How ironic that HCN would publish an essay romanticizing a city that, like San Francisco in the 19th century and Los Angeles in the 20th, symbolizes the inexorable flow of resources and wealth out of the productive lands of the West and into the warehouses and pockets of the merchant elites (HCN, 11/23/09). Zoellner’s piece […]
Don’t take Manhattan
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Creating a precedent for forgiveness
The Crying TreeNaseem Rakha368 pages, hardcover: $22.95.Broadway Books, 2009. The word “forgiveness” conjures up images of long, damp hugs, sobbing and weakness. Our movie theaters, television screens and books are filled with heroes who violently punish evildoers, not people forgiving each other. In real life, our justice system steers clear of reconciliation and dispenses vengeance […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Condors not damned by dams
The article about David Moen (a research associate of the Oregon Zoo) and his search for evidence that condors once nested in the Columbia River Gorge states that “scientists blame its decline largely on deforestation and the impact of dams on salmon” (HCN, 10/12/09). For clarity, we would like to point out that this is […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
A search for meaning in the Pacific Northwest
LivabilityJon Raymond272 pages,softcover: $15.Bloomsbury USA, 2009. If you’ve ever imagined that your search for meaning might finally end at an organic farm in Oregon, or on a summer gig at an Alaskan fishery, or with the sale of your first screenplay, you’ll recognize the characters in Jon Raymond’s short-story collection Livability. Livability is a menagerie […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
A frackin’ mess
I am convinced that hydraulic fracturing poses a significant threat to the quality of our drinking water, and that the legal framework governing this practice is piecemeal and inadequate at best (HCN, 11/23/09). As a Colorado resident, I am proud that Gov. Ritter stood up to the weighty industry influence here and demanded more protection […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
What the FRAC?
WYOMING You might think that Sweetwater Station, population “plus or minus 5,” doesn’t have much to brag about. It sits on a two-lane road in the middle of nowhere, about halfway between Muddy Gap and Lander, in central Wyoming. But you’d be wrong, because nine years ago Sweetwater Station became the new home of a […]
Posted inWotr
A brave woman now runs a border town
I live in the flat, scruffy desert of southwestern New Mexico, a half-hour from the Mexican border town of Palomas. There’s been a war going on in Palomas for over two years. A dusty town of 5,000 people, Palomas has more murders per capita than any city in the world, some say. I talked recently […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
The federal energy two-step
Oil and gas companies are furious with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, but enviros wonder if he’ll go far enough
Posted inRange
California’s Carbon Game
As the world focuses on the Stockholm Climate Change Conference, how California is addressing climate change is generating conflict. In late November the California Air Resources Board (CARB) issued a draft of what are likely to be the first government regulations in the nation for carbon trading. Two environmental justice organizations – Communities for a […]
Posted inGoat
There’s gold in that there test-tube
Ten years ago, we ran a story about green groups suing the National Park Service over its plans to allow “bioprospecting” in Yellowstone. Private companies have made millions from heat-resistant microbes they’ve collected from the park’s thermal features (for example, Thermus aquaticus produced an enzyme used in DNA fingerprinting). Now, the Park Service is proposing […]
Posted inGoat
The picture of forest health
Rich Wininger, a Weyerhaeuser manager in the Northwest, recently wrote us in response to our Nov. 9 feature story “Roadless-less“, which included a photo of clearcutting on Weyerhaeuser forest lands (unfortunately we don’t have permission to reproduce that photo on our Web site).
Posted inWotr
Setting the record straight on wilderness
It’s been a good year for wilderness. In March, the Omnibus Lands Bill designated over 2 million acres of wilderness in nine states. In September, President Obama declared a month-long celebration of the Wilderness Act, and this November, the United States, Canada and Mexico signed the world’s first international agreement on wilderness conservation. Perhaps because […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
The messy mix of energy and sage grouse
Will turbines deal a deadly blow to the imperiled bird?
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
How big is your backyard?
The first time someone called me a NIMBY to my face was more than a decade ago, at a public meeting. The town council was expected to vote in favor of planting a new cell tower at the top of Cedar Hill, my favorite semi-wild place on the edge of town. The mayor at the […]
Posted inWotr
Bring back the rattlers
One morning, my wife told me she’d seen a rattlesnake on a knoll behind our house in southern Utah. Nestled under a bush just 25 yards up the hill, it didn’t look aggressive. It lay circled in the shade as if taking a nap, its diamond pattern strangely enhancing the scene. We decided to leave […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Wind Resistance
Will the petrocracy — and greens — keep Wyoming from realizing its windy potential?
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Battle for the core of Wyoming
Sage grouse concerns have pitted fossil fuels against wind
Posted inGoat
Well wars
With water rights dating to 1865, you wouldn’t expect Joseph Miller to worry about the security of his water supply. But to Miller, the new homes and subdivisions popping up in Montana’s Gallatin Valley, where he owns a 500-acre ranch, are plenty of cause for concern. Miller suspects those developments, which pump groundwater from permit-exempt […]
Posted inGoat
An official state microbe
Colorado may not hold the record for “Official State Whatevers,” but it’s got to come close with both a state rock and a state gemstone, two official state songs, a state insect and a state reptile, as well as the usual flower, bird, fish, tree, mammal and the like. But Wisconsin may […]