Judging from TV, Americans seem to think the only thing needed to sell a product or solve a problem is a catchy slogan. You’ve probably got the tinkly music from some jingle running through your head right now — even if you’ve tried to remove it with an ice pick. So I’m starting my crusade […]
Friends don’t let friends drive gas-guzzlers
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Glen Canyon Dam will stand
Glen Canyon Dam isn’t coming down. That’s the final word from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on calls to dismantle the dam, drain Lake Powell and release the waters of the Colorado (HCN, 12/22/03: Being green in the land of the saints). Under orders from Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the agency must develop a drought-management […]
Posted inWotr
Compassion can be dangerous to your health
It feels to me as if the Dalai Lama left a weapon of mass destruction in Idaho when he visited this September. I’m not a Buddhist, but I have admired the teachings and tolerance of the Dalai Lama for years. So I couldn’t miss the chance to visit the prayer wheel that he blessed at […]
Posted inWotr
Are we ready to learn the lessons of fire and flood?
Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig caused a stir Oct. 14 when he suggested that the 9th Ward, home of many of New Orleans’ poor, should be restored as a wetland. No one would call Craig a tree-hugger. Craig has built a career out of supporting dams and levee systems that have reshaped the West. He […]
Posted inWotr
Land trusts have gotten the word to shape up
Over the past several years, conservation easements have come under increasing scrutiny. Critics have argued that these private agreements — designed to forever protect open space on private land from development — have resulted in widespread abuses, such as giving too much money in tax breaks or other advantages to the wealthy and powerful. These […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Cougar Management Guidelines
Cougar Management Guidelines Cougar Management Guidelines Working Group 137 pages, softcover: $21.95 WildFutures, 2005. Wildlife managers and citizen activists alike will find this book useful. It collects current cougar research into a set of guidelines for managing these secretive and increasingly rare big cats. Full of charts and figures, the book explores topics such as […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming
Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming Winona LaDuke 294 pages, softcover: $18 South End Press, 2005. Environmental and Indian rights activist Winona LaDuke, an Ojibwe, was the Green Party’s vice presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000. In this book, she examines the struggle of American Indians to reclaim their sacred sites and […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Tony Hillerman’s Navajoland
Tony Hillerman’s Navajoland Laurance D. Linford 318 pages, softcover: $19.95 University of Utah Press, 2005. Fans of Tony Hillerman’s mysteries, featuring Navajo policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, will delight in Laurance Linford’s obsessively detailed guide to every single mesa, pueblo, trading post and gully mentioned in the books. This second edition adds 45 new […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
A long walk into hope
This is a book by a tall skinny guy with a goofy warm smile who took “a long walk across America’s most hopeful landscape: Vermont’s Champlain Valley and New York’s Adirondacks.” Along the way, he meets up with old friends, many of whom also seem to be tall skinny guys with goofy warm smiles, who […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Odes to an urban mountain range
Like other mountain ranges that dominate city skylines, Albuquerque’s Sandia Mountains are too easily taken for granted. The Sandias’ diverse hiking trails range from the lung-busters that scale the west side’s granite face to lush trails on the east that meander through mixed conifers. But how many of the city’s half-million residents take advantage of […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Pro-environment doesn’t always mean anti-Bush
I enjoyed reading Pepper Trail’s essay on reality versus belief in the teaching of evolution debate, until he decided to assert his own liberal beliefs regarding the liberation of Iraq (HCN, 10/3/05: What’s at stake in the evolution debate). Don’t assume that just because many of your readers may oppose the president’s environmental policies that […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Bad science and religion
In “What’s at stake in the evolution debate,” Pepper Trail, Ph.D., tells us there “… is no debate in the scientific world about the validity of evolution … (as an explanation for) … the development and workings of life on Earth” (HCN, 10/3/05: What’s at stake in the evolution debate). Wow, at last! Science free […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Belief inspires a passion for conservation
In “What’s at stake in the evolution debate,” biologist Pepper Trail attempts to enlist conservationists in the culture wars (HCN, 10/3/05: What’s at stake in the evolution debate). Trail insists that we must side with one warring camp or the other. According to Trail, the good guys are scientists who advance “reality,” while the bad […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Defending evolution and gardening
Bravo for both Pepper Trail and Allen Best (HCN, 10/3/05: What’s at stake in the evolution debate). Mr. Trail wrote a wonderfully simple and direct essay on evolution and detailed the problems entailed when schools attempt to teach intelligent design as a concept on a scientific footing equal to evolution. Mr. Best has reformulated our […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Amphetamines are nothing new
Regarding methamphetamine use in the oil patch, this is not a new issue (HCN, 10/3/05: Methamphetamine fuels the West’s oil and gas boom). “White crosses” and other stimulants were easy to obtain in Gillette, Wyo., in 1974, when I was working as a roughneck in the Powder River Basin. Drill rigs go 24-7, and graveyard […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Keep those pictures coming
Regarding Sandra Hoffman’s letter, though I agree that black-and-white images can be just as effective, if not more so, than color images, especially when production costs are a concern, I find it unfortunate that she can’t equate photographs with editorial content (HCN, 10/3/05: Don’t ‘dumb and numb’ readers). I may be biased, as a photojournalist, […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Social issues are environmental issues
I hate to continue to belabor the debate regarding what is or is not an appropriate topic for HCN, but when I saw the recent letter from Carol Chipman entitled “Stick to Environmental Topics,” I felt I had to respond (HCN, 10/3/05: Stick to environmental topics). As a planner in the West, I know that […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Connections across time
I glanced at the recent cover blurb, “What Happened to the Anasazi?” and felt a familiar and weary irritation (HCN, 10/3/05: Out of the Four Corners). I continue to believe the only adequate response to that question is: “Ask the Hopi, the Paiute, the Havasupai, the Hualapi. They will tell you.” Then, I read the […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Will the BLM Web site shutdown ever end?
During the past six months, most Bureau of Land Management Web sites have been unavailable to the public: The agency has disconnected them for the fourth time in five years while officials attend to security concerns. The most recent shutdown resulted from an ongoing class-action lawsuit brought by Elouise Cobell on behalf of 500,000 Indians. […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Forest Service greases the skids for oil and gas
U.S. Forest Service officials say they’re overwhelmed by the recent flood of permit applications from energy companies. On the Dakota Prairie National Grassland alone, drilling permit applications have jumped from 20 to 110 during the past year. To ease the workload, the agency wants to stop doing full-scale environmental assessments on smaller energy projects. The […]