Monsanto’s genetically modified Roundup Ready alfalfa may take over the West, as the company re-engineers the world to conform to its business plan.
Brave New Hay
Is Monsanto erasing the line between what is natural and what is not?
Two weeks in the West
Maybe it’s the weather; drought or abnormally dry weather is afflicting 70 percent of the West. Maybe the creeks gushing with unseasonably early snowmelt inspired lawmakers. Or maybe it’s just that last month marked the end of the legislative season. Whatever the reason, May was a big month for states — from Utah to California…
Native hum
As honeybees vanish, farmers turn to the wild pollinators in their back yards
John Nichols and his 19th miracle
NAME: John Nichols VOCATION: Author of 19 books offiction and nonfiction, including The Milagro Beanfield War, The Sterile Cuckoo, Conjugal Bliss, The Voice of the Butterfly and If Mountains Die. AGE: 66 Thoughts on Death and THE Afterlife “You just die. It’s over, Rover.” Advice: “Part of surviving is not to stress yourself out and…
But where would Mariah Carey ski?
I had just finished reading a headline in the May 15 New York Times online, “Scientists Back Off Theory of a Colder Europe in a Warming World,” when I picked High Country News out of my mailbox and read the column about “climate-change denial” written by the director of environmental affairs for Aspen Ski Company…
The ideology of the cancer cell
Thank you for the important article on the Verde River (HCN, 5/14/07). I do not understand Yavapai County Supervisor Carol Springer’s statement, “If we can’t grow at all in the future, because we lose our right to pump groundwater, we will cease to exist. There is no such thing as a static kind of a…
Global warming fact-check
Robert Hoff’s letter in which he called to “just have the facts” on global warming moved me to set straight a number of his (HCN, 4/30/07). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to which he refers, is considered by most scientists to produce one of the most comprehensive surveys of climate science, and the…
Send buses, trains and cable cars
Kudos to Bill Cook for “Why the West should copy Swiss ski transit.” What seems so apparent to ordinary citizens gets lost on our transportation planners — many of whom seem stuck in “auto” mode (HCN, 4/30/07). Yes, developing a transit system will be costly, but building and maintaining an environmentally and community sensitive highway…
Impressions of Pueblo prehistory
Every branch of science needs its voice — the popular writer who makes research come alive, in ways that scientists rarely manage. With House of Rain, Craig Childs lays claim to be the voice of Southwestern archaeology. Moving across the region, he conjures up sites, scientists, and the prehistoric people of the Colorado Plateau. Those…
Western open space: Land of intrinsic worth
In some parts of the West, conversations about land use can be hazardous to your health. This time, you can leave the brass knuckles at home; all you need is a bookmark. The writers in Home Land aren’t just old-time Westerners; they include a descendant of New York coal miners, a wildlife biologist, and a…
Piscatorial theology
My father was raised on a farm on the shore of Montana’s Flathead Lake at the turn of the last century. The local rivers were all trout streams then, teeming with salmon, cutthroat and rainbow. For Dad, fly-fishing was more than a passion — it was a religion, one that lasted all his life. My…
Cow feed from Planet 9
In Hollywood science fiction, genetic modification leads to monsters with extensible jaws and rampaging epidemics that threaten mankind’s existence. In real-world science fact, altered DNA usually expresses itself more mundanely. Until recently, for instance, it was hard to think of a reason to fear a pasture. But as Matt Jenkins found while reporting this issue’s…
UnGuarded
National Guard suffers at home as equipment goes overseas
Tribal victory
Yakama Nation buys Lyle Point, ending decades-long struggle over fishing rights
Epiphanies on the range
They are polite, eager, inquisitive. I can’t decide if they make me feel 20 years younger or exhausted. Every teacher should be so lucky. I’m driving around the West with 21 students from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., where I teach, and we’ve talked to ranchers and environmentalists, looked at forests that have been…
Heard Around the West
COLORADO Decked in virginal veils and jaunty bowties, 178 canine couples walked down the aisle recently in Littleton, Colo., though we’re still wondering how a ring fits over a toe that sports a claw. The mock nuptials weren’t just a dotty indulgence for dog lovers, reports the Denver Post. “Bow Wow Vows” raised over $3,000…
Dear friends
WELCOME, NEW HCN EMPLOYEES Shaun Gibson, HCN’s new designer and production assistant, designs pages and promotional materials, finds photos and artwork, and helps post each issue on the Web. Shaun has spent most of his life in small towns in Colorado. His great-grandfather was a miner in Crested Butte, and his grandfather was one of…