And it’s tethered — in ways both identifiable and mysterious — to microbes, whales, ice shelves and landfills.
Wildfire
Posted inArticles
Unprecedented fire, wind and snowmelt in the Southwest
This may not be the driest winter, the worst fire season or even the warmest spring on record, but taken together the conditions truly are superlative.
Posted inArticles
Ashes and silver linings: Marshall Fire survivors reflect
Colorado’s most destructive fire leaves behind grief and slow recoveries.
Posted inMay 1, 2022: New Ways of Seeing the West
The revenge of Big Tech
When tech companies rule the world, what could go wrong?
Posted inArticles
Why rural communities struggle to bring in much-needed federal grants
A new analysis suggests that over half of communities in the West lack the capacity to take advantage of infrastructure bill funding. Now what?
Posted inMay 1, 2022: New Ways of Seeing the West
What does it mean to live well on an overheating planet?
A walk through the Quinault rainforest leads to a cascade of questions.
Posted inArticles
Air quality report card flunks the West
Western states dominate lists of where short-term particulate and ozone pollution are the worst.
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How one Wyoming mule deer won friends and influenced science
Jo the deer offered researchers a look into migrations and how long it takes deer to visit a forest after a fire.
Posted inMay 1, 2022: New Ways of Seeing the West
There are millions of acres of ‘failing’ rangelands, data shows
54 million acres of federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management aren’t meeting the agency’s own land-health standards.
Posted inMarch 1, 2022: The Cloning Conundrum
Will we share the same dismal fate as glaciers and forests?
Two recent books look at the parallels between human, ecological and societal illness.
Posted inMarch 1, 2022: The Cloning Conundrum
The place that coal built and fire burned
Extractive industry laid the infrastructure for the suburban sprawl that fueled Colorado’s destructive Marshall Fire.
Posted inArticles
Wildfires’ unequal impacts on pregnant people
An interview with one researcher studying the effect of wildfire on pregnancy outcomes in the West.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2022: Essential
Meet the influencer of the California condor world
During the pandemic, a chick named Iniko became an ambassador for conservation from her redwood nest.
Posted inArticles
Stories we wish we’d written
A look at some of the journalism from 2021 that inspired us, made us feel seen, and, sometimes, even made us cry.
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Wildfire survivors face another threat: PTSD
As disasters become more frequent, acute stress can turn chronic.
Posted inDecember 1, 2021: Visions of Wildness
Rekindling with fire
An Indigenous writer reclaims her relationship with fire in the landscape of her ancestors.
Posted inArticles
What Biden’s infrastructure bill means for wildfire management
The bill allocates $3.3 billion for firefighter raises, prescribed fire, defending communities and more.
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The Westiest programs in Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
The act is the New Deal redux, with a splash of ecosystem restoration.
Posted inArticles
Ozone pollution is on the rise in the West
Wildfires, oil and gas drilling, vehicle emissions, and climate change all combine to create more days with unhealthy levels of the colorless, odorless gas.