In 2010, while editing a report on the effects of climate change in Iowa, ecologist Cornelia Mutel came to grips with the magnitude and urgency of the problem.
CU-Boulder environmental studies doctoral candidate Ethan Welty captured this formation of sand ripples amid sparse grassy vegetation in the Erg Zehar dune field, a two-day trek via camel from the road’s end at M’ Hamid, Morocco.
When Brian Ladd graduated from CU-Boulder in 1999, he and two friends headed to South America with backpacks and bicycles, pedaling from Peru south through Chile and on to Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego.
Wind power? Big deal. Really, really big deal, in fact. Consider that scientists are now pondering construction of leviathan, 20-megawatt wind turbines some 190 meters high — basically two football fields — with swooping 125-meter rotor blades.
Forty years ago, before alternative energy was lucrative and being green was the cool thing to do, CU students founded the Environmental Center on Earth Day in 1970.