For well over 500 years people have engaged in “dowsing,” an activity that is also known by a variety of vernacular terms including “witching,” “divining,” and, my young daughters’ favorite, “doodlebugging.” Dowsing is the activity of attempting to locate — without the use of scientific equipment — something valuable that lies beneath the ground. While […]
Rants from the Hill: Chickenfeathers strikes water
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
A tree-climber’s tale of harvesting cones to save whitebark pines
You wipe the sweat out of your eyes with a sap-stiffened glove, clinging tightly with your other hand to the one live branch, thick as a hammer handle, that is keeping you up here and alive, 30 feet or so above the rocky earth, while your boots struggle to balance on twigs and your knees […]
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: Prosperous and in Congress
Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo, is one of the wealthiest members of Congress. And she’s by far the wealthiest congressperson in her state, according to a recent report by WyoFile, the Wyoming-based investigative reporting network. Her net worth–between $5.5 million and $24 million–cast her as the 29th richest member of the U.S. House of Representatives, according […]
Posted inWotr
Greens need to occupy the Occupy movement
I recently drove to nearby Anchorage, Alaska, to join a crowd of 200 Occupy Wall Street protesters. Many held signs denouncing economic disparity, certainly a good reason to take to the streets. But my sign was about environmental disparity, the result of wealthy corporations despoiling our shared forests, air and even the world’s climate to […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
Tribes try selective fishing to boost catch without harming wild salmon
“Power up!” yells Capt. James Ives as a pulley motor begins hauling a heavy fishing net onto the Dream Catcher‘s deck, here on the Columbia River in northeastern Washington. Three crewmembers from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation fold the net, piling its floats on one side of the boat and pleating its lead-weighted […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
The joys of ‘virtual hiking’
THE WESTCouch potatoes, rejoice: Pretty soon, you won’t have to actually set foot on a trail through the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone national parks. Instead, you’ll be able to enjoy an online “virtual hiking expedition,” compliments of the energy-bar maker Nature Valley. The company hired crews with 360-degree cameras to hike 100 miles through each […]
Posted inGoat
The year in environmental news
There are only a few weeks till 2012, which means you are probably trying to shovel your way through the flurries of “year-in-review” summaries that tend to accumulate around this time. One that stands out is Vermont Law School’s Top 10 Environmental Watch List, the venerated law school’s yearly synthesis of the country’s most pressing […]
Posted inWotr
Tips for a bright – and efficient – Christmas
Last year, I loaded up the Christmas stockings of relatives and friends with 60-watt Philips LEDs — light-emitting diode — light bulbs, and this holiday I’ll do it again. Why give a present few people even know they want? Because LEDs are the gift that keeps on giving, saving money every month on electric bills. […]
Posted inGoat
A caribou rescue?
About a decade ago, I spent one lucky summer traipsing through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with six other young women. Towards the end of our trip, caribou began trickling through the valleys. ” ‘Bou!” we’d point and shout almost every time we glimpsed one. We knew what was coming: Thousands upon thousands would soon […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
Land trusts thrive despite, and because of, the Great Recession
The Great Recession, it turns out, may have been good for one thing in the West: private land conservation. From the tiny Orient Land Trust in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, which has nearly doubled its holdings to 2,260 acres, to the 138,041 acres of ranchland protected by the California Rangeland Trust over the last five […]
Posted inRange
Open season on Smokey the Bear and Woodsy Owl
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of time spent exploring the outdoors — being a Junior Ranger at the Cape Cod National Seashore, hours-long games of Kick the Can with every kid in the neighborhood, tracking frogs and catching fireflies in mason jars with holes poked in the […]
Posted inGoat
Autopsy of an Aspen
Cross-posted from The Last Word on Nothing. In the rural Rocky Mountains where I live, we disagree about a lot of things — politics, religion, water, Tim Tebow — but we all agree on aspen. We love them, especially when they turn blaze-yellow in the fall, and we’d like them to stick around. So in […]
Posted inGoat
Oregon natural gas export terminal gets first approval
For onlookers watching the ongoing development of a proposed natural gas terminal in Coos Bay, Ore., it seemed a puzzling business strategy. Why would energy companies want to spend billions of dollars building a natural gas terminal and pipeline to import foreign gas when the domestic market was about to blow up? This September, the […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
Vagabond visitors
Mark Winkler stopped by our western Colorado office while visiting his mother in nearby Montrose and touring the North Fork Valley. He’s a homemaker and freelance writer in Redwood Valley, Calif. When he got to Paonia, he first dropped by KVNF, our local community radio station, which sent him to tour our local movie theater, […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
The trouble with transmission
New transmission lines are just another way to steal natural resources from low-population states (HCN, 11/14/11, “A transmission transformation”). The residents of these states have to live with the infrastructure required to create and transmit energy — whether it’s generated by coal, solar or wind – but we only see the returns during the initial […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
The man beneath the hat: Ken Salazar’s search for middle ground
Nearly every story about Ken Salazar mentions his cowboy hat. It’s hard not to; there aren’t a lot of politicians or bureaucrats — particularly Democrats — in D.C. who can get away with wearing one and not come off as a wannabe. Today, though, Salazar’s white hat and blue, pearl-buttoned ranch shirt fit right in. […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
Polluted air, coming soon to Glacier National Park
Glacier National Park is next in line for hazy, polluted air (HCN, 11/14/11, “Out of the haze”). Oil and gas development along Glacier’s eastern border with the Blackfeet Reservation is increasing drastically. Nearly all of the Blackfeet land is leased to oil and gas companies. Park officials and Superintendent Chas Cartwright are concerned with potential […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
Mountain bikes are vehicles, too
Mountain bikes are vehicles, and like all vehicle access, Nadia White and her partner got into a landscape they probably wouldn’t have if they had to walk (HCN, 11/14/11, “Food and friendship, fossil-fuel free”). That’s what happens when someone uses mechanical advantage to further access, and like all motorized and mechanical access, it degrades the […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
How private efforts and economic troubles have combined to support conservation
Produced in collaboration with the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
In appreciation of simplicity
What could be better than harvesting your own wild game without consuming gas by the minute and purchasing hundreds of dollars worth of gadgets to augment the “hunting experience” (HCN, 11/14/11, “Food and friendship, fossil-fuel free”)? Keep it simple. It helps that Nadia and Andrew live practically in the lap of a game reserve. But […]