Posts tagged activities
ESA: So much accomplished, so much to do
Nov 13th
BC1 news editor
The federal Endangered Species turns 40 years old this year. It was signed into law by Richard (“I am not a crook”) Nixon, in 1973, likely as a desperation move to garner public support for his collapsing presidency. The significance of this law is that, for the first time in history federal law recognized there are limits to economic development —i.e. when a species would be driven to extinction as a result of the activities. That, my friends, is a Line in the Sand.
The ESA has been incredibly effective, thanks almost entirely to the Center for Biological Diversity, which was instrumental in protecting more than 1,400 species and 200 million acres of critical habitat in the U.S. alone. Ninety nine percent of species protected by the ESA have been saved from extinction. The CBD uses law and science to make its case, bucking the trend of most major environmental groups, which rarely sue any longer for any reason. This happened because BIG OIL has undue influence in the environmental community by having representatives on the environmental groups’ board of directors and by funding these groups with the tacit understanding that the groups won’t oppose projects beneficial to oil and gas profits. Nevertheless, current trends are threatening to reverse the situation. Global climate change could be the most damaging threat in history, with profound implications for both animals and human beings. There are others.
To honor the ESA, Boulder Channel 1 will run a series of articles about the most serious of these threats.
By the Center for Biological Diversity
FRACKING THREATENS AMERICA’S AIR, WATER AND CLIMATE It poisons our water, contaminates our air and emits massive greenhouse gas pollution. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves blasting huge volumes of water mixed with toxic chemicals and sand deep into the earth to fracture rock formations and release oil and natural gas. This extreme form of energy production endangers our health and wildlands.
A fracking boom can transform an area almost overnight, creating massive new environmental and social problems. Fracking development is intensifying in Pennsylvania, Texas and North Dakota and moving into new areas, like California and Nevada. Will your state be fracked next? But as fracking spreads across America, communities are fighting back — and the Center for Biological Diversity is working to ban this growing threat. POLLUTING AIR AND WATER, KILLING WILDLIFE
About 25 percent of fracking chemicals could cause cancer, scientists say. Others harm the skin or reproductive system. Evidence is mounting throughout the country that these chemicals — as well as methane released by fracking — are making their way into aquifers and drinking water. Fracking can release dangerous petroleum hydrocarbons, including benzene and xylene. It also increases ground-level ozone levels, raising people’s risk of asthma and other respiratory illnesses. Wildlife is also in danger. Fish die when fracking fluid contaminates streams and rivers. Birds are poisoned by chemicals in wastewater ponds. And the intense industrial development accompanying fracking pushes imperiled animals out of wild areas they need to survive. In California, for example, more than 100 endangered and threatened species live in the counties where fracking is set to expand. DISRUPTING
OUR CLIMATE Fracking releases large amounts of methane, a dangerously potent greenhouse gas. Fracked shale gas wells, for example, may have methane leakage rates as high as 7.9 percent, which would make such natural gas worse for the climate than coal. But fracking also threatens our climate in another way. To prevent catastrophic climate change, we must leave about 80 percent of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Fracking takes us in the opposite direction, opening up vast new deposits of fossil fuels. If the fracking boom continues, oil and gas companies will light the fuse on a carbon bomb that will shatter efforts to avert climate chaos. BAN FRACKING NOW To protect our environment from fracking, we must prohibit this inherently dangerous technique. That’s why the Center supports fracking bans and moratoriums at the local, state and national levels. Learn about fracking and please take action against it today.
City wants citizen reports to document the flood
Sep 27th
The City of Boulder has launched a ‘Community Flood Assessment’ crowdsourcing map to capture flood data and stories from Boulder residents and businesses. This resident-scientist approach will empower the Boulder community to contribute to our shared learning and documentation of this historic event.
Community submittals are called ‘reports,’ and users can attach photos or videos to enhance their story or data submittals. The easy-to-use map creates geo-located pins associated with specific date-and-time categories like:
Residents are asked to backdate reports, so all users can have a better understanding of what happened and when (i.e. post data when it actually happened, not with the current date and time).
This specific data on place-and-time flooding activities will assist in the city in assessing the entire flood event and help inform future planning efforts.
The mapping application, called Crowdmap (powered by Ushahidi), was originally designed and built to crowdsource crisis information. The mapping application can be used on a desktop computer and is also Smartphone enabled with apps for both iPhone and Android devices.
Residents are encouraged to read the Crowdmap Terms of Use and Privacy notice. Once posted, all data, photos and videos become public domain and can be used by all site users including the City of Boulder.
For more Boulder flood information, visit www.BoulderFloodinfo.net or sign up for flood info updates right to your email inbox.
–CITY–
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CU engineering students are now NASA rocket scientists
Jun 23rd
The program allowed more than 120 students and educators from around the country to delve into the world of rocket science June 15-21 during Rocket Week at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. All participants — including 10 CU-Boulder students — were present for a sounding rocket launch carrying various experiments developed by students that successfully lifted off June 20 at 5:30 a.m. EDT.
Activities during the week included a “RockOn!” workshop for 50 university and community college-level participants led by Chris Koehler, director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, or COSGC. RockOn! introduces participants to building small experiments that can be launched on suborbital sounding rockets and supports a national program known as STEM that uses classes in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to improve the nation’s competitiveness in technology.
“Working with NASA, we have developed a step approach to expand the skills needed for students to enter careers in STEM,” said Koehler of CU-Boulder’s aerospace engineering sciences department. “RockOn! is the first step, followed by RockSat-C and then RockSat-X. Each step is technically more challenging than the previous one, allowing the students to expand the skills needed to support the aerospace industry.”
The RockOn! participants built standardized experiments that were launched Thursday on a NASA Terrier-Improved Orion suborbital sounding rocket. The 35-foot-tall rocket flew to an altitude of about 75 miles. After launch and payload recovery, the participants began conducting preliminary data analysis and discussing their results.
Nine custom-built Rocksat-C experiments, developed at universities that previously participated in a RockOn! workshop, also flew inside a payload canister on the rocket, said Koehler. About 50 students who designed and built the experiments attended Rocket Week.
Also attending were university participants in RockSat-X, said Koehler. They are previous Rocksat-C participants who flew six custom-built experiments aboard a sounding rocket from Wallops in August.
COSGC is a statewide organization involving 17 colleges, universities and institutions around Colorado and is funded by NASA to give students access to space through innovative courses, real-world, hands-on telescope and satellite programs, and interactive outreach programs, said Koehler.
COSGS is one of 52 space grant consortia in the nation — including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia — and is one of the most active, having flown scores of payloads on high-altitude balloons, sounding rockets and even space shuttles, giving thousands of undergraduates and graduate students a taste of space research since the program began in Boulder in 1989, said Koehler.
The week’s activities also included activities by the Wallops Rocket Academy for Teachers and Students, or WRATS, for a high school audience. The rocket programs at Wallops continue NASA’s investment in the nation’s education programs by supporting the goal of attracting and retaining students in STEM disciplines critical to the future of space exploration.
The RockOn! and WRATS workshops are supported by NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program. RockOn! also is supported by NASA’s Office of Education and NASA’s National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program in partnership with the Colorado and Virginia Space Grant Consortia.
For more information on COSPG visit http://spacegrant.colorado.edu and for information about NASA’s education programs visit http://www.nasa.gov/education.
-CU-