In The NoCo

It’s a presidential election year. And in the months leading up to November 5, 2024, we’re focusing our coverage around the issues people in our community, including younger voters, say they care about most. 

To better understand what's most important to college students and other young voters, we're working with student reporters at Front Range Community College. Isabel Delgado and Julian Hanes write for the student newspaper The Front Page and FRCC's podcast Up Front. They joined In The NoCo's Erin O'Toole to share what they’re hearing about the election from their fellow students.

Voters are the heart of any election – and KUNC wants to know what you think candidates should be talking about this year. You can help shape our newsroom's coverage by sharing your hopes, priorities, and concerns with the election team. Visit our website to take a quick survey.

Tourists choose to take vacations in Colorado for numerous reasons – like our breathtaking mountains and the chance to hurtle down them on skis or snowboards. There's lots of hiking, fishing, whitewater rafting – even cannabis tourism. But what about wolf-watching?

Since ten wolves from Oregon were released on the Western Slope last December, there's been plenty of interest in them. Ranchers, for instance, want to know how the wolves will threaten their livestock. Many other people are simply curious and want to catch a glimpse of the predators.

There's a Colorado Parks and Wildlife map that tracks the collared wolves based on GPS data. A Facebook group that was started to share sightings and keep tabs on the wolves now has thousands of members. And a recent sighting on a lonely road near Kremmling spawned a surge in traffic. Could these be signs that wolves might eventually become a tourist attraction here?

KUNC investigative reporter Scott Franz has been looking into that prospect. He joined host Erin O'Toole to share what he's learned.

We're closing out this week by commemorating National Poetry Month. And who better to celebrate with than Todd Simmons, founder and director of Wolverine Farm Publishing in Fort Collins? In 2002, Simmons left his job in the field of social science to focus full-time on literature and poetry. 

"I think creative expression, and the ability to communicate and give voice, is something that people are innately drawn to do," Simmons said. "I've always worked out moments of doubt through writing, and through giving voice to my thoughts and emotions."

Simmons believes anyone can develop an appreciation for poetry, and that it's especially important in the early educational years to get books of poems into the hands of children. He sat down with In The NoCo's Erin O'Toole to share why he devoted his life to bringing a love of poetry and literature to Northern Colorado.

Wolverine Farm is in the process of selecting the next Fort Collins Poet Laureate! You can vote in person through Monday, April 29.

We put out a call to our listeners at the beginning of April for submissions of eight-word poems. You can read and listen to those poems in the bonus content section at our website, KUNC.org.

As human interaction with our planet has evolved over time, so has the human emotional experience of living on Earth. Perhaps it’s no surprise that, as we become more aware of the climate crisis affecting the planet, our emotions tend toward cynicism and sadness. 

Charlotte Lin, the sustainability coordinator for the mountain town of Avon, thinks hope should be part of the emotional equation, too - especially if it inspires action. “Knowledge alone is really not enough,” she said. “We need to address that sort of inner awareness and who you are inside with regards to this topic.”

Last week, Lin helped Eagle County organize a Climate Action Week, capped off with a book club event she led. They discussed the book Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience and Creative Power by Joanna Macy and Christopher Johnstone. Lin joined In the NoCo's Erin O'Toole the day after the book club had met – which happened to be Earth Day – to talk about how she found herself a champion of climate hope.

Anxiety about climate change is hitting the youngest of us hard. And if you’re too young to vote, it may feel like there’s nothing you can do to change what your future looks like. But students in the Boulder Valley School District proved otherwise this past school year. A group of high school students successfully campaigned for the school board to adopt the Green New Deal for Schools resolution - a policy demanded by the Sunrise Movement. 

The youth-led climate activism organization held a summer camp in 2023 that helped inspire two Fairview high school students to advocate for the resolution. Twins Emma and Molly Weber said they felt empowered by coming together with peers from across the nation and learning how to take a stand.

“We have our whole lives in front of us,” said Emma Weber. “But a lot of times the things that we want to do in our dreams are being destroyed by this issue that is devastating so many different aspects of our lives.”

After eight months of campaigning, Boulder Valley became the first school district in the nation to adopt the climate resolution. 

In the NoCo’s Erin O’Toole spoke with both Molly and Emma Weber about what the experience was like.

If this conversation was of interest to you, check out this interview with youth activist, Madhvi Chittoor. She advocated for a statewide ban on styrofoam takeout containers that became law in 2024. . 

Longmont author and journalist Stephen Robert Miller is fascinated by climate disaster stories. He says they’re often teachable moments.

“There’s so much to be learned from looking in the past — environmental histories and histories of instances of when people have tried to control nature and ultimately it's failed,” Miller said.

In his new book, “Over the Seawall,” Miller examines the deeper impacts of some of these failures. He investigates how governments and people are using infrastructure to slow or stop the effects or the symptoms of climate change – giant concrete barriers in Japan meant to stop tsunamis, for example, or dams and canals in Arizona meant to make a desert move-in ready for lots of people. Government policies created to manage the Colorado River and distribute water among its unquenchable stakeholders are another example. 

In other words, Miller says people are keen to adapt and that seems great, “but it can also be tricky if it causes us to rush into rash decisions,” he said. Simple measures that work with nature, not against it, are often more successful in the long run.

Miller joined In The NoCo to discuss the book, and some of humanity’s attempts to adapt to climate change that have not gone according to plan. We're listening back to the conversation as we commemorate Earth Week.

NOTE: This is an encore of our episode from Dec. 8, 2023.

While Colorado is known for having breweries on every corner, there's a new trend in town: cocktails - without the alcohol. The popularity of non-alcoholic drinks is soaring – especially among young adults – and more bars and restaurants are starting to feature creative mocktails on their menus. 

Currently, Colorado has only a few completely sober spaces where alcohol isn't served at all. But some mixologists are hoping to change that. KUNC reporter and host Emma VandenEinde visited some of these spaces and talked with mixologists who are focused on making exciting and delicious non-alcoholic drinks. She spoke with host Erin O'Toole about how this trend is shaking up the nightlife for the sober and sober-curious.

You can learn more about the sober space that mixologist Han Cassera hopes to open this fall in Loveland at his GoFundMe page.

Colorado is one of the healthiest states in the nation when it comes to physical fitness. Perhaps that’s no surprise given how much there is to do in the outdoors. But when it comes to mental health, Colorado ranks in the bottom half of states, according to a 2023 report by Mental Health America. While there are a few reasons for this poor ranking, we’re going to zoom in on one factor that has to do with the culture of mountain resort life, and how it affects the people living and working there - alcohol and drug misuse. 

Eric Turner is one such resident who was surprised to find himself sucked into a culture of heavy substance use. “I thought that the focus would be more on physical health and emotional well being,” said Turner. He came to Colorado with the goal of “getting out in nature and focusing on those aspects and not so much, you know, hiking to the top of a mountain and pulling out a bottle.”

Today, Turner is sober and works as a certified addiction technician and founder of Rock to Recover, a non-profit organization that hosts sober music events. Turner was featured by journalist Ryan Spencer in a Summit Daily News story that investigated the drug and alcohol epidemic plaguing the mountain communities of Colorado. This story is part of a larger series by the publication called The Longevity Project.

Host Erin O’Toole sat down with Turner and Spencer to talk about the issue of substance misuse and why it's so prevalent in mountain communities. 

Today we’re listening back to a conversation with aquaponic chicken farmer Sean Short of Blooming Health Farms, located in Greeley, Colorado. And just what is aquaponic chicken farming? 

Short says the farm uses aquaponics, “a fancy way of saying that we have some fish, and we use the fish water to grow plants.” In other words, aquaponics combines fish farming with hydroponics. Short is also using that fish water to grow chicken feed. He said that system helps him clean up wastewater from the messy process of producing the feed. All of this is connected to Short’s organic egg production to make some “really yummy eggs,” he said.

Beyond agricultural sustainability — hydroponic farming conserves water and land, and reduces pesticide use — what is also notable about Farmer Sean’s operation is the people involved. He is bringing at-risk kids into the fold and helping them to learn new skills and carve paths away from the criminal justice system. And one of the ways he engages youth’s passions is to talk like them. 

A career in journalism wasn’t the plan for NPR’s Lori Lizarraga – at least, not until the day she found herself in the wrong classroom at Southern Methodist University. Lizarraga says she “stepped into Narnia” when she walked into the studio where journalism students were broadcasting the school’s daily newscast. 

The Latina journalist has been telling stories ever since – and a lot of that work as co-host of NPR's Code Switch is informed by her cultural identity. To wrap up our spring membership drive, we're listening back to our conversation with Lizarraga about how race, culture, and lived experience are inextricably woven into the fabric of her work.

NOTE: This is an encore of our podcast from Oct. 13, 2023. You can listen to an extended version of her conversation with host Erin O'Toole here.