In my office, I have a picture of a man testifying to Congress. He is haggard, with the look of someone under great strain. Behind him, engraved on the wall, is a quote from the book of Proverbs: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The man in the picture is NASA climatologist James […]
When a scientist becomes an activist
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
East to the West
A writer contemplates the beginning of the West
Posted inBlog
The Crusade Continues
“Dear Mr. Bell: “I travel so much that I’m always behind in my reading. So you can well have imagined my surprise when I found out you were going to fold the paper. Well, Hell man, I don’t always agree with you, but for God’s sake let’s keep the paper going for awhile yet. Enclosed […]
Posted inGoat
All aboard the coal train
Very little is certain for ol’ King Coal these days. The numbers weren’t pretty last year. Coal production was down almost 8 percent in 2009, and consumption fell even further. Environmentalists are still fighting new coal-fired power plants tooth and nail—and winning. And the future of federal carbon regulation, which could have major implications for […]
Posted inRange
Sage Grouse Must Wait
Ever spent hours waiting for assistance in a doctor’s office while other, more urgent patients were seen first? Then you can imagine how some of us feel about Friday’s decision to leave the sage grouse hanging about in the waiting room. On March 5, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) concluded that the sage grouse, […]
Posted inBlog
Tackling environmental justice on the Front Range
Two years ago I relocated to Denver and inherited from a friend what might possibly be the best job in the world – the directorship of the University of Denver’s Environmental Law Clinic. In the two decades before my arrival, the clinic had established an impeccable reputation for its work fighting to protect endangered species […]
Posted inGoat
Politics and currency
H.L. Mencken once observed that it would have been worth losing the Civil War in order not to have Ulysses S. Grant as president. The reputation of Grant’s presidency, 1869-77, has improved since Mencken’s day, but apparently not enough. Now there’s a bill introduced in Congress to replace his picture on the $50 bill, a […]
Posted inRange
Feinstein and Westlands – who’s running whom?
There has been an interesting development in the ongoing story of Big Ag v fish in the Great Central Valley of California. Back in January HCN featured an article by Matt Jenkins on that conflict and in particular on the part played by the powerful corporate farmers of the Westlands Water District on the West […]
Posted inGoat
No ESA for sage grouse
You might be all in a tizzy about whether Avatar or Hurt Locker will win the big Oscar on Sunday. But a lot of folks in the Interior West — and enviro wonks from all over — were focused this week on a much bigger announcement: Will the greater sage grouse get federal protection under […]
Posted inBlog
What Tom Bell Had to Say
Passionate, feisty, courageous, “just another nutty prophet of doom” — all have been used to describe Tom Bell, the Wyoming rancher and wildlife biologist who founded High Country News in 1970. High Country News’ first years were tumultuous as Bell struggled to keep it alive. Twice, he threw away the paste-up sheets for the next […]
Posted inGoat
Olympic Sasquatch
Quatchi is a bearded, earmuff-loving sasquatch. He was one of the official mascots of the 2010 Winter Olympics, part of a trio that included Miga, a mythical sea bear sporting a serious cowlick, and Sumi, an animal spirit with furry feet and thunderbird wings. All three were inspired by the legends of four of Canada’s […]
Posted inWotr
When school budgets get cut to the bone, what then?
Last fall, a massive budget deficit was uncovered within the Grand County School District in Moab, Utah, leaving parents aghast. Because of mismanagement, the school district faced a cascade of shortfalls, from $1 million for the 2008-’09 school year and $1.4 million for 2009-’10, to $1.9 million for 2010-2011. Just before the holidays, the district […]
Posted inGoat
Totally gnarly air, dude
What might California save if it met the EPA’s current air quality standards? From 2005-’07, the figure might have been $193 million — in hospital bills alone. That’s the approximate cost of about 30,000 emergency room visits and/or hospital admissions that might have been avoided if California’s skies were more breathable, according to a new […]
Posted inGoat
Who’s grabbin’ who?
A few days ago, Editor Jonathan Thompson posted “The trouble with monuments“, describing his reaction to the news that the Department of Interior has its eye on some potential new national monuments in the West. Utah politicians, unsurprisingly, have been quick to decry what they see as an unilateral “federal land grab” (despite the fact […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Three cheers
GOOD NEWS DEPARTMENT While most school districts continue to struggle (and argue) over how to cut millions of dollars out of their budgets, the residents of Grand County, Utah, were just told they could relax and take a deep breath — at least for one year. Thanks to an anonymous donor’s gift of $700,000, the […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
The smoke police
Bay Area air quality inspectors on the alert