The study of tree rings opens a window into the
West’s distant past, and warns us that the region’s
future may be dangerously hot and dry
Magazine
January 24, 2005
The study of tree rings opens a window into the West’s distant past, and warns us that the region’s future may be dangerously hot and dry. Also in this issue: As the Colorado River Basin enters its sixth year of drought, the seven states that rely on the river for water are forced to work together on a new plan for water use.
Feature
Sidebar
The art of counting tree rings requires a lot of patience,
strong legs, and a love of statistical gymnastics
Tree-ring scientists Tom Swetnam and Julio Betancourt
study past climatic conditions seeking clues to better forest
management
Like tree rings, ice cores create a record of the climate
of the past, and the National Ice Core Laboratory in Denver houses
the largest collection of polar ice cores in the world
Editor's Note
January may have brought rain and snow to parts of the
West, but the study of past climates warns us that we still have to
learn to live with drought
Essays
The warm chinook winds of Cody, Wyo. keep temperatures
mild as they sand away at the town with a steady gale.
Book Reviews
In Don’t Let the Sun Step Over You: A White
Mountain Apache Family Life, anthropologist Keith Basso
collects the reminiscences of Eva Tulene Watt
In Great Wyoming Bear Stories, Tom Reed
takes a compassionate and entertaining look at the life, lore and
legend of the grizzly bear
Civil Disobedience: Poetics and Politics in
Action is an inspiring anthology by Anne Waldman and Lisa
Birman
In A Place to Stand, New Mexico’s
finest poet, Jimmy Santiago Baca, has written a stunning memoir of
his turbulent life
Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich look at the ways the human
race is jeopardizing the planet in One with Nineveh:
Politics, Consumption and the Human Future
Writers on the Range
The neglected, underestimated Interior West might plant
the seeds of change for the current American empire
Heard Around the West
Top-secret lab has a secret squatter; turtle-helpers in
Boulder; the news and the Good News in Colorado Springs; child in
pinata; kids write to Santa in Jackson, Wyo.
Dear Friends
Jodi Peterson is HCN’s news editor; Andy Robinson,
fund-raiser extraordinaire; John Nutting visits;
corrections
News
As the Colorado River Basin enters a sixth year of
drought, the Interior Department orders seven states to start
coordinating their management of the dwindling water
supply.
Greater sage grouse will not be listed under Endangered
Species Act; cleanup of Nevada’s Yerington Mine is turned
over to the EPA; wilderness supporters plan to reintroduce bills in
new Congress
A change in the federal Endangered Species Act will give
Idaho and Montana more control over threatened gray wolves, but
deny the Nez Perce Tribe a role in wolf management.
Cross-country skiers and environmentalists clash with a
heli-skiing company over use of the Tri-Canyon area in Utah’s
Wasatch Mountains
Inspired by Oregon’s Measure 37, a private-property
rights group in King County, Wash., is fighting to repeal recently
adopted land-use ordinances
An ambitious highway construction project has been put on
hold in Port Angeles, Wash., following the discovery of the
state’s largest prehistoric village
Cloudcroft, N.M., creates its own conservation plan to
protect the rare Sacramento Mountains checkerspot butterfly without
waiting for an endangered species listing
A major pronghorn migration route near Pinedale, Wyo.,
gets squeezed by new subdivisions and oil and gas drill
rigs
Letters
- Was Yellowstone’s deadliest wolf hunt in 100 years an inside job?
- Scientists unravel the origins of the Southwest’s monsoon
- Alaska’s Willow Project promises huge amounts of oil — and huge environmental impacts
- The fires below
- The White Sands discovery only confirms what Indigenous people have said all along
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