In the last 20 years, the amount of locally grown foods consumed in the American diet has tripled, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and it now comprises 2 percent of the food consumed in the country. As with anything that’s popular, some have seen fit to attack this trend. Why do they do […]
Articles
Posted inArticles
Slow-motion methane disaster
Aliso Canyon has leaked more greenhouse gases in two months than a coal mine does in a year.
Posted inArticles
Is the West prepared for climate change?
A new report shows most states are vulnerable to future increases in extreme heat, drought, and flooding.
Posted inArticles
Five new studies that change our understanding of permafrost
Why they matter, even if you don’t live in the Arctic.
Posted inArticles
Ranch Diaries: Building human connections from a remote ranch
Passing on knowledge is crucial to our way of life.
Posted inArticles
Big Ag stands on shifting ground
Between 2006 and 2011, farmers on the western edge of the Midwest’s farm belt in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and the Dakotas converted more than 1.3 million acres of grasslands to corn and soybean fields. Some people were seriously alarmed. Wildlife habitat was destroyed, and water, soil and the air itself suffered. But that conversion of […]
Posted inArticles
COP21: Let us celebrate the lack of total failure
The Paris agreement won’t end climate change. But it’s a long awaited step forward.
Posted inArticles
Fishers recolonize Washington, part of a Northwest rewilding
The forest carnivore’s return was helped by human intervention.
Posted inArticles
Early season snowpack falls short across the West
Nevada and Idaho are the only Western states above their historic averages.
Posted inArticles
Colorado citizens can now report health problems from oil & gas
The nation’s first ‘health response’ program launched this fall.
Posted inArticles
He didn’t die with dignity (so I threw a party)
My father’s recent death was not beautiful, and neither were any of the other deaths I’ve witnessed of late. This has left me wondering about a better path. Death is not easy, to be sure, but these were made particularly painful by medical interventions — or perhaps I witnessed the confusion between saving a life […]
Posted inArticles
Western senators angle to influence Paris climate talks
Wyoming’s Barrasso is undermining the treaty, while New Mexico’s Udall flew to Paris to support it.
Posted inArticles
Millions in debt, a community wonders if its water source will provide
This master-planned community must keep building to survive, despite the drought.
Posted inArticles
Rants from the Hill: As winter looms, a final foray to close out the season
My annual transect of our neighborhood mountain takes a turn for the perilous.
Posted inArticles
Range riders track wolves in eastern Washington
Wolf-livestock conflicts have increased, and ranchers and environmentalists are gathering data to mitigate the clashes.
Posted inArticles
At the BLM, a mixed record for renewables on public lands
Will the Paris talks help break bureaucratic deadlocks?
Posted inArticles
Leave your dog at home, please
What I say will not make me a popular person, but here it is: For excellent reasons, dogs should not be – and usually aren’t — allowed in the backcountry of national parks. Dogs, being predators, bother wildlife even when they’re leashed. Then there’s canine fecal matter, which carries a number of diseases and parasites […]
Posted inArticles
BLM may cancel oil and gas leases in Colorado’s Thompson Divide
Fate of disputed leases could show ongoing shift in the Bureau of Land Management.
Posted inArticles
Wyoming seeks compromise on wildlife migration corridors
Migration science has advanced, and the Game & Fish Commission is looking to reassess land use.
Posted inArticles
Ranch Diaries: Getting injured on the job
I went through a lot of Ibuprofen and some serious self-doubt; then I sucked it up and got back on my horse.