To the Editor:

While pointedly a Boulder bubble issue, the referendum to repeal an annexation agreement between CU and the City which allows the University to build another campus on a former riparian wetland/floodplain on the south end of town has ramifications beyond residents’ concerns about potential flooding and local traffic congestion and pollution. There are bigger issues at stake. Global warming, the extended drought across the West, and increasingly strong weather events are the direct result of our pumping long dormant fossil carbon into the atmosphere. Climate change is global, and the Earth is becoming far less accommodating of our life on it. Conserving water and reducing, not increasing, our natural gas use and overall carbon footprint are regularly ignored. The University of Colorado is a public institution and its governing Board of Regents is elected statewide. As a major rental developer in Boulder, it should be acting more for the overall public good rather than its narrow self interest. Such environmental consideration should be applied to development projects all along the Front Range.

RP