Around the Mountains: Colorado climate change sessions dominate upcoming autumn agenda

DURANGO - If global warming isn't being tackled now, it's not for lack of talking. Crested Butte has already held a conference devoted to climate change, and additional conferences were scheduled this week in Aspen and Durango.

The Durango conference is focused on effects of climate change on water, forests, and air quality in the San Juan Mountains. The mean average temperature in Silverton has increased 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) during the last 30 years, said Ellen Stein, executive director of Silverton's Mountain Studies Institute, one of the sponsoring groups.

"In the absence of a federally coordinated response, states and even localities are responding to the reality of climate change," she said.

Aspen's conference was more broadly focused. The chief executive officers for Aspen Skiing, Pat O'Donnell, and for Vail Resorts, Rob Katz, were scheduled to speak. Katz was scheduled to make the case that publicly traded companies can be successful and be environmental stewards at the same time. Also speaking was Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson.

Other speakers at the Aspen conference, part of the city's Canary Initiative, were scheduled to talk about renewable energy, transportation, and green building, among a dozen other topics.

Earlier, at a workshop in Crested Butte, Bruce Driver, former director of Western Resource Advocates, pointed out that 90 percent of electricity in the United States is produced by coal. He urged that people write to their local rural electrical co-op, in that case the Gunnison County Electric Association, to urge more use of alternative energy.

Also at the conference, Brad Udall, director of the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado, outlined the connection between water and energy. Energy is used to pump, pressurize, treat, and heat water. Hence, if a person is more efficient with their water, they are also more efficient with energy, and that means fewer greenhouse gases. "It's paramount to understand your energy usage," he said.



New commuter jets are 40 percent more fuel-efficient

ASPEN - The new generation of regional jets are 40 percent more fuel-efficient than earlier planes. That figure comes from Aspen, which is debating whether it is truly a "green" resort when so many of its guests and residents travel by airplane so frequently.

A report released by city officials last year as part of their global warming program, called the Canary Initiative, showed that 41 percent of Aspen's greenhouse gas emissions result from airplane flights, split almost evenly between commercial and private planes. Aspen, in turn, has double the per capita emissions of the United States, which itself is among the world leaders in polluting the atmosphere.

But planes are becoming more fuel-efficient, points out Bill Tomcich, a flight expert and also president of the central reservations agency, Stay Aspen Snowmass.

The old mainstay for commuter shuttles between Aspen and Denver was the British Aerospace 146. It burns about 817 gallons of fuel per hour. Assuming a full flight of 88 passengers, that works out to be 4.75 gallons per passenger on the half-hour flight to Denver.

A new jet, the CRJ-700, burns only 2.8 gallons per passenger, again assuming a full flight of 66 people. Both calculations are for cruise time, not for climbing or descending.

Randy Udall, an energy expert, points out that either plane is still more full-efficient than a person driving solo in a car between Aspen and Denver. More efficient yet is a van, again fully loaded, which would cost about 2.2 gallons per person.



Crested Butte suspends ban on non-retail offices

CRESTED BUTTE - This past summer Crested Butte's town council passed a law that aimed to stem the invasion of real estate offices and other non-retail stores into the town's primary tourist-friendly business district, Elk Avenue.

Vail, and more recently Aspen, have also adopted such restrictions, called horizontal zoning. Those office-type uses are allowed, but not at the ground-floor level.

But the measure in Crested Butte has triggered a significant kickback. The town council agreed to consider a modification that would allow continued use of spaces now used for non-retail for non-retail purposes, even if sold or re-leased.

Still, that wasn't enough, and a referendum has been submitted, which suspends the horizontal zoning, reports the Crested Butte News. The referendum signers want the measure taken to a public vote.



Aspen School District bans peanuts at school

ASPEN - Peanuts have become a no-no at Aspen Elementary School. The school district superintendent, Diane Sirko, said schools across the country are banning peanuts because allergic reactions are on the rise Š and they can be deadly. She told The Aspen Times that some parents have complained about the new ban, but a child allergic to peanuts can get sick merely being near a sandwich.



Pro basketball team trains at 6,855 feet

DURANGO- The Denver Nuggets this year opened training camp with two-a-day practices on the campus of Fort Lewis College, in Durango. The elevation there is 6,855 feet, and for those keeping track of superlatives, that may possibly have been highest training camp ever for a major-league professional basketball team, although not for a hockey team.

Of course, Denver is pretty thin-aired itself. The city has four major-league sports franchises, all of them doing business at an elevation of about 5,280 feet. The next highest location for a major-league sports franchise is in Salt Lake City, where the Utah Jazz play, across from the Mormon temple, at an elevation of 4,330 feet. The next highest major-league franchises are at little more than 1,000 feet in elevation, in Pittsburgh, Phoenix, and Atlanta.

The thinness of Denver's air is discernible to even well-conditioned athletes, and a lingering image of years past is that of Hakeem Olajuwon, the all-star center for the Houston Rockets during the 1990s, sucking supplemental oxygen during time outs while playing in Denver.

Down the street, at Coors Field, a venue for Major League Baseball, hitting records have caused the stadium to be called Coors Canaveral. Those records carry an unofficial asterisk, because the thin air is believed to allow the ball to travel farther than it would at a lower and usually more humid elevation.

Team officials this year even installed a humidor, for storage of baseballs, with the theory that increased moisture would give pitchers the same grip on baseballs that they enjoyed at playing fields at lower elevations. And that, it was predicted, would counteract the effects of the thin air that allowed hitters to belt homers. It has, and it hasn't.

For their part, coaches at the Denver Nuggets have often tried to use the thin air to their advantage by instituting faster-paced running games, in the theory that opposing teams will not be able to keep up. Again, the results have been so-so.

But to instill that top-notch conditioning, the Nuggets in years past have trained at Colorado Springs, which is a hair above 6,000 feet, or about 800 feet higher than Denver.

This year, however, the team opted for variety. A team spokesman said various locations were considered, including Vail. But Vail's only gymnasium, although used for town leagues, is in an elementary school, and besides, said the spokesman, Vail is too high. It's an elevation of 8,150 feet.

However, in years past, a National Hockey League team, the Dallas Stars, trained at Vail. Whether this means that hockey players are tougher than basketball players, you can draw you own conclusions.