Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures Lester R. Brown, 272 pages, hardcover $27.95, paperback $15.95: W.W. Norton, 2005. Lester Brown, the environmental world’s leading prophet of doom, brings us his latest nonfiction disaster thriller. As world populations boom, farmers reach deeper and deeper underground […]
Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Head games in the hot, hot desert
No matter how well-mapped the world seems to be, explorers remain intrepid. In The Way Out, Colorado writer Craig Childs writes about how he and his traveling companion, Dirk Vaughan, found their way through a desert on the Navajo Indian Reservation in southern Utah. Both Childs and Vaughan seem to crave the harsh truths of […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Tales of Colorado’s high-elevation tailings
In 1983, an anonymous caller warned Doc Smith that “his river would turn red.” Sure enough, the next day, the rancher and veterinarian watched toxic mining metals surge through the Arkansas River as it crossed his property. This wasn’t the first time: His grandfather had fought the effects of mining on his ranchlands and livestock […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Time for new thinking on the Snake River
After decades of deadlock, it is time to reframe the debate about salmon recovery and the four lower Snake River dams (HCN, 6/13/05: For salmon, a crucial moment of decision). We must stop thinking about this issue in terms of “fish versus energy” or “environmentalists versus farmers.” There is a solution here — but it […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Warming climate shrinks conifer habitat
In “A glimpse of the past in a grain of pollen,” Cathy Whitlock comments that lodgepole pine probably has a bright future due to its ability to adapt to a warming climate (HCN, 5/30/05: A glimpse of the past in a grain of pollen). The question is: How warm? Since all high-elevation conifers (including lodgepole […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Visiting a desert cathedral
As a lover of Glen Canyon, I persuaded my husband to make a special trip out from Los Angeles to see Cathedral in the Desert before the waters rose again (HCN, 6/13/05: The brief but wonderful return of Cathedral in the Desert). On May 1, our anniversary, we paddled our boat in. Across from the […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Living lightly in exurbia
Regarding Allen Best’s provocative story on exurbia, I think he paints with too broad a brush (HCN, 6/13/05: How dense can we be?). There are those of us living in paradise who try to do so with environmental consciousness, and who are not a drain on our county treasuries. My husband and I live on […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
HCN real estate ads smack of hypocrisy
In “How Dense Can We Be?” HCN decries large lot development in exurbia (HCN, 6/13/05: How dense can we be?). The article says that buying large lots away from the city is bad: Exurbs are a fire hazard, require more infrastructure, and residents have to drive long distances to get anywhere. Then, in the Unclassifieds, […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Let them eat comment letters
The comment in your latest issue from the bureaucrat, saying 50,000 petition signatures have no effect on policy-making, sounds exactly like the last public expressions of Marie Antoinette before they cut her head off (HCN, 6/27/05: Writing a comment letter? Better make it good). When the French peasants were starving for bread in the late […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Mining waste dumped in streams — and now lakes
The Bush administration tweaked Clean Water Act regulations to reclassify mining waste as “fill.” Now, that revised definition has been applied to metals mining for the first time — allowing a gold mine to put its tailings directly into an Alaskan lake. The 1972 Clean Water Act prohibited dumping waste into streams and lakes. But […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Follow-up
Southern Arizona’s San Pedro River, the Southwest’s last free-flowing desert river, dried up for the first time since the U.S. Geological Survey started tracking flows in 1904 (HCN, 8/30/04: A Thirst for Growth). Beginning on July 4, river flows fluctuated between zero and 0.3 cubic feet per second. But when the river dried on the […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Heard around the West
IDAHO “It’s the ultimate in recycling,” says Victor Bruha. He and a friend, Daniel Hidalgo, have begun turning large mounds of bison poop into high-quality art paper. The idea isn’t really new: An Australian company sells kangaroo-dung paper, and in Thailand, elephants supply the needed material in super-sized quantities. But it took months for Hidalgo […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Life rises from the ashes, in the form of a humble toad
Change can be good — even violent, earth-shaking change. Just ask Charlie Crisafulli. Twenty-five years ago on May 18, at 8:32 in the morning, Mount St. Helens erupted, blasting ash, steam and superheated gases 80,000 feet into the atmosphere high above southern Washington. The north end of the mountain collapsed in the largest landslide in […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
A most unusual sanctuary, where the Yeti roams free
The Kingdom of Bhutan, a tiny Buddhist country nestled in the Himalayas between India and Tibet, sounds like an enchanting place. People who’ve traveled there describe snow-capped peaks, lush valleys and ancient monasteries. The country is known for its progressive environmental laws, and is sometimes even called “the last Shangri-la” for its unspoiled natural environment. […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Pombo’s power grows — and so do the scandals
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Will the real Mr. Pombo please stand up?“ Richard Pombo had a relatively trouble-free career in Congress until 2003, when he became chairman of the powerful House Resources Committee. Since then, he has been linked to a number of scandals. “The problem with Pombo […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
From the chairman
House Resources Committee press release headlines
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Wolf man John
NAME John Morgart TITLE Mexican wolf recovery program coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service HOME BASE Albuquerque, N.M. AGE 53 HE SAYS “I’ve known what I wanted to do with my life ever since I was 3 or 4 years old. I just always knew I wanted to be a wildlife biologist.” John Morgart has […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Western governors wary of roadless forest mess
Bush administration touts state control, but Washington, D.C., will make the final call
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
New grazing rules ride on doctored science
Veteran scientists leave the BLM in frustration
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Dear friends
VISITORS We’ve had a steady stream of summer visitors. Christopher Peterson, executive director of the Glen Canyon Institute, stopped in while stumping for the effort to drain Lake Powell. Dan Stonington, nephew of HCN board member Emily Stonington, came by on a trip to check out the sights that have recently emerged from the drought-stricken […]