To stanch the state’s financial bleeding, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens wants to get a quick hit of $800 million owed by Big Tobacco instead of stretching out annual payments for a total of $2.1 billion. Meanwhile, money for anti-smoking programs remains in limbo. This is, at the least, a curious moral dilemma. Colorado is getting […]
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The most vulnerable farmworkers are the least protected
Jose and Luis are only 10-and 11-years old, but they are already expert cherry pickers. After three summers working in the orchards with their father, they know how to pluck cherries without harming the tree bud. They know how to avoid the tractors that speed through the slender rows of trees. They know that long […]
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A love letter to a sewage lagoon
At a neighbor’s house a few years ago, I saw a sphere of ruddy sandstone displayed on a ledge. Rolling it in my hand, I recognized the heft and grittiness of the ball. “We used to find these at Lake Powell,” I said, “Is that where this came from?” Our neighbor, a dedicated environmental activist, […]
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Sportsmen for Bush: Wise up!
Without enthusiastic support from most of America’s 50 million hunters and anglers, George W. Bush and his appointees would still be employed by oil, gas and coal companies. I still see bumper stickers that say: “Another Sportsman for Bush.” Yet as a lifelong sportsman myself, I wonder why even one sportsman, let alone “another,” would […]
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Does Wal-Mart really need our tax dollars?
Typical of shopping centers built decades ago, Alameda Square in Denver is a cheap, single-story strip of stores. It’s ugly and rundown. But that does not deter shoppers. Mostly Asian Americans, shoppers come from miles around to patronize more than a dozen Asian-owned businesses, including two grocery stores, two restaurants, a hair salon, a clothing […]
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Thanksgiving as a holiday of the imagination
There is a saying among the Lakota that when the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock, they fell on their knees and prayed, and then they fell on the Indians and preyed. Perhaps it is not surprising that the stories of this country’s founding are awash in error. As Napoleon reportedly said, “What is history […]
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Getting ready to wreck the vote
Let’s just get this out of the way: As a nerd, and an overly opinionated one at that, Election Day — not Thanksgiving — has always been my favorite “holiday.” Some kids couldn’t wait to turn 16 and drive; I couldn’t wait to turn 18 and vote. Simply put, I’m a maniac for democracy. That […]
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A cheer for runaway bison and their glorious home
Anyone with a heart had to cheer the bison. One recent snowy day in Great Falls, Mont., three of the half-ton creatures were being loaded off a truck into a slaughterhouse. One of the half-wild bovines busted through a five-foot timber corral and — bingo! — led a buffalo breakout. The three beasts stampeded through […]
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The biggest environmental issue is staring us in the face
Tom Bell says we’d better connect the dots that reveal global warming.
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Fire policy in the form of Smokey and the Bandit
Among the spectacles swirling around Southern California’s recent wildfires, we had now-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a man who rose from body-building to movie screens and into politics on the principle of self-reliance, beseeching Washington, D.C., to cushion Californians from the toll of the flames. There was also California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who rose with […]
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Our publicly owned forests are being subverted
As the nation remains preoccupied with the war against terrorism, President Bush has been carrying out a less visible assault on another front: our national forests. Most of the attacks over the last year have been below the radar — in arcane rules, stealth riders and misnamed legislation. In this many-fronted assault, big timber is […]
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River advocates take a seat at the table
There is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort underway to restore natural stream flows to many of the nation’s waterways. The poster child for this groundbreaking work is California’s Mokelumne River, which flows from high up in the Sierras through the gold country. Dams and diversions have reduced the river to a relative trickle, but that is […]
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California’s growth machine fueled these disastrous wildfires
The wildfires that gnawed their way through drought-crisped Southern California are on a pace to establish a record for acreage charred and for the dollar value of structures and belongings destroyed. Perhaps this is no great feat in a state where homes worth $250,000 five years ago are worth twice that today. The monetary disaster […]
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To have and have not in Flagstaff, Arizona
I’m still appalled by the subject line of the e-mail I received a month ago. “Great news: we are homeless!” I didn’t know the address on the e-mail. Based on the subject line, I figured it was probably from a Democratic candidate informing me about a Bushite atrocity. I clicked open the e-mail to find […]
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Trying out for the new sport of Extreme Canning
It’s getting harder and harder to be an “extreme” athlete. The ultra-fit among us aren’t just climbing all Western peaks over 14,000 feet; they’re climbing them in less than 10 days and doing it on snowboards, skis, bikes and in-line skates. All this requires thousands of dollars’ worth of gear and years of training. And […]
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Ski resorts go for the green
Because ski resorts are beautiful in winter and green in summer, they have usually been considered good environmental citizens. But in the last few years, that perception has begun to erode. In 1997, there was the Earth Liberation Front’s terrorist attack on Vail’s Two Elks Lodge to protest the resort’s expansion into lynx habitat. Later, […]
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Leaving Las Vegas
I lived in Las Vegas recently for about a year, doing research at a large weapons-testing facility outside of town. Among all the places I’ve lived, from tropical islands to small towns and Western strip-mall communities, Las Vegas seemed uniquely American in its boosterism for get-rich-quick schemes, the sex industry and for the stupendous desert […]
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Salmon go swoosh in the Northwest
It was Saturday, and we had shopping to do: groceries, eyeglasses, yard tools, and as we crisscrossed Portland to find deals, we were sucked into malls, lured by displays to purchase jeans and sports paraphernalia. Then, in the middle of the overcast Oregon afternoon, in the heart of Northwest cool known as the Pearl District, […]
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Teddy Roosevelt would have put his foot down
When the young Theodore Roosevelt went West to become a cattle rancher in the late 1800s, he was impressed by the flint of the Western character. In his travels through South Dakota and the Rocky Mountains, he met mountain men and cowboys and Indians so independent and strong-willed that even the robuster-than-robust Roosevelt confessed he […]
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A corporation’s deadly legacy lives on
“It was a Superfund site,” my friend Nina told me, joking about a house she and her husband nearly bought in the crunched real estate market of the greater Yellowstone area. At first they loved the house and its affordable price. Then an inspector informed them that the building was full of asbestos-laden vermiculite from […]