This May, 30 game developers were laid off at the Zynga videogame company office in Eugene, Oregon. But soon after, Joe Maruschak spoke at the Barn Light coffee shop on how to launch a startup business. Game developers crowded around the tables. Maruschak, chief startup officer at Eugene’s Regional Accelerator and Innovation Network, encouraged the […]
Can Eugene, Oregon become a haven for startups?
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Why Jim Unger came West: a Yellowstone love affair
There are tourists, and then there’s Jim Unger, a Pennsylvania resident who headed out this summer on his 41st pilgrimage to some of the places that have become his second home — the national parks, monuments and historic sites of the West. It all started in 1971, when Jim and his wife, Sandy, both elementary […]
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Congress subscribed to High Country News
How do you keep policy makers on top of the issues shaping the changing face of the West? Get them a subscription to High Country News. When HCN asked for help in funding a subscription for each member of the House of Representatives and the Senate, readers responded overwhelmingly by contributing more than $10,000 to send all […]
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Fossil fuel extraction on public lands is the next climate fight
Stopping Keystone is only one part of the larger agenda to keep fossil fuels in the ground.
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Endurance runners in the Grand Canyon are missing the point
When I was 18, back in the swinging ’60s, I ran with equally driven friends through the Grand Canyon, going from the North Rim to the South Rim in a single day. Our trek involved traversing the 14-mile North Kaibab trail, the 7-mile South Kaibab Trail and the Old Bright Angel Trail, 14 miles of […]
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Can herbicides keep Tahoe blue?
A new chemical weed management plan has the lake’s water suppliers nervous.
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Shell’s giving up drilling in the Arctic Ocean. Now what?
The (controversial) case for drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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Anatomy of a flash flood
After a series of deaths, a writer considers his own close calls in canyons.
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Does optimism have a place in Western water politics?
Writer John Fleck wants us to abandon our dried-up narratives of doom.
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What Mt. Hood’s fading summer ski season means
As year-round skiing in the Pacific Northwest diminishes, what else will be lost?
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How to drought-proof California’s farms
Three years into its most severe drought in over a thousand years, it’s unclear how much longer California can continue growing half of the nation’s produce. The crisis confronting Big Ag and family farmers alike may signal the end of agriculture as it’s currently practiced. But it need not spell doom for farming altogether: On […]
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Pope Francis and Obama make joint appeal for climate action
Pope’s address promises to rile Republicans who deny human connection to climate change.
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Fracking has a big water footprint, but that’s not the whole story
A new study finds other energy extraction methods have a bigger impact.
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For Dinosaur National Monument’s 100th birthday, let’s protect more land
We launched our rafts on Colorado’s Yampa River at Deerlodge Park, and ran Little Joe and Big Joe Rapids. On the second afternoon, we pulled into Mathers Hole Camp under an overhung cliff wall that towered 500 feet above us. As I set up my tent, I thought about the 100th birthday of Dinosaur National […]
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Cue the greater sage grouse lawsuits
With the bird’s non-listing under the Endangered Species Act, expect more of the legal crawl that got us here in the first place.
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Sage grouse decision demonstrates clout of the Endangered Species Act
On Sept. 22, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made a landmark decision, declaring that the greater sage grouse, that icon of the Western High Plains, does not warrant federal protection. The chicken-sized bird’s numbers have dwindled from a historic high of perhaps 16 million to about 400,000, as its sagebrush range has been transformed […]
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Ranch Diaries: Is ranching a form of conservation?
Our cattle can help restore wildlife habitat, reduce fire fuels and sequester carbon, when used creatively.
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Feds find Santa Barbara pipeline operator violated safety requirements
A look at the Refugio spill and what goes into to preventing and cleaning up oil pipeline spills.
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A dog comes face to face with the Wild West
This June, I attended my first snake class. It was not a tutorial on snake charming, but rather a training session designed to teach dogs to avoid rattlesnakes. Classes like this take place in many Western states where rattlesnakes slither – from California to Idaho to the Front Range of Colorado, where I live. My […]
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Advanced Placement history nixes ‘racial superiority’ from Manifest Destiny
Q&A: Historian Amy Greenberg says curriculum revisions miss a major part of the story.