Bruce Barcott’s essay last week in the online magazine Yale e360 reveals an interesting environmental paradox, one in which Pacific salmon might be both endangered and, simultaneously, too populous. As Barcott writes, “How can numerous Pacific salmon runs be on the verge of extinction while total salmon numbers are straining the limits of the ocean’s […]
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A bear’s gotta eat
For the six months or so of the year that grizzly bears are active, they have one thing on their mind: food. And they need lots of it. To survive the long winter months of hibernation, a four- to six-hundred-pound adult grizzly bear must be constantly eating whenever it has the chance, a process known […]
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What does this week mean for Northwest climate policy?
By Eric DePlace It’s conventional wisdom that the heavier GOP configuration in Congress spells bad news for climate policy in the Pacific Northwest. There’s some truth in that, but there’s a more positive story for advocates to tell too. Here’s how I see the events of this week through the lens of climate policy. The […]
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Beyond Boardman
By Jennifer Langston Oregon has been having a robust debate over the appropriate date for closing the state’s lone coal power plant. The Boardman plant could theoretically operate until 2040, but its owners have proposed an earlier closure to avoid investing in expensive pollution controls. There’s been a lot of discussion about whether the plant […]
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California state parks funding measure fails
Dominated by the Sierra Club, California’s “Environmental Establishment” operates politically largely as a subsidiary of the Democratic Party. This fact plays heavily in what sorts of environmental initiatives this establishment chooses to put on the California ballot. This year, the state’s environmental establishment put Proposition 21 on the ballot. It proposed a surcharge on vehicle […]
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We, the American people, are united by our divisions
All election night the message was about how the people have spoken with a clear voice and returned Republicans to power. In Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul called it the “Tea Party tidal wave.” Or the soon-to-be Speaker of the House, John Boehner, said “it’s clear tonight who the real winners are, that’s the American […]
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River course restored after recovery diversion
The Arkansas River is back on course after a diversion last week to recover the body of Kimberly Appelson, a 23-year-old Breckenridge woman who fell out of a raft on July 11 and had been missing ever since. It happened two miles north of Buena Vista at a spot known as Frog Rock Rapids. Beneath […]
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Of grizzlies and tortoises
The towering grizzly bear and diminutive desert tortoise have something in common, and it’s not good: both animals are struggling for survival. “The population of grizzlies in the continental United States was 50,000 at time of Lewis and Clark, and it’s down to 1600 animals today for some of the same reasons the desert tortoise […]
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Denver mayor accused of trashing rural residents
The Colorado governor’s race took another twist last week with the front-runner and Democratic candidate, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, getting accused of “trashing” rural residents. The accusation came from his principal challenger, former GOP congressman Tom Tancredo, who entered the race in August as the nominee of the American Constitution Party. The Republican candidate, Dan […]
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Dredging Western rivers for gold
An item in the October 11th edition’s “Heard around the West” reported on an influx of “gold miners” on Southern Oregon’s Rogue River. But the article did not explain why so many miners are on the Rogue now. The vast majority of these “miners” do not make a living mining. Rather they dredge in the […]
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(Re)naming mountains
I having been using Tim Egan’ s book The Big Burn about the fires of 1910 that changed fire policy in the United States in my public land policy class this semester. A key part of his book is about the early days of the U.S. Forest Service, its Chief Gifford Pinchot, and the forest […]
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La Niña winter expected
The weather experts who look at the big picture say we’re facing a “La Niña winter” this time around. For the West, this means it will be wet in the north and dry in the south. But the moisture won’t arrive for a while. The La Niña pattern includes relatively warm, dry days well into […]
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Rants from the Hill: Them! and Us
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. Some of you may be fortunate—or perhaps unfortunate—enough to recall the 1954 science fiction film Them!, which, much like Earth First!, had the audacity to include the exclamation point in its title. A classic […]
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350 Miles Through Utah: A Pilgrimage for Hope
Editor’s Note: Utahns Jamie and Ryan Pleume are walking 350 miles across Utah to raise awareness about climate change. They started their journey today. We will be posting periodic updates from their journey on this blog. “Hope is an action not an emotion.” A rabbi spoke these words in the sweltering heat, standing on a […]
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Western states seem typical in new study
When it comes to economic performance and financial management, states in the West are fairly typical. Or so says a study whose results were recently published on the Atlantic magazine’s website. Factors considered ranged from violent crime rates and median income to employment trends. To quote from the article, “well-run states have a great deal […]
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Coming home?
A favorite quotation of my early twenties was by none other than the archdruid himself, David Brower, from an essay he wrote for the Sierra Club Bulletin in 1935. Having spent the previous summer wandering around and over the high peaks, Brower wondered whether his adventure was “the limit? Could the Sierra offer only transitory […]
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Feline justice
Life is full of many painful decisions, but ending a beloved pet’s life has got to be right up there among the worst. Last Saturday morning saw us staring at x-rays on a monitor in our vet’s office, dutifully listening to her description of the effects of fluid on the lungs and dreading where all […]
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Another angle on wolves
Chip Ward, who used to write for High Country News, has just published an informative piece on wolf recovery in Yellowstone — essentially calling it a success story that nobody appears to want to take credit for. One interesting angle: Wolves improve the water supply. How? When there are no wolves to worry about, elk […]
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Can politicians overcome bias?
Editor’s note: David Zetland, a water economist who recently finished a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley 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. Can politicians overcome bias? I don’t know, but the ones in […]
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Death by suicide
By Clarence Worly, NewWest.net Guest Writer, 9-22-10 Between 1999 and 2007 there were nearly as many suicides as highway fatalities in the Mountain West states. In the case of Colorado, Utah and Nevada there were more self-inflicted deaths than traffic deaths. Am I the only person west of the Mississippi to see a problem here? […]