Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
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How the West was warmed: local authors talk climate change in the Rockies
This book of essays, many by Colorado authors, explores how climate change is affecting the Rockies.
Driven by the desire to localize the issue of climate change, a former editor of High Country News compiled a book of essays by locals illustrating what a warmer climate means for Colorado.
On Monday evening at the Boulder Bookstore on Pearl Street, nine of the contributors of the book read parts of their essays from, “How the West Was Warmed: Responding to Climate Change in the Rockies,” published in November and edited by Beth Conover.
“I had an opportunity to convene views and speak to the locality and diversity of climate change in Colorado,” said Conover, who also worked as an environmental policy advisor from 2004 to 2007 for Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and helped develop the largest urban sustainability program, Greenprint Denver.
Mayor Hickenlooper provides the foreword to a book filled with essays about trash scavenging, recycling, pine beetles, water scarcity, eco-tourism, hitchhiking, renewable energy and Iraq veterans working to train fellow veterans in green jobs.
A former environment and science reporter at The Boulder Daily Camera, Todd Neff, wrote the essay “Getting the Fever,” which examines the driving effect fear can have on making changes to lessen impacts on the environment.
“Its about getting people to understand that its a massive issue,” Neff said. “We don’t live in a fish tank.”
A Colorado native, Laura Pritchett, is the author of five books including “Going Green: True Tales From Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers,” contributed an essay about her experiences hunting for usable, resellable and recyclable items in trash bins. Everything Pritchett wore to the reading was found in the trash.
“I want to see the shift of thinking that dumpster diving is cool and throwing useful things in the garbage is oddball,” Pritchett said.
Lisa Jones, a journalist and former editor of High Country News tells about her realization that flying all over world to write about eco-tourism was actually the “messy business of airplane travel.” Her flights to South America and Africa were making her carbon footprint bigger than she realized. Jones’ essay follows her and her boyfriend on a hitchhiking trip. They left Paonia, Colo. with just twenty dollars, took jobs in grant writing and restaurants and ended up in Mississippi after being hired by a blind man to drive them there.
The book is an attempt by Conover and the contributing writers to bridge the gap between scientific-heavy books and guides to green living.
“My hope was that my mother or sister would pick up the book and relate climate change issues to their lives,” Conover said.
A Boulder resident of 22 years and sustainability consultant, Kim Hedberg, attended the reading.
“The problem is the message. Not everyone is getting the message,” Hedberg said. “Hopefully people reading this book will get it.”
“How the West Was Warmed: Responding to Climate Change in the Rockies” can be found at the Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl Street, (303) 447-2074
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jay Mueller, Katie Darden and Jordan, EarthAdapt. EarthAdapt said: #Green #Travel : How the West was warmed: local authors talk climate change in the … http://bit.ly/99HKCu ; ) EarthAdapt.com [...]
[...] ago, we posted about how climate change is specifically affecting the West, according to “How The West Was Warmed.” Now the Colorado Independent reports on one yardstick: According to a study, Glacier [...]
Not sure I agree with everything here, but it was still interesting reading that. Thanks.