About the Campaign
WHAT is Cool Boulder?
Cool Boulder is a city-sponsored initiative to create nature-based climate action in collaboration with community members and partners. Cool Boulder aims to enhance the ecological health and resilience of local ecosystems—primarily urban—to protect and improve health and safety in all communities across Boulder, especially those facing disproportionate impact due to their race, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, immigration status, ability, religion, nationality, age, size, gender expression and identity, and sexual orientation.
We strive to do so in ways that prepare communities to survive and thrive through anticipated disruptive changes caused by climate change, socioeconomic injustices that unfairly leave many ill-prepared, and the interaction of other threats impacting the ecological health of our communities.
Cool Boulder represents a powerful combination of implementing innovative climate solutions paired with community mobilization through education and action. In order to prepare Boulder for the local effects of climate change, we need to act fast and work together to create holistic change. Join us to:
Implement nature-based climate solutions that are backed by scientific research.
Build a movement of hope, resilience, stewardship, and restoration that both addresses climate change and empowers communities and individuals.
The Role of Science:
It’s important to recognize that the emerging field of “nature-based climate solutions” is just catching-up with Indigenous Knowledge & Traditional Ecological Knowledge that has been active for millennia and passed down through generations. Institutional research is now showing that nature-based climate actions result in numerous related and interconnected benefits, which build off each other to restore our ecosystems and their ability to regulate climate.
Nature-based solutions are being implemented more and more through international environmental frameworks and national and regional climate action plans, in addition to cities and community groups — where most of the on the ground action must occur.
Cool Boulder seeks out partnerships with organizations and groups that have been leaders in nature-based climate action, such as those protecting and expanding our urban tree canopy, planting biodiverse habitats in urban areas to create refuges for key native species like pollinators, and rebuilding the health of our soils to capture and hold more carbon, water and nutrients in our landscapes. We support and uplift these partners’ efforts to restore the health and strength of our landscapes, ecosystems and local biodiversity, while connecting them with community members who want to get involved by learning and taking action! In doing so, Cool Boulder acts as a bridge between emerging, nature-based climate science and engaged community members.
The Cool Boulder Team is also working with researchers to develop critical baseline data, tools, resources and methods to enhance our understanding of current environmental conditions, our present levels of risk and resilience, modeled future climate scenarios, and more.
The Role of the Community:
This work cannot be truly successful without the support and involvement of community members, who will be essential to implementing action on the ground. Improving our communities’ climate resilience requires everyone - at every level of expertise, knowledge and experience - to get involved and fill different roles. Governments, non-profits and organizations can provide support, knowledge, guidance and opportunities for action, but the scale of change required will not be possible without the commitment of thousands of engaged residents taking action at home, volunteering, sharing knowledge and spreading hope for a more resilient future.
Cool Boulder aims to pull it all together as a community – nature-based climate research, leaders and experts, individuals, students, families and more — all of us together. We encourage community members to connect with their neighbors and reflect on their communities’ preparedness for climate extremes, such as heat waves, flooding or fire. Knowing your neighbors, being a part of a community, and disaster preparation are key to building community resilience during the age of climate change.
WHO is Cool Boulder?
Cool Boulder consists of community members, retired scientists and professors, residents, experts and researchers, climate beginners, community activists, workers, partner organizations, employers, the youth and the elderly, City of Boulder staff, and YOU!
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The City of Boulder department of Climate Initiatives has five staff on the Natural Climate Solutions team. These staff members also represent the Cool Boulder Team, and fill coordinating and supportive roles for the Cool Boulder Campaign.
Though Cool Boulder is a city-sponsored initiative, collaboration and engagement with community members and partners is critical to the campaign. This means that Cool Boulder is made possible through the work of our partners and the involvement of community members.
Cool Boulder also collaborates with City of Boulder departments such as Parks and Recreation, Forestry, Open Space and Mountain Parks, Fire and more to advocate for aligning the city’s programs and projects around addressing climate change and protecting the living systems that sustain us.
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The Cool Boulder partners are an incredible network of local experts in nature-based climate solutions and groups working to implement solutions on the ground. We agree to work together to share information and ideas, to partner on resources where possible, and to co-create solutions with our community and our ecosystems. Cool Boulder partners are community leaders in climate action, landscape regeneration and community resilience — many of whom have been implementing solutions for a while!
Cool Boulder partners offer many ways to get involved, including volunteering opportunities, educational workshops and webinars, resources for taking action at home and more — learn more about the Cool Boulder partners, or visit our calendar to check out their events and opportunities!
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Cool Boulder is YOU TOO! We want to help grow and establish community leaders to build this movement from the bottom up. With the scale of work that is needed to prepare for the local effects of climate change, this cannot be a top-down movement — we need the leadership of engaged community members to help implement solutions!
Want to help out? There are many ways! You can learn and spread the word, you can volunteer for Cool Boulder and its partners, you can get trained as a Tree Tender or Pollinator Advocate, and more!
Visit our Get Involved page or our Calendar to find the opportunities that are right for you.
Cool Boulder Action Areas
Connected Canopies
To help reduce temperatures and expand access to the benefits of urban trees, Boulder needs major investments to both maintain the health of the existing tree canopy and plant thousands of additional trees, most of which will need to be located on private land.
This work builds on a recent regional strategy for urban forestry expansion. Initial partners include Boulder JCC, the City of Boulder’s Climate Initiatives Department and Parks & Recreation, Boulder Valley Rotary, Citizen Science Soil Health Project, Eco-Cycle, Eco-Warriors, and PLAY Boulder Foundation’s Tree Trust.
Pollinator Pathways
Pollinator Pathways are corridors of diverse plants that support cooling temperatures and foster biodiversity, especially for native pollinators. Creating and expanding an interconnected network of these corridors on both public and private land will provide important habitats and help manage carbon and water in ways that reduce the impacts of climate change.
This work has already begun in the Goss Grove neighborhood. Initial partners include the City of Boulder’s Climate Initiatives Department, Planning Department, Bee Chicas, Butterfly Pavilion, CSU Extension, Eco-Cycle, People and Pollinators Action Network, Resource Central, and the Xerces Society.
Absorbent Landscapes
Absorbent Landscapes hold more carbon, more water, and more thermal energy, helping to cool our city as well as prevent dangerous flooding that Boulder is prone to. This collaborative effort is focused on improving carbon sequestration, soil health, and water retention/management through regenerative agriculture, sustainable grasslands and turf management, and other actions in the landscaped areas within our City as well as in the working lands surrounding Boulder.
Initial partners include Boulder Housing Partners, the City of Boulder’s Climate Initiatives Department, Open Space and Mountain Parks, Planning Department, and Parks & Recreation, Drylands Agroecology Research, Eco-Cycle, Resource Central, Watershed Center, and Wildland Restoration Volunteers.