Jason Plautz

Kids are growing up in a world defined by climate change, and they're rightly scared for their future. How can parents, teachers and doctors educate them to stay positive, even while acknowledging that their anxiety is real?

The town of Windsor, CO was rocked when a fracking site exploded one December night, and the reverberations of the blast are still being felt in a debate over how close oil and gas operations should be to where people live, work and play. Interviews with workers, first responders and experts paint a picture of what happened that night, and how close Windsor was to catastrophe. Written with Dan Glick of The Story Group. 

Colorado's North Fork Valley has moved past its dependence on coal to build an artsy, outdoors-focused community rich with organic fruit and wine. Could the Trump administration's "energy dominance" agenda put that at risk?

Denver has more than 600 cannabis growing facilities within city limits. Scientists know they're sending off ozone-forming emissions, but restrictions on marijuana research mean they don't know how much. I look at how researchers have found off-beat ways to study the plants. 

La Plata County sits under the nation's highest concentration of methane, thanks to oil and gas drilling. But after one county commissioner went to Washington to fight for federal rules to stop the pollution, she could get voted out of office. 

After decades of economic decline, Pueblo, CO decided the solution was to bring back a position most cities take for granted: the mayor. Read why Pueblo thought a mayor could change their fortunes and what it takes to completely reshape a city government. 

You probably haven't heard of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, but its work reviewing the current science on air pollution guides the EPA's regulations that could save millions of lives. For Reveal, I investigated the Trump-appointed chair, who has questioned the very link between pollution and human health. 

The federal government is dropping the ball on the 2020 Census. Can cities fill the gap?

Community groups, environmental justice advocates and regular people concerned about pollution are embracing low-cost sensors that can give more localized information about air quality. 

I co-hosted KGNU's science show, How On Earth, with Susan Moran, about air pollution both on the Front Range and abroad. Our guests were Beth Gardiner, author of "Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution," and Frank Flocke, an atmospheric scientist at NCAR.

The only way to make a city truly accessible to disabled users is to make sure sidewalks are clean, clear and in good repair. Here's how some cities, startups and academics are gathering the data to make that happen. 

The farm of the future is tucked in a shipping container, where the animals are fed on baby carrots and spent brewing grains and kept hydrated with spray bottles of water. I profiled Colorado's first insect farm for Undark. Segment starts at 26:20. 

Grand Junction felt the recession harder and longer than most cities. Officials saw a way to capture a new identity by recruiting the federal Bureau of Land Management to move its headquarters from DC to Grand Junction (which happened just a week after this story ran). What would bringin in bureaucrats do for Grand Junction's identity...and what would it do to the BLM's mission?

Ammonia -- a notoriously hard-to-measure gas -- has been poorly understood. But new tools are helping scientists puzzle through its role in creating toxic smog in cities around the world. 

Areas like Grand Junction, CO are losing their reputation for crisp, clean air and healthy mountain lifestyles. The gas boom is part of the problem, so some citizen scientists are fighting back with a distinctly data-driven approach. 

Despite the size of the industry, outdoorsmen aren't known for their unity or their political prowess. But that's changing under the Trump administration. 

Louisiana's coastline is eroding rapidly, but who should fix it? A lawsuit that would force oil companies to pay offers one solution, if the state legislature doesn't change the law to block it. 

Can't visualize how bad Denver's summertime ozone is? These flowers might help. 

The government used to regulate noise as a pollutant, but stopped under the Reagan administration. Now neighborhoods dealing with deafening airplanes are reviving that debate

The first part of my investigation into what was going wrong at the Chemical Safety Agency. My reporting helped lead to the removal of senior management at the agency. 

Markwayne Mullin has gone from MMA fighter to Congress -- now he's in the middle of a debate over how to protect fighters outside of the octagon. 

Amid attention from Washington on player health issues, the NFL is donating more than ever to the legislators overseeing the league.

Anyone can get fantasy football tips from Matthew Berry. I went to former Congressman Barney Frank. 

I dove headfirst into the world of insect cuisine, complete with cricket salad, grasshopper tacos and a mealworm breakfast pie. 

A dispatch from the 2015 spending bill debate. A debate over the confederate flag stopped the appropriations process in its tracks in the summer, then completely vanished months later. 

I reported from Brazil in 2014 as part of the International Reporting Project. Here's one dispatch on how an extended drought was feeding climate change, which in turn was feeding the drought. 

It's a great app that could connect people to the politicians representing them. So why is it all about chemtrails?

Brazil promised the world the greenest games when it won the 2016 Summer Olympics bid. I looked at why that's just not possible.