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
CU’s Environmental Center offers free energy visits for students
Jimena Zamora, left, who is part of the University of Colorado Student and Community Outreach on Renter Energy (SCORE), checks the temperature of the hot water in a student house on Monday. Resident Mariko McMillan, right, watches. Photo by Marty Caivano, Camera.
In a city where there are tons of renters, it’s tough to motivate people to spend money on saving energy. That’s part of why the University of Colorado’s Environmental Center is helping students living off campus chip away at their energy bills by visiting their homes to show them how:
Hosted by CU’s Environmental Center, Student and Community Outreach for Renter Efficiency — or SCORE — teaches students living in certain Boulder neighborhoods how to lower their energy bills by making their homes more efficient through simple and inexpensive adjustments, such as using energy efficient light bulbs or setting thermostats to optimal temperatures. Read more
CU recycling, now twice as nice
A couple of CU seniors get serious about smashing down cardboard boxes at a recycling dumpster on campus | Daily Camera
The University of Colorado is making changes to its recycling program that will make participation twice as easy. (Actually, 2.5 times as easy, if you’re a math person.)
Now, recycling locations around CU still have five bins — which to a lot of us Boulderites seems, well, pretty old school. (Read more about they city’s single-stream recycling on BigGreenBoulder.) The plan, according to an article in the Daily Camera, is to implement “dual-stream” recycling, which would cut the number of bins to two: one for paper and one for pretty much everything else.
Read more about it at DailyCamera.com.
CU lawyers: The rules of the river are broken
The Colorado River | USGS
How do you solve a problem that nearly everyone knows exists, but no one will talk about? Or at least no one with any political power will talk about?
That seems to be the case with the Colorado River. The annual demand on the river by the seven basin states and Mexico — just more than 15 million acre feet — is more than the average annual flow. (And if you live anywhere in Boulder County, you’re part of the “demand.” About 20 percent of the city of Boulder’s water is pumped from the Colorado River’s watershed over the continental divide. If you live in most other towns in the county, your percentage is far higher.)
So something’s got to change. Which, like I said, everyone seems to know. But, then, why doesn’t it seem like anyone’s getting serious about a change? Maybe it’s because talking about changing the rules of the Colorado River is a big political landmine.
Take John McCain. Remember when he told the Pueblo Chieftan in August 2008 that the 1922 Colorado River Compact — which divvies up the river water between the seven states — should be renegotiated? If you do, you might also remember the immediate outrage from Coloradans like Ken Salazar, whose immediate reaction was, “Over my dead body” will the contract be renegotiated.
Now a handful of lawyers from the University of Colorado are looking at what rules govern the river (and this means picking through a web of complicated treaties, compacts, state laws and court rulings) and what should be changed to create a sustainable mangement plan. With no political horse in the race, the lawyers hope that their suggestion for improvements can be picked up later by politicians…. making it a safer topic to discuss. (“Hey,” the politician could say, “this wasn’t my idea… I’m just looking into this report from these lawyers.” Then after gauging the public response, he or she could say, “Hey, this was kind of my idea.”)
You get the picture. Read more about CU’s yearlong project at DailyCamera.com.
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.
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).
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.
Students to CU: Let our chickens go free
Piazanos, in the Cheyenne Arapaho Hall on the University of Colorado campus, serves cage-free eggs | Daily Camera
Some students at the University of Colorado are demanding that the school purchase all its eggs from vendors that let their chickens run free.
CU says the switch would cost them at least $70,000, which would be hard to justify in the current economic climate.
The Partnership for Animal Welfare group has gathered more than 1,000 student signatures asking that CU start buying cage-free eggs because the battery cages are so cramped that hens can’t even spread their wings, according to CU student Suzanne Spiegel.
On average, each caged laying hen is given 67 square inches of cage space, which is smaller than a single sheet of letter-sized paper, according to the Humane Society of the United States.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.
CU considers a plastic bottle ban
CU wants students to use reusable water bottles like this one | DailyCamera.com
The University of Colorado is considering a ban on disposable plastic bottles as part of an effort to become a greener campus.
Students would be encouarged to fill up their reusable water bottles at “hydration stations” around campus.
But there’s a hitch to the plan.
One problem, though, is the university doesn’t want to take money away from a fund — supported with vending machine revenue — that awards scholarship money to the children of faculty and staff members.
At first, CU leaders were looking at ridding the campus of just plastic water bottles, said Deb Coffin, associate vice chancellor and dean of students. But, she said, they worried about unintended consequences — such as students opting instead for more bottled sodas.
“We’d like to not have plastic bottles at all,” Coffin said. …
The campus brings in about $280,000 a year from the money that people spend on snacks and soda sold at campus vending machines, officials said last fall. Part of that revenue goes to a scholarship program in which full-time CU employees can receive $750 for their dependents one semester every year.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.
CU students: Non-green rentals are ripping us off
Ed Anderson of Longs Peak Energy Conservation lifts a new furnace into a mobile home December 02, 2008 in Boulder. The new 90 percent efficient furnace is replacing one from the 1970s that was only 65 percent efficient and was also a hazard to the home. Photo by Cora Kemp.
Students at the University of Colorado — enraged by their ridiculous utility bills — are telling landlords that it’s time to suck it up and green up.
A University of Colorado student group is calling for Boulder landlords to work with student renters to increase the energy efficiency of rental properties so, as one group member said, students don’t get “cheated out of their money” when it comes time to pay their monthly energy bill.
“Oh my gosh, that totally happened to me,” said CU junior Nora Keane, who rents a two-bedroom house in the University Hill neighborhood. The 20-year-old had never lived on her own when she went looking for an apartment during the spring semester of her freshman year.
After looking at several run-down places, she came across what she thought was a perfect deal: a neat house near the corner of 19th Street and Aurora Avenue. She said she spent five minutes inside before agreeing to take it. She didn’t notice that there was no dishwasher. She overlooked the mold in the bathroom. And she didn’t ask how much she could expect to pay for utilities.”When my mom asked if I did, I got mad,” Keane said. “I was like, ‘No, it’s perfect.’”
Now, Keane said, she wishes she had. On top of $700 in rent, she and her roommate shell out about $60 a month for energy, an expense Keane said is made worse by the house’s drafty doors.
Read the fully story at DailyCamera.com.
CU launches a new ride-share network
A screen shot of zimride.colorado.edu.
If you want to carpool to class at the University of Colorado, but fear the possible freak factor of calling a phone number left tacked to a bulletin board to find a ride, CU has the answer.
It’s called Zimride — and school officials wants to see 20 percent of the campus using it by next May.
From today’s Daily Camera:
The university this week launched a new carpooling network called Zimride that uses a private Web site, as well as Facebook, to hook up drivers and riders in a simple way that — thanks to the voyeurism of social networking — will ensure would-be carpoolers are never complete strangers.
“It adds a lot of humanity to it,” said Peter Roper, a program manager at CU’s Environmental Center who helped bring Zimride to campus. “It’s the whole social-networking aspect of it. You can chat with the person (you’ll be sharing a ride with). You can see if you have mutual friends.”
Zimride is also available to employees of NIST and NOAA as well as city and county employees, all of which are sharing the cost of the $10,000 program. As of Thursday afternoon, 410 people had signed up for Boulder’s Zimride and there were 2,800 trips posted.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.
Read more posts about CU on BigGreenBoulder:
 CU earns most “eco-enlightened” school, and gets the big green diss |
 Folsom Field doesn’t have trash cans |
Buffalo tacos and lamb skewers: CU vs. CSU locavore tailgating
As you know (or as you will find out at about 4 p.m. Sunday if you live in Boulder), the CU vs. CSU football game is coming right up, which means there’s some tailgating to do. But lay off the Frito-Lay and Natty Ice, because there are tons of good, local food and drink options available to make your tailgating party the most delicious locavore pre-gaming you’ve ever been a part of.
Camera food editor Cindy Sutter serves up some great choices for carnivorous and vegiforous* tailgaters :
Such a local game deserves a local menu. How fortunate for us that the obvious menu choices for Buffalo vs. Ram are two foods that have long Colorado associations, not to mention extreme tailgating well-suitedness: bison (a.k.a. buffalo) and lamb.
If you’re into something a little more decadent, there’s always the bison hot dog, served Mexican style. What’s that, you might ask? It should be wrapped in bacon (Longs Farm, please) and served with cheese, and roasted jalapenos or green chiles. Now that’s a tailgating mouthful.
For those of you who like to stick with the basics, go for a bison burger. Just offer plenty of fixings. Several cheeses, jalapenos, caramelized onions, mushrooms. All local, and all delicious.
You may never party the same way again once you’ve checked out Cindy’s buffalo tacos, lamb skewers and grilled eggplant recipes. And don’t forget to have some local brews — plenty of choices there, too!
*No, this is not a real word.
