SCIENCE RIGHT-ING
Just wanted to share my appreciation for your exceptional science communications (“Pink alert for Western snowpack,” December 2022). I have spent 40 years working on glaciers in the Pacific Northwest and during that have time have had many reporters join us in the field from local papers. The ability to provide science details and tell the story of the field experience and the people in a seamless way is something you do exceptionally. It is difficult, I know, to focus on more than one aspect in a story.
Speaking as a research scientist, just know you are hitting the “write” notes.
Mauri Pelto
Dudley, Massachusetts
CARBON CAPTURE COMPLIMENTS
“Carbon capture convolution” (December 2022) laid out the environmental costs of trying to continue using coal-burning power plants but pumping the climate-warming CO2 underground. Reopening the shuttered San Juan Generating Station with carbon capture comes with the high costs of methane pollution, coal mining, mercury, chromium, arsenic, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide release, coal ash and slag, and particulates. A Marshall Plan-level effort to supply electrical needs with solar and wind makes so much more sense.
Robert Brayden
Golden, Colorado
Jonathan Thompson will surely take flak from Enchant Energy for his revealing “Carbon capture convolution.” He showed that Enchant Energy’s proposal will reap millions of taxpayers’ dollars for pumping CO2 into oil fields … to get more oil that will then be burned to emit more … CO2! But carbon capture and “sequestration” by permanent burial has been, to date, a proven failure in dealing with climate change. Spend the money on renewable energy instead!
Charles Bagley
Seattle, Washington
NATURE’S BALANCE
In “Stories for a swiftly tilting planet” (November 2022) I was struck by the statement: “The vaunted ‘balance of nature’ is more or less a mirage.” This seems to underestimate the natural world and misrepresent it as one in chaos. The biological, chemical and physical processes of the natural world are always seeking a balance that might last for a minute, a month, a few years or millions of years. The small window of variability needed to maintain this balance is key to the natural world’s survival. Too much CO2 produces a Venus hothouse and too little results in an arctic Mars. When there are too many predators, they wipe out their prey, and both species may disappear.
Once we lacked technology, so we had to live in balance with the natural world; once our population was insignificant; once we were not addicted to consuming natural resources. At this point, Homo sapiens has the ability to ignore the balance that the natural world is seeking. We are creating an imbalance that is not sustainable and, like too many predators, we will be faced with extinction, and the natural world will continue to seek the balance that makes the Earth habitable.
John Spezia
Steamboat Springs, Colorado
SWITCH TO COPPER
I have been a hunter for decades. Until about 10 years ago, I shot lead bullets and thought nothing of it (“Freeing eagles from a deadly threat,” November 2022). Then I started seeing data based on scientific research that clearly showed a real problem with lead in gut piles as well as micro lead fragments in meat consumed by hunters. I don’t want to ingest lead that may be contaminating meat, and I don’t want to unwittingly poison wildlife. I switched to solid copper bullets and have found the ballistics and performance to be equal to lead. It is a little more expensive, but if you are an ethical hunter, you should be taking careful shots looking for a quick kill. Hunters spend thousands of dollars on pickup trucks, campers, packs, clothing, food and gas for a typical hunting trip. Even with the increased cost of copper, the amount I spend on ammo is pretty insignificant — especially if I end up with a few hundred pounds of prime meat from a $2.50 bullet.
A national ban on lead bullets for hunting does not seem unreasonable. I encourage all hunters to do the right thing and switch to copper. Hunters by definition should be conservationists.
Chris Scranton
Stevensville, Montana
KNOWLEDGE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
My hat is off to all who write your well-documented and informative stories. There is no magazine that digs at the heart of America’s issues and their causes.
Awareness is the first step in having a voice that, united with like-minded readers, can and will make a difference. Please keep up the extraordinary depth of real-time coverage on critical issues that affect all of us who live in the United States, on either coast or in between.
Wendy Taggart
Pueblo, Colorado
NOVEMBER NICETIES
The November issue was the best issue in years. Guest editor Michelle Nijhuis hit it out of the park. The explanations of collaborations in Oregon and interrelated ecosystems in J. Moyer’s story were particularly noteworthy. More issues like this, please!
Steve Woods
Shoreview, Minnesota
We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Letters to the editor, January 2023.
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