Ours is an increasingly urban nation – over 80 percent of the U.S. population now dwells in cities and towns, a figure that’s only rising. Nowhere is that trend more pronounced than in the West: Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Denver are among the country’s fastest-growing cities. Our metropolitan migration has environmentalists and planners dreaming of […]
For native birds, cities may spread disease while still providing sanctuary
Posted inGoat
Groundbreaking “Sea Ice Atlas” aids Arctic planning and is really cool to boot
Back in the dark ages of the 1960s, the science of ice forecasting – predicting how much ice will be choking Arctic seas in a given month – was based more on intuition than science. Forecasters relied largely on memory and anecdotal observations, with results about as fallible as you’d expect. Sometimes, the dearth of […]
Posted inWotr
77 years later, here comes pot
The history of marijuana is clouded by racism and muddled thinking.
Posted inGoat
$80k a year with a high school diploma: Why it’s difficult to replace coal-mining jobs
On a Saturday in early February, the wooden bleachers at the old middle school in Paonia, Colo. were filled with men in boots, camouflage hats and Carhartt jackets. Most were miners who had recently been laid-off by one of the North Fork Valley’s three coalmines. Stern-faced women sat beside them, some wearing pins that said, […]
Posted inWotr
Water and waste are an old story
This resource in the American West will always be dammed, diverted or otherwise purloined.
Posted inGoat
Terrorists, infrastructure porn and our fragile energy systems
They came shrouded by the early morning darkness near San Jose, Calif., equipped with night-vision goggles, AK-47s and an apparent lust to spill some transformer fluid. They cut some telephone cables and then, according to the Wall Street Journal: Within half an hour, snipers opened fire on a nearby electrical substation. Shooting for 19 minutes, […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Water Economics
I found your article on Las Vegas water consumption interesting and well-written (“The Vegas Paradox,” HCN, 1/20/14). Clearly, the water department’s water rates are not sufficient to incentivize conservation. Although it employs a four-tier rate system, its rates are less than half of Denver’s, which also uses Colorado River water. You would think that since Nevada […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Tracking America’s ice-age pioneers
In the Shadow of the Sabertooth: A Renegade Naturalist Considers Global Warming, the First Americans and the Terrible Beasts of the PleistoceneDouglas Peacock200 pages, paperback: $15.AK Press/ Counterpunch, 2013. Doug Peacock, author of Grizzly Years and Walking It Off, once walked point as a polar bear guard on an Arctic expedition, armed with only a […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
The Latest: Nevada charges renewable energy companies for eco mitigation
BackstoryLarge-scale renewable energy projects benefit the climate but can harm ecosystems. Critics fear that industrial solar arrays planned for California and Nevada will ruin viewsheds, guzzle water, and destroy the habitat of threatened desert tortoises (“Sacrificial land: Will renewable energy devour the Mojave Desert?” HCN, 4/15/13). In October 2013, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced that […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
The Latest: Ecoterrorist in Vail fire is sentenced
Backstory In 1998, the Vail, Colo., ski resort was growing, and so were the tensions around it. Some accused the rich of monopolizing public lands for pricey recreation; others saw Vail’s planned expansion as encroaching on habitat essential to the rare Canada lynx. That October, members of the radical Earth Liberation Front set fire to […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
The great electric road trip
Blanding, a remote city of 3,504 in one of Utah’s poorest counties, received the state’s first Tesla Supercharger station in January. City Manager Jeremy Redd says it’s an ideal spot to power up an $80,000 electric car: “We’re halfway between Arches and Monument Valley,” and within an hour of Hovenweep and Natural Bridges national monuments. […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
The first comic book with an all-Native American superhero team returns
Conversation with Jon Proudstar about the return of his comic book series, ‘Tribal Force.’
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Terrorized by coyotes, denied a school lunch, and a controversial superbowl ad
UTAHIf you’re like us, you’ve occasionally fallen behind in paying your credit card or utility bills. And maybe you’ve had to face the consequences, perhaps nasty letters from a collection agency or a robo-caller with a vague accent demanding that you make an “arrangement.” But the folks at Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Postcard from a livestock sperm bank
Your one-stop shop for bison semen, oyster embryos and testicular turkey tissue.
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
One man’s sustainable city is another’s environmental scourge
Usually, the lies we tell ourselves are subconscious and hard to describe. That’s why I found two items in HCN‘s recent “urban sustainability” issue so maddening (1/20/14). In “The Vegas Paradox,” Jonathan Thompson informs us that southern Nevada’s official goals would have developers building huge numbers of new “Water Smart” homes by 2035 to achieve […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Older and wiser
I first heard of WildEarth Guardians’ quiet effort to buy out grazing permits in New Mexico’s Gila country more than two years ago. Headlines instantly blared in my head: “Anti-grazing enviros pay off anti-enviro ranchers to make way for wolves!” What a great story, I thought: It would show enemies becoming if not friends, then […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
New HCN employees and several visitors at the office.
Thank you for helping us blow our gift-subscription goal out of the water! Our loyal readers gave their friends and families more than 1,600 holiday gift subscriptions. We joyfully welcome our new readers and thank our existing ones for sharing your commitment to our journalism and to the region that binds us together. New development […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Montana escape
High and InsideRussell Rowland230 pages, softcover: $16.95Bangtail Press, 2013. Ex-Red Sox pitcher Pete Hurley comes to Bozeman to start a new life after a series of tragic mishaps that left him publicly shamed in Massachusetts. “Just as I was about to get over the incident that ended my baseball career,” he explains, “a drunken accident […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
How political extremism and primary reforms limit choices for Western voters
‘Top-two’ primary systems banish third parties from the ballot.
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Counterpoint: Brave New L.A.
In his essay, “Brave New L.A.,” Jon Christensen cites what he considers two pivotal and progressive moments in Los Angeles’ quest for sustainability: the July rise of former Los Angeles City Council Member Eric Garcetti to the mayor’s office and the November centenary of the Los Angeles Aqueduct (HCN, 1/20/14). Both occasions can equally be […]