Early morning sunrise washed over the Colorado National Monument outside Grand Junction as I headed for a boulder-strewn knoll. There, 110 years ago, paleontologist Elmer Riggs discovered a previously unknown dinosaur that we now call Brachiosaurus. When it was alive some 150 million years ago, the plant-eating dinosaur measured 75 feet or more from teeth […]
Stealing the West, bone by bone
Posted inAugust 20, 2010: A Hell of an Anniversary
Doomster chorus
Note: This is a sidebar to a profile of the founder of High Country News and his increasingly pessimistic view of the future, headlined, “A Hell of an Anniversary.” — “… A simple look at the upward path of global greenhouse-gas emissions (indicates) we will continue to squeeze the trigger on the gun we have […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2010: Migration
The Western Lit Blues
I’m-a-gettin’ tired of living up to my fictional counterpart
Posted inArticles
High Country Views: Fire in the foothills
HCN’s podcast looks at the aftermath of Colorado’s most destructive wildfire
Posted inBlog
Environmentalism’s communications problem
On Sept. 22, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported the most recent development in an ongoing dispute over the future of the Boardman power plant, located in the north-central part of the state. To meet state environmental regulations for emissions, Portland General Electric – the utility that operates the plant – has to figure out what to […]
Posted inRange
Death by suicide
By Clarence Worly, NewWest.net Guest Writer, 9-22-10 Between 1999 and 2007 there were nearly as many suicides as highway fatalities in the Mountain West states. In the case of Colorado, Utah and Nevada there were more self-inflicted deaths than traffic deaths. Am I the only person west of the Mississippi to see a problem here? […]
Posted inWotr
What we don’t admit about wildfire
Arizona had no big wildfires burning in early September, so in Flagstaff where I live, all eyes turned toward Boulder. The most destructive fire in Colorado history was raging out of control and we all wanted to watch. We couldn’t resist. I think it’s in our DNA. The internal combustion engine, electricity, the Internet — […]
Posted inRange
The organic growth of Portland’s green roofs
By Lisa Stiffler Portland’s ecoroof program is enough to turn other sustainability-striving cities green with envy. The City of Roses boasts 351 green roofs and rooftop gardens covering more than 26 acres.* By comparison, Seattle has 62 vegetated roofs totaling about 9 acres. How’d they do it? I had the opportunity to talk to Amy […]
Posted inRange
The difficult windows of September
Often I have observed that September is our reward for putting up with Colorado the rest of the year: Generally clear skies, warm sunny days that don’t get too hot, brisk mornings, glowing aspen leaves — what’s not to like? Well, as the nights get cooler — our first killing frost typically arrives around Sept. […]
Posted inWotr
A wild area gets a reprieve
Lovers of wild open spaces in northwest Colorado recently received some long-awaited great news. The Bureau of Land Management’s Little Snake Field Office announced that it would close 77,000 acres of the magnificent Vermillion Basin to oil and gas development. The agency’s decision came as a result of a well-publicized public process. Nonetheless, Moffat County […]
Posted inGoat
Grazing takes the heat
Climate change. Severe wildfires. Invasive species. A booming human population. The Bureau of Land Management identifies these as four key threats to Western public lands. Stick conventional and renewable energy development, endangered species protection, and recreation in the mix, and there’s less room each year for a past widespread use of public lands: livestock grazing. […]
Posted inRange
Do Indian Country voters have the president’s back?
By any objective measure Barack Obama has been the most engaged and effective president on American Indian issues since at least since Richard Nixon. You could even make the case that Obama is better than Nixon because there has been so much successful legislation and Executive Branch action in less than two years. A quick […]
Posted inGoat
Telemocracy #4
As if you needed more evidence. It is now undeniably clear: John Hickenlooper is Satan, and hates America. As I mentioned in the first installment of Telemocracy, the negative campaign ad is a proud American tradition. Since John Hickenlooper – Denver mayor and current Democratic candidate for governor of Colorado – apparently has no respect for the American Way, […]
Posted inArticles
“Curious about the human condition”
A conversation with Western writer Philip Fradkin
Posted inWotr
The problem of Western water is not what you think
The dirty little secret about Western water is that water conservation is a hoax, or at best a waste of time. When we conserve water by using less, we don’t save it for the health of the watershed or put it aside in any way; we simply make it available for someone else to consume, […]
Posted inBlog
Radioactive Justice
Lately I’ve been trying to keep up with the debate about uranium mining in the Grand Canyon region. I’m sorry to admit that like many people I’m not well-versed in the physical properties of uranium or radioactivity in general, so my first impulse when approaching this subject is a sort of vague, knee-jerk fear. As […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Milk and cookies
ARIZONA A McDonald’s restaurant in Phoenix learned a valuable lesson recently, but only after an assistant manager ordered a breastfeeding mother — and her 6-month-old baby — to leave. The lesson: Don’t mess with moms! As TV reporters flocked to the restaurant, dozens of nursing mothers converged inside it to protest what they called discrimination, […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2010: Migration
The Second Second City
A native Chicagoan who now lives in Montana discovers New Chicago, Mont.
Posted inGoat
Full frackin’ disclosure
New regulations in Wyoming requiring gas companies to disclose chemicals used in fracking go a long way toward addressing a rising chorus of health and environmental concerns. But, like a wholesome, Wyoming first date, it’s just a start, and they don’t go all the way. Drillers have long contended that the chemical cocktails they use […]