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Colorado's Lucrative Pot Industry Has Huge Energy Footprint
Resume![Brian Stern of Denver, Colorado looks over one of the LED grow lights sold by his company at the Cannabis Crown 2010 expo in Aspen, Colorado. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)](https://wordpress.wbur.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/0513_led-pot-1000x679.jpg)
The marijuana industry in Colorado brings in 100 million dollars a month and has created thousands of new jobs. But since the sale of recreational pot began two years ago, there's been an unintended consequence to growing marijuana indoors: it uses a large amount of electricity.
Denver is committed to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by half of its 2012 levels by 2020. To help meet that challenge, Emily Backus of Denver's Department of Environmental Health tells Here and Now's Meghna Chakrabarti what the city is doing to help marijuana growers reduce their electricity use.
Guest
- Emily Backus, sustainability adviser at Denver's Department of Environmental Health; co-chair of the Cannabis Sustainability Workgroup.
This segment aired on May 13, 2016.