A successful program that helps low-income households weatherize homes and lower energy bills is setting its sights on improving the health outcomes of children and older Coloradans at risk of indoor and outdoor air pollution.

Ashley Feiertag, director of residential programs for Energy Outreach Colorado, spearheaded its Healthy Homes program, which recently won a $1-million dollar grant. She said the goal is to remove barriers for vulnerable households to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, improve indoor air quality, and reduce unsafe exposure to pollutants.

"In doing this we will help alleviate future health-care costs," she said. "We're also getting people signed up for community solar gardens. Those community solar credits help offset their utility bill."

Healthy Homes was one of three recipients of the ICLEI USA Action Fund, made possible through funding from Google, which aims to support innovative urban-based efforts to accelerate climate action through projects that are data-driven, highly replicable and impactful.

Feiertag said participating households will receive a thorough inspection of their home's energy efficiency, and experts will identify any sources of air pollution that can contribute to respiratory and other illness. In addition to adding harmful particulates to indoor air, appliances fueled by natural gas - including water heaters, furnaces, stoves and dryers - also contribute to climate pollution.

"So we're looking at replacing those with heat pump water heaters, air-sourced heat pumps, mini-split systems, induction stoves and electric dryers," Feiertag said.

Healthy homes has partnered with the City of Denver and area hospitals to identify those most in need of help. Feiertag hopes health-care providers will be able to write a prescription for these services for patients who are suffering from respiratory conditions, especially for families living in the shadow of highways, refineries and other persistent sources of air pollution.

"So if a person is experiencing asthma due to environmental factors, we will absolutely look at supplying them with a portable air cleaner," she said.

As wildfire seasons in Colorado and across the American West become longer, less predictable and increasingly destructive, a new report aims to provide an equitable roadmap for protecting communities, watersheds and wildlife.

Rob Addington, Colorado forest program director for The Nature Conservancy, said engagement with tribal nations, who have been successful stewards of lands for thousands of years, will be critical to address the scale of the challenge.

"Developing tribal partnerships and really looking to tribal knowledge, ecological knowledge that many of the tribes hold from their centuries in many cases of working with the land, working with fire," Addington outlined.

Addington pointed out the roadmap represents a paradigm shift in modern forest and wildfire management. After decades of fire prevention strategies, for example, experts said prescribed burns will be necessary to thin fuel supplies across thousands of acres of dry western lands. The report also called for advanced computer modeling and unmanned drones to improve early detection, help battle fires more effectively, and to reseed and restore scarred forests.

The roadmap, created by The Aspen Institute and The Nature Conservancy, compiled input from more than 250 experts in forest and fire management, federal, state, local, and Tribal Nation authorities, and the private sector, including the forest products and insurance industries.

Addington noted many of the report's recommendations are shovel-ready, due to recent public investments such as the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

"But what we need in parallel to complement that funding is this set of policy recommendations," Addington urged. "To really make best use of that funding, and have it hit the ground in the most efficient and effective way that we can."

Addington underscored building successful partnerships will be key for work that needs to happen in metropolitan areas and across tribal, federal, state and privately owned lands. The report also identified some potential roadblocks, and offered policy solutions requiring action from Congress, the executive branch, and partners like states, Tribal Nations, nonprofits, and industry.

Climate-change groups are calling attention to the environmental destruction linked to the wood pellet industry - even as California is considering a proposal to build two plants. The U.S. is the biggest wood pellet exporter in the world - mostly to Europe.

Laura Haight, U.S. policy director for the Partnership for Policy Integrity, wants the European Union and the U.K. to change their policies.

"In Europe, they treat burning wood as renewable energy and heavily subsidize it. And they're importing massive quantities of wood pellets to fuel their power plants," she said. "And a lot of that is coming from the United States. That's where a lot of our forest destruction is happening. "

More than 100 groups recently wrote
to European Union leaders asking them to prohibit subsidies for wood that comes from living trees. Wood pellet companies claim they only use waste wood from logging or dead wood in the forest that fuels wildfire. But investigations have produced proof that companies have clear-cut forests in the southeastern U.S.

Haight added that burning wood for energy is terrible for the climate.

"There's a large release of carbon dioxide emissions into the air when you burn it. And at the same time, you're removing the tree that is helping us lock in our carbon and so you're both increasing emissions and reducing our capacity to store carbon," she said.

Two wood pellet plants -- the first of their kind in California -- are proposed for Lassen and Tuolumne counties. The plants would be built by Golden State Natural Resources, a public benefit corporation whose board members are local county officials.

Elly Pepper, deputy director of international wildlife conservation for the Natural Resources Defense Council, opposes the projects.

"It would be bad for the air, bad for the wildlife and lands, bad for the communities. And it would be basically California assenting to bioenergy as a renewable energy source when it's most definitely not," Pepper said.

The company did not respond to a request for comment but says on its website that the plants would quote "procure and process sustainably sourced excess forest vegetation into a pelletized renewable fuel source to replace the use of coal."

Thousands of lives are cut short every year because of air pollution from coal-fired power plants in Wyoming and across the United States, according to a new Sierra Club report.

Rob Joyce, energy organizer for the Wyoming chapter of the Sierra Club, said harmful toxins released from burning coal have been linked to a number of health issues, including increased asthma attacks and acute bronchitis, and in severe cases can contribute to an increase in heart attacks and premature deaths over time.

"The report also shows that while those living closest to the coal plants typically bear the worst impacts, once those pollutants are in the air they can travel long distances, and impact communities hundreds of miles away," Joyce explained.

Researchers found pollution from America's coal-fired power plants is responsible for 3,800 premature deaths a year.

The report listed PacifiCorp's Jim Bridger facility, operating since the 1970s in southwest Wyoming, as among the nation's most deadly. PacifiCorp has said it will continue operating two of the site's four units at lower capacities to reduce pollution levels, until they are converted to natural gas as early as this year. The other two units will go offline in 2037.

Joyce acknowledged while the transition away from coal-fired electricity will be good for public health, it added economic uncertainty to communities and state agencies deeply tied to the old fossil fuel economy.

"We need to be creative in our approach to prepare for these changes so that families can sustain themselves," Joyce stated. "And also so that the land, water and wildlife that everyone in Wyoming really values can continue to be enjoyed by everyone."

Just 18% of premature deaths from coal occur in the state where the power plants are located, and Wyoming is among the nation's top five exporters of coal-fired air pollution. Joyce added the report exposes just how dangerous the continued use of coal is for communities, public health and the climate crisis.

"The bottom line is that a transition to clean, renewable energy is not only good for combating climate change, but it will also immediately improve public health and save lives," Joyce contended.