Following the Carbon Cash in Colorado
by A. Adam Glenn
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner
When Boulder, Colo., voters passed the nation's first municipal "carbon tax" last fall, it was an engraved invitation for me and my partner Amy Gahran at citizen journalism outfit I, Reporter. As long-time veteran environmental journalists with years of online experience, we've been on the look-out for ways to explore participatory journalism's potential on a tough eco-issue like global warming, with a local focus on a story that has national and international implications.
Then the Knight Foundation gave us our opportunity last May by funding our plan to build and launch our Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker citizen journalism web site. Since then, we've plunged ahead, learning as we go about what it takes to involve local citizens in such a complex, slow-breaking, but crucially important story.
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