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.

Shelby’s Happy Chapped Chicken Butt Farm is an Animal Welfare Approved farm based in Broomfield that produces chicken eggs. Though the name certainly raises eyebrows, the more intriguing aspect of the farm is its founder, 12-year-old Shelby Grebenc of Rocky Top Middle School.

Shelby began her education about chickens when she was six, performing basic chores like feeding and watering her family’s small flock. When her mother was in a nursing home receiving care for multiple sclerosis, Shelby decided to increase her small flock to a full-blown, egg-producing business in order to earn some extra money. Shelby is now the youngest farmer to have met the strenuous regulations set by the Animal Welfare Approved program, which certifies that her flock of around 130 laying hens is raised and cared for under the highest standards.

The name of the farm was inspired by a group of neglected chickens that were dropped off on Shelby’s doorstep one day. Apparently, when chickens aren’t fed they begin to peck at each other’s, um, butt regions, which causes severe chapping. Hence, the “Chapped Chicken Butt” part of the name. Though Shelby is successfully running an Animal Welfare Approved farm, a feat few older farmers have accomplished, it is nice to see she has retained some of her childlike sensibilities.

Speaking of chapped butts, it will be interesting to see the reaction of other local farmers who have not achieved the Animal Welfare Approved status. Who knows, maybe Shelby’s success will incite the old-timers into more animal-friendly action. If not, maybe their chickens will make a break for it and head to Shelby’s haven.

Though Shelby sells her eggs mostly to neighbors or people who stop by her farm when she isn’t in school, her small operation is still immensely impressive. Heck, most of us at age 12 were either focused on our first crush or battling acne and braces and giving very little thought to where eggs come from. It’s nice to see the younger generation is taking an interest and gives us hope that America’s farming future will be bright.

by Elizabeth Miller

Sometimes we need the most literal of images to open our eyes. So it is with Kim Abeles’ art — she creates art with smog so viewers can see the dirty tracks of the way we live in clear outlines. She has enlarged often-overlooked lichen and given them eyes.

These tiny biomonitors know all, see all and store in their cells what we see in Abeles’ images: automobiles and exhaust.

Abeles collaborated with atmospheric scientists, emissions specialists, lichenologists, transportation professionals, and middle and high school students to create an exhibit for the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and its satellite exhibits at Envirotest-Air Care Colorado, Manhattan Middle School and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The exhibit, “the invisible connectedness of things” arose from Abeles’ explorations of lichens and Boulder’s transportation habits — two apparently disparate entities that connect via air pollution.

At Manhattan Middle School last fall, Abeles gave a lecture and conducted workshops to allow kids to create their own “smog collectors,” a signature piece from Abeles’ artwork.

Students laid stencils depicting the causes of smog and its effects onto white plates and put the plates on the school roof for months. The oily and rubbery particulate byproducts of car and truck emissions in the air bound to the plates.

Now, those plates bear smog-created images. Though she often does her work in Los Angeles, Boulder didn’t lack for material in the air to darken the plates.

Abeles herself created a series of plates of the presidents, from William McKinley to George H.W. Bush, with quotes about environment and industry. Those with a poor environmental record were left out longer, their images stained darker.

“There’s something about dark humor in my work.… It’s kind of funny but always kind of creepy funny,” Abeles says.

Smog collectors do in a visible way what lichen do invisibly — as Abeles discovered last year when she heard about lichen as biomonitors, a way to measure air pollution because they capture carbon and nitrogen. She stumbled onto that information and started looking for ways to express it in art.

“I love being so in the dark about what I’m doing. When you’re young, it’s easy to find something new, but when you’re older, you have to wander,” Abeles says. “I’m lichen-crazy now. … Everything to me reminds me of them.”

Abeles photographed lichen in Boulder and the images are now displayed so large as to be nearly unrecognizable. Their hollows are replaced in places with images, both still and video, of children’s eyes and cars.

“I think one of the really great things about the arts is it helps you to see anew, and in this case we get to see Boulder’s pollution — not in the sky, but on plates,” says Marda Kirn, executive director of EcoArts Connections, which commissioned Abeles’ piece as a way of showing climate change at a local level. “We get to see the lichen, which are biomonitors, in a brand new way. And she does it in such a simple, elegant, brilliant way and through different media.”

She wanted to bring an art piece to a non-art venue, Kirn says, and Patrick Kociolek, director of the museum, got on board. “It’s really trying to think about how, as human beings, how can we more deeply understand how our transportation choices affect the air that we breathe, and then by extension the greenhouse gases that are going into the atmosphere,” Kirn says. “What I love about Kim, too, is that it’s not this sort of horrible didactic way, or ‘You’re going to go to hell if you don’t recycle’ kind of way. It’s more of a very loving kind of way, a sometimes very funny, self-reflective way that makes you appreciate the world in which we live and notice nature and where you are.”

There will be a scavenger hunt for lichens, puzzles to put together at the museum and activity books for children — a wealth of ways to re-engage with the environment and start exploring its resources.

“As an individual it’s so frustrating because it’s like, what can you do?” Abeles says. “It’s about taking action, but it’s also about finding your voice. … Without your voice, you’re kind of directionless.”

An opening celebration and talk with Abeles will be held at 6 p.m. on Feb. 2 at the museum.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com

Potholes may seem like a small problem, but if you have ever happened upon one with a cup of hot coffee in hand or a pair of minimally-supportive shoes strapped on your feet, you understand the dangers that surround them.

Pete Dungey, a self-described “guerrilla gardener” in London, spends his time decorating the potholes that mar the streets of Oxford. Dungey’s artistic endeavors certainly highlight the pothole problem with the use of miniature lawn chairs and other props to create a life-like garden inside the disruptive pits, but they also likely brighten the days of passersby who normally risk a broken ankle from the hellish holes.

These aesthetically appealing potholes could be a nice addition to Boulder’s streets. Not only would the art add a nice bit of green to the otherwise washed-out grey of our roads, they would also alert people to the pothole problem and add a smile to pedestrian faces.

by Elizabeth Miller

Forget the grid. For the developing world, forget the power lines and the coal-fired electricity they deliver. In developing countries, renewable energy sources are their the answer to getting people online, powering up their cell phones and running computer labs in schools.

The University of Colorado Mortensen Center in Engineering for Developing Communities has been undertaking projects of that nature since it was founded in 2009.

photo courtesy of Matt Jelacic/Alan Mickelson

“Creating a world where all people can enjoy a safe, secure, healthy, productive and sustainable life … should be a priority for the engineering profession,” Bernard Amadei, director of the Mortensen Center, is quoted as saying on the center’s website. “Improving the lives of the 5 billion people whose main concern is to stay alive by the end of each day on our planet is no longer an option for engineers; it is an obligation.”

So on Jan. 8, two University of Colorado engineering professors and a graduate student departed for Haiti to begin work on a project to provide solar power to a school and launch a vocational training program at a refugee center in Leogane, near the epicenter of the earthquake that occurred two years ago.

The goal is to build a vocational program that will train people in green energy or localized small energy systems, says Alan Mickelson, one of the two professors who went.

“There’s no energy grid to speak of in Haiti, so you can’t plug anything in. Everybody has to have their own power locally,” Mickelson says. “The idea was, we will go there and set up a couple of different kinds of renewable energy systems. We’ll set them up in a modular system within the compound, then train some of the teachers on how to build and maintain systems.”

The Haitians who are trained in the systems will also be taught how to train others to build and maintain them by working with the 16- to 20-panel photovoltaic system installed at the center. The solar panels used will even be produced by a company started 18 months ago in Haiti, and as many of the other parts as possible will be sourced locally as well. The system should provide energy to power lighting at the school and run a computer lab.

“Renewable energy actually, in the developing world, is easier than anything else,” Mickelson says. Haiti, in particular, has the benefit of having a lot of sun, prevailing winds from the Caribbean Sea, and water running down the mountains — opening up plentiful options for solar, wind and hydro power.

“This wealth of renewable energy systems really hasn’t been tapped at all,” says Mickelson, who has also worked on renewable energy projects in Peru and Nepal. The project in Peru has enabled rapid reporting of malaria cases and medical emergencies.

“My main research area has been nanotechnology and very small optics, so it’s good to get out and apply things,” Mickelson says. “Most of the research I’ve done has been laboratory research over the last 30 years, and it’s all been support and applications for communications, but it’s kind of fascinating to get out into the world … and see how these new technological innovations work with people.”

These projects also allow future generations of engineers a chance to experience and engage with engineering work in the places it’s critically needed.

“We need to give them a more broad, a more complete education, rather than just mathematics and laboratory science, and I think this is a really good one,” Mickelson says.

Matthew Hulse, an engineering graduate student who joined the trip to Haiti, calls the trip a success and says the experience was eye-opening.

“I think that most of the information and my expectations before the trip had to deal with the high level of what’s going on in the country, like major aid involvements with big organizations that are involved on the ground,” Hulse says. “But being in the country, outside of the city of Port-au-Prince, and seeing conditions with my own eyes, for example, how many people are using the one water pump that’s available in town or how many children are living in a small shack that was built by an aid organization, was reinforcing of what the situation is like even two years after the earthquake.”

The team will return over the next year to continue exploring possibilities for the project, developing the program to train Haitians to train others locally in installing solar panel systems.

“Instead of doing energy education in someplace like the United States, to do it somewhere where real results may translate to having a greater impact in the short term I think is really important,” Hulse says. “And Haiti is definitely a country that needs an opportunity like that.”

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?

Babies cry. And some babies cry a lot. Almost all new parents experience a few weeks to a few months of sleepless nights, mounting anxiety and possibly some hair loss due to their infant child’s newly formed vocal cords working at full blast. Some call this colic (properly defined as at least three consecutive hours of inconsolable screaming), some attribute it to gas, and others contend that it’s due to over stimulation, especially in the first three months – the “4th trimester.”

Whatever you want to call it or attribute it to is fine, I guess, but it naming and defining it offer no help when it’s 1 a.m. and that sweet, little baby of yours is wailing full volume and nothing, NOTHING you do can calm her.

Deep breath. My partner and I have been walking around for weeks with dark circles under our eyes and vacant expressions because we have a crier. Our sweet, little 10-week-old coos, smiles and sleeps most of the day, but come 6 p.m. or, lately, 1 a.m., our sweet, smiling cooer turns into Mad Baby.

When the crying began at about four weeks, I thought it was a phase. At 5 weeks, I thought it was gas and turned to friends with babies for advice. At 6 weeks, we borrowed “The Happiest Baby on the Block” DVD from the library. At 7 weeks, I posted cries for help on my facebook page. At 8 weeks, I consulted her pediatrician at her 2-month visit. At 9 weeks, I spoke with a lactation consultant I met at the Apple Store, a mother I met at my gym’s daycare facility, and momma friends who I used to work with. This new baby of mine might have been keeping me up, but she was also playing a large role is all of my social interactions. And, then 10 weeks hit and, wham, 6 p.m. came and went. No crying. We cooked dinner and cared for our 5-year-old while actually being able to have a conversation that wasn’t a series of “WHAT!”s. And, then, just when we thought we were in for a full night of rest, the same old song and scream began at 1 a.m. Deep breath.

So, we’re still in week 10, and our evenings are quiet. We all had dinner together – at the same time, at a table – tonight. It’s nearly 10 p.m. now and I’m writing, Peanut is happy in her swing, Brother is sound asleep upstairs and Daddy is working on a project on his computer. I’d cross my fingers if I didn’t need them for typing and pray that Mad Baby will not make her nightly appearance, but I know that 1 a.m. may be met with screams, and not dreams.

What I’ve learned through all this is to just ride the baby wave. What I’ve learned not to do is to let Peanut “cry it out” – a practice that was adopted long ago during heavy influenza outbreaks to limit infant exposure, and then practiced in the 1980s with the belief that it would help babies to become  independent individuals later in life. Studies from Yale University and Harvard Medical School, to cite just two examples, now indicate that “Ferberizing” your baby, the controversial practiced developed by Dr. Richard Ferber, can impact neurological development and lead to lifelong emotional scaring.

So, we hold our Peanut. We cuddle her and try to make her feel as warm and safe as possible while she wails away. The experience of my friends and knowledge of our pediatrician help me to believe that this will pass, and, for most babies, it is a natural part of development.

But, if you just can’t wait it out, here are some things you can try. A few of these we’ve had some success with.

First, I absolutely suggest borrowing “The Happiest Baby on the Block” either in book or DVD format from the library. In it, Dr. Harvey Karp offers some techniques, which he calls the 5 S’s, which simulate what babies experienced in the womb.

Second, invest in a swing, which Dr. Karp also suggests. We had HUGE success with this little machine! The only downfall is that it will not calm your baby, but it will keep her calm once, IF, you can get her into a tranquil place.

You can also try gripe water, if you believe that your baby’s upset is due to gas. Or try lavender oil in a tub or a little bit of chamomile tea in a bottle with a wee bit of sugar if you believe that she’s over stimulated.

Using a sling worked sometimes, and helped us get some things that require hands done during the evening hours. Expect your baby to continue crying at first, but stick with it, and she may fall into sleep. But beware, once removed from the sling, the crying usually returns in full force.

Finally, nurse her. This seems to calm Peanut down no matter how worked up she is. While this works for us, I’ve heard that other babies simply refuse the nipple and wail on. And, if it does work, well, how many hours of nonstop nursing can even the most patient of mommas endure?

These may work well individually or you might get lucky and find the ideal combination – the momma I met at the gym swore by the gripe water and lavender combination – but, still, your new baby might cry. And caring for them – cooing or crying – is what we do. It’s what our parents did for us and what our children will do for theirs. We’ll all endure the sleepless nights and the anxiety-induced hair pulling. And then one day, soon (we hope!), she’ll stop.

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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 varying from 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.

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.