I’m a huge believer in land conservation.  I believe one of the best ways to protect our environment is to take wide swaths of land permanently out of circulation.  I was delighted to read an article Amy forwarded me from the New York Times today titled Deal Is Struck in Montana to Preserve Forest Areas.

The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land have put together a deal to pay $510 million to buy about 500 square miles of forest currently owned by Plum Creek Timber.  Half of the money will come from private donations; the other half will come from a new tax-credit bond mechanism that was recently passed.  I’m delighted our government is spending – via a tax-credit bond – $250 million on… Read more

Heresy makes you think.  Amy sent me an essay about heresy written by the great physicist and thinker Freeman Dyson titled Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society.  Following is the setup to what is a phenomenal essay.

“The main subject of this piece is the problem of climate change. This is a contentious subject, involving politics and economics as well as science. The science is inextricably mixed up with politics. Everyone agrees that the climate is changing, but there are violently diverging opinions about the causes of change, about the consequences of change, and about possible remedies. I am promoting a heretical opinion, the first of three heresies that I will discuss in this piece. My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I

My dad has gotten involved in a Dirty Coal plant issue in Texas.  The environmental issues are directly linked to the health care issues and – as usual – he’s direct, articulate, and deeply engaging about the issue.  Very cool Dad!  I knew you’d eventually become an environmental activist… Read more

The very first angel investment I made after I sold my first company was in a company called NetGenesis.  Will Herman and I were the initial seed investors; I was chairman of the company for the first couple of years.  Eric Richard was one of the co-founders and one of the technical brains behind the company.  Eric stayed actively involved with company for much longer than I did – through the IPO and then the ultimate sale to SPSS.

I haven’t seen Eric much over the last eight or so years, but we email periodically.  This morning, among other things, he pointed me to the first letter to the editor that he’s had published.  It’s a letter in his local paper (the Sudbury Town Crier) titled: Nobody cares about

Now – that’s a mission statement.  I’m on the board of the Colorado Conservation Trust and we had a board meeting last week.  CCT is one of the best organized non-profits I’ve ever had the privilege to be involved with and is unambiguous about its goal.  The mission statement says it all – “Conserve 2,000,000 Acres in the Next Decade – Let’s Get Going.” 

I’ve lived in Colorado for 10 years.  Part of the magic of this place is the mountains, the open space, and the wide stretches of undeveloped land.  Boulder benefits greatly from the city and county’s forward thinking conservation attitude from many years ago, resulting in a magnificent city in an environmentally protected setting.  None of this was by accident and I’ve tried to do my part in the last… Read more

I’m on the board of the Colorado Conservation Trust.  I think it’s currently the most impactful environmental conservation based organization in Colorado – I am so enthusiastic about it that I merged a non-profit environmental organization that I helped start – the Front Range Alliance – into CCT last year and joined the CCT board.  CCT is continuing the mission of the Front Range Alliance with the Front Range Mountain Backdrop initiative.

One of the really fun projects that CCT did last year (at the request of one of our major donors) was to hold a high school video essay contest.  The winner – 10th grader Michael Beggs of Boulder High School – produced a remarkable video titled “Grasslands”.  Second place was titled “Oil and Gas Development… Read more