The Southwest reminds one writer of Mars
The bare bones of life
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
The meat of the matter
Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory FarmsNicolette Hahn Niman278 pages, hardcover: $23.99.HarperCollins, 2009. When lawyer Nicolette Hahn was first assigned to sue gigantic polluting hog farms, she didn’t care for the idea. It sounded like an “immersion in poop,” she writes in her first book, Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Forager, feed thyself
Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century ForagerLangdon Cook224 pages, hardcover, $26.95.Skipstone Press, 2009. When Langdon Cook met his future wife, his lack of culinary prowess nearly chased her away. “Cooking meant heating up a box of mac ‘n’ cheese or opening a can of chili,” he confesses in the prologue to Fat […]
Posted inGoat
Crossroad at the foot of a mountain
Lilacs bloomed on the corner next to the hostel. A freight train rumbled through the little downtown, the third one in the past hour; the swirling clouds of railroad noise carried echoes of Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie. A block south of the tracks, a black Irish beauty from New York stood in front of a coffee shop, […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
The same old Sen. Reid?
The Nevada lawmaker has a long history of opposing attempts to reform an antiquated federal mining law
Posted inArticles
Having your cake and eating it, too
Gary Nabhan defends collaborative conservation
Posted inWotr
Great Plains aura
Not long ago, I revisited the long-abandoned farm in south-central South Dakota where my grandparents farmed for over 30 years. Nothing could induce any of their children or grandchildren to copy their commitment to this lonely land, but it took a nasty cancer to get grandpa Lyle off the place. Standing at the farm’s highest […]
Posted inGoat
Fire and Smoke
Back in June of this year I did a GOAT Blog post on the wildfires that burned during the summer of 2008 in Northwest California. In October of 2008 I posted a commentary on reasons why western wildfires are getting larger. Included in the June report was the controversy that arose in Northwest California last […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Revival or dam-nation?
The push for green power could spawn a rush for small hydropower projects in the Northwest
Posted inGoat
Let it burn?
Despite wildfires smoldering across the West in recent weeks (outside of Denver, in Southern California, and near Arizona’s Kitt Peak Observatory), one Colorado town is backing off on wildfire protection. Breckenridge, Colo., a mountain resort town about 80 miles southwest of Denver, this week revoked an ordinance requiring homeowners to thin vegetation and remove trees […]
Posted inRay
Obama enviros
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. […]
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 […]