If you drive a car, wear jewelry, or use a cell phone, you use the products of mineral mining. But mining for aluminum, gold, and other metals exacts a steep toll in damage to ecosystems and human health. A recent report from Earthworks and Oxfam America, Dirty Metals: Mining, Communities and the Environment, details the […]
Book Reviews
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Calendar
The Colorado Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council is co-sponsoring the Teton Green Building Conference, June 2-4 in Grand Teton National Park. Developers, planners, builders and architects will learn from national experts about the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard and building science, methods and materials for colder climates.www.tetongreenbuilding.com 970-328-6449 The University […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Seeing the forest for its dead trees
Until piñon pines began dying by the millions across the Southwest a few years ago — victims of drought and voracious bark beetles — few people gave much thought to the gnarled, scrubby trees or the delicate ecosystem that supported them. Even now, attention is focused on the piñons mainly as a wildfire hazard rather […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Songs in the key of life
Earthjustice is best-known for the free legal services it provides for environmental causes. But its lawyers know how to pick songs as well as witnesses, as the organization’s recently released CD shows. Titled Where We Live, proceeds from the album benefit a campaign for “the universal right to clean air and clean water” that includes […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Calendar
New Mexico-based Quivera Coalition has scheduled its 2004 workshops. The workshops will be held throughout the state and include topics such as “Upland and Riparian Management for a New Rancher” and “Water from Roads Less Traveled: How to design and maintain low maintenance ranch roads.” 505-820-2544 projects@quiveracoalition.org. The Pikes Peak Library District’s Special Collections is […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Making rivers work
The problem with books about Western water history is that — being books about how we’ve dammed, diverted and even reversed the flow of rivers all over the West — they’re full of bad ideas. Every once in awhile, though, somebody dares to offer some better ideas for the future. Sandra Postel and Brian Richter […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
A city we can live with
If you’re reading this in a café within walking distance of work and home, and there’s a park or greenbelt area nearby, you can count yourself lucky: You live in a well-designed city. In Toward the Livable City, Emilie Buchwald gathers together 16 contributors, whose essays and art entice us toward the antidote to suburban […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Calendar
The League of Conservation Voters has released its 2003 National Environmental Scorecard. To see how your senator or representative voted on environmental issues, visit: www.lcv.org 202-785-8683 Colorado College launches its first annual State of the Rockies Report Card at a conference May 3-4 in Colorado Springs. New college president Richard Celeste hosts a detailed look […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
The environment’s ‘most durable foe’
During the rising tide of environmentalism in the 1960s, one man earned the title of the movement’s “most durable foe.” Historian Steven C. Schulte’s new book, Wayne Aspinall and the Shaping of the American West, profiles the congressman who unabashedly promoted the development of the West’s public lands and shaped American environmental policy. For more […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
Asbestos beyond Libby city limits
Since Andrew Schneider and David McCumber broke the story of Libby, Mont., in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, what began as local news about miners and their families dying of asbestosis has mushroomed into a national health disaster. Now, in their new book, An Air That Kills, they expose the asbestos industry’s deadly impact on the lives […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
Calendar
Want to get to know the Grand Canyon a little better? Then take a class with the Grand Canyon Field Institute, the nonprofit partner of the Grand Canyon National Park. Throughout the year, the Institute offers classes such as “Women’s Rim-to-Rim Backpack,” “Wilderness First Responder Training” and photography and archaeology trips. For more information or […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
Living with the wild
When houses, driveways and garages colonize once-remote locales, the critters already living there might become muted, but they don’t go away. In The Raccoon Next Door: Getting Along With Urban Wildlife, Gary Bogue, former curator of the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek, Calif., tells how to co-exist with the wild animals, birds and insects […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Can’t we all just get along
“Mud wrestling” might be the best term for what happens when we try to hash out messy environmental issues, says a recent report from the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado-Boulder. But the West is full of talented scientists who can help pull us out of the ring if we’d just […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
A new look at Yellowstone
“Wholly an unattractive country. There is nothing whatever in it, no object of interest to the tourist, and there is not one out of twenty who visits for purposes of observation this remote section.” So declared one congressman in the late 1800s, dismissing the valleys of Yellowstone. What a difference a century can make: Today, […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Calendar
Head to San Francisco for the 15th Global Warming International Conference and Expo on April 20-22. Sessions will range from “Climate Change Mitigation” to “Extreme Events and Impacts Assessments” to “Agricultural and Forestry Resources Management.”http://globalwarming.net 630-910-1551 The Upper Green River Valley Coalition is sponsoring a conference in Pinedale, Wyo., on March 26-27. “Wells, Wildlife and […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Heroes for the wild
Know someone who’s worked tirelessly to protect the West’s wild places? Nominate him or her for a “Wilderness Hero” award. The program, which began last year, will honor two volunteers each month leading up to the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act this September. Award sponsors include The Campaign for America’s Wilderness, the Sierra Club, […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2004: The Last Open Range
Resurrected memories of a prison camp
If we haven’t already forgotten our nation’s World War II-era internment camps, we speak of them only in hushed tones. Even in the eight Western communities where the camps once stood, their memory is lost, rolled up and stowed away like old chain-link fence. A new exhibit touring North Dakota, “Snow Country Prison: Interned in […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2004: The Last Open Range
Calendar
San Diego will be hosting the Annual West Coast Conference on Soils, Sediments and Water on March 15-18. The conference is sponsored by the Association for Environmental Health and Sciences; hot topics include bioremediation, brownfields, military base cleanup and pesticides. www.aehs.com . 413-549-5170 Find out whose money your lawmaker is spending: Check out the Center […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2004: The Last Open Range
Reading for — and about — a rainy day
Here in the Northwest, you can accumulate large quantities of the following: rainwater, unemployment and local literature. The folks at Oregon Quarterly (the University of Oregon’s magazine) collect the third. Last year, they ransacked their archives and created a new literary record of the region, Best Essays NW. Most of the 27 essays read like […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2004: The Last Open Range
Ski areas get greener
Western ski areas got their best grades yet in the 2003-2004 Ski Area Environmental Scorecard — but they weren’t spectacular. The median score for the 76 ski areas, graded by the Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition, was a C+. Tops were Colorado’s Aspen (93.9) and Buttermilk (93.3), which earned high marks for being environmentally conscious. Vail […]