April Reese’s analysis of the leasing protest game told a story familiar in California as well as the Intermountain West (HCN, 3/31/08) Recently, Los Padres ForestWatch, in partnership with rural landowners, protested a lease sale of more than 20,000 acres adjacent to the Los Padres National Forest. Later, all but one of the parcels were […]
California protestin’
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
No country for old men
I’ve lived in rural eastern Oregon for 37 years, and in that time have known several suicides (HCN, 3/31/08). Some are variations on the scripts that Ring discusses. But there is another type of suicide that is not unusual in the rural independent West – the elderly or terminal individual who clings to control over […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
A quietus made … Is no sin
I think it is worth remembering that for every “crazy” person who kills himself, there are many more suicide victims who show no evidence of “craziness”at all. I’ve lost three dear friends to gunshot suicide. None of us saw the signs, and indeed, they were hard to detect. But maybe, as the world itself becomes […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Heard Around the West
WASHINGTON John Slemp, a 52-year-old UPS driver from Portland, recently snowmobiled to the top of Mount St. Helens with his son, Jared, who is just back from serving a year in Iraq, reports the Seattle Times. In the cold, crisp air, the men decided to do something risky: They crawled onto a cornice overlooking the […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Coffeepots and climate
As I rode my bike north out of Fort Collins, Colo., the houses thinned out, replaced by cows and horses. In one field between me and the foothills, several pronghorn antelope ran from me in a short leaping spurt, turned and looked back, then resumed their grazing. A string of steel power line structures, which […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
The West’s wacky weather
In December of last year, High Country News ran a news report about the severe drought then plaguing the West. Ski slopes were brown, wildfires were still burning in California and New Mexico, and weather forecasters were calling for an ultra-dry Western winter. By the time the issue hit the streets, those streets and everything […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
The mysticism of mud
Mud season just ended on the sage-covered mesa north of Taos that I call home. During the last few months, you could tell who lives on dirt roads by the perpetual stripe of mud on their lower pant legs. That’s normal. But I have never seen as much mud as I saw this spring. On […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Climate Revolutionary
Creating a legal framework for saving our planet
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
The gospel according to Ron Gillett
Fiery advocate against wolves connects with a small farm town
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
CRASH?
There was a time in much of the West when communities would hop onto an extractive boom like a hobo onto a freight train, determined to ride those high-paying jobs all the way to the end of the line. That was certainly the case in western Colorado for a long time. But these extractive economies […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Boom! Boom!
In western Colorado, an energy boom of unprecedented proportions has been layered on top of a thriving amenity economy. Which will come out on top?
Posted inArticles
Welcome to Smart Grid City, Colorado
Boulder, Colo., is known for a lot of things, including the University of Colorado, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and a distinctive hippie-progressive-outdoorsy vibe. And now, it’s about to get the nation’s first fully-integrated “smart grid.” A smart grid is exactly what it sounds like: an “intelligent” power grid that uses broadband technology to […]
Posted inArticles
More precious than gold?
Updated May 14, 2008 In the ’80s, activist David Kliegman was worried about logging companies over-cutting the forests on Buckhorn Mountain, the high point of the picturesque Okanogan Highlands in north-central Washington state. Then he learned that a mining company just might “take the mountain right out from under the trees.” That was back in […]
Posted inWotr
Coffee with the ladies
This morning, I saddled a dependable horse and headed for morning rounds at the calving meadow. I want to finish checking on the cows a little early so I can drive up the road to my neighbor’s house for the Shell Ladies’ Coffee. (Shell itself may boast a population of only 50, but we’ve had […]
Posted inWotr
The ugly economy of killing wildlife
Most Americans have never heard of the federal agency euphemistically known as Wildlife Services. Yet it was a major force in eliminating wolf and grizzly bear populations in the early 20th century, and today spends over $100 million each year using mostly taxpayer dollars to kill more than a million animals — primarily birds — […]
Posted inWotr
Predator control looks a lot different on the ground
The extremists who are on a mission to eliminate the Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services would do well to spend time with ranchers who live and work on our Western landscape. There, they might gain an on-the-ground perspective other than their narrowly defined agenda. As the old Greek shepherds — echoing the ancient Greek philosophers […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Language is a virus
Jonathan Thompson’s use of the phrase “self-murder”is ill-advised, and “crazy”(as used by both Thompson and Ray Ring) arguably is, too, in this context, in particular as a major heading on the front page (HCN, 3/31/08). Yet more telling, however, is Thompson’s – and to a degree (and surprisingly) Ring’s – apparent ignorance of how mental […]
Posted inArticles
One down, three to go
Four Western states could see big chunks of new wilderness — roughly three-quarters of a million acres – thanks to a flurry of wilderness legislation. Three bills are now wending their way through Congress, and a fourth, designating the Washington State Wild Sky Wilderness, awaits President Bush’s expected signature. Many Northwesterners are enthusiastic: Idaho may […]
Posted inApril 28, 2008: Pillaging the Past
Rolling on the rivers
In Adios Amigos: Tales of Sustenance and Purification in the American West, Page Stegner revels in striking juxtapositions: the fragile beauty of rivers contrasted with their staggering power to destroy; people working to preserve forests and wildlife alongside a younger generation bent on using nature for self-serving purposes. This absorbing collection of essays stems from […]
Posted inApril 28, 2008: Pillaging the Past
Forces of nature
Amy Irvine, environmental activist, writer and former professional rock climber, sets her memoir, Trespass, in the stark geology of Utah’s red-rock wilderness. Following her father’s suicide, Irvine retreats from Salt Lake City to rural Utah, where she is confronted almost daily by divisive public land-use demands and ubiquitous Mormon missionaries, not to mention her tumultuous […]