There are some places I don’t like to write about, since in my experience, that’s a quick way to trash the scenery. People read about it, decide to visit for themselves, and whatever solitude and splendor the spot offered has vanished. That’s one reason I seldom mention an arid valley named Castle Gardens or Castle […]
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Rants from the Hill: Running into winter
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. When my father-in-law’s sixtieth rolled around we got together as a family and asked him what he wanted for his birthday. Without hesitating he replied, “I want you all to run a half marathon […]
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The myth of rural subsidies
By Brian Depew Living in cities makes us smarter, more efficient and more innovative and rural life would not be possible without a “raft of subsidies devoted to sustaining it.” That is the claim made by Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein in a series of posts last week (one, two, three and four). Klein was […]
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The McClintock Factor
When Republican Congressman John Doolittle was implicated in the Abramowitz Scandals and forced to retire from Congress, California Democrats figured they had a good chance to win the 4th US Congressional District for the first time in modern history. The sprawling 4th district extends along the eastern side of northern California. Lead by growth in […]
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It’s not climate change, it’s ocean change
We tend to think of nature as a bulwark against change. We spell it with a capital “N” and imagine it to be a timeless rock of stability against a sea of discontinuity. It should not surprise us that Europeans and North Americans turned nature into refuge from modernity a full century before John Muir […]
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Learning from a book on California’s ag-emperor Boswell
Editor’s note: David Zetland, a Western water economist, offers an insider’s perspective into water politics and economics. We will be cross-posting occasional posts and content from his blog, Aguanomics, here on the Range. In this book, Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman illustrate the fascinating details behind a family that combined hard work, farming wisdom and […]
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Does natural gas drilling make people sick?
By David Frey, 3-08-2011 Residents of Battlement Mesa, a sprawling housing development in western Colorado, are used to seeing the golf course from their windows, not gas rigs. But when an energy company announced plans to start drilling inside the subdivision, residents became concerned not just about the noise and the traffic, but the health […]
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Deflation Nation
Finally the economy seems to be creating jobs again. Last week a federal jobs survey showed an increase in 222,000 private sector jobs, a full year of growth that added 1.5 million jobs at companies and small businesses. As Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers put it in his White House blog: […]
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Let us bid!
By Shawn Regan, public affairs fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana. Just hours before Tim DeChristopher made false bids in a BLM oil and gas lease auction, he took a final exam at the University of Utah. One of the test questions asked whether the sale prices at the auction would […]
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Arizona the trendsetter?
As I pointed out last year, under our federal constitution and various court decisions, American states don’t any power to determine who is or isn’t legally within their borders. That’s a federal responsibility. That doesn’t stop states from trying, though. There’s the well-known Arizona immigration law, which requires local police to ask for the papers […]
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How green is your wind farm?
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Somewhere in the California desert, the Mohave ground squirrel is safe from solar panels, for now. After being sued over concerns for the critter, the developer Solar Millennium withdrew plans for its 250-megawatt solar station. It’s just one of a flurry of legal protests to several large-scale solar […]
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Forests will recover from pine beetle
If you took a survey to determine the most unpopular insect in the Rocky Mountains, the answer might well be not the disease-carrying wood tick, but the mountain pine beetle. Actually, it wouldn’t even be close, because the tick is an eight-legged arachnid, like a spider, rather than a six-legged insect. And it’s the pine […]
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Tim DeChristopher, fossil fuels, and civil disobedience
For the past few weeks, I have been learning how to sing. I’ve gathered with members of the Unitarian Church, social activists, and climate activists to learn the some of the old protest songs that buoyed up the abolition movement, the civil rights movement, and the peace movement. I won’t lie. It’s a little awkward […]
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Rocks on the road
The main highway into my town has just reopened after it was closed by a rockslide for most of last week, but I didn’t notice much disruption. Salida, Colo., was about as busy as it ever is during February. The rocks slid down a cliff at about 5 p.m. on Feb. 14, about a mile […]
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What is ‘Plan B’ for tribes during a government shutdown?
Is there a Plan B? That is the question tribes, Indian organizations and government agencies should be asking — and answering because it looks more and more likely there will be a federal government shutdown early next month. Why is this a concern now? Congress did not pass a budget for this fiscal year. Instead, […]
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The deficit may enable reform of Farm Bill Conservation Programs
I have previously written for the HCN blogs about the “waste, fraud and abuse” which successive USDA Inspector General Reports and Congressional hearings have documented. Prior to that, in a letter to HCN editors, I pointed out pervasive abuse in implementation of the $50 million Klamath EQIP program established by the 2002 Farm Bill. Klamath […]
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More of the same for the great outdoors
by Laura E. Huggins Earlier this week, the Obama administration released its much-anticipated report on the America’s Great Outdoors initiative. The report is the culmination of 51 listening sessions held over the past year by administration officials to gather ideas on land management and outdoor recreation from across the country. The result, however, is just […]
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Climate Models Suggest Tough Future for Wolverines
By Kylee Perez, 2-17-11 Wolverines are notoriously difficult to find in the wild. As climate change begins to threaten their dens in the United States, researchers say the animals could become even more rare. New studies from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the U.S. Forest service suggest that climate change will begin to […]
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Will new brucellosis rules let the bison roam?
by Holly Fretwell As hundreds of bison make their annual winter migration out of Yellowstone National Park, most are hazed back into the park. Others are captured, quarantined, and occasionally slaughtered. This year, more than 500 bison are being held by state and federal officials. If the bison test positive for brucellosis, a disease that […]
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Western brain drain
Western states are among the leaders in a category that isn’t a good one to be a leader in — a “brain drain.” That’s the word from 24/7 Wall Street, which bills itself as providing “Insightful Analysis and Commentary for U.S. & Global Equity Investors.” The firm’s study looked at factors like standardized math and […]