Feature stories
Browse High Country News feature stories
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The Renewable Energy Landscape
Maps, charts and text locate the nation's major renewable energy resources and some big projects on Western public land.
by Terray Sylvester, Jun 29, 2009 -
Renewables: The Final Frontier
Vaclav Smil is a historian who exemplifies Vulcan-style logic and skepticism when it comes to easy solutions to energy problems.
by Randy Udall, Jun 26, 2009 -
From Pickups to PV
Utility brings solar power to far-flung Navajos
by Daniel Kraker, Jun 24, 2009 -
Thinking Past the Moment
The Sierra Club's Carl Zichella discusses the balancing act involved in finding the best -- and least environmentally sensitive -- places to put big renewable energy projects
by Sarah Gilman, Jun 22, 2009 -
And you think times are tough
The articles in old American Heritage magazines remind one that life in the West used to be much harder than it is.
by Jaime O’Neill , Jun 19, 2009 -
Growing Away from Big Coal
In Colorado and New Mexico, some rural electric cooperatives are quietly fighting to get more of their power from local and renewable sources.
by Susan Moran , Jun 19, 2009 -
Let's Get Small
Can 'hamster power' -- distributed generation and small-scale renewable energy projects -- save the West, and the world?
by Judith Lewis, Jun 15, 2009 -
Volunteers work to slow down kitten killing
If people would spay and neuter their pets, animal shelter volunteers would not have to euthanize kittens every spring.
by Alexa Mergen, Jun 11, 2009 -
Rebooting Urban Watersheds
In California, grassroots activists work to restore damaged East Bay waterways and the impoverished communities that surround them.
by Jeremy Miller, Jun 07, 2009 -
Voyage of the Dammed
A small band of enthusiasts wants to re-engineer Western waterways with the help of a humble, hardworking professional: the beaver.
by Kevin Taylor, Jun 01, 2009 -
The Rise of the Minotaur
Bull riding explodes from its rural Western roots to become a modern spectacle along the lines of NASCAR.
by Craig Childs, May 18, 2009 -
High Noon
Environmentalists are arguing passionately over large-scale solar development on California's Mojave Desert.
by Judith Lewis , May 11, 2009 -
Salmon Salvation
Obama’s new political order, backed by the legal acumen of Judge James Redden, may help the Northwest’s salmon survive and end the era of the Lower Snake River dams.
by Ken Olsen, May 04, 2009 -
Got warriors?
On Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation, Stanford Addison – a quadriplegic Northern Arapaho horse gentler – helps Indian boys through their difficult teenage years.
by Lisa Jones , Apr 29, 2009 -
The Growth Machine is Broken
Phoenix land-use planners want to use a chunk of state trust land as a laboratory for future, more sustainable real estate development.
by John Dougherty , Apr 27, 2009 -
Surprise!
Surprise, Ariz., exemplifies the Arizona real estate collapse along with what many see as the rise and fall of the car-dependent Western exurb.
by Rob Inglis and Jonathan Thompson , Apr 24, 2009 -
Columbia Basin (Political) Science
Some fisheries scientists and environmentalists say the Bonneville Power Administration has had an unhealthy influence on salmon research in the Northwest.
by Steve Hawley , Apr 13, 2009 -
Go Sell It On The Mountain
For 30 years, local environmentalists have been fighting with Crested Butte’s owners over a proposed controversial expansion of the ski resort.
by Rachel Odell Walker , Apr 08, 2009 -
The desert that breaks Annie Proulx's heart
Writer Annie Proulx takes an unsentimental view of Wyoming’s little-known and somewhat scarred Red Desert.
by Emma Brown, Apr 06, 2009 -
Tarp Nation
Throughout the West, tent cities and shantytowns with names like Taco Flat have sprung up to house the poor and dispossessed.
by Scott Bransford , Mar 16, 2009
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