COMMERCE CITY — Ean Thomas Tafoya is fighting for environmental justice for low-income north metro Denver residents living in pollution from factories, including a Purina pet food factory and a Suncor oil refinery.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN ARSENAL NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE – A herd of 250 bison is thriving on a wildlife refuge within metro Denver where bison play the key role in restoring former prairie that became some of the most toxic land in America.

SAN LUIS – On a recent chilly evening at dusk, elders here in Colorado’s oldest town gathered at a schoolhouse converted into a museum and held an intimate meeting, drawn together by their families’ generations of shared experiences, sharing their love for this place at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

SAN LUIS VALLEY — As climate change turns the southwestern United States hotter and drier, farmers and ranchers struggling for water in Colorado’s low-income San Luis Valley faced a shock this year.

SAN LUIS VALLEY — Now comes the hard part for a Colorado group aiming to preserve a 6,000-square-mile area around the Sangre de Cristo mountains as an internationally-recognized dark sky zone: cutting light pollution from the two major towns of Salida and Alamosa.

WESTCLIFFE — Grappling with a changing climate – environmentally and politically – cattle rancher and newspaperman Jordan Hedberg has committed himself to leaving a positive impact on the place where he grew up.

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION ICE CORE FACILITY – The U.S. government’s storehouse for polar ice cores used to decipher the Earth’s climate history is filled to the brim, forcing federal curator Curtis La Bombard to determine what can be culled.

BEAR CREEK LAKE PARK – A beloved 2,624-acre park upstream from a small reservoir in southwest metro Denver faces an uncertain future as government engineers preparing for climate change propose to store more water here, threatening to submerge fragile riparian ecosystems in a push to maximize drought resilience.