By Johnna Geick With fossil fuel emissions driving global warming, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is pushing hard to transition to cleaner, renewable energy state-wide. But closer to home, workers at the coal-fired Martin Drake Power Plant under Colorado Springs Utilities challenged the practicality of immediate change. Colorado aims to cut emissions…
By Whitton Feer As the energy industry shifts away from burning coal, the people working in Colorado Springs’ Martin Drake power plant face a future in which their skills are growing irrelevant. The Drake plant is scheduled to be decommissioned by 2035, according to Colorado Springs Utilities officials. That threatens the jobs of the 87 employees.…
By Johnna Geick The courtyard of the Colorado College campus is coated in lush green grass scattered plentifully with trees. Squirrels scamper around playfully and not a piece of litter is in sight. To the right is Tutt Library, running on a net-zero carbon energy system, and directly ahead is a purple-toned, midafternoon display of…
By Rainy Adkins Inside a powerplant boiler room that’s been converted to conference space, Martin Drake Power Station workers, managers, and energy traders shine a light on how public demand for a faster shift to clean energy is changing the lives of plant workers. Colorado Springs Utilities leaders have assured power plant workers whose jobs…
By Auguste Voss COLORADO SPRINGS—As corporations and communities across the United States begin to heed the advice of activists and scientists stressing the importance of switching to renewables, the impacts of a changing industry affect more than just the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. People whose careers are entwined with fossil fuels are…
By Auguste Voss As reports on the rapid acceleration of climate change continue to dominate the headlines, young people are grappling with the realization that they’ve inherited a broken planet – and they aren’t happy about it. Reactions to rising temperatures vary, along with approaches to dealing with the problem. But some young people increasingly…
Whitton Feer The car whirred through the yellow aspens and the fragments of trees remaining from last year’s avalanche cycle. There was no cell service on Independence pass for podcasts or music, rendering the ride silent. My father Peter Feer, riding shotgun, turned to me, momentarily stealing my focus from the switchbacks. He told me…
By Carly Valerious The detrimental effects of climate change are not only destroying the planet, but causing grief. Ecological grief– eco grief– happens when you feel emotionally affected by the changes in the environment. A group of people so gripped with woe about environmental change formed a commune. They called it Zendik farm. “Anger at…
