My list of 37 influential environmentalists who are in — or very close to — the Obama administration (updated most recently on Sept. 10, 2009): I’m not saying environmentalists run everything now — far from it. But most commentators focus on industry people who gain political power, so I’ll contribute something original by tracking enviros. […]
Obama enviros
Posted inGoat
The latest buzz
It’s been more than two years since HCN reported on the West’s disappearing honeybees (see “Silence of the Bees”). Since then, parasitic mites and a mysterious syndrome called colony collapse disorder have killed off thousands more hives. Honeybees pollinate 80 percent of the fruits and vegetables we eat, and many wild species essential to ecosystems. […]
Posted inWotr
Coming home to roost
Like a lot of other Westerners, I recently added chickens to my suburban back yard. I didn’t plan on raising fryers; I envisioned only fresh eggs, grasshopper control and free entertainment. What I hadn’t anticipated was how attached I’d become. I began with nine, 2-month-old chicks. Town ordinance allows only six hens, but I figured […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
What we got here is a failure to collaborate
Updated Aug. 24, 2009 On July 10, President Obama announced his nomination of Jonathan Jarvis as the next director of the National Park Service. Jarvis has worked for the agency for 30 years and directed its Pacific West region since 2002. Many of his colleagues contend that he not only has scientific training, but is […]
Posted inGoat
Population: 6.9 billion and counting
Last week New York Times reporter Andrew C. Revkin — one of few U.S. journalists following the population issue — wrote a short blog about China’s recent about-face on population policy. After decades of mandating a one-child limit, China is now urging “eligible” couples (those who are only children themselves) to have a second baby. […]
Posted inGoat
Princes and paupers
California state parks learned their fate yesterday when the Governator finally got around to signing the state budget. He didn’t wield quite the large knife he’d (creepily) threatened to, cutting only $14.2 million from the parks’ budget—drastically less than the $143 million he’d earlier proposed. Here’s what Elizabeth Goldstein of the California State Parks Foundations […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Just say “yes”
I am glad that Carl Zichella recognizes a current trend within the environmental movement: inaction (HCN, 6/22 & 7/6/09). I have done my part volunteering and writing letters for the Sierra Club and other groups focused around conservation/sustainability/general green-ness, but I am tired of constantly opposing things and never seeing any changes. If all the […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Deals on wheels
“Thinking Outside the Timber Box” left out the struggles of the Montana Mountain Bike Alliance, which represents the thousands of mountain bike riders in Montana (HCN, 7/20/09). There is a middle ground of recreation that lies between the “motorheads” and the wilderness-loving hikers. Bicyclists have gravitated to the beautiful locations in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge that were […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
More children, more carbon
In “Let’s Get Small,” Judith Lewis writes that “global greenhouse gas emissions have increased 70 percent since 1970, and our energy-squandering ways are to blame” (HCN, 6/22 & 7/6/09). Note that since 1970, world population has increased from around 3.8 to 6.7 billion people, while the United States has gone from 200 to over 300 […]
Posted inGoat
Social justice hits the road
For three months, Chloe Noble and Jill Hardman have been living out of backpacks and sleeping on the streets of Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. They walk miles every day, and depend on the kindness of strangers. These women aren’t actually homeless — but they very well could be. Noble and Hardman are the creators […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Fightin’ words
Water entrepreneur Aaron Million is quoted as saying that if there were any problems with his proposed Wyoming-to-Colorado pipeline project, “I’d be the first to put a fork in it” (HCN, 7/20/09). To which I’d like to add my own thoughts: “What? After cutting up the public’s water, you’d dine on it?” Mr. Million is […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Collaboration, schmlaboration
Regarding Ray Ring’s story “Thinking Outside the Timber Box”: While I think the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership is a good step and a grand idea in broad terms, what Ring missed is that the Partnership group barely tried to include county commissioners and others (HCN, 7/20/09). If the point of a collaborative approach is to bring all […]
Posted inRay
More on forest power plays
Here are three more takes on experiments in running the West’s national forests differently — follow-up to my High Country News story, “Taking Control of the Machine.” —– Do I think the experiments will succeed? … That question was posed by Colorado Public Radio host Kirk Siegler, when he interviewed me last Friday on KUNC […]
Posted inGoat
Honoring the forgotten
Today the remains of three African-American soldiers will be buried at Santa Fe National Cemetery, more than 130 years after their deaths. Army Pvts. David Ford, Levi Morris and Thomas Smith were among the famous “Buffalo Soldiers,” African-American men who served in the military during the Civil War and later guarded the farthest reaches of […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Nirvana on a backhoe
Habitat restorer Kim Erion’s heartfelt connection to her work
Posted inWotr
In pothunter country, a small effort at healing
Two people are dead, and a lot of the living are furious. After an early-morning FBI raid last month in the Utah town of Blanding, which ended with 19 residents hauled in for trafficking in ancient artifacts, one of those indicted, a local doctor, sat in his Jeep and breathed in poisonous carbon monoxide. The […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Saving fisheries — and taking the edge off the dangerous derby of the sea.
Posted inWotr
One man’s salt must not burden another man’s water
The era of massive federal reclamation projects is long over, yet a changing climate will demand more work from less water. And so a new movement — watershed management — has quietly taken the place of building the big dams. Visit the tiny town of Mancos near Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado to […]
Posted inJuly 20, 2009: Thinking Outside the Timber Box
Mixed greens
Ever since the scraggly mountain-roaming John Muir joined other Californians to found the Sierra Club in 1892, that state has led the country in protecting the environment. California began regulating pesticides back in the horse-and-buggy era. Beginning in the 1950s, it passed comprehensive laws for air and water quality, regulation of toxic substances, tougher emissions […]
Posted inJuly 20, 2009: Thinking Outside the Timber Box
Welcome, new interns!
Three new interns have arrived for six months of “journalism boot camp” at our Paonia, Colo., office. (For more on the internship program, see hcn.org/about/internships.) Editorial intern Ariana Brocious is thrilled to be embarking on her first full-time journalism job. Last year, she reported on climate change in Argentina for the Arizona Daily Star. A […]