In 1832, when Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall was pondering the fate of Baptist missionary Samuel Worcester, who’d been jailed by Georgia state militia for preaching the Christian gospel to Cherokee Indians, little did Marshall know that his ruling would one day reroute rivers, legalize hundreds of Indian casinos from coast to coast, and […]
Coal to China port hits a big snag
Posted inArticles
A cyclist’s plea to motorists
Cars are a deadly weapon and drivers need to take care.
Posted inArticles
KDNK speaks with HCN reporter Claudine LoMonaco
On troubling corporate and Forest Service conduct in Arizona.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
Teaching aliens to talk
How global warming made me change my life.
Posted inArticles
How the hot and dry West is killing Rocky Mountain forests
A new report summarizes how climate change is accelerating tree death from fires, bark beetles and drought
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The trouble with hunting
Hunting fascinates me, and I read everything I can about it. So I was taken aback to read recently that in my state of Washington, there are 16,000 fewer hunters than there were five years ago. Another story focused on the failure of our justice system to curb rampant poaching, and I began to wonder […]
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War of the words
New oil and gas ‘codebook’ aims to help the public muddle through the fracking debate
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After 11 years, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument reopens
Increased border security means that all 517 square miles are again open to the public.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
Michelle Huneven writes about place, addiction and love
This California author examines lost years and life in the mountains.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
A painter and writer uses her art to overcome trauma
Author profile of Japanese-American Lily Havey.
Posted inArticles
Manmade quakes shake the Southwest
Tremors in Colorado and New Mexico linked to coalbed methane extraction.
Posted inArticles
A Wilderness Act skeptic comes out of the closet
Westerners celebrated two birthdays worth noting toward the end of summer, but most paid attention to only one, the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. The other was the 50th anniversary of the start of construction of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project in Colorado, which eventually moved a lot of water from the Colorado River Basin to […]
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Diversion plans for the Gila would have major impact, critics say
Small and medium-sized flows could be most affected.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
Wacky Burning Man antics, a pop-up town and more
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
Tragedy, coincidence and patterns
Review of “Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West” by Sarah Alisabeth Fox.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
The bloody, brave beginnings of the Northwest
Review of ‘The Bully of Order’ by Brian Hart.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
The art of adaptation
“Life finds a way,” Michael Crichton wrote in his 1990 novel Jurassic Park. He was imagining how resurrected dinosaurs, supposedly sterile, could start breeding on their own, but the quote expresses a fundamental truth. As the planet’s climate changes, life changes with it. The rapidly warming Arctic has forced polar bears, which normally hunt seals, […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
See you in October!
It’s time to slip out of the HCN office while the hiking’s still good. We publish 22 issues a year, so we’re skipping an issue in mid-September. Look for us in your mailbox around Oct. 13; meanwhile, visit hcn.org for fresh news, analysis and commentary. Charles Bowden passes We’re sad to note that author […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
Polis Is This
My wife and I both voted for the five-year moratorium on fracking in Fort Collins, Colorado, which was subsequently, disappointingly, overturned by the Colorado court system. We have watched as this issue has evolved, and we come down on the side of Jared Polis, a Democrat whose district includes Fort Collins (“Fracking politicians,” HCN, 4/18/14). The old-fashioned […]