From Wyoming’s windswept high desert, a question for the West: Do we have to fence it all in?
The Last Open Range
Posted inWotr
NIMPBY: Not in My Paesano’s Backyard
A recent environmental threat to a small town in southern Italy, and the people’s overwhelming response to it, made me wonder if we Americans have lost our zest for protest. The spontaneous uprising by southern Italians forced the government to reverse a decision that would have designated a rural village as the country’s sole repository […]
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Surprise: Snowmobiles aren’t completely evil
There’s no question: They stink, they’re noisy, and they scare wildlife. Snowmobiles are truly obnoxious. But while I applaud Yellowstone’s contested ban on snowmobiles, I’ve had to rethink my own stance. For as much as I dislike the smelly machines, snowmobiles have their place. As a cross-country skier, I’ve never really cared for snowmobiling, especially […]
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You can’t share a trail with an obnoxious machine
Around my hometown, as in so much of this quality-of-life Western landscape, there is strong competition for recreational space, and strident discussions about how to allocate that resource. In the debate, an occasional cry for tolerance is expressed, a call for the equable sharing of trails between practitioners of different forms of recreation. Mostly, the […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Tipping the scales
For four decades, the federal courts have stood up for environmental laws. If George W. Bush has his way, that will soon be ancient history.
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One national park could tell the truth about the West
The Black Canyon in western Colorado is one of the world’s most splendid examples of the depths to which erosion and uplift can go. A steep gash in ancient granite, nearly 3,000 feet deep and not much wider at its rim, the Black Canyon is the kind of geological anomaly we like to single out […]
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It’s time for voters to look at the whole picture
As John Kerry was firming up his frontrunner status in seven Democratic primaries Feb. 3, Oregon voters were defeating Measure 30, an $800 million package of income tax surcharges, cigarette tax renewals and minimum corporate-tax increases intended to restore dramatic cuts in education and basic services. “Defeat” isn’t quite the word. We crushed it 3-2, […]
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The passing of a Yellowstone Cinderella
It’s mating season for wolves in Yellowstone, and the alpha male of the Druid Peak pack sits alone on a snowy ridge, howling mournfully. His mate, whose only name was the number 42, is dead. One of Yellowstone’s oldest wolves at eight, 42 was killed by a rival pack the previous night. She was also […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Climbers: Get with it
“Good job” to HCN for making waves in the climbing community (HCN, 7/7/03: Invasion of the rock jocks). Until climbers take the most basic step of using chalk that is color-matched to the rock they are climbing on, their environmental ethics should be questioned. Red sandstone boulders and cracks, yellow quartzite cliffs, grey limestone faces, […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Too much Mormon hype
It appears that another good, conservation-oriented publication has succumbed to the LDS propaganda machine. We pay for a balanced publication, not just another extension of the Ensign. If I wanted more PR from the LDS, then I would get it free from the missionaries. It is not enough that the Mormons now own D.C. and […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Are Mormons really green
I just read with interest the essay on Mormonism and environmental ethics (HCN, 12/22/03: Being Green in the Land of the Saints). It’s always a learning experience to read about how individuals cash out their own views within the framework of a larger entity, in this case Mormonism, and the positions held by various founders […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
What does Mormonism have to do with it
The issue of environmental consciousness cannot be framed around the issue of whether you are or are not LDS (HCN, 12/22/03: Being Green in the Land of the Saints). It’s certainly an interesting slant for the article, but whether your religion is LDS is no more an indication of your environmental slant than is race, […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Enforce immigration laws now
As a law-abiding citizen of the United States of America, I am outraged at politicians who will not address the issue of illegal immigration. Now the whole issue is complicated by President Bush’s immigration plan (HCN, 2/2/04: Immigration reform from Washington, D.C.). This plan is not a solution to the problems and will only escalate […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Big cats on the block
In The Beast in the Garden, David Baron weaves a compelling parable of man and animal, of the Old West and the New West, of wildlife that is no longer wild. Looking back at the history of mountain lions in Boulder County, Colo., over the past 150 years, he writes about our changing relationship with […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Calendar
The Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute’s 13th annual land-use conference will be held in Denver on March 11 and 12. Guest speakers include Carolyn Raffensperger, director of Science and Environmental Health Network, and Hal Clifford, executive editor of The Orion Society; panels range from “Land Use Decisions and Water Quality” to “Smart Growth, Nimbyism and […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Tongue-tied in the Southwest
There’s no denying that some Spanish speakers get frustrated with the dialect that’s spoken in New Mexico and southern Colorado. Take, for instance, the Jemez Mountains. Anyone who’s sat through a high school Spanish class would say “HEM-es.” Don’t try that in New Mexico: Those are the “hay-mez” Mountains. Luckily, Rubén Cobos, a professor for […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Population growth is the problem
Thanks for your preliminary comments on the need to address population growth in the West (HCN, 12/22/03: Being Green in the Land of the Saints). However, the issue needs to be addressed in the West, nationwide, and worldwide by people who seriously think about environmental quality and humanity’s future. It’s clear that our species has […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
The elephant in the room
Utah isn’t the only state whose population shies “away from the issue of population growth and large families” (HCN, 12/22/03: Being Green in the Land of the Saints). Politicians of every stripe from every state refuse to talk about it. This, in spite of recent articles about the drought that is hammering the West while […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
No place for pesky nuclear waste
NEW MEXICO If an energy company and a Republican senator get their way, southern New Mexico will get even hotter than its habañeros. The European-owned company LES plans to build a facility near Eunice to produce nuclear reactor fuel, but it still doesn’t have anywhere to store the highly toxic, radioactive byproduct (HCN, 10/13/03: New […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Rollbacks on the range
NATION To help public-lands ranchers and “preserve open space,” the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plans to revise its nine-year-old grazing regulations. Some say those changes will let cattlemen ride roughshod over public lands. In 1995, President Clinton’s Interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, overhauled the rules that control ranching on public lands (HCN, 04/17/95: Back to […]