After years of stalemate and fighting, enviros are gaining ground under Obama. Also: Unemployment rates are ranked in the Western states.
Items by Ray Ring
T. Boone Pickens is now boosting alternative energy, but Ray Ring trusts him about as far as he could throw a modern-day wind turbine.
The media’s economic crisis is hitting the West particularly hard, with major daily newspapers up for sale. Also: Chicago businessman watches nature via computer.
Every winter, Yellowstone park rangers risk their lives dynamiting avalanches so snowmobile tourists can get across Sylvan Pass.
Barack Obama is bringing Westerners to Washington, including Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano to run Homeland Security, and Cabinet picks Ken Salazar, Hilda Solis and Steven Chu.
That would introduce flexibility to the West's federal land.
Brad Little, who's also a Republican rancher, is a good pick.
Eleven key Westerners speak with HCN about their hopes and worries for an Obama administration.
Thus, they squander a political opportunity.
Western Democrats have reason to celebrate the 2008 election, but the old conservative West has not disappeared.
Montana poli sci grad Jim Messina will be a White House staffer.
Three Western governors should not ascend to Obama's cabinet.
Voters write bans into California and Arizona constitutions.
Democrats in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming eke out a single U.S. House win.
The Mormon Church works to ban gay marriage in California, even as gay people in places like Rexburg, Idaho, come out of the LDS closet.
Just how bad or good are Idaho's environmental politics? On September 18, High Country News gathered Idaho politicians and environmentalists for a lively exploration of these questions.
Denver offers an iconic Western backdrop and the message that "this is not your father's party."
Jim Messina, who hails from Montana, is the chief of staff for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
The Grand Old Party will either find a new life – or court self-destruction – in the West today, where moderates and hard-liners are battling over conservation issues.
BLM flip-flops on solar and expedites oil and gas; Western Governors’ Association talks about energy; more fossil fuel risks; good (and bad) salmon news.
Finding room for grizzly bears through the Montana Legacy Project.
Bush administration finally acknowledges reality of global
warming; Montana politics; Yucca Mountain 8,000-page application
turned in; J.R. Simplot dies; Telluride wins fight over open
space.
Ron Gillett brings his anti-wolf crusade to the small
farming town of Ashton, Idaho.
Ray Ring takes a personal, painful look at the
West’s suicidal tendencies, as shown in the life and death of
his brother, John.
In his richly illustrated book Boy Wonder & the Big
Burns, Montana photographer Chris Peterson finds beauty in the
aftermath of fire – and in his relationship with his autistic
son.
The Bush administration has been good for environmental
groups, at least when it comes to money and membership
numbers.
HCN looks at the various problems of Western wildlife,
including Northern Rockies wolves, porcupines, fishers, pikas, and
more; and Rocky Mountain National Park tests elk for chronic
wasting disease and also gives out birth control.
High Country News imagines – and delivers –
the kind of speech about our energy future that the West needs to
hear from its next president.
Lori Edmo-Suppah works tirelessly to keep the
Shoshone-Bannock Tribes informed through the newspaper she edits,
the Sho-Ban News
The fiercely conservative lawyers of the Sagebrush
Rebellion continue to fight against environmental regulations, but
despite all their sound and fury, very little has changed on the
public lands.
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