Essays

This year, the bomb and I became senior citizens. We were both born 65 years ago at nearly the same time in different parts of the West. Since then, nuclear reality has come to define everybody’s lives. But for me there’s even more of a connection, because of the radiation still lurking inside my body […]

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from BP’s disastrous oil spill, it’s how missed opportunities can come back to haunt you. One glaring example has received little attention, however. Back in 1965, Congress began funding land conservation through royalties from offshore oil and gas production, believing that the environmental cost of developing the outer continental […]

Though images of bison aren’t the first thing that pop into mind when you think of Grand Canyon, the animals that lumber like walking boulders have become a significant attraction for visitors to the North Rim. The bison are part of a herd that was introduced to the Kaibab Plateau in the early 1900s, courtesy […]

We have the food system we asked for. There’s a reason a burger at McDonald’s sells for about a buck. There’s a reason the food is of such poor quality in places where healthy nutrition is most important — our schools, hospitals and nursing homes. What we support prospers; what we feed grows. If we […]

A collaborative online effort allows both skeptics and believers to study and compare the facts.

Ed Abbey’s spirit lives in today’s eco-activists

Once, during a time when I was separated from my wife, I lived in an apartment complex with a large and inviting swimming pool. One day, when I went to take relief from the heat at that glistening oasis, I found it fouled by motor oil. The apartment manager was there, shaking her head, speculating […]

As a kid growing up in Colorado, I was crazy about wild horses. I read books about mustangs and drew pictures of them. In school, I was thrilled to learn about the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which was passed in 1971, after “Wild Horse Annie” saw bleeding mustangs being hauled off to slaughter […]

During the 16th century when conquistadors crossed the ocean from the Old World to the New, their ships often became stranded along the equator at a place where the winds stopped blowing. To lighten their load, they would throw horses overboard. Eventually, the sails would fill with air and the voyage could continue.  Over time, […]

Our mountain is burning in a fire that we hoped would never happen, a fire that has been hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles. The heart of our mountain is blazing in an inferno that grew from 50 acres to 5,000 acres in 24 hours. As I write this, it has torched […]

Before utility executives and solar-energy prospectors discovered the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, it was mostly known for its potatoes, Buddhist hermitages and scrappy water wars. Now our high-desert rift valley is home to a clash between two competing visions for Colorado’s renewable energy future. As utilities and their regulators argue over who is […]

“The task is great. So is the need. And there is no time to lose,” said Exxon executives in their infamous “White Paper” of 1980. Those bombastic words came at the conclusion of Exxon’s plan to help solve the nation’s energy crisis of the 1970s. Long lines at the pump and oil embargoes had prompted […]

The Mancos Valley reverberates with the gush of its namesake river in an annual rite of spring runoff.  These waters are a perfect metaphor for starting a new life — allowing winter’s rigidity to melt and wash away. In this high mountain ranching valley of Colorado, the first water flows through irrigation spigots and onto […]

My first introduction to Colorado’s 14,421-foot Mount Massive was, quite literally, a pile of crap. Several piles, actually, just off the trailhead where I’d wandered to pee. Some were flagged with toilet paper; others disguised with a thin sprinkling of pine needles. I walked with care. It was a skill that I would have to […]