That early spring afternoon looked like the opening shot for a bad doomsday flick. The sky west of Paonia, Colorado, brooded yellow at first, fading to sepia around its edges. Then, as the wind rose, it gusted to a hard orange-red. The mountain skyline to the southeast — just that morning, a white and blue […]
Dust to dust
Posted inDecember 22, 2014: The Dust Detectives
Descent into an ice-age bonebed in Wyoming
The giant pit may hold clues about the demise of the West’s ancient megafauna.
Posted inDecember 22, 2014: The Dust Detectives
Aerial photos of drilling at Pawnee grassland
Oil and gas development has been ongoing for decades in northeastern Colorado.
Posted inDecember 22, 2014: The Dust Detectives
A question of fluency on the Navajo Nation
A cultural debate leaves the presidency in limbo.
Posted inArticles
The oil boom hasn’t busted, but it’s straining at the seams
Oil patch communities and states are starting to feel the impacts of sliding prices.
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Remembering an environmental science pioneer
Theo Colborn uncovered effects of chemicals, like those used in fracking, on the human body.
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When Christmas was all about hard times and a little frolicking
As near as I can tell from historical accounts, in order to celebrate a traditional Christmas in the West a couple of hundred years ago, you needed to get so riotous and tipsy that you could forget that you were starving. Rather than decorate any evergreen trees, you’d happily burn them as firewood. In 1800, […]
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A progress report on the Colorado River pulse
Researchers are sifting through the impacts of last spring’s release.
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How Native Americans have shaped the year’s biggest environmental debates
And how lawmakers can improve their record next year.
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What I learned from 30 years with the Forest Service
After working for the Forest Service for 30 years, I finally had to write a book about it — especially about some of the painful lessons I learned. Here are just a few of them. It will come as no surprise that it wasn’t easy being a woman in what was, and remains, a man’s […]
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Enough is enough at the Glen Canyon Recreation Area
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area is a mess. Amazingly, it’s not so much from the reservoir that drowned it 50 years ago; it’s because of what the park’s visitors are doing to it today. I say this because I’ve spent most of my career photographing wilderness areas in Grand Canyon, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument and […]
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Killings by cops are much more common in Western states
Arrest-related death rates are highest in New Mexico, with Nevada and Oregon close behind.
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Vigiling with Dad
He tells me to park close to the vigil site, but far enough down the block to allow for a view from the street. It is noon, a spectacular fall day. The sun is edging onto the bench where dad likes to sit. We unload signs – “War Is Not The Answer,” “An Eye for […]
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For public lands, massive protections in defense bill
But not all conservation groups think the gains are worth the losses.
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Drilling the Arctic comes with a 75 percent chance of a large oil spill
Key findings from a new environmental analysis.
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Conflicting forecasts for natural gas
A new study suggests that estimates for U.S. supplies may be vastly overstated.
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Cities look to farms for help in Colorado River drought
West’s biggest water agencies finalize a major agreement to boost Lake Mead levels.
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Is Las Vegas betting the Colorado River will go dry?
Las Vegas is a city that plays the odds, and if you want to know which odds to play, you need to follow the smart money. Unfortunately, that money seems to be moving toward building yet more dams that will drain yet more water out of an already oversubscribed Colorado River. Unlike most cities in […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2014: The Great Salmon Compromise
When neighbors spray herbicides next to your organic crop
Living together with local resentments in Northern California.
Posted inDecember 8, 2014: The Great Salmon Compromise
Tribal revival
As a kid, I relished stories of America’s pre-settlement wildlife abundance: Vast clouds of passenger pigeons darkening the skies for days at a time, buffalo storming across the Great Plains like massive living tornadoes, and, of course, mighty runs of salmon, so densely packed that you could walk across the writhing, red creeks without soaking […]