Pete McGrail believes the volcanic basalt that underlies the Columbia River Basin may hold a cure for global warming: carbon sequestration.
A Climate Change Solution?
Beneath the Columbia River Basin, a real-life trial of the uncertain science of carbon sequestration
Non-negotiable self-defense
Mr. Ring, my right to personal self-defense is not negotiable. It is not subject to “re-examination,” looking at from another angle, reconsideration, modification, or “sensible” restriction based on false premises and false promises of safety by a government that cannot or will not provide it. The notion that “no one is talking about confiscation of…
Liberal and armed
I would think that an independent-minded journal like HCN would not so easily fall prey to anti-gun rhetoric more befitting the New York Times. Specifically: “… a reflection of white men’s anxiety about the civil rights movement”? Tell that to my Hispanic and Indian hunting friends (most of whom vote Democratic) but who support gun…
Reining in the zealots
Thanks for examining an aspect of Western culture that receives less coverage than it deserves. Responsible gun ownership includes acceptance of safeguards that are essential to the maintenance of a peaceful society. The paranoia and fear driving this small, feverish band of gun zealots is one of the strongest arguments for strengthening regulations. Their willingness…
The NRA – a branch of the ACLU?
I couldn’t help but write when I ran into this painfully antihistorical passage in your article: “In a phone interview, Professor Burbick says the gun-rights movement began not only in reaction to gun laws, but also as a reflection of white men’s anxiety about the civil rights movement. Right-wing politicians have deliberately exploited that anxiety,…
Low Country News
At first, the article was interesting to me, but after reading the whole thing it seems a bit slanted. I’m an avid shooter and hunter, and it seems to paint me as a “nut.” I’m a sane guy out here in the West who enjoys hunting and shooting with my kids to put food on…
The world laughs with us
In his Aug. 6 Editor’s Note, John (Mecklin) describes Ray Ring’s firearms package as “remarkably even-handed and hope it can provide a starting point … for discussion. …” Right. I didn’t realize HCN was becoming a humor periodical. An “even-handed” presentation should characterize Second Amendment supporters as other than quirky Western kooks and addled wingnuts…
Letter imperfect
It’s not often that I’ll start off an editor’s letter by writing about letters to the editor, but it’s not often that we get the deluge of correspondence spawned by Ray Ring’s cover package on firearms in the West, “Guns R Us.” You’ll see a selection of the missives in this issue; you can see…
Questioning our questioning
Your cover story asks the question, “Is it time to re-examine the West’s extraordinary fascination with firearms?” Uhmmmm … Extraordinary? The West is rather large and many of us live a long way from the nearest sheriff. Our stupid government has put just enough pressure on the drug suppliers to raise the price of drugs…
Won’t you be my (solar) neighbor?
The concerns about solar panel arrays being ugly is a bit ironic, as viewed from the developmental sprawl and congestion in and around our cities (HCN, 7/23/07). However, are there any examples of “community solar,” whereby neighbors have combined efforts to locate a group of panels on a compatible site? Dan Rathmann Cincinnati, Ohio This…
Two weeks in the West
Many a mud-spattered pickup truck in Western mining communities sports a bumper sticker that reads, “Behind every light switch is a coal miner.” After the Crandall Canyon mine collapsed in central Utah on Aug. 6, the slogan took on a slightly different meaning for the anxiously watching American public: Behind just about every light switch,…
Karl Malone’s next vacation home
I was “appalled” to read Will Nobauer’s letter regarding your article on Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife (HCN, 7/23/07). In the letter he calls these people “stupid looking white-trash rednecks” and “psychotic mental retards.” Such a wonderful example of intelligent discourse. It came as no surprise to me to find out that good old Will…
They’re probably afraid of the dark, too
The letters responding to “The New Conservationists” were all equally noteworthy (HCN, 7/23/07). Most were insightful in that we all recognize organizations like Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and their henchmen like Don Peay are anything but conservationists. What is missing from the analysis, though, is SFW, Peay and his ilk in other Western states,…
Wolf lit 101
Bryce Andrews not only misrepresented Aldo Leopold in his “Living precariously with wolves and cattle” (HCN, 8/20/07), but he also failed to acknowledge the other side of the public-lands grazing issue: Many of us would rather have wolves and healthy rangelands than cattle. Leopold’s famous essay “Thinking Like A Mountain” from A Sand County Almanac…
Owl right, we’ll try
As a long time reader of High Country News, I have become accustomed to your quality journalism. Your feature-length investigative pieces are generally excellent. At the same time, I often find myself growing weary of all the negative environmental news. Such reports are undeniably important, yet they begin to wear on the reader after a…
Beer drinkers = radical drunken fanatics?
“Guns R Us” was a hatchet job of the first order. Ray Ring used the civil rights infringement of Red’s Trading Post as a fig leaf to present a blatant anti-gun screed. Take this quote: “The seats are mostly filled; some of the people are drinking beers they’ve carried in from the saloon. They’ve come…
A gun culture bibliography
As a longtime subscriber and sometime contributor to High Country News, I always look forward to your feature reporting – especially when the reporter is Ray Ring. But I have seldom been not only so disappointed by an article’s obvious slant, but also so absolutely astonished by the lack of breadth in Ring’s information-gathering (it…
Sounding the alarm for nature
This year marks the 45th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s landmark book, Silent Spring. Twenty-seven years after her death, Carson – who would have been 100 this year – continues to influence Americans’ daily lives. Her legacy is reflected all the way from the Environmental Protection Agency’s restrictions on pesticide use down to…
It’s a privilege, not a right
I’m a native Westerner and a gun owner, but I didn’t really have a problem with this article. Gun ownership is part of the America heritage and especially so in the West. However, that doesn’t preclude responsibility. We, as a nation and a gun culture, need to find that fine line between the freedom to…
Twenty views of the West
Best Stories of the American West is a collection of Western stories in which gunfights are outnumbered by basketballs, and the cowboy hats end up mangled beyond recognition. In other words, it’s not about the West as exemplified by John Wayne; it’s about a place in which people actually live. In compiling this first volume,…
Gunning with the in-laws
Jim Aldrich, my father-in-law, grins a lot. But today, as we stand on his deck in the desert of Southern California, his smile is especially pronounced, cutting deep creases into his stubbled cheeks. It’s not the blue sky brushed with contrails that makes him happy. It’s the gun. He just popped six rounds from a…
Heard Around the West
NEW MEXICO Just two decades ago, pink coyotes were ubiquitous in downtown Santa Fe. They howled at oil-painted moons, or were sculpted from metal, or were accompanied by acrylic neon landscapes. To some high-minded folks, the fad was much worse than a particularly bad moment in Southwestern-style kitsch; it seemed to signal the imminent demise…
Dear friends
MEET US IN SALT LAKE HCN invites Salt Lake City area readers to join us for a dialogue on Thursday, Sept. 13. We’ll help the Utah Science Center kick off a series of discussions on “Choices.” Several panelists, including David Nimkin, National Parks Conservation Association chair; Dianne Nielson, energy advisor to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman;…
A dustup over weed control
The BLM’s plans to spray nearly a million acres with herbicides have some environmentalists fuming, but many biologists and land managers welcome the policy
The new land rush
In the West’s mountains, old mining claims are the latest real estate hotspots
Border restoration’s odd couple
Law enforcement and environmentalists are working together to save southwestern Arizona wetlands
Clean energy activist reflects on corporate influence in New Mexico legislation
NAME: Ben Luce AGE: 44 Resume: Ten years at Los Alamos National Laboratory working on nonlinear dynamics; co-founder and former director of the New Mexico Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy; founder, Break The Grip. Minimum number of Task Force seats Governor Richardson appointed him to: Five (all relating to energy.) Minimum number of harmonicas carried…
The good and bad of peak-bagging
“Above this memorable spot, the face of the mountain is … a maze of yawning chasms and gullies, in the angles of which rise beetling crags and piles of detached boulders that seem to have been gotten ready to be launched below. But the strange influx of strength I had received seemed inexhaustible. I found…
Are tomorrow’s ghost towns sprouting today?
IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE that in the late 1880s, Bannock, Mont., was one of the fastest-growing, most wildly energetic communities in the West. The mining town was even proposed as the territorial capital. Today, it is a ramshackle collection of abandoned buildings surrounded by mine tailings and open only as a quiet tourist attraction. It…