Nguyễn Trinh Thi, Letters from Panduranga (2015), video still

Eyeing environmental issues through a camera lens

June 19, 2023

In her latest research, Brianne Cohen, a contemporary art history professor, examines the intersection of art and environmental activism.

doctoral students outside the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

Following the pandemic, CIRES students venture out

June 14, 2023

One professor decided it was time to get her doctoral students in environmental science real-life experience by taking them on a four-day field trip to a remote research station up high in Colorado’s mountains.

Benjamin Hale

Why must we protect nature? Because we can, philosopher says

June 14, 2023

In the book “The Wild and the Wicked,” philosophy professor Benjamin Hale argues that because people have the unique capacity to care for the environment, they have a moral obligation to do so.

CU Boulder’s Mountain Research Station researchers pose for a group photo

‘Classroom in the sky’ inspires generations of researchers, students

June 9, 2023

Just north of Nederland, about 26 miles from Boulder, is CU Boulder’s Mountain Research Station. It is the university’s highest research facility and is home to some of the world’s longest-running alpine research on everything from how trees respond to increasing wildfires to charismatic little pikas and more.

Penguin in the Southern Ocean

As the Southern Ocean heats up, the race is on to protect Antarctica’s marine life

June 6, 2023

As Earth’s atmosphere continues to warm, biodiversity in the global ocean is increasingly at risk. In this Q&A with Cassandra Brooks, we explain the importance of protecting the Southern Ocean in particular as the world races to conserve biodiversity across the globe.

A fleet of electric vehicles being charged simultaneously.

Postdoc leads research into decarbonization of transportation sector

June 5, 2023

A paper recently submitted to Nature Scientific Reports explores a scenario in which a 100%-electrified fleet of vehicles must attend to both ride requests submitted by customers and charging requests sent by a utility company during a period of high renewable energy generation.

Jody Jahn, center, in black

Research addresses burning questions on firefighter culture

May 31, 2023

For eight summers, Jody Jahn earned money for college working as a wildland firefighter on U.S. Forest Service crews. Now, instead of rappelling out of helicopters to fight fires, she's an associate professor of communication who studies the culture of wildland firefighting crews.

aerial view of a lake

Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage

May 26, 2023

More than half of the lakes around the world are losing water. The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at CU Boulder reconstructed lake levels from the past 30 years, determining that climate change, human consumption and sedimentation are the reasons for the decline.

Man moves a piece on a wooden board, while several other people watch sitting at school desks

Collective property rights spark spirit of cooperation that extends beyond managing land

May 25, 2023

Since the 1990s, Indigenous groups and other communities around the world have increasingly fought for, and secured, collective property rights to the land they live on. New research suggests that these arrangements can have impacts not just on ecosystems like forests but on the psychology of people.

Researchers on skis collect snow measurements near the Continental Divide in Colorado

Earlier snowpack melt in the West could bring summer water scarcity

May 22, 2023

Snow is melting earlier, and more rain is falling instead of snow in the mountain ranges of the Western U.S. and Canada, leading to a leaner snowpack that could impact agriculture, wildfire risk and municipal water supplies come summer, according to a new CU Boulder analysis.

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