CU’s INVST program and Un Mundo are hosting an eco-friendly, sustainable clothing fashion show at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 4 at the Absinthe House.

The proceeds from this event will help students in the INVST community studies program travel to Managua, Nicaragua, this summer to learn about the effects of economic globalization. Proceeds will also benefit Un Mundo, a non-profit in Honduras that seeks to benefit marginalized populations in rural Honduras through volunteer-based programs that increase access to health care, education and living wages.

The fashion show is focusing on sustainable and eco-friendly clothing. Though the term sustainable clothing does include second-hand clothing from places like Buffalo Exchange or Goodwill, it also includes clothing made from sustainably-grown crops or recycled materials. No, this doesn’t mean the clothing looks the way those eco-friendly, super healthy granola bars sometimes taste — bland, rough and slightly nauseating. Sustainable clothing can be just as cute as the regular stuff you wear. It’s just better for the environment.

So set aside any confusion caused by the official title of the event (estETHICa: Ethical Fashion Show for a Better World), trust that it’s for a good cause, and head out to the Absinthe House, which will be offering food and drink specials during the event. Additionally, there will be a live auction where attendees can bid on prizes like a stay at a Breckenridge condo or a glider ride with Rocky Mountain Glider Rides. For more information or tickets, visit http://www.unmundo.org/fashionforabetterworld.

photo courtesy of NOAA

Small, summertime hail storms in the Colorado Front Range could disappear by 2070, according to a recently published study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

The study focuses on the effect of climate change on the smaller hail storms typically seen during the spring and summer seasons in the Front Range. Assuming climate-warming greenhouse gases continue to increase from the current atmospheric levels of 390 parts per million to the estimated levels of 620 parts per million in 2070, the hail produced from these storms may melt to rain before it ever reaches the ground.

While the prospect of fewer potentially damaging hail storms may excite the gardeners and farmers concerned about their plants and the handful of people who don’t own a Subaru and are instead concerned about the paint job on their ridiculously expensive, mostly useless sports car, the lack of hail may actually cause problems for the Front Range, says Kelly Mahoney, a research scientist at CIRES and the lead author of the study.

The Front Range is used to summer storms producing hail instead of rain, which means the area is used to experiencing a slow melt after a storm, not a sudden downpour. If the atmospheric temperature continues to rise and the hail melts into rain before hitting the surface, it could lead to problems of flash floods in the Front Range, according to Mahoney.

But, there are a couple reasons we shouldn’t be too concerned. First, maybe we will figure out some super-efficient alternative energy source that will basically eliminate greenhouse gases and rising atmospheric temperatures will no longer be a concern. Second, if that doesn’t happen, by 2070 we may have discovered things like floating houses, flying cars and teleportation that make the threat of flash floods laughable. Finally, if all else fails, there’s always the Mayan prophecies for the end of the world on Dec. 21 of this year, so who really cares about 2070?

Here’s the Environmental Protection Agency blogger Jeanethe Falvey’s take on how stronger community leads to a healthier planet.

Even the smallest efforts for the environment have always felt good and happily I can report there are others like me! In fact, one girl beat me to a plastic bag blowing across the street in downtown Boston a few weeks ago – kept me a whole notch cheerier for the rest of the day (…still actually).

A second ago, someone was a total stranger in a big city; the next, you feel like you’re a part of a community.

I’ve never seen a community service project that wasn’t filled with people smiling; happy to be helping others where they live and making their community a brighter, healthier place to be.

Read her blog on greening MLK day here.

You can also search for and register projects at mlkday.gov.

And if you get outside and give back today, tweet about it using #GreenMLK and #MLKDay.

Though Congress this year may be better known as the session that failed to accomplish anything, a report commissioned by three ranking members of the House shows this year’s collection of Representatives has cast more anti-environment votes than any other in history. The total averages out to one anti-environmental vote for every day in session in 2011. The votes were split by party, with 94 percent of Republicans voting anti-environment and 86 percent of Democrats voting pro-environment.

“The House Republican assault on the environment has been reckless and relentless,” says Rep.

Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) in a press release. “In bill after bill, for one industry after another, the House has been voting to roll back environmental laws and endanger public health.”

According to the report, which was commissioned by Representatives Waxman, Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.), “the House has voted 191 times to undermine protection of the environment.” Those votes have included blocking actions to prevent air pollution, disarming the Environmental Protection Agency when it comes to enforcing water pollution standards and Clean Air Act protections, addressing climate change, designating wilderness lands, allowing oil and gas development off the coasts of states opposed to offshore drilling and slashing funding — by 80 percent — for the Department of Energy to support renewable energy and energy efficiency.

“These votes are just a preview of coming attractions if the fossil fuel industries get their way and place more Republicans in Congress and the White House,” Markey says in a press release. “With that kind of cast, anti-environmental blockbusters will be the norm, sending more mercury into our kids, more air pollution into our lungs, and more carbon pollution into our atmosphere.”

“We have so many natural resource-type situations here, so we find ourselves in Colorado getting hit by these votes all kinds of different ways,” says Veronica Egan, executive director of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, a Durango-based environmental advocacy group founded in 1989 to make the case that seniors still enjoy wilderness areas. “I think probably the primary way is that there have been votes … to reject scientific findings, in other words to compromise the role of science in decision-making. And right up there with that is votes to block action on carbon pollution on climate change and planning for adaptation to climate change.”

Many of these measures were tacked onto other bills, and in a Congress that’s spent more time spinning its wheels than moving forward on anything, a lot of them didn’t pass.

“One of the things that we’ve been so painfully aware of in the environmental business is that we thought, of course, in 2008, ‘Oh boy, the Bush administration is gone and we’re going to see some progress,’ and we’ve been sorely disappointed along those lines,” Egan says.

The lack of strong environmental leadership has led to constant attacks on environmental legislation, even bills with decades of evidence to show they work, like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act. Clean Air Act protections were hardest hit with 77 votes that undermined health-based standards and blocked EPA regulation of mercury and other toxic emissions from power plants, incinerators, industrial boilers, cement plants and mining operations.

Since it was signed into law in 1970, the Clean Air Act has reduced air pollution by more than 70 percent, according to the recently commissioned report. The EPA estimated in another report titled “Empirical Evidence Regarding the Effects of the Clean Air Act on Jobs and Economic Growth” that the law has saved more than 160,000 jobs in just the last year, and prevented another 13 million lost workdays and 3.2 million lost school days due to illness or disease caused or exacerbated by air pollution. The act has been heralded as an investment with better returns than Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway over the past 40 years by the National Resources Defense Council.

“Americans rely on our government to protect their families from the dangerous effects of pollution that can poison our air, water and environment,” says Berman in his press release. “This report puts Americans on notice: We must continue to fight efforts to erode the laws that protect our health and wellbeing.”

by Sara Wright

Fueled by federal grant dollars and powered by a team of advisors, the EnergySmart program is proving catalytic in the way it helps people take action after receiving an energy audit.

“We’re presenting nationally on this model because of our conversion rates,” says Boulder County Sustainability Coordinator Susie Strife.

More than half of EnergySmart program participants take steps to improve their homes after receiving an energy audit, Strife says.

That’s compared to a national average of about 15 percent who make a similar conversion, according to the “Community Guide to Boulder’s Climate Action Plan 2010/2011 Progress Report.”

“We look at those who have been enrolled [inEnergySmart] at least 30 days or more and have done something,” says Andy Mazal of Populus, the sustainable design firm hired as EnergySmart’s manager. “Action is the key.”

In 2010, the Boulder County commissioners office won a $12 million grant to kick-start EnergySmart via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Program.

The Department of Energy considers buildings upgraded when they have achieved a total energy savings of 15 percent.

Even within this strict definition, EnergySmart is an emerging leader nationwide.

“With … an impressive record of helping homeowners make the decision to proceed from evaluation to upgrade, EnergySmart is among the top 10 percent of Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners in completing energy improvements,” says Department of Energy Better Buildings Neighborhood Program Manager Danielle Sass Byrnett. EnergySmart is sponsored in partnership with Boulder County, the cities of Boulder and Longmont, Xcel Energy and the Platte River Power Authority, and is one of 41 grant programs nationwide that comprise the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program.

Before moving to Louisville in July, Martin Kelly and his wife, Lisa, lived in a drafty house in Connecticut that shivers in their memory. The couple sought advice from EnergySmart Advisor Gaby Larrea in rendering their “new” 1928 home cozy and energyefficient. Boulder contractor EcoSmart Homes helped the couple reduce the natural air changes per hour in their home from 63 percent to 43 percent, better sealing the home’s envelope.

“I was quite pleased,” Kelly says. “If we had done this ourselves, I wouldn’t say it would be haphazard, but to get the broader perspective and get the options available was quite helpful.”

City of Boulder staff worked with various researchers and consultants to develop the new energy-efficiency model that includes assigning an advisor to each client.

Before, “people would get this energy audit report and it would sit on their kitchen counter for months and months and months,” says Yael Gichon, residential sustainability coordinator for the City of Boulder. “That was identified as one of the biggest barriers, was getting people from audit to action. So the one-step shop and the advisor, it was that hundredth monkey theory.”

Since June, participation in the program has snowballed, particularly among landlords seeking to get a jump on SmartRegs’ 2019 energy-efficiency deadlines. About half of Boulder’s homes are rentals.

“We have currently reached/enrolled [through advisor services, upgrades and rebates] more than 3,400 homes and more than 1,400 businesses,” says Beth Beckel, an energy efficiency and sustainability specialist with EnergySmart.

About $3.6 million has been spent so far in the local economy upgrading buildings, says Mazal.

EnergySmart’s goal is to see at least 10 percent of homes —10,000 countywide — and 3,000 businesses upgraded before funding ends in May 2013.

City officials envision the program helping to usher in an energy-use decline.

According to the Community Guide to Boulder’s Climate Action Plan 2010/2011 Progress Report, “With the launch of EnergySmart services and SmartRegs in January 2011, reductions in residential energy consumption are expected in the 2011 inventory, even as the number of housing units may continue to slowly increase.”

The progress report is available online at www.bouldercolorado.gov.

Six years ago, in the interest of protecting Colorado’s pristine wilderness areas while the national roadless area rule was being contested in court, the state began development of a roadless rule. Two drafts and 200,000 public comments later, local conservation organizations are now looking to scrap that rule and go back to the national roadless rule, which has since been validated twice by circuit courts, including the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver in October. Not only is a state rule no long necessary, conservation groups say, the Colorado roadless rule doesn’t offer protections for Colorado’s forests that are as strong as the national rule. They’re putting pressure on the Obama administration to block the proposed Colorado Roadless Rule.

“The national rule, because it was so thoroughly prepared and it does include so many thoughtful accommodations for special needs for community safety and good forest management and healthy forest and road building for existing valid rights — because all that stuff is there, roadless areas and Colorado’s other needs are well protected under this newly affirmed national rule, so that’s the standard we need to uphold,” says Steve Smith, president of the board at the Wilderness Workshop. “The proposed Colorado rule diminishes protections, takes lands out of protection compared to the nationwide rule, so it’s not as strong. … It would end up with Colorado having a rule that was weaker than what other states have.”

Roadless rules provide specific directions for the conservation — in terms of road building, tree cutting and construction zones — of 4.2 million acres of National Forest lands in Colorado and 60 million acres across 39 U.S. states.

In response to criticisms that Colorado’s proposal didn’t offer tight enough protections, the U.S. Forest Service added an “upper tier” designation for lands in need of a high level of conservation. That distinction applies to 562,000 acres.

“As opposed to the 2001 rule, the Colorado Roadless Rule is tailored to Colorado’s needs of conserving land areas and encouraging economic development and job growth and continuing use,” a U.S. Forest Service document says about the Colorado Roadless Rule.

Colorado’s rule also provides an exception for the North Fork coal mining area, which includes parts of the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests, and for ski resorts that may want to expand.

After a 90-day public comment period this summer, the proposed rule was sent to the federal government for approval. That process is expected to conclude in 2012 with a decision on the rule.

The Colorado Environmental Coalition, Colorado Mountain Club, Earthjustice, High Country Citizens Alliance, The Pew Environment Group, San Juan Citizens Alliance, Rocky Mountain Wild, Sheep Mountain Alliance, Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, Western Colorado Congress, and the Wilderness Workshop have been running ads requesting people to petition President Obama to overturn the state plan.

“Roadless forests are some of the most important areas in the state for our drinking water sources, for wildlife habitat, for backcountry recreation,” says Elise Jones, executive director of Colorado Environmental Coalition. “These are really some of the gems, and it’s really important that we have the strongest possible protections.”

Now that it’s been defended by the courts, the national roadless rule is the best tool to provide strong protections for the forests, Jones says.

“The vast majority of people who work in forest conservations would prefer not to have a state rule but to have a national rule that covers all the forests so that there’s consistent protections,” Jones says.

There’s a question of how other states might handle their own roadless rules, Steve Smith says, a process that could leave the doors open to development. So far, Idaho is the only other state that has written its own rule.

“Because we have something in hand that’s reliable, that’s solid, that’s good protection, we’re reluctant to give it up for who knows what,” he says. “In Colorado, we do know what’s proposed; that’s why the other half of our message is, if you are going to do a state rule in the name of customizing it, then make sure you get it right.”

These conservation organizations have submitted, both during the public comment period and after, suggestions they argue would strengthen the rule at least to the level of the national rule, such as clarifying the distance from town for wildfire buffer tree-cutting and requiring rehabilitation at construction zones for pipe line and power lines. The Colorado Environmental Coalition has also identified 2.5 million acres that qualify for upper-tier protection.

The conservationist groups have also called out 86 leases that were granted when the Bush administration put a hold on the roadless rule, and asked that those leases add explicit roadless stipulations, which require oil and gas companies to use any possible means to access oil and gas reserves without making a road and to reclaim the area afterward.

“We have to team up to be sure that we’re very clear, as a state, as citizens, as governments, which places are going to get some solid protection,” Steve Smith says. “If there is going to be a state rule, it must be at least as protective as the nationwide rule. It’s got to meet that standard.”

My partner and I co-sleep with our newborn baby girl. To many of you in Boulder County, that may not seem like a big deal. After all, parents slept with their young children for centuries before cribs, and still do so all over the world.

But a recent media campaign unleashed by the Milwaukee Department of Health caught my attention. The department insists that co-sleeping is dangerous, even deadly, and advertises that message with a poster depicting a sleeping child lying next to meat cleaver to deliver its message.

The poster has been met with a level of controversy and media coverage that mirrors the co-sleeping debate itself. People on both sides of the issue feel passionately about where and how young children sleep. While organizations like the Milwaukee Department of Health strongly advocate for babies to sleep in cribs, removed from their caregivers, many parents — and a lot here in Boulder — feel just as strongly about keeping their children close, day and night.

Families choose to co-sleep for a variety of reasons. Moms who I’ve talked with say that it eases nighttime feedings, increases hours of sleep, and promotes closeness — especially for parents who work outside of the home during the day. A friend of mine estimated that co-sleeping moms get about 25 percent more sleep than moms whose babies sleep in a crib. I’m not sure where she got that number, but my experience supports it. Our baby girl still has her days and nights mixed up, and last night she awoke three times to nurse. Rather than getting my blurry-eyed self up and out of bed to care for her, I was able to turn over, fill her belly with milk and drift back to sleep.

Our pediatrician also supports our decision to co-sleep. She explained that practiced responsibly, it’s great for mother and baby, especially for nursing moms. She continued to explain that most co-sleeping related infant deaths have occurred when one or both parents have been drunk or on some other drug and have rolled over onto their baby and suffocated it. That’s scary and really sad and, I’ll say it, totally irresponsible. There is a big difference between sleeping and passing out next to a baby.

I co-slept with my now 5-year-old son (he still sneaks in our bed a few early mornings a week and I secretly LOVE it) and we’re happy with our decision to co-sleep with our newborn baby girl. We have a co-sleeper crib attached to the bed and have used it a few times, mainly when I’ve been so tired that I knew I would (and needed to) sleep hard. This arrangement is working out well for us as it allows us to veer from our co-sleeping routine on occasion, while still keeping our baby close. And, it may come in handy if my partner or I indulge in one too many strong ales at an upcoming holiday party.

In all seriousness, though, like making the decision to breast or formula feed, to work outside of the home or put your career on hold, it seems to me that the decision on how and where your child sleeps is a wholly personal one. For us, co-sleeping works well and keeps us all close, well rested and happy.

–

Jessie Lucier has a master’s degree in journalism with a focus on environment, policy and society from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is the mother of two children, a 5-year-old son and a newborn baby girl.  She has reported and written on issues from honeybee colony collapse disorder to eco-friendly camping. Currently, she works  as a freelance writer with a primary focus on honeybees, children, natural parenting and environmental issues.

Earlier this year, Trident Seafoods Corporation, which produces pollock, salmon, herring, cod and crab, agreed to pay a $2.5 million fine to resolve Clean Water Act violations near its Alaska processing plants, and Trident products are still sold with the Marine Stewardship Council sustainable seafood seal.

Over the course of five years, the Environmental Protection Agency notified Trident of its violations in a series of letters, and  received replies that ranged from no response to  agreements to comply — which were not followed, according to Tara Martich, compliance officer for the EPA’s national pollutant discharge  elimination system. The company was cited with  480 Clean Water Act violations at 14 processing plants, according to the EPA. Trident discharged the waste from processing fish fillets without permits, exceeded discharge limits, failed to comply with permit restrictions on discharge locations (dis- charging near two National Wildlife Refuges) and cre- ated oxygen-depleting zones and underwater piles of waste at its facilities in Akutan, Cordova, St. Paul and Ketchikan, Alaska.

The result at Akutan is a 50-acre dead zone.

“It’s equivalent to almost 38 football fields,” Martich says. “It’s this carpet of gelatinous goo, and it suffocates the sea life on the sea floor, so it creates these dead zones.”

In the ocean ecosystem, the sea floor is home to the bottom of the food chain. When those species suffocate, it kills everything on up the line.

Akutan’s pile is the thickest.

“Part of the waste pile has been around for years, decades, or longer,” Martich says. “It ranges from possibly 10 to 15 feet thick. The historic waste pile, as we understand it, is about eight acres in size, and the rest of the 50 acres is much thinner, it almost pancakes out into this thin layer all around that eight acres.”

Savvy consumers take the credit for much of the reform in the fishing industry, according to Kelly Roebuck, sustainable seafood campaign manager for the Living Oceans Society.

“In the past five years we have seen the retailers and major buyers really pick up the issue and start to respond,” Roebuck says. “Back in 2008, only three retailers in North America had sustainable seafood policies. Now all but a few don’t.”

Consumers shopping and dining at restaurants with tools like the Monterey Bay Aquarium wallet guide or app for iPhone and Android, which provides region- specific advice on best choices, alternatives and seafood products to avoid, has helped enforce the power of the pocketbook in changing the retailers. Both Kroger and Safeway foods have a sustainable seafood plan shared with the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions, a group of 16 conservation organizations promoting  healthier oceans and freshwater ecosystems.

“We’ve seen awareness of sustainable seafood and fishing and aquaculture issues really become just a broad awareness in the consumer community,” Roebuck says. “When people are shopping, they’re more aware than what they would have been 10 years ago for sure.

“And we can see that the retailers have taken notice and now there’s a lot of collaboration between environmental NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and retailers, and we’ve really seen that there are movements and progress happening with major buyers in North America.”

Because there are so many nuances to know, Roebuck says, it’s hard to apply one rule to all occasions. With some fish, like shellfish, fish farms are the best, or even the only, option.

“It really depends again from fishery to fishery,” Roebuck says. “Typically lower on the chain means they are a more resilient species so they’re quicker to mature and they reproduce in larger numbers.”

Smaller fish, including squid, oysters, mackerel, sardines and mussels, are more plentiful and contain less mercury, according to the National Resources Defense Council, which recommends eating those species over larger, less plentiful ones.

And, keep watching for changes. Part of Trident’s agreement with the EPA was to spend $30 million updating its fish processing facilities so that fish waste currently going to the ocean floor can be converted to fishmeal, which could reduce fish processing discharge by more than 105 million pounds each year. At least one of the two plants is expected to be operational by 2015.

“We’re really excited about all of those changes,” Martich says. “We hope that as Trident moves forward implementing these changes to their practices, it will help other processors make changes as well, and as a whole just really improve the compliance level of the whole industry.”

This week Repurpose Compostables announced the debut of their One Cup which, according to the press release, “requires no sleeve, uses 65% less CO2 than a traditional cup to produce, and can be composted in 90 days.” And to take it one step further, this 100% certified compostable cup is also made with FSC-certified paper.

Read more about it on Triple Pundit.

The Repurpose Compostables insulated cup won first prize for Sustainability at the Specialty Coffee Association Annual Show in Houston in October.

Now if they could just make a major breakthrough in the guilt associated with a salted caramel mocha.