Press and Media

OSCAR Newsroom

Welcome to Boulder County’s Office of Sustainability, Climate Action & Resilience (OSCAR) Newsroom, a source for the latest press releases and media coverage on the county’s sustainability, climate action, and resilience initiatives. Here, you’ll find up-to-date links to news and press clippings about OSCAR’s work, with the most recent 2024 updates featured at the top of the page. Press releases and media coverage from previous years can be found at the bottom of this page.

Recent Press Releases

Press releases issued in 2024.

In the News

Media coverage from 2024.

  • How Boulder is warming up to cold climate heat pumps – Boulder Reporting Lab
    • February 24, 2024 | Heat pump installations in Boulder County tripled in 2023 compared to 2022. With more Boulderites shifting away from gas heating, the question remains: Can current heat pump technology handle sub-zero cold snaps on the Front Range?
  • A big idea for small farms: How to link agriculture, nutrition and public health – NPR
    • February 3, 2024 | Sustainable farming gets a boost in this county — and gives a boost to customers. In Boulder, Colorado, the county is investing in sustainable farming and helping people buy local produce. It’s been called “a triple win” – for customers, farmers and the economy.
  • Fungi firefighters? A Boulder mushroom company’s solution to wildfires is quintessentially Colorado – KUNC
    • January 17, 2024 | “We believe by using fungi and biological solutions, we can help facilitate carbon sequestration, we can facilitate creating healthy soils, and do so in a way which is ecologically sound and sustainable,” said Zach Hedstrom of Boulder Mushroom. His company studies the benefits of mushrooms from their medicinal qualities to their surprising potential to, yes, prevent wildfires.
  • Boulder County awarded $4.9M for electric vehicle charging stations – 9News
    • January 13, 2024 | Boulder County plans to add about 100 electric vehicle charging stations in the next three years. The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded the money after a two-year effort to make it happen. The county will add public chargers in neighborhoods with lots of apartments and condos, rural areas and mobile home communities.
  • Biden Pours $623 Million into Electric Vehicle Charging Void – Scientific American
    • January 12, 2024 | America’s ability to charge future electric vehicles got a jolt Thursday as the Biden administration announced recipients of $623 million in infrastructure funds, with a focus on disadvantaged communities and freight trucks.
  • Hickenlooper, Bennet, Neguse Celebrate $13.8 Million to Build Out Colorado’s EV Charging Network – Office of Senator Hickenlooper
    • January 11, 2024 | Today, U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet and U.S. Representative Joe Neguse applauded a Department of Transportation announcement of $13.8 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding for electric vehicle and hydrogen refueling charging programs for Boulder County and Colorado State University, connecting the I-25 corridor from Fort Collins through Pueblo. These investments will help build a national EV charging network to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create jobs while making EVs more accessible to drivers.

Newsroom Archive

Press releases issued 2023-2022.

Press and media coverage 2023-2021

  • Photos: 2023 Boulder St. Vrain Watershed Art Contest Winners – FOX31
    • December 20, 2023 | Over 100 kindergarten through 12th-grade students in the Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley school districts prepared art pieces for the Boulder St. Vrain Watershed Art Contest this fall, and the winners were announced Wednesday.
  • Boulder County’s new solar co-op is ‘breaking all kinds’ of records, expands membership to 500 after surpassing goals – Boulder Reporting Lab
    • December 8, 2023 | Boulder County residents have another opportunity to join their neighbors to save big on rooftop solar. Already boasting 287 members of a 200-member goal, the co-op is now accepting up to 500 members through the end of the year.
  • Five Tech Innovations That Could Help Save the Planet – Newsweek
    • November 15, 2023 | From a paint that cools buildings to a new carbon capture process used by (among others) the rock band Coldplay, here’s the latest in climate innovation.
  • New pollution rules for major manufacturers weighed – Denver Post
    • September 20, 2023 | Colorado’s air-quality regulators will consider a plan for the state’s 18 largest manufacturers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s running into sharp criticism about a loophole that could allow companies to buy their way out of making cuts. “If we can’t stand up against some very powerful companies, how are we going to solve climate change?” said Collin Tomb, Boulder County’s climate and health strategist. “We need to show that we have courage.”
  • Local cannabis industry blazing towards carbon neutrality – Boulder Reporting Lab
    • September 13, 2023 | The Cannabis Conservancy and Boulder County started a program to reduce carbon emissions. A recent report shows these efforts are working … since its launch, 29% of cultivators in Boulder County have adopted energy-efficient practices and utilized renewable energy sources. In the Flow, an overachieving cannabis company, has reduced their emissions an impressive 70%.
  • Can mushrooms prevent megafires? – Washington Post
    • July 10, 2023 | Slash piles, resulting from forest thinning efforts in the American West to reduce the risk of megafires caused by fire suppression practices, are being targeted by foresters in Colorado who are using native fungi, known as mycelium, to accelerate decomposition and create organic soil, offering a cost-effective and environmentally friendly approach to mitigate wildfires and improve soil health.
  • A Supreme Court Ruling the Fossil-Fuel Industry Doesn’t Like – New Yorker
    • May 10, 2023 | Communities can now sue in state courts for compensation for the costs of climate change—something oil companies have fought against for years. The Supreme Court recently declined to review a petition from ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy to move a case from state to federal court. The results of the ruling could be significant.
  • Supreme Court Rejects Fossil Fuel Companies’ Petitions to Hear Appeals in Climate Lawsuits – Union of Concerned Scientists
    • April 24, 2023 | The Supreme Court today rejected ExxonMobil and Suncor’s petition to hear their appeal of the 10th Circuit’s decision that a case brought against them by the City of Boulder and Boulder County belongs in state court.
  • Colorado lawsuit over climate change sees movement after years of delays – 9News
    • March 17, 2023 |After years of delays, there’s finally some movement in a lawsuit against energy companies Suncor and Exxon Mobil. On Thursday, the Office of the Solicitor General recommended the lawsuit stay local in a state court, instead of being heard by the Supreme Court.
  • How Boulder County is pushing for Cleaner Concrete – KDVR
    • March 16, 2023 | The creation of concrete, which accounts for a significant portion of global carbon emissions, is being targeted for emissions reduction through innovative methods such as using calcium-rich waste materials and storing carbon dioxide within the concrete itself. Boulder County is spearheading the movement towards cleaner concrete, through partnership with CarbonBuilt to substitute cement in the concrete with calcium-rich waste material.
  • Boulder County awards more than $500,000 in Grants – Boulder Weekly and Local Today News
    • December 15, 2022 | Boulder County announced the recipients of its Climate Innovation Fund, awarding over $500,000 to five projects focusing on climate change solutions through nature-based approaches, carbon removal, and landscape restoration. The fund, supported by a sustainability tax initiative, aims to foster local innovation and strengthen Boulder County’s position as a hub for nature-based solutions.
  • Longmont Farm receives grant to expand carbon farming and regenerative practices – 9 News
    • December 9, 2022 | There’s not a single pile of dirt Mark Guttridge doesn’t appreciate…healthy topsoil has always been the foundation of Ollin Farms in Longmont…But each year, topsoil is disappearing across the globe. “There’s some scientist who have modeled we only have 60 or 70 harvest(s) before we’re out of topsoil,” said Guttridge. That’s why he’s a regenerative farmer. It means he “grows” new topsoil and sequesters carbon from being released into the atmosphere. “What regenerative farmers are really trying to do is just mimic those natural systems and find ways that we can restore the balance on the Earth,” he said. With a $90,000 climate innovation grant from Boulder County, Mark is researching how to most quickly build new topsoil.
  • To fund climate-friendly agriculture, farmers seek financial support from restaurants – Marketplace Morning Report
    • November 28, 2022 | This Subway contributes a 1% charge on its sales to support the regenerative farming fund Zero Foodprint. Tim Schiel is the owner of this Subway franchise and three others in Boulder. He signed onto Zero Foodprint because he grew up in farm country and said he understands that his livelihood depends on healthy soils.
  • Rebates encourage nearly half of those rebuilding after Marshall Fire to build more efficient homes – 9 News
    • October 11, 2022 | So far, Boulder County said, 41% of Marshall Fire survivors with permits to rebuild are rebuilding to high energy efficiency standards.
  • In a burned-down neighborhood, Coloradans call on Biden to declare climate emergency – Colorado Newsline
    • Aug 3, 2022 | Marshall Fire victims stood among still-empty Old Town Superior residential lots and urged leaders to declare a climate change emergency.
  • Using an “Equity Map” to respond to natural disasters – PBS
    • July 26, 2022 | When Collin Tomb was thinking about the Marshall Fire, she asked herself how her team at Boulder County’s Office of Sustainability, Climate Action and Resilience could make sure they weren’t missing people in the response. Immediately, she thought geographically. “I was thinking about the cities, and I was trying to picture in my mind ‘where might people get missed,’” Tomb said. “And I realized we actually have that tool.”
  • A push to rebuild better after the Marshall Fire – PBS
    • July 3, 2022 | Six months after Colorado’s most destructive wildfire, the scars are hard to miss in the City of Louisville, which is still in the early stages of rebuilding. Homes that didn’t stand a chance against climate change’s latest rude awakening — the Marshall Fire. “People lost everything … People lost their pets. People lost things that are not just things, but a collection of memories that they’ve made over a lifetime,” said Ashely Stolzmann, the mayor of Louisville about the Marshall Fire. “You really go through all the stages of grief, and people are grieving and hurting.”
  • Boulder, Flagstaff Asking Other Communities to Help Strip CO2 From the Air – The Weather Channel
    • June 22, 2022 | The Four Corners Carbon Removal Coalition aims to pool money and resources for high impact carbon dioxide removal, also known as CDR. One idea is to store it in concrete.
  • The importance of local government in making carbon removal a public service – The Hill
    • June 15, 2022 | I remain an optimistic person, despite having experienced the horrors of the climate crisis in my backyard. This winter, a climate change-fueled firestorm, the most destructive fire in Colorado history, tore through our community. The scars of the Marshall Fire are still fresh and our residents’ call for government climate action has never been louder.
  • Colorado, Arizona local governments partner on carbon removal technology – The Hill
    • May 18, 2022 | The local governments of Boulder County, Colo., and Flagstaff, Ariz., are recruiting other “climate-forward” jurisdictions in the Four Corners region of the West to scale up carbon removal technologies.
  • Why Boulder County and Flagstaff are enlisting cities to suck carbon out of the atmosphere – Grist
    • May 17, 2022 | Flagstaff and Boulder County are teaming up to form a coalition of local governments that will pool resources to fund CDR projects in the Four Corners region. By working together, Strife and Alatorre hope not only to help grow the carbon removal industry, but also to give local communities a say in the deployment of these projects, which can come with myriad tradeoffs and risks.
  • The most destructive fire in Colorado history: What I’ve been working my whole career to prevent – The Hill
    • January 14, 2022 | My little girls and I recently huddled around our bedroom window watching helplessly as smoke billowed and flames ravaged our neighboring communities. After months without any precipitation to saturate the dehydrated ground, a climate nightmare was coming true before our eyes — an uncontrollable urban firestorm propelled violently by hurricane-force winds.
  • Boulder sued Big Oil. The Marshall Fire reminds us why. – ExxonKnews
    • January 6, 2022 | Nearly four years after local governments filed suit, thousands in suburban Colorado rang in the new year as climate refugees, navigating the fallout of their lives in a disaster zone.
  • Climate crisis has cost Colorado billions – now it wants oil firms to pick up the bill – The Guardian
    • August 2, 2021 | Boulder County estimates it will cost taxpayers $100m over the next three decades just to adapt transport and drainage systems to the climate crisis, and reduce the risk from wildfires. The county government says the bill should be paid by those who drove the crisis – the oil companies that spent decades covering up and misrepresenting the warnings from climate scientists.
  • This Restaurant-Led Agriculture Effort Wants To Help Farmers And Ranchers Fight Climate Change – Colorado Public Radio
    • May 3, 2021 | David Pitula and Debbie Seaford-Pitula moved to Colorado from Brooklyn five years ago with dreams of living closer to the farms they worked with. The two said that part of that farm-restaurant relationship should be supporting farmers and ranchers in their efforts to reduce their carbon footprints. Agriculture emits more than 10 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gasses, and reducing that number is vital to addressing climate change.

Office of Sustainability, Climate Action and Resilience

OSCAR Team Members

Location

Boulder County Courthouse
First Floor
1325 Pearl St.
Boulder, CO 80302
Map and Directions

Hours: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Monday-Friday

Mailing Address

PO Box 471
Boulder, CO 80306