As residents of the West, each of us keeps, either consciously or not, a checklist of those things that make our lives here worthwhile. Some of those things add to our quality of life, like cultural diversity and breathtaking landscapes. Others, like clean water, fall more into the necessities of life category. Without clean water, […]
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Instagram gratification
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House It’s hard enough to stayed focused during a holiday week but, leave it to the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) to create a truly spectacular distraction. If you’re looking for a time suck, read on. If not, get out before scrolling down. Introducing the DOI’s Instagram page. It features […]
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Turning climate change talk to action
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House I have a file on my desktop called “Cool Ideas.” It’s filled with news items on practical steps Westerners are taking to address climate change. I collected them over this election year while the issue drew platitudes and punch-lines from the candidates but little meaningful discussion on the national […]
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Sportsmen given credit in Montana’s Dem governor win
Although not as highly watched as Montana’s seat in the US Senate, sportsmen are also being given partial credit for tipping the scales toward the Democratic victor, Steve Bullock, over Republican Rick Hill in the 2012 race for Montana Governor. A Lee newspapers analysis quoted Bullock campaign manager Kevin O’Brien, as he passed around the […]
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Sportsmen sealed reelection for Sen. Jon Tester
Outside special interests dumped some $30 million dollars on the Montana race for the US Senate between Democratic incumbent Jon Tester and Republican challenger Denny Rehberg, but the race came down to something that costs $19: A Montana resident hunting and fishing license. Sportsmen issues of access, wolves and gun rights headlined both the news […]
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In the West, the rare earth rush is on
Recent news about the scarcity of rare earth minerals caught my attention just as I was reluctantly learning how to use my new Droid Razr. I am about a decade late for the smart-phone revolution, as I am with most gadgetry. You are welcome to laugh at me for this. I think I have the […]
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Rants from the Hill: My home lake
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. Edward Abbey began Desert Solitaire with the following words: “This is the most beautiful place on earth. There are many such places.” Well, my home lake here in Silver Hills is the most gorgeous […]
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Of coal and cows in eastern Montana
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House As the Montana Department of Environmental Quality mulls an expansion of a coal strip mine east of Billings, the public has an opportunity to give input on what environmental factors the agency should consider. Chugging away in the northern corner of the well-endowed Powder River Basin, the Rosebud mine is […]
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Like a rogue net
Oregon’s salmon politics have taken a curious turn. In late September several sportfishing groups publicly disavowed Measure 81, a voter initiative they had earlier sponsored to ban gillnets on the Columbia River. The reversal followed an announcement by Oregon governor John Kitzhaber that gillnets were his latest cause du mois and he wants them gone […]
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Putting a price tag on existence
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House There’s an important change brewing in the protection of endangered species. It appears to push economic considerations higher up in the part of the law dealing with critical habitat designation. The shift comes in the form of a proposed rule by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and […]
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Wilderness limited
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House I don’t go to the mega-Whole Foods in Boulder at lunchtime on Saturdays because it’s a madhouse, like some Lord of the Flies experiment where hordes of people jockey to secure a limited supply of resources. According to a study I read recently, when facing the prospect of crowding, I’m an “adjuster,” or […]
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Rants from the Hill: Harvesting the Desert Shoe Tree
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. Rants from the Hill is now a FREE podcast! Listen to an audio performance of this essay, here. You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or through Feedburner for use in another podcast reader. On the […]
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GOP risks much with its zeal to sell public estate
The Republican Party has formally embraced a policy to sell off America’s chunks of our public lands. That’s likely to prove as welcome as a hornet in a pair of swimming trunks. The GOP 2012 Party Platform espouses a purely market-driven exploitation of natural resources, as opposed to the traditional American system that embraces both […]
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Jaguar versus the copper mine
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House There’s an extraordinary 70,000-square-mile region that encompasses part of southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico and northwestern Mexico. This area, called the Sky Islands, is characterized by forested mountain ranges divided by desert or grassland valleys. Roughly 30 miles south of Tucson, smack in the middle of the Santa Rita Mountains portion […]
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Enviros worry about Utah tar sands water pollution
By David Hasemyer, InsideClimate News The debate over whether oil sands mining should be allowed in Utah inched forward this week when an environmental group and the company that wants to open the mine both filed papers responding to a judge’s recent ruling on whether water resources will be adequately protected. Administrative Law Judge Sandra Allen ruled […]
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Antibacterial soaps in the backcountry
I try not to be one of those people who buy into every alarmist headline about how common products will poison me. Over the years, consumer safety scares have come and gone with predictable regularity. Eggs were forbidden cholesterol-bombs for a while. Caffeine was blamed for just about every possible malady, and then (at least partially) exonerated. And […]
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Pesticides and salmon: It ain’t about the fish
Ask folks what is the most pressing environmental issue facing America and they’re most likely to say: Water. Protect the water. So shame on Beltway lobbyists taking apart the legal framework we’ve built to protect our water and the species that depend on it. After all, those species include human beings. See the photo here? […]
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Rinella aims for the impossible, scores a hit
Book Review:Meat Eater, Adventures from the life of an American HunterBy Steven Rinella231 pages; Spiegel & Grau. 2012 Periodically, an outdoor writer aims for the impossible: to explain the why of modern hunting, as opposed to producing just another “how to” book. The task is impossible because the motivations behind hunting are as individual as […]
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Rants from the Hill: Pleistocene rewilding
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. In a 2006 article [PDF] in The American Naturalist, a small herd of perfectly respectable conservation biologists advocates a bold ecological restoration project they call “Pleistocene Rewilding.” The concept itself is outrageously wild. First […]
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Hope on eight legs
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Sometimes when I grow weary of news of natural disasters, wars and political squabbling, I flirt with the idea of creating a Great News Network (GNN) which only reports positive events. Effervescent anchorpeople with gleaming smiles would talk of ceasefires, people and pets rescued from peril, Rover landings, that […]