Since the oil boom in western North Dakota began several years ago, the roads in this sparsely-populated corner of the state have been taking a beating. A typical shale oil well requires 2,300 truck trips in its lifetime, driven mostly over gravel roads. With nearly 6,800 wells currently operating in the Bakken oil field, that’s a […]
Bakken oil trucks can kick up carcinogenic dust similar to asbestos
Posted inWotr
Between a rock and a dry place
How the “mega-drought” facing the region got its start.
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
L.A. is here to stay
Paul set his mug of wine down and glowered at me over his glasses. Los Angeles? Why would any magazine editor include Los Angeles in a special issue on environmental sustainability? My friend and former professor had good reason to ask. The camper Paul calls home, where I had stopped for dinner that October night, […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
Las Vegas Periphery: Views from the Edge, by Laurie Brown and Sally Denton
Las Vegas Periphery: Views from the EdgePhotographs by Laurie Brown, essay by Sally Denton, 96 pages, hardcover: $60. George F. Thompson Publishing, 2013 At the edge of cities, development and nature collide. That juxtaposition has always fascinated photographer Laurie Brown, and she explores it fully in Las Vegas Periphery. Focusing on a city that symbolizes […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
The shareable city: building a better legal foundation for urban sustainability
A conversation with a sharing economy guru.
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
Building better homes in Indian Country
Tribes use green building to address housing shortages.
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
Battling plasticulture
An Oregon company turns plastic waste into fuel.
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
Social media startup cuts food waste
Last spring, following a Sunday farmers market, Nick Papadopoulos, general manager of Bloomfield Farms in Sonoma County, Calif., surveyed his unsold produce: 40 pounds of soon-to-wilt organic broccoli. Normally, it would end up in the compost pile. Instead, he snapped a picture and posted it to the farm’s Facebook page: “We’d love to get this […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
Stopping deforestation, one pair of chopsticks at a time
HCN student essay contest winner.
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
From paradise paved to paradise saved?
Driving around in circles looking for parking is so 1935 – the year Oklahoma City installed the world’s first parking meter. Parking’s waste of gas, time and space has recently inspired a host of phone applications to help people find spots more quickly, or even sublet their empty residential spaces. Though handy, the apps are […]
Posted inGoat
New study maps carbon footprints, comes to surprising conclusions
One could lose oneself for hours in the patterns and erratic splotches of colors. Do I live in a swath of self-righteous green? Or in guilt-ridden, fiery orange? Does urban density really reduce our environmental impact? And how gluttonous are those McMansion-dwelling exurbanites, anyway? The answers to all these questions and more are now just […]
Posted inGoat
Tale of two states: Utah’s a model for reducing homelessness, Wyoming lags behind
What happens when you give a homeless person a subsidized apartment? The answer isn’t as straightforward as you might think. But in Utah, it’s proven a resounding success – out of 17 chronically homeless people who took part in the state’s 2005 pilot program, all were still off the streets two years later, spurring a […]
Posted inWotr
Megaloads and wild-and-scenic rivers don’t mix
Opinion: These loads of mining equipment to Canada don’t belong on a narrow, scenic road that winds through my part of Idaho.
Posted inArticles
Are Yellowstone grizzlies ready for delisting?
A recent study of the bears’ diets has spurred a move toward ending endangered protections.
Posted inWotr
Gliding past while bullets fly
Rafting the Yellowstone River while hunters shoot ducks out of the sky.
Posted inGoat
Hopi lawsuit against wastewater snowmaking gets green light in Arizona
The Arizona Supreme Court has greenlighted a lawsuit that the Hopi Tribe brought against the city of Flagstaff, Ariz. for selling wastewater to a local ski resort to make fake snow. In a procedural victory, the tribe has won the right to proceed with its lawsuit challenging Flagstaff’s 2002 decision to sell reclaimed wastewater to […]
Posted inWotr
On the ground with economies built on snow
It has been snowing in Crested Butte, Colo., where people pray and dance for snow; the whole winter economy is predicated on snow. Crested Butte’s old miners used to call snow “the only crop that never failed.” They also used to say, “You can’t eat the scenery.” But Crested Butte and most mountain communities have […]
Posted inGoat
If the gas industry wants enviro cred, it should embrace methane regulation
Shift more of the nation off coal-powered electricity and onto that supplied by natural gas, and what do you get? A significant reduction in the carbon emissions driving the alarming climatic shifts we already experience in our daily lives. That’s the theory anyway, based on the fact that natural gas produces about half the carbon […]
Posted inGoat
What the West would look like with state boundaries drawn by culture, population, or watersheds
Here at High Country News, some of us recently had a lively discussion about our slogan: “for people who care about the American West.” After 43 years, is it still the best phrase to convey who we are and what we do? We added the “American” to that slogan some years ago, realizing that in […]