Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor WarThomas G. Andrews386 pages, hardcover: $29.95.Harvard University Press, 2008. Rusted bits of metal, staircases to nowhere, perhaps a weathered gun tower: These fragments are all that remain of southern Colorado’s coal-mining towns. The casual visitor would never guess how central to Western history their inhabitants were. There is one […]
An underground uprising
Posted inMarch 2, 2009: How low will it go?
The little island that could
Last fall, a Viking washed up on my doorstep. His name was Soren Hermansen. For the past 10 years, he has spearheaded one of the most audacious experiments in the world: the attempt of 4,000 people living on the small Danish island of Samso to liberate themselves from fossil fuel. A few weeks after being […]
Posted inWotr
Winter camping can be hazardous to your health
One hundred thirty-five years ago this spring, a six-week ordeal began for Alferd E. Packer. The starving and disoriented man stopped eating wild rose hips. Trapped in the deep snows of the San Juan Mountains of western Colorado, he began gnawing on the corpses of his deceased comrades. Thus began one of the West’s most […]
Posted inMarch 2, 2009: How low will it go?
Security vs. sovereignty
Border requirements trample on the rights of Indian nations.
Posted inGoat
Power Shift 2009
Federal action on climate change. Green jobs. Youth empowerment… and economic development. Am I buying it? Yes. Are energy companies buying it? Sometimes. I am – by default (because of age) – part of this Millennial generation, and we’ve been called lazy, yes, but we’ve also stood up for the things we believe in. Maybe […]
Posted inMarch 2, 2009: How low will it go?
Lessons of habitat
Last July, Nancy Eastman was leafing through HCN when she came across a photo of artificial cholla built by California scientists (HCN, 7/21/08). The imitation cacti are intended to serve as nesting sites for beleaguered coastal cactus wrens, but they’re also great gangly jumbles of spikes, pipes and spindly legs. Eastman, an artist and landscaper, […]
Posted inGoat
Wind power and wildlife don’t mix
Montana ranks fifth in wind energy potential in the U.S., with an estimated capacity of 116,000 megawatts over 17 million windy acres. To date, the state has installed less than 300 MW of wind power, but more projects are underway. Hoping to “spark cooperative efforts between wind energy and conservation interests, so that the promise […]
Posted inGoat
The rich black allure
Oil shale is kind of like online journalism — there’s such potential there, but from the looks of it, we may never figure out how to make a profitable industry of it. Which must partly explain the contradictions in Ken Salazar’s latest plans for the resource. Yesterday, the secretary of the interior announced he’ll be […]
Posted inGoat
Fueling the fire in Mexico
I recently wrote about the drug-related violence in Mexico and along our southern border. That generated some nice discussion. Even in the short time since I wrote that, the violence seems to have intensified: Already, more than 300 people have been murdered in the Juarez area this year. Yes, THIS year — that’s less than […]
Posted inWotr
The very worst thing about hard times
Studs Terkel died as last year drew to a close. He was one of the great chroniclers of life in the 20th century, gathering the oral histories of hundreds of Americans. Most were the people historians don’t trouble themselves with — people who pay the price when the historical figures bungle the task of running […]
Posted inMarch 2, 2009: How low will it go?
True tests of ‘Stay and Defend’
Australian wildfires could alter Western fire policies.
Posted inGoat
The big, bad, brucellosis-spreading wolf?
In Wyoming, some legislators are straining to connect the dots between two of their biggest management headaches. The livestock disease brucellosis, which causes cows to abort their calves, has cost ranchers millions. And the gray wolf, reintroduced in ’95, has created huge controversy. Now, a state lawmaker is asking for $45,000 to test wolves for […]
Posted inGoat
If you can’t beat ’em, shoot ’em.
Idaho is not exactly known for its wolf tolerance, so it’s not surprising that the state is again proposing to kill wolves in an effort to boost elk numbers on the eastern side of the panhandle. The Ravalli Republic reports: In the next few weeks, the Idaho Fish and Game Department will ask the federal […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Aquatic invasive: $29.95
It’s no hassle to get on the Internet and buy a kit containing adorable tadpoles from the Florida-based Grow-a-Frog company. But this is something the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks hopes you’ll never, ever do. The company may say that the animals merely morph into baby froglets that only hop around in the […]
Posted inWotr
Time to cowboy up
There’s a saying here in the West when you’re sniveling too much. The term is “cowboy up,” and it means, “Suck it up.” It’s “buck up, little camper” for grownups. Here’s a sample use: If you’re a cowhand who just tore a thumb off in a roping accident, you need to cowboy up and bite […]
Posted inGoat
One winner in the recession — quagga mussels
It’s been just over two years since the notorious quagga mussel first turned up in Lake Mead. The mussel, an invader from the Black Sea, first hit the Great Lakes, then hitchhiked across the country to California, Colorado, Arizona and Utah. The fingernail-sized quagga mussels (and their close relatives, zebra mussels) are incredibly destructive — […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
A macabre measure of the human footprint
I’m a student of roadkill. I keep an informal tally of the carcasses I spot on the roadside — what kind, how many and where — and I note the splatters that accumulate on our car wi”ndshield. They’re an indication of the diversity and abundance of animal and insect lives along the unnatural transects we […]
Posted inGoat
Airing dirty laundry
The Vulcan Project, an interactive map and tracking system for carbon dioxide emissions, is like one of those UV light photographs that show all the splotches of sun damage you’ve accrued on your face over years of neglecting to wear sunscreen. Clever scientists at Purdue University have created a Google map that shows not only […]
Posted inMarch 2, 2009: How low will it go?
How low will it go?
Colorado may face a dry and difficult future of fighting for water
Posted inGoat
Will pesticide applications require a Clean Water permit?
On January 7th the Federal Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a decision in a long-running battle over whether the application of pesticides in, near or over water requires a Clean Water Act point source permit. In a case which consolidated multiple challenges to a Bush Administration regulation exempting pesticide applications from clean […]