Thank you for the invitation to “toss in my two cents.” I literally grew up with your newspaper in my home. My late father, Louis A. “Sam” Bibler, subscribed to HCN beginning in the 1970s, and was one of your most enthusiastic readers. I lament the changes in your paper since that time, and especially […]
We need more from HCN
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Of global warming and White House elephants
Any day now, if all goes according to plan, a bill that will actually do something about global warming will come up in the United States Senate. Come up, and go right down. Not even the bill’s sponsors, Republican John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, predict passage. Their goal is to […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Timber company collides with gas drillers
Conservationists have struck a $4 million deal with a progressive Canadian timber company, Tembec Inc., to protect land just west of the Glacier National Park/Waterton Lakes National Park complex. The Nature Conservancy of Canada is buying 3,800 acres of Elk River riparian habitat outright; purchasing a conservation easement on another 7,400 acres; and obtaining a […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Mowing down pollution
The drone of lawn mowers is a classic sign of summer in the suburbs. But these gas guzzlers contribute heavily to another summer phenomenon: smog. The yearly pollution from one gas mower is equivalent to “43 new cars driving 12,000 miles each,” says Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District. […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Wanted: Leak-proof dumps
Until the 1980s, conventional wisdom held that Wyoming was so arid that landfills didn’t need liners to prevent leaks. As a result, at least 21 of the state’s currently operating and closed municipal landfills are now leaking dangerous chemicals, such as nitrates, chlorides, pesticides and dry-cleaning solvents, into groundwater. The number could be even higher; […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Follow-up
“If you build it, we will burn it!” read a fax claiming responsibility for a fire at a West Jordan, Utah, lumberyard in mid-June. The fire, set by the Earth Liberation Front, which now tops the FBI’s list of domestic terrorists, caused $1.5 million in damage to Stock Building Supply (HCN, 9/15/03: Burning one for […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Hot Times – Global Warming in the West
Note: this editor’s note introduces this issue’s feature story, “Global Warming’s Unlikely Harbingers.” The weather always gets the last laugh. It’s the rowdy guest at weddings, the unwelcome visitor at planting time, the cruel joker on the fire crew. It defeats our most dedicated efforts to plan ahead, rudely announcing that the climate is in […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Heard around the West
ARIZONA Wearing brightly patterned robes and spectacular strands of African beads, Masai warriors livened up the town of Douglas in southern Arizona when they arrived to talk shop with local ranchers. Members of Arizona’s innovative Malpai Borderlands Group had visited the African herdsmen in 2002, and found they had lots in common. Both the Masai […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Roadkill is a right and a privilege, and don’t you forget it
Driving through northern Idaho this summer? Bring a fork. A judge in Bonners Ferry recently stood up for the right of people to eat the kind of roadkill that even other roadkill fanciers might find inedible. It sounds like one of those jokes bluegrass musicians tell: “How many banjo players does it take to eat […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Life cycle of a bark beetle
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Global Warming’s Unlikely Harbingers.” This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Life cycle of a bark beetle.
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Scientific Principle: Klamath whistleblower throws in the towel
In 2002, federal biologist Mike Kelly “blew the whistle” on the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the agency responsible for protecting threatened and endangered salmon (HCN, 6/23/03: Sound science goes sour). As one of the scientists charged with ensuring that enough water was left in the Klamath River for rare coho salmon, Kelly discovered that […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Drilling done right?
‘Responsible’ gas development gets put to the test in northern New Mexico
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Supreme Court reins in citizens’ right to sue
Conservationists can’t interfere with the government’s ‘own ordering of priorities’
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Dear friends
Visitors The letters have been pouring in to HCN, and so have the people — folks like Minneapolis subscriber Larry Weisner, who is traipsing across the West, and Flagstaff subscriber Jeff Latham, who is on the initial leg of a motorcycle trip to Alaska. Colleen Nunn, who works in the Western History/Genealogy Department at the […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
The people who care about HCN
Two issues back, we invited readers to toss in their “two cents” about HCN’s coverage of the Bush administration’s environmental policies. We got about a million bucks in reply. Readers from all over the West wrote in to tell it like it is. One writer announced that he would not renew his subscription because of […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Global Warming’s Unlikely Harbingers
The West is heating up — and bark beetles are moving in for the kill
Posted inWotr
Just push it
When I was 10 years old, my mother’s boyfriend had a push mower. Every weekend during the summer, he’d drag the rusty thing off the porch and shove it around our weedy lawn. It scraped, jammed on every twig and left dandelions still waving tall and insolent while he sweated and struggled to make muscles […]
Posted inWotr
When does our garbage become archaeology?
A rusted cooking pot, an old stove top, bits of china and pottery. Exploring in the woods around a backcountry chalet in Montana’s Glacier National Park, we poked through the remains of garbage–everything from glass chips to bed springs. We prodded these remnants of the past: Historic rubbish. Knowing the National Park Service classifies these […]
Posted inWotr
One significant step toward reining in those pesky all-terrain vehicles
For years, environmental groups like the Bluewater Network have warned of the coming plague of Jetskis, snowmobiles and the many versions of all-terrain vehicles on our public lands. Now, the plague is upon us, and while the impacts of these machines have been documented in countless studies, more and more people are witnessing the damage […]
Posted inWotr
Backpacker beware: don’t boldly go where you don’t belong
I was dismayed when I read Backpacker magazine recently. I worked for the National Park Service for eight years, and I’ve been a guide in Yellowstone National Park. I know there are some places we can hike to and camp at safely, and some places we should leave alone. But now we have Backpacker magazine, […]