In the evening a strange thing happened; the 20 families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of a home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream. — John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath Long before Tom Joad and his family set out for […]
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A tribute to a lifetime of frugality
My great-aunt Marie never had garbage to throw out. She spent her last 20 years cleaning out the barn, garage, basement and various assorted farm sheds, dispersing the wire, wood, nails, fishing poles, antique radios, and a lifetime of other valuables her husband had stockpiled. Well into her 90s, she bought groceries in bulk and […]
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Interior Secretary Salazar is on the right track
I’m a third-generation Colorado native, and for me, the Rockies have always been all about blue skies and fresh air. Yet I’m old enough to remember the brown cloud that used to hover over Denver. I also remember that after amendments to the Clean Air Act took effect in 1990, I could once again see […]
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How one “girl ranger” helped save the Southwest
Ed Abbey once called her a “girl ranger,” and that’s what she was, the very first. Lynell Schalk began her federal career tracking grave robbers and pothunters in southeast Utah, and ended it catching pot growers in western Oregon. She broke through the sagebrush ceiling as the first female special agent in charge in the […]
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Ranchers now have a way out
The years-in-the-making Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 finally became law last month. The act designates more than 2 million acres of new wilderness, plus 1,100 miles of new wild and scenic rivers, and it also includes an increasingly popular model for resolving grazing conflicts on public lands. In two Western states — Oregon […]
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A poisoned Montana town gets its shot at justice
I got goose bumps recently, when Judge Donald Molloy read the charges against W.R. Grace & Co. and five of its former executives in a Missoula courtroom. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. For the first time since 1999, when the news broke that hundreds of people had died from asbestos-contaminated vermiculite mined in […]
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Let’s remember the children
As dollars from the Economic Stimulus Act arrive here in the eight Rocky Mountain states, most Westerners seem to be talking about spending that money on shovel-ready jobs. The projects we hear about are intended to repair our crumbling schools, bridges, roads and sewers, or to restore our abused landscape. We know, too, that money […]
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Must our water always flow uphill toward money?
I’ve given up drinking bottled water. It’s so wasteful: Up to three quarts of water are used for each quart bottled. Also, it consumes 67 million barrels of oil annually on its journey from source to consumer, and sends 2 million tons of plastic bottles to landfills. It’s especially wasteful in arid country like the […]
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Environmentalists must learn to compromise
Desalination plants are necessary to quench the West’s thirst
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Tent cities and what they tell us
The blockbuster love story, Slumdog Millionaire, has brought images of a ramshackle slum in Mumbai, India, to millions of American viewers. Although the slum may have been a bit prettified, it did the trick: Moviegoers were shocked, offended and also deeply moved by how the poor of other nations live. The movie’s popularity has inspired […]
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It’s time to give up a stupid habit
What would a Martian archaeologist think of junk mail?
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Dust off your survival skills
These are good days for survivalists, those dour predictors of dire times who’ve said all along that we’d better prepare for the worst. With people losing jobs, homes and life savings through no fault of their own, and with natural disasters, oil shortages and terrorists in the news, those long-predicted grim times may have arrived. […]
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Let them eat copper
I am sitting on the sun-blasted South Rim of the Grand Canyon, tracking condors through binoculars and trying to read the numbers on their wing tags as they dip and wobble above and below me. Next to me is Elaine Leslie, the heroic National Park Service biologist who never gave up on condors, even when […]
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Calling Hollywood to run the West
Macho Hollywood actor Val Kilmer has starred in more than 40 movies, often playing tough cops and Western gunfighters. He’s probably best known for playing the 1995 Batman and punching out a villain called The Riddler. Now Kilmer wants to become a political hero by running for the governorship of New Mexico. Don’t laugh too […]
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Would you want to live near a wind farm?
If there’s an iconic image of the new push for domestic green energy, it’s the wind turbine photographed against a luminous horizon. Its sleek aerodynamic blades turn silently and steadily, providing happy Americans with clean, dependable energy. But there’s another image that’s becoming increasingly associated with wind power, and that’s its angry next-door neighbors. In […]
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Dwindling supplies inflame water wars
I have a classic Western postcard tacked to the bulletin board above my computer. It shows two men in a field holding shovels over their heads, locked in mock battle. Behind them runs an irrigation ditch. The caption reads: “Discussing Western Water Rights, A Western Pastime.” The postcard makes me laugh because I know firsthand […]
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We need a renewables roadmap
If anybody had any doubt that clean energy has arrived, President Obama’s speech to Congress Feb. 24 should dispel those concerns. Obama told Congress and the nation that clean energy, along with education and health care, are central to our economic revival. Obama recognized that if the United States can “harness the power of clean, […]
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What Wallace Stegner knew
In a tribute celebrating the 100th birthday of Western writer Wallace Stegner, New York Times columnist Timothy Egan recently wrote that if Señor Stegner were here to blow out the candles on his cake, he would still be angry about the “East Coast Media Conspiracy.” The beloved author of Angle of Repose and The Big […]
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Winter camping can be hazardous to your health
One hundred thirty-five years ago this spring, a six-week ordeal began for Alferd E. Packer. The starving and disoriented man stopped eating wild rose hips. Trapped in the deep snows of the San Juan Mountains of western Colorado, he began gnawing on the corpses of his deceased comrades. Thus began one of the West’s most […]