How the natural gas glut is rippling across the economies and landscapes of the West (with charts!)
Items by Jonathan Thompson
Looking back can give us some perspective -- maybe even comfort -- in extreme times
A loop around the Four Corners, where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet, leads into a land of both historical and geological friction.
Watch a video that's just "a little too weird" for HCN editors!
An annotated map shows you how to find some of the West's odder sites, such as old bombing ranges, giant dams, huge industrial projects and giant telescope arrays.
A guide to some of the West's most prominent pieces of land art or earthworks and some of the altered landscapes that interested or inspired land artists.
A land-art-inspired ramble takes the writer from Michael Heizer's Double Negative, to Robert Smithson's underwater Spiral Jetty, with detours to places including the Bingham Canyon copper mine.
We're all tourists in someone else's town, all of us just wandering through the world, so why not do a special issue on travel in the West?
It might just cure you
The author joins a European tour of the post-industrial landscape of the Great Salt Lake
Despite recent headlines, the "drill baby drill" method isn't getting us close to breaking our dependence on foreign oil
In all the fuss about fracking, the many other problems caused by rampant oil and gas development are being overlooked.
Drilling spouts more (salty toxic nasty) water than it slurps
A two-year planning process in La Plata County, Colorado gets hijacked by activists suspicious of United Nations influence. And in the West and nationwide, they're not alone.
The word "fracking" has great PR value for environmental activists, but it seems to be completely taking over the debate over oil and gas development.
Energy self-sufficiency isn't realistic in our global economy
Fire and flood, snowstorms and droughts, downburst winds and desert haboobs -- 2011 brought incredibly wacky weather to the West.
Will a global oil shale push make it to the U.S. West?
As the West's population and real estate boom stumble to a halt, the once fast-growing Southwest is filled with foreclosed homes and undeveloped lots.
Over-consumption is much more frightening than overpopulation
A couple of guys and a "Red Buffalo" help bring corn-growing back to Taos Pueblo
The New West's biggest economic engine hasn't just slowed down, it's died
After the author moves to the city, he can't seem to avoid hazardous wildlife
The "other" Koch brother is giving more and more money to the right wing
A Wyoming boomtown shows the Old West economy speeding along as the new West stalls out
Global markets could keep Powder River Basin coal flowing overseas for decades to come.
An interactive map of global influence in Western energy plays
China's insatiable energy appetite is fueling a natural resource boom in the West.
High Country News examines the results of what everyone agrees was a "very weird election."
A Tea Party loss ironically helps Republican Dino Rossi's effort to unseat Sen. Patty Murray, while conflicting ballot measures seek to raise taxes on wealthy people or choke off all potential tax hikes.
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