For those of us who live in Denver, gazing deep into the night skies with the naked eye reveals a smattering of the brightest stars, the occasional planet and, of course, the moon.
But thanks to the drowning glare of the metropolitan area’s artificial light, it’s a far cry from the stunning expanse of the Milky Way visible from the darker pockets of Colorado.
As the state’s urban areas continue to expand, there’s a growing push in more rural parts of Colorado to preserve those dark skies — including a bid to designate the 3,000-square-mile Sangre de Cristo Dark Sky Reserve in the San Juan Valley. It would be the largest certified dark-sky zone in the world.
In today’s Denver Post, environment reporter Bruce Finley takes stock of these efforts to tamp down on artificial light and dampen the impact of the state’s growing urban centers.
In the further-flung parts of the state, that means preserving those starry night vistas through efforts to gain approval from Arizona-based International Dark-Sky Association, which guides communities through lighting overhauls and needed measurements to verify darkness.
And in Denver, it’s an acknowledgement that light pollution has grown significantly worse in recent years, including through the replacement of thousands of city streetlights with brighter LED bulbs. Advocates are drafting legislation that would set tougher standards in building codes for protecting dark skies.
“We talk about conserving our land, water and air,” Crestone Mayor Kairina Danforth tells The Denver Post. “So why don’t we add more protections for our dark skies?”
— Matt Sebastian, Managing Editor, The Denver Post
In rural Colorado, a growing push to preserve dark skies as artificial light spills out of cities
Five don’t-miss stories from last week
Metro Denver housing market running out of gas, economists tell agents
Metro Denver’s housing market defied the odds last year, shattering one record after the other. But two economists warned an online gathering of local Realtors that the surge won’t continue and to temper their expectations for 2021.
“I have a little bit of bad news. The months of 2020, from August to December — that is as good as it gets. It won’t get better. It is over,” Elliot Eisenberg, also known as the “Bowtie Economist,” told the Denver Metro Association of Realtors’ Economic Summit during a Zoom call Friday.
Eisenberg compared the Denver-area housing market to a driver who was going 65 mph heading into the pandemic, slammed the brakes and slowed down to 25 mph during the lockdown and then accelerated hard, reaching 90 mph until the engine couldn’t go any faster. Read More…
Lauren Boebert’s first week in Congress lives up to her controversial campaign promises
It’s been a little over a week since Colorado Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert was sworn into Congress. In that time, she has received a warning from the police chief in Washington, D.C., for appearing to violate the city’s gun laws, used her first floor speech to cast doubt on the 2020 election, voted to overturn the results of that election, falsely claimed rioters at the U.S. Capitol were not conservatives, saw protests at all of her Colorado offices and was censored by Twitter for falsely accusing the Democratic National Committee of rigging elections.
But that’s not all: A Republican colleague criticized her for tweeting during the Capitol riot. A South Carolina GOP representative reportedly called her a QAnon conspiracy theorist. A Democratic colleague from Colorado publicly called her a fool. A dozen members of Colorado’s legislature said she should resign.
And, on Tuesday night, she refused to let Capitol Police search her bag for a gun after setting off a metal detector at the entrance to House chambers. The metal detectors, she said, are a “political stunt” by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Von Miller under criminal investigation by Parker police
Police in Parker have launched a criminal investigation of Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller.
“The case is currently under investigation, and no information can be released at this time,” said Josh Hans, a Parker police spokesman, in an email.
If investigators determine that a crime has been committed, a case will be presented to the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office for review, Hans said. Read More…
Launch of Colorado’s new unemployment system bumpy, but 43K able to request payments
Tens of millions of dollars and years in the making, Colorado’s new unemployment system, MyUI+, launched Sunday morning with some success but also a lot of confusion among users.
The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment announced that by midday Monday more than 100,000 people had accessed the new claims system and more than 43,000 had put in their first request for payments.
Still, some people reported trouble while trying to create a new password and login, especially those with AOL and Yahoo email accounts. And many people who are not eligible to file for claims misunderstood directions that they needed to wait and became frustrated by payment denials. Read More…
Trump impeached a second time on charge of “incitement of insurrection”
President Donald Trump has become the first American president to be impeached twice, facing a strong bipartisan rebuke from the House exactly one week after a violent mob of his supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol.
The House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump, with 10 Republicans joining with Democrats to charge him with incitement of insurrection. Read More…
Photo of the week
See more great photos like this on The Denver Post’s Instagram account.
