The upcoming 40th anniversary of Earth Day is a testament to Gaylord Nelson, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin who conceived of the celebration during a 1969 tour of the West. Earth Day turned out to be a brilliant idea, but Nelson went on to accomplish even more, shaping environmental protections that many of us take […]
Only 40 years ago, the Earth got its day
Posted inRange
Waste not … or get nukes
A few weeks ago the New Mexico Environmental Law Center’s media director, Juana Colon, suggested I should write a blog post about policymakers’ recent embrace of nuclear power as just a way to enrich the world’s economic elites while at the same time continuing to subject poor and minority communities to various kinds of radioactive […]
Posted inGoat
Limiting Las Vegas
The conclusion of a new report by the Sonoran Institute—that Las Vegas’ water supply can’t keep up with its interminable appetite for growth—isn’t particularly surprising. But it is timely. The recent pummeling Las Vegas took from the recession presented the ballooning city with an opportunity to catch its breath. As the Las Vegas Sun puts […]
Posted inBlog
Black Mesa mine mess
A controversial clean water permit for a coal mine complex sited at a Navajo and Hopi sacred mountain is once again up for review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Peabody Western Coal Company seeks a renewal of its water quality permit for the Black Mesa/ Kayenta Mine Complex, despite the mine’s impact on […]
Posted inRange
Hey forest lovers – time to make your voices heard!
Today, Coloradans have a chance today to shape the future of America’s National System of Forests, some 193 million acres of mountains, grasslands, rivers and lakes all across the country. The U.S. Forest Service is hosting more than 30 national town hall meetings to hear, straight from the people who use these lands, why our […]
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
The Butterfly Sting
How a federal wildlife agent brought down one of the world’s most notorious insect thieves.
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
Our dirty past, our dirty present
Between 1972 and 1977, some 70 photographers set about documenting the American landscape, its environmental problems and its people for the then brand-new Environmental Protection Agency. Last summer, the National Archives and Records Administration began posting those Documerica Project images on Flickr.com in what will be a 15,000-shot collection. But 40 years after the EPA’s […]
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
Nature-for-profit
In the market for a Siberian weasel fur coat? A pair of eel-skin cowboy boots? A Louis Vuitton purse made from ostrich and monitor lizard skin? Look no further than lonestaronline.com. In February, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began an eBay-style rolling auction of some 300,000 (HOT! NEW!) items from its National Wildlife Property […]
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
A poacher’s menagerie
Highlights from wildlife busts on the Western front
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
The harsh truths of Bowden
Charles Bowden is a wonderful, as well as provocative, writer (HCN, 3/1/10). He has a way of serving up the truth so it slaps you in the face. I’m not sure any magazine but High Country News would have the guts to print this story as is. Maybe you would be willing to reprint something […]
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
Spring visitors
Here in Paonia, Colo., March brought us 60-degree days and 20-degree days, glorious sunshine and freezing sleet — sometimes during the same half-hour. Zac and Lisa Tuthill stopped by on one of the wet, snowy days, on their way home from Moab to Laramie, Wyo., where she’s a psychotherapist and he’s studying civil engineering. A […]
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
Saving the U.S. Forest Service
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt & the Fire That Saved AmericaTimothy Egan336 pages, hardcover: $27. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. The United States of America leaped into the 20th century with a surfeit of natural resources and a flamboyant leader. Early in his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt proposed a radical idea: Set aside and protect certain parts […]
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
Out of the cubicle, into the canyon
Wilderness provides consolation after a layoff.
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
“Just journalism or hegemonic narrative?”
Thank you for doing a series on environmental justice (HCN, 2/1/10). The successes of the environmental justice movement stand undeniably. After reading the first article in the “Green Justice” series, though, I felt confused and puzzled by your framing of the EJ movement, one of its national leaders, and those who have worked and continue […]
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
It’s the population, stupid — part II
I am sorry that Charles Bowden, in “The War Next Door,” does not mention Mexico’s population growth among the causes of Mexican migration into the United States (HCN, 3/1/10). It is, he says, “a natural shift of a species.” Perhaps, but it is also a case of the mushrooming of a people. Since I was […]
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
It’s the population, stupid — part I
Thanks for Charles Bowden’s grim but clear-eyed view of events along the border and Jonathan Thompson’s editorial relating them to too many people and too much consumption (HCN, 3/1/10). There’s no doubt that our addiction to consumption creates social and environmental costs, but I have a quibble regarding Thompson’s statement that it is “the most […]
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
A once and future abundance
The Living Shore: Rediscovering a Lost World Rowan Jacobsen 176 pages, hardcover: $20. Bloomsbury USA, 2009. The Olympia oyster — small, slow-growing, sensitive to heat and cold, copper in color and taste — is a rarity among shellfish. Yet this fussy bivalve, the West Coast’s only native oyster, once carpeted intertidal areas from Alaska to […]
Posted inRange
Climate Friendly National Parks
National parks across the country, including California’s desert national parks like the Mojave National Preserve, Joshua Tree National Park, and Death Valley National Park have begun developing action plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions as part of the National Park Service Climate Friendly Parks Program. The Climate Friendly Parks Program helps individual parks reduce […]
Posted inRange
HCN Reader Photo: Hopeful
When I first saw this image thumbnail in our Flickr pool, I couldn’t really tell what it was. I enlarged it for further examination, and found a beautifully-composed image with a strong message and a lovely title: “Hopeful.” Add your photos to our Flickr group and be sure to check out our upcoming photo contests.