Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Ashland Super DSuper D is the raddest thing to hit mountain bike racing since the Tioga disc wheel. A race that’s mostly downhill is, let’s face it, the frosted donut of bike racing. It’s a treat that should be savored. The anticipation of racing one is like standing at the counter, trying to zero in on which [...] […]
- Happy Birthday, bicycleEveryone’s bike has a birthday, but it may be a funny quirk of being a Maverick owner that I sort of celebrate mine. That may be simply because I happen to KNOW my bike’s birthday. Every Maverick comes with its own name, rather than a serial number, and the date it was built. Mine, called Basilisk, [...] […]
- Ashland Super D
- Edgy Veggie
Annual early marmot love fest results in population explosion
Wired Science reports that marmots have been getting steadily fatter since our fine country’s bicentennial and that, lately, they’ve also been getting busy earlier and earlier in the new millennium. That’s resulting in a marmot population explosion:
Increasingly, short winters have meant that yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory now emerge 20 days earlier from their seven- to eight-month hibernation than they did in the late ’70s. This, in turn, has meant more time to get fat over the summer, less fat loss over the winter and, over the past decade, a huge spike in their survival and reproductive success.
“We believe that gradual change in climate crosses a threshold, and causes abrupt changes in population,” said biologist Arpat Ozgul from the Imperial College of London, lead author of a study on the marmots being published July 21 in Nature.
This led me (and my traveling partner) to think back to a trip we recently took down to Taos, N.M., during which we encountered an interesting front-page piece in the Valley Courier newspaper of southern Colorado. I can’t find it online, so I’ll just post the two photos I happened to take of the story…
From the pages of the Valley Courier...
And the closing sentences… Read more
How climate change could hurt Colorado’s bottom line
Folks at Aspen have been noticing changes in the ski season. | flickr user Zach Dischner
The Climate Desk is a new collaborative effort to blah blah blah. That’s how I felt when I read the various releases about the Climate Desk today. Sorry, it’s true.
Here’s what it is: a bunch of people writing about climate change. At the moment, they’re looking at the business of climate change, which is pretty fascinating. Some of the stories come from established news sources like Mother Jones, Grist, Slate and the Atlantic, and some appear to be special to the Climate Desk.
The featured story at the moment gets into just how folks are planning on making money (or losing less money) thanks to climate change, saying, “Spend a couple of hours wandering through the websites of various industrial associations—aluminum manufacturers, real-estate agents, wineries, agribusinesses, take your pick—and you’ll find straightforward statements about the grim reality of climate change that wouldn’t seem out of place coming from Greenpeace.”
And there’s even a little look at Colorado’s most famous industry: Read more
Earth Hour 2010 in Boulder
On March 27, 2010 cities around the world will turn off their lights for one hour to raise global awareness of climate change. | From flickr user aussiegall
At 8:30 p.m. March 27, you can join people around the globe in celebrating Earth Hour by shutting off your lights for one hour. During Earth Hour 2009, almost one billion people worldwide participated in this call for action against global climate change. Stepping it up this year should be easy and fun for Boulderites who can celebrate Earth Hour at these cool events:
- The St. Julien Hotel & Spa twill be throwing its own its own Earth Hour celebration with a candlelit happy hour and free, live entertainment. Guests can enjoy locally grown, sustainable food and drinks from 5 p.m. to close and will partake in a celebratory toast and lights out ceremony at 8:30 p.m.
- ReSource Yard, the waste reduction division of the Center for ReSource Conservation, will be be celebrating its grand opening from 5 p.m.-9 p.m. by hosting an Earth Hour party equipped with fireside music, local artisans, free refreshments, raffles, creative workshops, and a silent auction.
- Also, be sure to keep an eye on the Boulder/Denver Grey Wolves meetup group, who are planning an Earth Hour gathering with a TBD location.
So whether you are staying at home, or going out for a night on the town, helping to create awareness is as easy as the flip of a light switch. Click here to find out more about Earth Hour.
If you’ve got an Earth Hour event in the area that we haven’t listed, let us know in the comments!
–Lindsay Gulisano
CU prof not impressed with media coverage of climate change
Maxwell Boykoff, courtesy of CIRES.
Turns out, the way that the mass media report on climate change has exaggerated the debate between scientists who argue that global warming is a real and urgent problem and the skeptics.
That’s according to a scientist at the University of Colorado, Maxwell Boykoff, whose research over the last couple of years has ranged from the perils of celebrity involvement in climate change to the way newspapers have reported on environmental issues.
In the course of his research, Boykoff has followed climate change coverage in 50 newspapers across 20 countries and six continents. His latest research shows that the media often give too much ink to climate change deniers, amplifying conflict and drama (and other things that tend to sell papers).
He says that the media are also guilty of lumping all skeptics together, no matter whether they’re fellow scientists (with, likely, a more credible concern) or politicians and others who have never studied the climate.
“This has been detrimental both in terms of dismissing legitimate critiques of climate science or policy, as well as amplifying extreme and tenuous claims,” he said.
Read more about Boykoff’s research at DailyCamera.com.
“Climate Refugees” shows human face of climate change
“Climate Refugees” investigates the migration people are forced to make in the wake of floods, mudslides, droughts, sea level rise and other climate related disasters.
Governor Bill Ritter and the film’s director, Michael Nash, introduced the film to a full audience that included Alec Baldwin on Sunday afternoon at the Boulder International Film Festival.
“This film says that we need to stop the debate about climate change and puts a human element to the issue,” Ritter said. “The face of climate change is the climate refugee.” Read more
What do you call Glacier National Park if the glaciers melt by 2020?
Not too long 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 National Park may be glacierless in a decade.
the U.S. Geological Society is reporting that Montana’s Glacier National Park will be glacier-less in a decade. Scientists had previously estimated that the park’s signature glacier-grade ice fields would last until 2030.
“There are only about 26 glaciers left now. There were 150 in the late 1800s,” he said.
So. Any ideas for a new name for the park? I’d guess they’d want something by 2017 or 2018 — don’t know how long it takes to order signage and new brochures.
A little more information:
“To be clear, the predicted absence of glaciers in the park after 2020 doesn’t mean everything will be dry. There will still be ice and ‘permanent’ snowfields. However, the size will be below the threshold of a glacier. Mountain glaciers are defined by a minimum size and physical properties, especially movement and replenishment.”
Bam. WELCOME TO “PERMANENT” SNOWFIELD NATIONAL PARK. “It’s ‘majestic!’” Who’s with me?
Climate change is old news to Boulder scientists (they called that four decades ago)
In the early 70s — when the media rarely addressed the far-out notion of climate change (or if they did, they put quotes around phrases like “the greenhouse effect”) — scientists at Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research were beginning to realize that people (insignificant though they generally seemed) might be able to impact the global climate.
NCAR's Mesa Lab in south Boulder.
A 1972 article in the Daily Camera “NCAR, Others Will Study Man’s Effects on Shaky Equilibrium of Earth Climate” appears to be one of the first in the Boulder newspaper to tackle the idea that humans might be able to drive the world to some sort of climatic tipping point.
NCAR scientist William Kellogg said this in the article:
There are obviously stabilizing factors that are strong enough to keep our global climate within reasonably narrow bounds, permitting ice ages to come and go, but damping out any large fluctuations.
But, now, man has entered the scene, and we must ask whether he can reach any of the lever points on this gigantic environmental mechanism and influence it. If there are any lever points that he can reach, history has shown that he will probably be tempted to tamper with them.
The article didn’t talk much about greenhouse gases, other than to mention a growing “carbon dioxide blanket” that had the potential to warm the Earth. Read more
Climate change: what’s your neighborhood doing?
So, remember Copenhagen: The Event? If you do, swell, but for a lot of folks, it’s just fading quickly in the rearview.
I can see my house from here. | flickr user johnlegear
The Sierra Club has a takeway that applies to us here at BGB, which is that climate change calls for community change (because climate change news is all local):
If we learned anything in Copenhagen, it’s that we can’t wait for governments to hammer out a solution to global warming. Bottom-up, community-based approaches seem just as likely to save the day. Which is why hundreds of cities and towns are signing on to the Cool Community campaign launched by David Gershon, founder and CEO of the Empowerment Institute [BGB note: CAUTION: insanely ugly Web site ahead]. “Approximately 50 percent of America’s carbon footprint is residential,” he explains. Reducing the carbon output of regular Americans could make a big difference, or at least buy us some extra time.
Gershon’s laying out a big part of his plan/book at the Huffington Post right now, and you can take part in a free two-hour training on March 11 by registering on the Cool Community Tele-Training site. The way it’s described is a little scary, but you can read an overview on the site and there’s also the always-clickable carbon footprint calculator.
Of course it’s entirely possible that you don’t need such training — or that you’ve got better training here in Boulder. We’d love to know about how you’re drastically reducing your own footprint (or how you’ve done it over the last five years). Tell us in the comments!
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. Read more
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.
