By Maria Gallucci, InsideClimate News A high-stakes legal battle is underway in California over whether the state’s clean air agency can enforce a first-ever rule to slash carbon emissions in transportation fuels. The fight is being closely watched because the rule could choke global market demand for Alberta’s carbon-intensive oil sands at a very precarious […]
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Tourism creates jobs, but it’s still a mixed bag
In the past few days, Twitter has been hopping with responses to the White House’s #VisitUS campaign. Initiated by President Obama’s speech on January 19th announcing new proposals to boost tourism (and the jobs that it creates), tweeters (tweeps) were invited to solicit visitation to their hometowns, and they have, in droves. “Rapid City SD […]
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A Great Aridity
There’s an old Doors song which tells us that “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.” That pretty well sums up the message I got from the new book by William deBuys, A Great Aridity: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest. He takes us around the region — its heart, […]
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Lessons From the Musselshell: The Careless Creek Experiment
Editor’s note: This is the second blog in a series by contributor Wendy Beye, chronicling a restoration effort on Montana’s Musselshell River. Careless Creek is one of the main tributaries feeding the Musselshell River. Its flow begins in the Big Snowy Mountains and is augmented by Swimming Woman Creek as well as by a canal […]
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Home, home on … a significant portion of its range
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House There’s potentially change in the works for the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and the public can weigh in on it through February 7. The proposed draft rule by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA)—the two federal […]
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Rants from the Hill: Words and Clouds
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. Our corner of the western Great Basin is tucked into the rain shadow of the Sierra crest, which knocks the bottom out of those big, wet storms that rise in the Pacific and cross […]
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Why railroads want coal exports
By Eric dePlace, Sightline.org This post is part of the research project: Northwest Coal Exports Here are three pictures that help explain why American railways seem to be supporting coal export proposals in Northwest. It’s because railways are very closely connected to the coal industry. Consider: Coal so dwarfs every other rail-hauled commodity that it […]
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Target shooting on public lands should be regulated
Recently, I participated in a spirited response sequence to an blog post in HCN on yet another heated debate about motorized vs. non-motorized travel on public lands. The article’s author, Marian Lyman Kirst, described non-motorized travel as “quiet” use, a handy, aggregate term that is widely used to describe activities such as hiking, bicycling, kayaking, […]
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Montana is full.
I saw the bumper sticker and the headline on the same day. The newspaper read: Montana’s population estimated to pass 1 million. The bumper sticker read: Montana is full. Go home. The Census Bureau says Montana has grown 10 percent over the past decade, and would soon break 1 million people. Barely. How can a […]
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Lessons Learned From the Musselshell: River History
Editor’s note: This is the first blog in a series by contributor Wendy Beye, chronicling a restoration effort on Montana’s Musselshell River. The waters of the Musselshell River originate in the Little Belt, Crazy, and Castle Mountains in central Montana. Several small creeks join forces west of Martinsdale and gather momentum as they flow east […]
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Winning the day
Happy New Year. Or, I should say, happy election year. From now on, the national battle for president (as well as the house and the senate) shifts from a vague threat to an actual election. But not just any election, because the 2012 result could represent a significant threat to Indian Country. No matter who […]
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Former New Mexico governor leaves GOP
Until Dec. 28, there were two former Western governors seeking the Republican presidential nomination. One remains in the race. Jon Huntsman, Jr., was governor of Utah from 2005 until he resigned in 2009 to serve as U.S. ambassador to China. He hasn’t gained much traction to date — a reputation for sanity has not been […]
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Tribes could turn the tables on water control
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House It seems like every week there’s another article about the future of western water—how much we’ll have, where it will come from, and who will get it. Since it’s key to our sustainability and growth, it’s something we ought to be talking about. But there’s a key element that […]
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The Water Buffalo Postulate
I first heard of the Water Buffalo Postulate in a snowbound cabin near the Canadian line. Several friends were sitting around a wood stove after a vigorous day, sharing tales of danger and derring-do. One friend, I’ll call him Joe, rolled up a pant-leg, revealing a badly scarred calf muscle. “Water buffalo,” he said. As […]
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Holiday cheer for colleges leading the way
Now that all the papers are graded and final grades submitted, I’m feeling a bit of holiday cheer for my employer, Arizona State University, and I’m inclined to give them a shout-out for a cool thing they’re doing. They don’t, of course, really need my help; there’s a large and well-staffed publicity office that is […]
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The decline of rural incomes
Bill Bishop, the Daily Yonder Nearly 7 out of 10 rural counties saw their median family incomes drop from 2007 to 2010, according to new figures from the U.S. Census. Median income is point where half the families in the county make more than that amount and half make less. The national median family income […]
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Who really imports U.S. coal, and other facts about coal exports
By Eric de Place, Sightline.org This post is part of the research project: Northwest Coal Exports Arguments over Northwest coal exports have been hot and heavy in 2011. As one might expect, there’s been plenty of disagreement about values, but there’s also been quite a bit of disagreement over facts. After nearly a year of wrangling, here’s […]
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Rants from the Hill: Chickenfeathers strikes water
For well over 500 years people have engaged in “dowsing,” an activity that is also known by a variety of vernacular terms including “witching,” “divining,” and, my young daughters’ favorite, “doodlebugging.” Dowsing is the activity of attempting to locate — without the use of scientific equipment — something valuable that lies beneath the ground. While […]
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Open season on Smokey the Bear and Woodsy Owl
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of time spent exploring the outdoors — being a Junior Ranger at the Cape Cod National Seashore, hours-long games of Kick the Can with every kid in the neighborhood, tracking frogs and catching fireflies in mason jars with holes poked in the […]
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Two Ronalds: Ron Paul and Ronald McDonald
In 1988, in the waning days of the Reagan Administration, I was a cub reporter in Boise, Idaho. I covered what the photo editor called in jest the “Ronald McDonald beat.” If Ronald McDonald made a public appearance, the editor slapped my skinny shoulders and said, “Go get ‘em, Scoop.” He rattled off the talking […]