Wrangell recovers from its timber hangover

Every day since early May, an incredibly cheerful robin has been singing from the top of a tree behind my house. Chee-oo-woot, chee-oo-woot, chee-oo-weet, chee-oo woot.  He’s the Gene Kelly of birds. Because for six weeks straight it’s been snowing, hailing, spinning tornados, flooding, or pouring here in Denver. And this bird keeps singing in […]

Driving the road between uranium mines on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim recently, I got a taste of what it’s like to live along a truck route for hauling uranium. Unfortunately, it’s a reality that may soon face anyone living between northern Arizona and southern Utah if a uranium mine reopens close to the South […]

Below Montana’s famous big sky, the environmental wounds of history fester. Along the banks of the Clark Fork River, for example, from Warm Springs to Milltown, Montana, one of the largest Superfund sites in the United States stretches across 120 miles of communities and streambeds. Large swaths of the Clark Fork River have slowly been […]

Last Thursday, I emerged from a movie theatre weak-kneed and sweaty-pitted, nerves fried and brain buzzing, simultaneously terrified and exhilarated by the sight of my own car in the parking lot. I had just seen Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller’s deranged ode to vehicles, explosions, and maybe, just maybe, the importance of environmental advocacy. Most […]

Blustery winds that tear at your exposed skin and clothing day after day, keeping you on edge. Outbursts of bone-rattling thunder and lightning strikes on top of you, followed by pounding rain and barrages of hailstones that force everyone to scurry for cover. Mud galore. But occasionally, through magical openings in the clouds, sunlight beams […]