UM Activism for the Planet

Is UM Green Enough? Yes, and Growing Greener

UM has now launched its new Climate Change Studies minor program, the first of its kind in the nation. Last spring, the Green Thread Initiative held its first workshop to help professors introduce climate and sustainability topics into their curriculum, allowing more environmental dialogue throughout campus. Faculty members across campus are directly addressing different aspects of climate change in their own work, creating an interdisciplinary curriculum and minor through departments from economics to journalism, forestry to ethics, and science to law.

Students like me are gaining valuable skills through this strong education in science, society, and solutions to climate change. The Environmental Studies Department is even funding two of us to represent UM at the international climate treaties in Copenhagen this December. My environmental studies major together with this climate minor are providing me critical advocacy skills, and I know that I am not the only student that UM has helped become empowered in enacting change.

Power in the West

Small Hydro: The Wave of the Future?

Big public utilities these days are turning to the wilderness to produce power—on streams that are so remote, hardly anyone complains, according to a fine Wall Street Journal story by Jim Carlton.

The article kicks off with news about how the Snohomish County Public Utility District (from the area north of Seattle) is building a small hydroelectric-power plant on “picture-perfect” Youngs Creek in the Cascades foothills—with little opposition.

According to the story: “So-called small hydro plants like Youngs Creek are sprouting up across the country, with around 500 potential sites identified by a federal study in Washington state alone.”

From the Flathead Beacon

Flathead Lakers Grapple With Conservation

The fate of the north shore and a warming lake were two issues attendees were greeted with at the Flathead Lakers annual meeting at Flathead Lake Lodge last week.

More than150 landowners and conservationists honored one of the Flathead’s key attractions and heard testimony to the importance of its continued preservation.

The shallows, wetlands and sloughs found along the north shore of Flathead Lake, between Somers and the Flathead River, provide for a rich ecosystem frequented by more than 200 species of birds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintains a Waterfowl Production Area along 7 miles of shoreline, but speakers at the meeting voiced concern about the surrounding acreage of farmland that remains at risk of encroaching development.

Alternative Energy

UM Native American Lab Snags Big Green Energy Grant

Big dollars for green energy -- and for a unique University of Montana program -- arrived this week at the UM Native American Research Laboratory (NARL), considered the only such research facility in the nation for Native college students.

NARL Director Michael Ceballos said the laboratory has received a $300,000 two-year grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a new process that boosts the efficiency of ethanol production. The goal is to perfect an enzyme technology that makes celullosic ethanol -- a high octane, renewable fuel produced from the stalks and stems of plants -- easier to make and cheaper to buy.

Green Car Debut

Nissan Turns Over New Leaf, Unveils Electric Car

Get your motors running, electric car devotees: Nissan on Sunday unveiled its first all-electric car, the Leaf, according to a report in Grist from Agence France-Presse. Nissan's mid-sized hatchback is slated to go on sale in late 2010 in Japan, the United States, and Europe, the Grist story says.

Nissan hopes the pure electric vehicle will "lead the way to a zero-emission future" and attract hordes of eco-conscious buyers, many of whom long for an affordable car that is greener than today's hybrids. The Leaf can travel more than 100 miles on a single charge, with a top speed of 87 miles per hour, Nissan said. Company executives, who held a press conference about the car at Nissan headquarters in Japan, did not give a list price for the Leaf, but said it would cost about the same as a comparable gas-powered model.

Herd Horrors

Wyoming’s National Elk Refuge on Ten Most Imperiled List

A grim future is predicted for the 25,000-acre National Elk Refuge in Wyoming unless the sprawling home to elk and bison gets an infusion of new policies and resources, according to a new report from the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The group ranks the wildlife sanctuary -- which has one of the largest concentrations of elk in the world -- as one of America's Ten Most Imperiled Refuges.

The refuge was established in 1912 in the wilderness south of Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks in an effort to resuscitate elk herds, which had faced mass starvation after bitterly cold winters and human encroachment, PEER notes. The results have not been good.

PLANNING IN THE WEST CONFERENCE, JUNE 17-18 IN BOISE

Adjusted Development: Saving the World with Sustainable Growth

Why should towns in the West change the way they grow? And why should planners design healthier, greener communities?

Because if they don’t, they’ll suffer and fail.

Dire as that answer sounds, it's sparked something worth celebrating: a planning revolution and a move to sustainability across the West, according to land-use and green planning expert Christopher Duerksen.

The Fire This Time

Firefighting Needs Major Overhaul, Study Shows

Wildfire prevention efforts should focus far more on homeowners and key ecosystems -- and far less on random fires deep in the wilderness, according to a new study by the University of Montana, University of Colorado and Colorado State University.

The study -- which calls for an overhaul of the National Fire Plan --takes a hard look at federal efforts to prevent wildfires that are increasingly scorching the West and threatening homes near forests and wilderness. Only 11 percent of National Fire Plan wildfire-mitigation efforts in the last five years have occurred near people’s homes or offices, where it's critically needed, the researchers conclude.

Factory Farming’s Long Reach

The impact of factory farming upon the American land and native biodiversity is seldom discussed, but animal protein production has a significant impact upon the Nation’s land and water. The direct environmental problems like air or water pollution associated with large factory farming operations may be clear, but less obvious are the environmental impacts associated with the agricultural production of feed crops and other consequences associated with large factory farming operations.