“Hello, Mr. Wray. This is John from the National Rifle Association. How are you doing tonight?” “Fine, thanks.” “Mr. Wray, as a Life Member of the NRA, I know you are concerned with our right to bear arms. Are you aware of Obama’s under-the-radar effort to destroy our Second Amendment rights?” “You mean President Obama?” […]
A conversation I look forward to having with the NRA
Posted inRange
Lessons from the Musselshell: the aftermath
Editor’s note: This is the fourth blog in a series by contributor Wendy Beye, chronicling a restoration effort on Montana’s Musselshell River. Floodwaters dallied in Musselshell River’s floodplain for months, precluding any attempts at damage assessment or repair. The first priority was to restore community water systems and roads. Dump trucks, excavators, and graders were tied […]
Posted inRange
Land of Disenchantment
The Territory of New Mexico became the 47th state of the union in 1912, so the state is celebrating its centennial this year. It’s also looking for a new marketing slogan to revive its tourism industry. For nearly 80 years, it’s been “the Land of Enchantment,” but the spell seems to be wearing off. As […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Environmental warrior Martin Litton is still fighting at 95
Martin Litton, 95, wastes no time on proprieties. “I’m supposed to be dead, you know,” he growls on a January morning, leading me through a thicket of potted plants into his home in the hills near Palo Alto, Calif. A towering presence with a booming voice, Litton has spent his life battling developers, extractive industries […]
Posted inRange
Climate debate hearkens back to days of the bison
An old bison bone on my desk has me thinking about air pollution, climate change and the American mind. You remember the basics from history class: Tens of millions of bison roamed the Great Plains. Along came Manifest Destiny and market hunters shot them for hides, tongues and just to get the great beasts out […]
Posted inGoat
All (climate concerned) eyes on D.C. court
For environmental law wonks, the debate unfolding in a Washington, D.C., federal appeals court this Tuesday and Wednesday is the courtroom equivalent of the Super Bowl: the stakes are high and everyone is watching. Playing offense are a few states, including Texas, Utah and North Dakota, along with Big Coal, Big Oil, Big Ag, the […]
Posted inWotr
Our nuclear legacy should have taught us something
Here in Moab, Utah, where we can watch railcars carry off the radioactive uranium waste that was stored right next to the Colorado River, many locals are steeling themselves for the return of yet more uranium to their lives. During the Cold War, Moab was called the uranium capital of the world, as the element […]
Posted inRange
The battle for new wilderness: A closer look at Montana’s Sleeping Giant
Editor’s note: This is the last story in a group of pieces produced for High Country News by students in the University of Montana’s online news class. They ran over a period of two weeks in the Range blog. You can see a list of all the stories here. By Daniel Viehland On Nov. 10, […]
Posted inRange
Left out of the Arizona debate: energy
On Wednesday, February 23rd, the four Republican presidential candidates were in my town, Mesa, Arizona, for yet another round of “debate.” As everyone knows (and as Tom Zoellner’s recent book excerpt reminded HCN readers), Arizona is friendly turf for these guys, and conservative Mesa may be friendliest of all. The audience at the Mesa Arts […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
How Arizona’s culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
To understand why Jared Lee Loughner shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and 18 others 2011, look to Arizona’s vitriolic politics.
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: environmental antiheros and solar booms
Picking apart the news through the hurried swoosh of this stunted week, I leaned back in my rickety desk chair for a few minutes to consider which rugged individualist in this day and age concerns me more. Is it the ironman fugitive on snowshoes who vanished in the powdery woods of Southern Utah nine years […]
Posted inWotr
Some politicians turn public lands into a political football
As presidential candidates crisscross the country — even dropping in on a few Western states — some have been making revealing comments about the vast public lands that help to define the American West. For instance, former Gov. Mitt Romney said, “I don’t know why the government owns so much of this land.” In the […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
I don’t love my dog
There’s a dead fawn outside my front door. The sweet young body is completely covered in tall grass, which means this is a mountain lion kill, which means that the mountain lion responsible is going to come back for the next few mornings and nights to finish eating. I must admit that, although I’m reflexively […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Hollywood turns wolves into man-killers
THE WESTOnce again, Hollywood has chosen mythmaking over reality in its portrayal of predators, in this case, Alaskan wolves, in a new movie called The Grey. According to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, the “man-versus-beast thriller” pits stranded oilfield roughnecks against extreme cold, hunger and a pack of starving wolves; when carnage erupts, “the wolves are usually […]
Posted inGoat
Of tooth, claw and plane: Making my peace with predator control
Updated 3/6/2012 A troubling item appeared in the news last month, troubling to this news consumer and, if they could read, troubling to the predators of Alaska. Out of a desire to save caribou, moose, elk and in particular musk oxen, the state’s Board of Game now allows state officials to shoot bears from planes […]
Posted inWotr
This is a winter of snowy owls
It took only two hours for me to reach the apparent miracle that was occurring near Flathead Lake in Polson, Mont.: Snowy owls had turned up here after flying all the way from the Arctic, and everybody in the town of about 4,000 seemed to know about it. I’d never seen these spectacular, two-foot-tall birds, […]
Posted inGoat
Uncontrolled release
This scintillating-looking snippet of paperwork was pulled from the PR portion of a materials containment plan filed with the state of Colorado by Suncor Energy’s oil refinery in Commerce City, which produces about 90,000 barrels a day of gasoline, diesel and asphalt. It was supplied to High Country News by Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians, […]
Posted inRange
Who’s the worst of all?
In his essay “The Second Rape of the West” published in 1975, Edward Abbey observed that when Westerners with certain attitude problems start talking, the conversation often features their representatives in the U.S. Congress. “Look at Senators Garn and Moss of Utah, Senators Goldwater and Fannin of Arizona, Governor Rampton of Utah, Congressmen Steiger and […]
Posted inRange
Risks remain from uranium mining near the Grand Canyon
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House When the 20-year withdrawal of nearly one million acres of public land from uranium development near the Grand Canyon was finalized last month, reaction was mixed. Conservationists, who’d been warning of contamination of surface and groundwater flowing into the Colorado River from mining activity, mostly exhaled in relief. (Never mind the […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Communities help pay for ecosystem services provided by forests
Strontia Springs Reservoir, 30 miles south of Denver, Colo., looks like water you’d want to scoop up in your dipper. Sunshine and pine reflect off its aqua-blue surface. But 16 years ago, it looked more like a latte clogged with cinnamon bark. In 1996 and 2002, major forest fires scorched the Upper South Platte River […]