Chinese dominance in Rare Earth Elements (REE) is setting Washington on a mission worldwide to secure alternative sources. As REE becomes the oil of the 21st century, the strategic imperative seems to have left Colorado’s potential behind. This article asks if exploitation under environmental protection oversight at home would be the sound choice.

Recording of Daryl Wallace’s talk introducing Papua New Guinea at 50 years since independence from Australia. Covers history, geopolitics and economy.

Analysis: UNA members who care about multilateralism can see the gap between the scale of the problem and the strength of the tools on offer. Here is a balanced look at where the Secretary-General's stance is strong, where it strains against political and structural reality, and the questions our chapter should be asking as this process moves ahead.

Scientists — including a Boulder-based NSF NCAR researcher — retired the extreme RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5 "worst-case" climate scenario in new CMIP7 projections because real-world emissions never matched its doomsday assumptions, lowering the plausible worst-case warming from ~4.5°C to ~3.5°C by 2100. This is a sign that climate policy and cheaper renewables are working, not that climate change was overstated — the UN and WMO continue to warn of "climate chaos" and a 75% chance of temporarily exceeding 1.5°C sometime in 2026-2030.

Model United Nations (MUN) is an educational activity where students role-play as country delegates, debating real global issues and practicing diplomacy, public speaking, and negotiation skills, just like at the actual UN.

It helps kids build confidence, research and critical thinking abilities, and a broader understanding of world affairs—skills valuable for school, college applications, and beyond.

To start a MUN, form an organizing team, pick relevant global issues/committees, invite schools or participants, and prepare background guides and rules of procedure well in advance.

To run it smoothly, train chairs and delegates on debate rules, keep sessions structured with clear agendas and time limits, and ensure fair moderation to keep discussions engaging and productive.

It's easy to think of UN dues as money that leaves the country. The reality is closer to the opposite: U.S. investment in the United Nations is one of the most cost-effective tools in the American foreign policy toolkit, because it leverages resources from 192 other member states to advance goals the United States would otherwise have to fund - and staff, and defend - entirely on its own…

Critics sometimes frame the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as distant, aspirational, or irrelevant to American communities. In practice, the 17 SDGs function more like guiding stones or a shared compass for measuring progress on poverty, health, education, clean water, gender equality, and economic opportunity, and that compass points just as usefully at Boulder, Denver, and Pueblo…

Here's where the abstract case for the UN becomes concrete for our members. These figures (based on 2024 data) show that U.S. investment in the UN isn't a one-way transfer - it circulates back into American, and specifically Colorado, communities and businesses…

The presentation will cover space weather storms and detail the global risk of impactful events. The talk will detail how the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) provides decision support to critical technological infrastructure operators, government leadership, and emergency response staff when warranted.