Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “A New Green Revolution.” For years, conventional farmers and other naysayers could dismiss organic farming with a wave of the hand: too many man-hours, too much tilling to control weeds, too few markets. But because organic farming uses no petroleum-based fertilizers or pesticides, it […]
Organics and biofuels bring independence
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
Universities lag on organics
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “A New Green Revolution.” David Oien of Timeless Seeds has an immediate reaction when asked if the soils and agriculture departments at state universities have been helpful to organic farmers: “No!” “But then again, the average (conventional) wheat farmer would say the same thing,” […]
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
The ranch wife, reinvented
At the end of a long dusty road that bumps through Wyoming sage country, Twin Creek Ranch looks like a typical ranch. Outside a hand-hewn log building, turkeys and chickens peck at the ground; cattle graze on a nearby hillside, and ranch dogs guard a pack of goats. But it takes only one conversation with […]
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
Energy companies score massive refund checks
If forced to retract wilderness leases, the BLM could owe billions
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
Where have all the rangers gone?
Forest Service tries to crack down on rogue off-roaders, but lacks staff to enforce rules
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
A desperate move to protect cattle ranchers
Wyoming’s plan to kill suspect elk could become a ‘political disaster’
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
Roadless forest plans draw crowds — and lawsuits
As a crucial deadline approaches, Coloradans turn out to speak their minds
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
Dear friends
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM HCN Thanks to all our friends and subscribers for attending HCN’s annual holiday open house on Dec. 7. Thanks also to those who brought a holiday treat. The HCN staff is taking a much-needed break for two weeks, to bake fruitcake, guzzle eggnog, and celebrate with family and friends. The next issue […]
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
Thanks to the farmers
At our Thanksgiving dinner table, we don’t thank God for the food. We thank the farmers. It started as a statement by my wife, Tara — a not-so-subtle hint to her parents that she puts her faith in a different place than they do theirs. But now it’s an important part of our holiday ritual, […]
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
A New Green Revolution
In Montana’s dying farm country, ‘vanguard agriculture’ puts people back on the land
Posted inWotr
Oh, Christmas tree, oh, Christmas tree
“I will not kill another living tree for Christmas,” announced a waitress at a restaurant I frequent. It is a common misconception that cutting a fir at Christmas is killing a tree that will otherwise live. “Christmas trees are grown to be cut,” I said sagely. “That is their reason for being.” Then I recounted […]
Posted inWotr
Camping out at home
The first heating bill I got was for October, and it jumped from summer levels right up to what I was paying mid-winter last year. Mind you, I didn’t even light the furnace pilot light until Oct.10, and because the weather was nice, we only kicked in the thermostat on a handful of days, less […]
Posted inWotr
The trouble with the Endangered Species Act is us
With House approval of his “Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act” last September, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., got a step closer to his career goal of eradicating the Endangered Species Act. Pombo, a developer posing as a rancher posing as an advocate of the public good, proclaims that the 32-year-old law is “broken” and a […]
Posted inWotr
Bet on Las Vegas for Western solutions
Las Vegas is a funny place to find solutions to the woes of Western cities, but in southern Nevada, the phenomenal growth of the last 20 years has spawned innovative ways to solve the problems of Western cities. Las Vegas has all the problems of a healthy economy — growth, sprawl, air pollution, traffic congestion, […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Living Within Our Means: Beyond the Fossil Fuel Credit Card
Living Within Our Means: Beyond the Fossil Fuel Credit Card Kamyar Enshayan 54 pages, softcover: $12 Congdon Printing & Imaging, 2005. Engineer and city councilman Kamyar Enshayan considers the inevitable end of the fossil-fuel joyride. Short essays ponder topics we’ll all need to grapple with — like the truth about hydrogen and ethanol and what […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Earth Notes
Earth Notes Edited by Peter Friederici 70 pages, softcover: $6.95 Grand Canyon Association and KNAU, 2005. Served up in two-page bites, Earth Notes is a tasty selection of tidbits about the Southwest’s canyon country. Editor Peter Friederici dishes out a smorgasbord of nicely illustrated topics ranging from heirloom plant seeds to ancient stone calendars to […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Bear
Bear Robert E. Bieder 286 pages, softcover: $19.95 Reaktion Books, 2005. From cave bears to dancing bears, totemic bears to teddy bears, this elegant little book comes lavishly illustrated with bear photos, drawings and paintings. Author Robert E. Bieder tells the history of this fascinating animal through time and across cultures; there’s a treat on […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Coming home to a Montana town
A clear stream and a cottonwood tree anchor Karen Brichoux’s pensive new novel. The Girl She Left Behind tells the story of Katherine Earle, who flees the big city to return to her tiny hometown in a Montana mountain valley. Katherine had crept away from Montana with her musician fiancé as a lovestruck 18-year-old, without […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Not just any book about the grasslands
In the final scene of John Price’s book, Not Just Any Land, a botanist watches buffalo moving in at an Iowa wildlife refuge and says, “There are mysteries about Iowa tallgrass only buffalo can solve.” America’s grasslands, which once stretched from the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains, are now mostly gone, but several national […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
County worked hard to control drilling impact
I was disappointed to read the opening statement in “Doubling density near Durango” (HCN, 11/14/05: Doubling density near Durango). As chair of the board of county commissioners who signed memoranda of understanding with BP and with Samson Resources, I can guarantee you that we did not sign “deals allowing two energy companies to double the […]