In Colorado, buying clean, renewable wind power is the most important environmental decision you can make. If you want to do one cheap, easy, convenient thing for the environment, spend a few dimes each day on wind power.

Spending $10 a month on wind power is like planting two acres of trees-or not driving 10,000 miles in a typical car. It will also counterbalance a family's CO2 emissions by about 25%.

"Buying wind power is quick and easy," says CORE Director Randy Udall. "If you want a better future for your kids, buy wind power today."

Olivia Emery is a Carbondale mother, architect, and gardener. She's also one of 20,000 Coloradans who purchase electricity from Colorado wind farms. Over 1,500 of these "wind power pioneers" live in the Roaring Fork Valley. By buying $5 of wind power each month-17 cents a day-Olivia Emery's family is keeping 4,800 pounds of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, out of the air each year. According to the EPA, that's like not driving 4,800 miles-or planting one acre of trees.

The Wind Power Pioneers program is a cooperative effort between nonprofit energy groups like CORE and the state's utilities. Since the program's beginning six years ago, it has quickly become one of the largest of its kind in the world. Consumer response has been "fantastic," says Bob Gardner of Holy Cross Energy.  Interested Holy Cross Energy customers should call Steve Casey at 970-947-5491.

Indeed, Holy Cross is now buying more wind power than any of the nation's other 929 rural electric utilities. Aspen Municipal Electric and Glenwood Springs Electric System are also purchasing wind energy, and both now rank in the top five of the nation's 2,000 municipal utilities.

Thanks to Olivia and others like her, $60 million worth of wind turbines have been installed at two wind farms in eastern Colorado. Gleaming white towers rise above the green prairie, while antelope and bison graze in the distance. Forty meter-long blades spin in the breeze, harvesting renewable energy that will still be here long after our oil and natural gas are exhausted.

What's happening in Colorado is part of a larger global trend. Wind power was the world's fastest growing energy source last year, expanding 26%. The American Wind Energy Association predicts that 40,000 Megawatts of wind power will be on line in the first decade of the 21st century.

This growth is being spurred by advances in technology and concern about climate change. In Colorado, where 90% of our electricity comes from burning coal, a single wind turbine can keep 3,000,000 pounds of coal in the ground-and 6,000,000 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere each year. Anyone in the country can purchase wind power by buying green tags of windpower from Native Energy. Learn about Native Energy

Go to our Ten Reasons to Buy Windpower page!!