President Bush’s proposal to offer work visas to undocumented immigrants in the U.S. has opened a window of opportunity, and many are rushing to take advantage of it (HCN, 2/2/04: Immigration reform from Washington, DC). The Border Patrol says that the number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border had declined over the last four years, […]
Follow-up
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
The Complete Gale Norton Interview
Full transcript of the HCN Interview with Gale Norton, along with Kit Kimball, communications officer with the Interior Department, and Matt Kales of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The concise interview is located at (HCN, 5/24/04: A champion of ‘cooperative conservation’: Interior Secretary Gale Norton) Editor’s Note: HCN is particularly interested in hearing from […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Heard around the West
NORTH DAKOTA Give a cheer for cheeky Fargo, mocked as backward a mere decade ago in the movie Fargo, which featured locals spouting the stereotypical, “Yah, you betcha.” You can call the city “trendy” now, says the Los Angeles Times. Pricey condos have been built downtown, culture has arrived in the form of sushi bars […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Throwing out the dishwater
Once I lived in a one-room log cabin where I pumped my water from a well and heated it on a wood stove. When I was finished washing my dishes, I carried the dishpan outside and tossed the water on the nearby sagebrush. It seemed natural to me to return the water to the same […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
At Yucca Mountain, deadlines take precedence over science
Don’t ask questions when you don’t know the answers: That’s the rule of thumb for trial lawyers who don’t want courtroom surprises. The Bush administration has a different rule of thumb when it comes to the science of storing nuclear waste: Ask as few questions as possible, and ignore answers you don’t like. Until January, […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Houston Principles of the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “In Search of Solidarity.” Preamble On May 19, 1999, environmental and labor leaders confronted CEO Charles Hurwitz in Houston to demand that his Maxxam Corporation, which owns Kaiser Aluminum and Pacific Lumber Company, be held accountable for its impact on working people, communities and the […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Cougar hunt creates uproar
Following a sensational search, Arizonar esidents push for tougher protections for mountain lions
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
New Mexico may change wolf policy
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Wolf foes get medieval.” A troubled wolf-recovery effort in the Southwest may have found an unlikely ally: The traditionally anti-wolf New Mexico Game Commission has asked the state Game and Fish Department to re-evaluate its management of […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Wolf foes get medieval
As feds prepare to take wolves off the endangered list, a rash of animal poisonings causes concerns
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Property-rights lawyers score one against wild salmon
Court rulings force re-evaluation of endangered fish and habitat in the Northwest
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Dear Friends
New Interns Zach Smith arrived in Paonia just in time to escape the blistering summer heat of Santa Fe, N.M., where he wrote for the Santa Fe Reporter and volunteered for the Audubon Society, teaching elementary school kids the basics of geology and birding. A Denver native who has lived in six states and studied […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Laboring for the environment
I took a stroll through our lower pasture the other evening and discovered that April showers had turned it into a riotous weed patch. It wasn’t what my wife and I had planned three years ago, when we bought the badly overgrazed property. Back then, we took the advice of our local cooperative extension agent […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
In Search of Solidarity
Will hard times renew historic alliances between environmentalists and labor unions?
Posted inWotr
A feminist liberal looks back at age 90
What’s it like to look back at 90, over most of a century? Been there, done that, enjoyed most of it. When I was born in 1914, women could not vote. But in my lifetime, a woman named Hillary Clinton may well become president. The year I was born, we were at war. When I […]
Posted inWotr
Who can argue with equality for all salmon?
A new policy from the Bush administration on endangered Pacific salmon is startling in its simplicity and brilliance. The policy cuts through all the scientific mumbo-jumbo the press repeats and puts a finger on the basic problem: Salmon are endangered because there aren’t enough of them. If there were lots of salmon in the rivers, […]
Posted inWotr
Revisiting “A River No More”
With the five-year drought worsening in the Colorado River Basin, two Western icons are emerging like sore thumbs aching for attention. One is the casino-hotels of Las Vegas, their resplendent fountains and the waterways on which gondolas float and water spurts in time to music. The other is the graceful arch of Glen Canyon Dam […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
The Faces Behind the Lawsuits
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Shooting Spree.” Relentless Johanna Wald Natural Resources Defense Council, branch in San Francisco Bio Law degree from Yale University, 1967 Helped open the first NRDC office in California in 1972, and quickly became the leader in BLM issues, pioneering cases on grazing, coal mining […]
Posted inWotr
Throwing out the dishwater
Once I lived in a one-room log cabin where I pumped my water from a well and heated it on a wood stove. When I was finished washing my dishes, I carried the dishpan outside and tossed the water on the nearby sagebrush. It seemed natural to me to return the water to the same […]
Posted inWotr
Nature is not a club to bash people with
As a nature writer, I’m always interested when a columnist or politician claims to speak for “nature.” As a gay Portlander, I’m especially amazed to hear that “nature” has passed judgment against me. A religious activist here in Oregon keeps getting anti-gay initiatives on the ballot, but he hardly seems the paragon of nature. True, […]
Posted inWotr
Permanent life support is no substitute for a native land
One rides the summer thermals; the other glides through rivers and streams like a pale torpedo. They could not be more dissimilar, this big buzzard and the silvery fish, yet they have a great deal in common: Both are icons of the environmental movement, and both challenge us to deepen our understanding of the relationship […]