Feature Stories from Pinnacle
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Killing for Coal
A journey into the tumultuous energy history of the West
Look at present-day Colorado and it is almost impossible not to note some of the far-reaching impacts of fossil-fuel production and consumption on our state. Automobiles, highways, gas stations, the refineries of Commerce City—all attest to petroleum's centrality in our daily lives. Flip a light switch, watch coal trains haul their dusty black cargo from mine to power plant, boot up your computer and behold our dependence upon the coal seams buried underneath the Rockies' flanks.
Coloradans may once have enjoyed the luxury of overlooking the manifold ways in which fossil fuels shape our world. But our complacence has been eroded in recent decades by urban air pollution, periodic energy crises and a host of other environmental and economic troubles.
Written by Thomas Andrews. Andrews’ book, Killing for Coal, was chosen for the 2009 Bancroft Prize by Columbia University, one of the most coveted honors in the field of history. Andrews’ work has also been featured in The New York Times and The Denver Post.
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Michael Greene
Applying the mechanics of ant colonies to modern engineering and science
Few would envy a day in the life of Professor Michael Greene. In the summer, he rises at 4 a.m., slips on latex gloves and head-to-toe protective clothing, and heads out to a 120-degree swath of parched earth in the Arizona desert to spend the day playing voyeur to a colony of venomous red harvester ants. During the school year, when he isn’t teaching, he scours campus sidewalks for pavement ants and takes them back to his lab where he and his graduate students stage wars between enemy colonies.
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A CLAS Act
It was the winter of 1972. The Vietnam War raged. President Richard M. Nixon became the first
American president to visit the People’s Republic of China. Don McLean’s "American Pie" topped the
charts. In a former trolley-car barn in downtown Denver—the Denver Tramway Company Building—trouble brewed among the high-spirited faculty, staff and students of University of Colorado Denver Center.
Read more about the history of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences