A “cap-and-trade” program for Alaskan and West Coast fisheries could save fish and take the edge off the dangerous multimillion-dollar fishing derby of the sea.
2,000 miles of controversy
A 15-foot-high, rust-colored steel wall snakes across the scrubby desert landscape, dividing the twin border cities of Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Sonora. On the Arizona side, Border Patrol agents sit at the ready while reconnaissance airplanes drone overhead. On the Mexican side, border crossers driven by poverty lie in wait for nightfall. Then they will…
National visit-your-parents-in-Paonia week?
Lars Lange of Pittsburgh, Pa., stopped by the office after spending time with his father and mother, Ulrich and Inge Lange, subscribers who moved to HCN’s hometown about four years ago. They signed him up, too, and he’s been hooked ever since, he says. Lars used to work in coal mining, then went to law…
Why one Coloradan cares about fish quotas
When the young woman in the apron and the thick rubber gloves handed me that bag of oysters, I knew they’d be good. We’d been hanging out on the beach right next to where those oysters were farmed, and they were so fresh, their rough shells were still covered with mussels and barnacles. A good…
The bare bones of life
The Southwest reminds one writer of Mars
The meat of the matter
Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory FarmsNicolette Hahn Niman278 pages, hardcover: $23.99.HarperCollins, 2009. When lawyer Nicolette Hahn was first assigned to sue gigantic polluting hog farms, she didn’t care for the idea. It sounded like an “immersion in poop,” she writes in her first book, Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and…
Forager, feed thyself
Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century ForagerLangdon Cook224 pages, hardcover, $26.95.Skipstone Press, 2009. When Langdon Cook met his future wife, his lack of culinary prowess nearly chased her away. “Cooking meant heating up a box of mac ‘n’ cheese or opening a can of chili,” he confesses in the prologue to Fat…
The same old Sen. Reid?
The Nevada lawmaker has a long history of opposing attempts to reform an antiquated federal mining law
Revival or dam-nation?
The push for green power could spawn a rush for small hydropower projects in the Northwest
What we got here is a failure to collaborate
Updated Aug. 24, 2009 On July 10, President Obama announced his nomination of Jonathan Jarvis as the next director of the National Park Service. Jarvis has worked for the agency for 30 years and directed its Pacific West region since 2002. Many of his colleagues contend that he not only has scientific training, but is…
Just say “yes”
I am glad that Carl Zichella recognizes a current trend within the environmental movement: inaction (HCN, 6/22 & 7/6/09). I have done my part volunteering and writing letters for the Sierra Club and other groups focused around conservation/sustainability/general green-ness, but I am tired of constantly opposing things and never seeing any changes. If all the…
Deals on wheels
“Thinking Outside the Timber Box” left out the struggles of the Montana Mountain Bike Alliance, which represents the thousands of mountain bike riders in Montana (HCN, 7/20/09). There is a middle ground of recreation that lies between the “motorheads” and the wilderness-loving hikers. Bicyclists have gravitated to the beautiful locations in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge that were…
More children, more carbon
In “Let’s Get Small,” Judith Lewis writes that “global greenhouse gas emissions have increased 70 percent since 1970, and our energy-squandering ways are to blame” (HCN, 6/22 & 7/6/09). Note that since 1970, world population has increased from around 3.8 to 6.7 billion people, while the United States has gone from 200 to over 300…
Fightin’ words
Water entrepreneur Aaron Million is quoted as saying that if there were any problems with his proposed Wyoming-to-Colorado pipeline project, “I’d be the first to put a fork in it” (HCN, 7/20/09). To which I’d like to add my own thoughts: “What? After cutting up the public’s water, you’d dine on it?” Mr. Million is…
Collaboration, schmlaboration
Regarding Ray Ring’s story “Thinking Outside the Timber Box”: While I think the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership is a good step and a grand idea in broad terms, what Ring missed is that the Partnership group barely tried to include county commissioners and others (HCN, 7/20/09). If the point of a collaborative approach is to bring all…
Nirvana on a backhoe
Habitat restorer Kim Erion’s heartfelt connection to her work
The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Saving fisheries — and taking the edge off the dangerous derby of the sea.