“Environmental ‘bad boys’ predict end of movement,” reads The New York Times headline. The story is one of many in recent months about Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, rabble-rousing California media consultants who have sent environmentalists into a tizzy with their essay, “The Death of Environmentalism.” The essay argues that environmentalists have become increasingly isolated […]
Greg Hanscom
Greg Hanscom is the publisher and executive director for High Country News. Email him at greg.hanscom@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor.
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
Dear friends
FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT Eric Barlow, the brother of HCN board member Michele Barlow, made it onto Vanity Fair’s list of the “Best Stewards of 2004,” for his work protecting the Barlow family’s Wyoming ranch — and others like it — from oil and gas development. Eric, a veterinarian and former Marine, has been a […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Dear friends
WELCOME, JODI! It takes an adventurous — and dedicated — person to leave behind a bustling urban center and a corporate paycheck to work for nonprofit wages in a small town like Paonia, Colo. But we found just such a person in Jodi Peterson, who started work in January as HCN’s news editor. She comes […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Dear friends
NEW INTERNS “This is surreal,” says new High Country News intern Julie McCord of HCN’s hometown, the coal miner’s haven of Paonia, Colo., pop. 1,500. Julie was born in Jamaica and has lived in Chicago, Toronto, Panama, Mexico, Japan and Washington, D.C. She comes to us from Manhattan, where she earned her master’s degree in […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2004: Stand Your Ground
Dear friends
HAPPY HOLIDAYS This will be the last issue of High Country News that you receive for a month. The staff will take an issue off to spend time with family and friends, and to frolic in the white stuff that’s been falling consistently for a week now. The next issue should hit your mailbox Jan. […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2004: Stand Your Ground
Buy them some body armor
During a recent visit with troops in Kuwait, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in a rare, unchoreographed moment, opened the floor to questions. He got a zinger. Why, asked one serviceman, are troops forced to scrounge through dumps in search of scrap metal, so they can outfit their vehicles with makeshift armor? The question, and Rumsfeld’s […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2004: Where Do We Go From Here?
A flurry of visitors
VISITORS A mild late fall/early winter has brought a few snowflakes to Paonia, and a flurry of visitors to the HCN headquarters. John Slone dropped in from Montrose, Colo. Subscribers David and Catie Karplus came through from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California, where David works in utilities and grounds, and Catie studies […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2004: Conservationist in a Conservative Land
Dear friends
ELECTION DAY On election day, the phones at High Country News headquarters grew silent and the office seemed as still as a tomb, so we were delighted to chat with a visiting sculptor-pilot from Telluride, Colo. Richard Arnold told us he’d been a longtime reader, but what brought him to Paonia was the Zimmerman Foundry. […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2004: Conservationist in a Conservative Land
Election Day surprises in the schizophrenic West
The Interior West goes for Bush while the Coast goes to Kerry, but on the ground, it’s more complicated than ‘red’ vs. ‘blue’
Posted inNovember 8, 2004: Keepers of the Flame
New ways to work in the woods
In mid-October, an extraordinary group of people gathered in Ouray, Colo., below the already snow-corniced ridges of the San Juan Mountains. It was the annual meeting of the National Network of Forest Practitioners, a group that was founded in 1990 as an alternative to professional foresters’ groups, whose emphasis was mainly on making money for […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2004: Window Shopping: Part-Time Paradise
Don’t expect Washington to lead the West
It’s election season, and President Bush is using the West as a political game piece. He’s promising to up the timber cut on the national forests and increase oil and gas development, all in the name of jobs and national security. In reality, of course, he’s earning points with his industry supporters, but doing little […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2004: Window Shopping: Part-Time Paradise
Environmental issues disappear into election-season smog
If you care about the environment, and you survived the presidential debates without running out into the backyard to scream at the heavens, you’re a bigger person than I. For those of you who missed them, the three debates included just one question on that “fringe issue” of what’s in the air we breathe, and […]
Posted inWotr
The West has to count on itself
If you care about the environment, and you survived the presidential debates without running out into the backyard to scream at the heavens, you’re a bigger person than I. For those of you who missed them, the three debates included just one question on that “fringe issue” of what’s in the air we breathe and […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Life After Old Growth
The battle over the Northwest’s ancient forests has again taken center stage, but behind the scenes, some locals are pushing for peace
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
A timber town learns to care for the forest
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Life After Old Growth.” LAKEVIEW, OREGON — Perched on the easternmost edge of Oregon timber country, where scattered mountain ranges fade into the high desert, the hamlet of Lakeview is an apparition. All indications suggest that it should be dead and gone, a casualty […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Dear friends
THE HCN FAMILY GETS A LITTLE BIGGER — AND MUCH CUTER The summer has been a fruitful one — and not just for farmers growing sweet corn, cherries, peaches and tomatoes. Within only 15 days, we were graced with two new members of the High Country News family. On July 30, Lydia Kestrel Puckett was […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Dear friends
WALKING FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING In mid-July, Blake Chambliss came through Paonia while out on a 800-mile walk around Colorado. The retired architect is trying to raise awareness of the state’s “affordable housing crisis.” Housing is considered affordable if it eats up less than a third of your monthly paycheck, he said. A quarter of Colorado […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
A chance for redemption
It was mid-September 2001, and I was sitting on a sandbar, my ears full of the roar of whitewater, watching the stars blink through a slice of cobalt sky. I was deep in Westwater Canyon on the Colorado River in Utah, and as far as I could tell, my pack of friends and I were […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Dear friends
SUMMER BREAK Every year, the editorial staff takes an issue off during midsummer to escape the heat and head for the hills, so this will be the last issue of High Country News you’ll receive for a month. Watch your mailboxes again around July 19. A GREAT MEAL, AND A GOOD QUESTION At the end […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Dear Friends
The good news The High Country News board of directors came to Paonia in late May, to mull over the finances and plan for the future. The numbers for the first quarter of 2004 look good: Our expenses are below budget, and our income is above budget, thanks largely to a grant from the Hewlett […]