff. It’s like spilled milk.”
and O’Barry himself:
“I had butterflies in my stomach. I wanted to throw up on my shoes. But I knew that one billion people were watching, and I had to do it.”
Here’s what Psihoyos says he would have said, if not cut off:
The mayor of Taiji — the city that reluctantly starred in the film — responded to the film’s win by saying that “The Cove” was unreasonable:
In a statement reported by The Associated Press, the office of the mayor of Taiji defended the village’s practices and said “The Cove” contained statements that were not based on science. “There are different food traditions within Japan and around the world,” the statement said. “It is important to respect and understand regional food cultures, which are based on traditions with long histories.”
When asked about the win, the filmmakers have mostly sounded like this: Read more
“Sizzle,” the global warming comedy
"Sizzle" features... this?
Have you seen “Sizzle?” The film is about global warming, but it’s no “Inconvenient Truth” — it’s more of a this-global-thermometer-goes-up-to-11 type of flick.
A mockumentary about global warming. What do you think? Better or worse approach than the straight-ahead documentary (Oscar-winners notwithstanding)?
‘The Cove’ director helps bust illegal whale-meat sushi sellers
Fresh off his whirlwind tour of accolades for his movie “The Cove” — which now includes an Oscar for best documentary — Boulder’s Louie Psihoyos is already busting up the next ocean injustice.
Psihoyos and his band of Ocean activists helped authorities sting a sushi restaurant in Santa Monica that was illegally selling whale-meat sushi.
From a New York Times article:
Louie Psihoyos
With video cameras and tiny microphones, the team behind Sunday’s Oscar-winning documentary film “The Cove” orchestrated a Hollywood-meets-Greenpeace-style covert operation to ferret out what the authorities say is illegal whale meat at one of this town’s most highly regarded sushi destinations.
Their work, undertaken in large part here last week as the filmmakers gathered for the Academy Awards ceremony, was coordinated with law enforcement officials, who said Monday that they were likely to bring charges against the restaurant, the Hump, for violating federal laws against selling marine mammals.
The whale meat, as it turns out, is from the Sei whale, which are endangered but still sometimes hunted in the North Pacific under a controversial Japanese science program.
Read the full story at nytimes.com.
Liquefied crab and shrimp shells may block hungry pine beetles
Liquefying crab and shrimp shells may block pine beetles from burrowing into pine trees and killing them. (Ummm, I was just about to suggest this as the next obvious answer to the pine beetle problem….)
That’s the word from scientists at Colorado State University, who are frustrated that the U.S. Forest Service has yet to test their golden-colored seafood serum on a large scale. (The scientists want it sprayed across the forest using airplanes. The obvious question: What would that smell like?)
The Denver Post wrote about the possible solution this week:
“We don’t find any downside to it,” said CSU microbiologist Jim Linden, one of two scientists guiding commercial production at a factory near Loveland.
Dousing healthy lodgepole pines with the gold-colored serum “certainly is part of the toolbox of ways to counteract the beetle,” Linden said. “It is inexpensive and safe.”
This is the latest of several methods scientists have proposed to try to combat proliferating pine beetles. Others advocate spraying forests with insecticides, distracting beetles with pheromones and bombarding beetles with recorded beetle sounds that can drive them to crazed self-destruction.
Did you catch that? The seafood serum has to compete with recorded beetle sounds that can drive them to crazed self-destruction. Wow, that’s a tough battle.
Bighorn Sheep pneumonia epidemic: hundreds dead
Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep | flickr user ingridtaylar
Sounds like the worst of it is outside Colorado, but it’s still sad.
Via the AP:
Pneumonia outbreaks that have killed hundreds of bighorn sheep this winter in several Western states have wildlife officials grappling with how to minimize the impact.Wildlife officials say the disease shows up sporadically in wild herds, but its unusual to have so many outbreaks in so many states. More than 400 bighorn sheep in Nevada, Montana, Utah and Washington have died – or been killed by wildlife officials – this winter, and the death toll is expected to rise in coming weeks.
What’s a Kachingle?
Hi!
You may have noticed (or not) two slight changes to our site lately.
To the left, you’re seeing a tip jar. To your right, you’re seeing the word Kachingle. I’ll get to both of those in a moment. Read more
