Longtime contributor and former HCN editor Jon Christensen is shaking up the academic world with the latest edition of Boom: A Journal of California. A native Californian and adjunct professor at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Jon now edits the quarterly that, he says, “strives to bottle that lively mixture of what makes California such a vital place in the world.”
With stunning historic photos and provocative, scholarly articles, the fall issue focuses on the Los Angeles Aqueduct’s 100th anniversary and the past, present and future of the city’s water supply. It’s drawn a blitz of attention from media and SoCal water managers – exactly what Jon hoped for: “Now we just have to figure out how to follow up with another great issue.” Check out BoomCalifornia.com.
Another win for HCN
We’re honored to announce that we’ve won a prestigious 2013 Science in Society Journalism Award, sponsored by the National Association of Science Writers. In the Science Reporting for a Local or Regional Audience category, our Feb. 6, 2012 feature, “The Color of Bunny” by Hillary Rosner, about how climate change affects snowshoe hares, got the nod. Judges said, “This totally engrossing and engaging report from the field artfully describes efforts to better understand a biological phenomenon critical to animal survival, namely seasonal camouflage.”
Visitors
Steve and Clare White spend most of the year in Maine and Massachusetts, but summer in Ridgway, Colo. In August, while visiting friends in Paonia, they dropped by our headquarters to see “where the magic happens,” having been fans of the magazine for some time.
Irv and Jo Bode discovered HCN when they moved to Broomfield, Colo., six years ago to be closer to their grandchildren. Now they pass the issues on to their grandson after they’ve finished reading. They visited us while on a mission to drive every scenic byway in the West.
Rob Robinson was returning to Denver from a meeting with the Animas River Stakeholder Group in Silverton when he stopped by. A roughly 15-year subscriber, Rob advocates for clean water and mine cleanup as a citizen member of the group.
Corrections
In an Oct. 28 “Latest,” we wrote that 100 kilowatts was “barely enough to power one house.” In fact, 100 kw is enough to power 50 to 70 homes, while a 100 kw wind turbine could power between 20 and 30 homes, depending on location and energy use. We regret the error.
Alert reader Michael E. Campana of Corvallis, Ore., writes: “I enjoyed Auden Schendler’s Oct. 28 review of The Emerald Mile but found his knowledge of geography lacking. He stated that the Grand Canyon, a mile deep, is ‘so large that you could dump the Pyrenees into it and no peaks would rise above the rim.’ The Pyrenees have more than 100 peaks that top 3,000 meters (9,840 feet); many of them would rise far above the Grand Canyon’s rim.” Actually, Michael, we were thinking of the dogs; you can fit a lot of Great Pyrenees in the canyon.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline California Boomin’.
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