Change is coming to this corner of Colorado. It's yellow.
Items by Jonathan Thompson
The urgency of the politicians' response to our economic troubles contrasts with the way we’re ignoring the greater crisis of climate change.

Jonathan Thompson sees Western support for McCain and Palin as likely to erode because of genuinely maverick Western Republicans.
Why the gun-totin', drill-happy Sarah Palin won't win the West.
Despite the growing threat of Western wildfire, most of us are still pretending it will go away if we just ignore it.
Stadium political-fest gets a couple of New Mexicans fired up
Mark Udall on the big stage.
Led by vets against the war, a huge protest finally gets noticed at the DNC.
Sportsmen say their vote is up for grabs.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer makes an appearance at the big tent to see the bloggers.
Montana Governor gets prominent place on convention agenda
Yes. Even High Country News editors fall under the spell of celebrities from time to time.
Democrats' voices on energy drowned out by ... protesters.
HCN does the Convention on the cheap.
It's not all about parties and rallies.
There are nuggets of substance buried in the Convention circus. But is anyone listening?
When the convention comes to Denver, it feels a bit like another Western city.
The High Country News team has landed in Denver. Stay tuned for more under-the-radar coverage from the Democratic National Convention.
Tune in to HCN.org Aug. 25-28 for unconventional coverage from Denver
A desert village called Big Water and a troubled ski resort near the hardscrabble town of Beaver are two unlikely places in Utah where entrepreneurs plan to build exclusive resorts for the ultra-rich.

High Country News photographer Morgan Heim joins the International League of Conservation Photographers to document the gasfields and the wildlands around Pinedale, Wyo.
Some moderate Western Republicans, tired of being penned up behind rigid ideological fences, are rebelling against the hard-line elements of their party.
Our policies are schizophrenic.
In most of the West’s complicated environmental
problems, so-called “unlikely alliances” between greens
and their opposite numbers are really not that unlikely after
all.
Garry and Diann Fulks have been recycling large metal
objects for 35 years at their scrap yard in Montrose,
Colo.
Westerners in towns like Durango, Colo., and Monticello,
Utah, have been exposed to mine tailings for years, unaware that
uranium might be even more dangerous than scientists used to
believe.
The West’s weather is full of surprises this spring,
with snowstorms, windstorms, rain and wildfires all happening at
the same time.
Just as western Colorado towns like Rifle have begun a new
life as thriving “amenity” economies, an energy boom of
unprecedented proportions has taken over the landscape.
Archaeology is, or at least ought to be, about more than
just picking up artifacts to gather dust on the shelves of crowded
museum storerooms.
It may seem like a considerable departure for High Country
News to write about mental illness and suicide, but as Ray
Ring’s deeply personal lead story shows, both tragedies are
rooted in the West.
- Botanists find one of ‘the world’s worst weeds’ spreading in the Boise foothills
- Wildfire kills Klamath fish: ‘Everything that’s in there is dead.’
- A new investigation reveals depth of skewed policing in Siskiyou County
- Record rainfall, bears and French toast at Anchorage’s new city-sanctioned homeless encampment
- Scientists unravel the origins of the Southwest’s monsoon
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