HEADING WEST The High Country News board of directors joined the staff in Paonia in May for the spring business meeting. Some of the more lively — and frank — discussion came when small groups of board and staff members took turns riffing on what they think of the paper, and how it needs to […]
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Posted inJune 13, 2005: Owning a Piece of Paradise
Beyond the exurban dream
Across the West, people are buying up small (and sometimes not so small) pieces of the countryside, and transforming them with roads, cars and pets into sprawling replicas of the places they just left. It’s an all-too-familiar story, and it has become all too easy to ignore. Another alfalfa field converted into a mall? So […]
Posted inJune 13, 2005: Owning a Piece of Paradise
How dense can we be?
Living the good life in the ‘exurbs’ is draining our tax coffers and devouring the West’s open spaces, but large-lot development continues to explode
Posted inWotr
What it was like in prison in Riverton, Wyoming
My parents have been spending time in the slammer. They are both approaching 80, are upstanding citizens, but in any given month, they might average two weekends in the joint. A while back, I decided to join them. That particular weekend they were at the Honor Farm in Riverton, Wyo. They specialize in Wyoming institutions […]
Posted inWotr
An organic label for milk is getting watered down
The happy cow on the label of Horizon organic milk is like a stop sign for consumers: Your quest for healthy milk ends here. The back of the carton assures us that Horizon milk is from certified organic farms, where clean-living cows “make milk the natural way, with access to plenty of fresh air, clean […]
Posted inWotr
Real estate lingo for the New Westerner
I’m a rancher, so almost every day some realtor explains how much money I could make if I sold the ranch. Developers are subdividing pastures nearby, and soon, it’s true, I may not be able to afford ranching. So, I’m studying up on the new real estate lingo and — in typical friendly Western fashion […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Write-off on the Range
Wielding conservation’s most powerful tool, Reid Rosenthal walks a fine line between helping the land and serving his wealthy clients.
Posted inWotr
Can billionaire philanthropy save the earth?
A few days ago, I was commiserating with a friend about the sad state of environmental affairs. We were talking about the infamous “death of environmentalism” paper and its call for the environmental movement to connect more to issues involving social justice. My opinion, I told my friend, is that it’s not environmentalism that’s dead. […]
Posted inWotr
Stars in our eyes
Recently, at mid-afternoon on a rainy day, I looked up at the cloud-burdened sky and missed the stars, truly missed them. I felt the kind of wistful pangs that you might when you remember a long-gone but beloved grandparent, or a teenage sweetheart who misunderstood you long ago. I knew they were up there — […]
Posted inWotr
Water pounds through our towns and our dreams
The water in the mountains has decided that enough is enough: It’s time to come down. And down it has come, in a swell of white, tumbling magnificence the likes of which I haven’t seen around here in my 28 years in the West. It’s an all-or-nothing kind of flood that is washing through our […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Wild Echoes: Encounters With the Most Endangered Animals in North America
Wild Echoes: Encounters With the Most Endangered Animals in North America Charles Bergman, 325 pages, softcover: $21.95. University of Illinois Press, 2003. Biologists know that human activities are causing thousands of species to go extinct. According to Bergman, our attitudes contribute to extinction just as much as our automobiles do. By imagining animals as separate […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Little Things in a Big Country: An Artist and Her Dog on the Rocky Mountain Front
Little Things in a Big Country: An Artist and Her Dog on the Rocky Mountain Front Hannah Hinchman, 176 pages, hardcover: $25.95. W.W. Norton & Company, 2004. This hand-lettered, hand-illustrated book tells of Hinchman’s travels with her dog in western Montana. Her charming yet refreshingly unsentiminetal descriptions, sketches, and paintings illustrate the changing seasons, her […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
The Singing Life of Birds
The Singing Life of Birds Donald Kroodsma, 482 pages, hardcover: $28.00. Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Have you ever wished you could distinguish the song of a wood thrush from that of a hermit thrush? Kroodsman’s new book combines his personal observations of birds with scientific descriptions of how they develop their songs. Accompanying diagrams show the […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
A view of the West from on high
What does a newpaperman-turned-professor who spends the better part of 168 pages reminiscing about life in the spliff-puffing ski town of Crested Butte have to say that’s relevant to anywhere else in the West? Well, it turns out, a lot. If you ever wonder whether the West will create that mythic society to match its […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Bringing back the wolf = bringing back the habitat
The wolf today inspires polarized emotions. It is viewed by some as a slavering, rapacious killing machine; by others, as the noble symbol of a lost wilderness. In the fascinating Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone, biologist Douglas Smith and nature writer Gary Ferguson seek to sort myth from reality. They describe […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Foreman alienates tomorrow’s leaders
I am writing in response to your coverage of Dave Foreman’s essay (HCN, 4/18/05: Dear Friends). Although I respect what Dave Foreman means to the environmental movement, the tactics of his finger-pointing are destructive, shortsighted, ill-timed and wrong. It is critical for the environmental movement to build bridges, re-think strategies, and appeal to the younger […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Environmentalists show their elitism
I am writing to congratulate Ray Ring on his analysis of the Libby disaster and how it relates to the environmental movement (HCN, 2/21/05: Where were the environmentalists when Libby needed them most?). He has unearthed the arrogance and elitism that are so pervasive in the “environmental activist” movement. It’s easy to fight “evil” corporations […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Better technology for harnessing wind
The inherent variability of wind energy makes it hard to integrate into the grid (HCN, 5/02/05: The Winds of Change). Coal, gas, nuclear, biomass, geothermal and hydro plants can all be dialed up or down to meet the constantly fluctuating electricity loads. With wind, you get what you get. At 1 percent of production, as […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Wind doesn’t turn this reader’s crank
I’m having a hard time getting too enthused about wind energy (HCN, 5/02/05: The Winds of Change). The idea of solving our energy woes by harnessing wind sounds wonderful, but the reality is less appealing. The California Energy Commission lists wind power as 1.5 percent of its total electricity production for 2003. The sprawl of […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Settlement won’t reduce pollution
Readers of HCN’s excellent story on the effort to bring more clean, renewable energy to the West might think that the settlement agreement on the proposed coal plant in Pueblo, Colo., will somehow reduce pollution (HCN, 5/02/05: The Winds of Change). While it is true that the agreement will reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and […]