Maps and statistics reveal the effects Nevada’s gold-mining has on taxes and employment, among other things.

Grasshoppered!

“A metabolic wildfire”: That’s how entomologist-nature writer Jeffrey Lockwood of the University of Wyoming describes a grasshopper outbreak. At high densities — say 30 per square yard — a swarm can obliterate rangeland vegetation like “a maniac on a riding mower.” And with last year’s bumper crop of grasshoppers and the potential for a warm,…

by Sarah Gilman

A Western state of mind

Best of the West 2009: New Stories from the Wide Side of the MissouriEdited by James Thomas and D. Seth Horton286 pages, softcover: $19.95.University of Texas Press, 2009. This impressive anthology of contemporary short fiction grounded in the American West showcases 18 stories from emerging writers and literary stars, selected from publications as diverse as…

by Tania Casselle

From Alaska to Paonia

Paonia, Colo., was a planned rest stop for visitors Helen Pohlig and Marilyn Rudolph, who were driving from Arizona to Helen’s home in St. Paul, Minn. “We purposefully chose a route that would take us through here,” said Helen, a lawyer and longtime subscriber. On their tour of HCN headquarters, she brought her dog Annie,…

by Jodi Peterson

Size matters?

I’m still laughing at one of the photos in “Mobile Nation” (HCN, 3/15/10)! Was that a bit of editorializing in the photo of the gentleman in his land-yacht watching the “male enhancement” commercial? Was the author trying to make some sort of Freudian connection between the size of a guy’s RV and his, uh ……

by Jack Topel

Skeptical of Calera

I have read several positive reports (including the one in HCN on March 15) about Calera Corporation’s presumed process that uses seawater or brine to sequester carbon dioxide, particularly from coal-fired power plants. Calera claims to produce a mixture of calcium and magnesium carbonates (limestone, dolomite, etc.) that can be used as a substitute for…

by Jerry D. Unruh

Building a more effective environmental movement

The Rebirth of Environmentalism: Grassroots Activism from the Spotted Owl to the Polar BearDouglas Bevington285 pages, softcover: $35. Island Press, 2009. In The Rebirth of Environmentalism, activist Douglas Bevington explores the relationship between large national organizations like the Sierra Club and small “grassroots biodiversity groups” like Northwest California’s Environmental Protection Information Center. Bevington describes the…

by Felice Pace

Hard times reshuffle the political deck

A couple of years ago, signs asking “Why Does Ritter Hate Oil and Gas?” sprouted along western Colorado’s roadsides, just as Gov. Bill Ritter promised new regulations designed to temper the state’s frenzied drilling boom. Industry boosters claimed Ritter would regulate them right out of the state. And oddly enough, within the year, many companies…

by Paul Larmer

Pika politics

What’s the connection between pika populations and climate change? It’s complicated.

by Molly Samuel

Plus they never have to mow the lawn

The only thing missing in “Mobile Nation” was the real reason all those communal, neighborly, flag-waving, self-identified not-liberal RV settlers are so happy (HCN, 3/15/10). First, they don’t have to work any more. Second, there are no children around. And last, the government gives them a place to live for almost nothing. So much for…

by Peggy V. Beck