News articles and long-form stories about environmental policies, innovations and sustainability models in Colorado and throughout the world
Gold beneath the water
Peruvian farmer Máxima Acuña wins Goldman Environmental Prize while fighting for her land When the Spanish came to the Cajamarca region of Peru looking for gold, they found the vast Incan empire instead. By 1532, Francisco Pizzaro and his men had captured the last indigenous emperor, taken his gold, and the Spanish conquest of the…
Paying the price
When I first meet Juan de Dios García, he’s laughing. His dark eyes twinkle as his dimples indent and his smile broadens. But there is something else behind his eyes that belie his smile. Our conversation quickly takes a serious turn. As we sit down across from one another with a translator, he leans in,…
Too much to risk
Activists dig in against oil and gas development they claim threatens the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve and nearby water supplies The first time Anna Lee Vargas visited the Sand Dunes, she cried. She was in kindergarten, on an end-of-the-year field trip, and had somehow lost a shoe. “It was eaten by the…
Oil and grouse
The sage-grouse debate isn’t just about a bird, it’s about saving the West as we know it Sandra Goodwin, a private landowner from Boulder, Wyoming, has personally seen the effects of oil and gas development on greater sage-grouse populations near her home. When a gravel mine began hauling an average of 350 semi-truck loads a…
Naropa Eco-Resilience group addresses collective climate grief
It was almost one year ago when researchers, politicians and activists from around the world hiked up a mountain in western Iceland to commemorate Okjokull — the country’s first documented glacier lost to climate change. The memorial was a somber event, according to media reports, as about 100 people gathered, hoping to bring awareness not…
Ruling the roost
Approved oil and gas project in Weld County lies within a half-mile of migrating eagles’ winter roost Just a few miles into Weld County, east of County Line Road, there’s a group of old-growth cottonwood trees along Boulder Creek in the middle of several quarry ponds surrounded by a meadow of hay. It’s near-perfect conditions…
Hitting on all cylinders
New agrivoltaics farm can power 300 homes “But aren’t all farms solar?,” Lynne Wesenberg asked herself as she and her husband, Dave Dell, drove by a sign for a solar farm on North 95th Street one day. It’s a route they often take, having lived in Niwot for decades. Then they saw an ad in…
Lost in the wake
It’s time to rethink wind farm engineering Wind doesn’t abide by state lines or other human-made boundaries. Air moves fast or slow depending on atmospheric conditions, but when its kinetic energy is harnessed by a turbine and converted to electrical energy, the stream slows down a bit, creating a wake downwind. This is a problem…
Angela K. Evans 