SAVING LANDSCAPES AND LIVES
Brilliant. A must read. Thank you. (“A Fight We Can Win,” February 2025.)
Cooper Hamilton
Via Bluesky
DEFINE YOUR TERMS
I always learn from Jonathan Thompson’s work in HCN. But in his recent “The climate fight endures,” (February 2025), I must call out one half-sentence about Idaho that rankles: “much of its power comes from relatively clean hydroelectric dams.”
Idaho Power Company, Idaho’s largest electric utility, owns a system of dams that generate non-carbon power. But they and their electricity are not “clean.” The notion that these dams are relatively clean pits the deep, many-layered damage they do to Shoshone-Paiute, Shoshone-Bannock and other tribal people, against their non-carbon generation.
Tribal people seasonally relied on salmon returning to the mid-Snake River and its tributaries. Idaho Power’s dams eradicated them without tribal permission or consultation. This is not just a regrettable wrong from the past; it recurs every year when no salmon return. This is why the Upper Snake River Tribes are working hard against daunting odds to somehow get salmon back.
When I was active in energy advocacy 20 or more years ago, we argued for a proper definition of “clean,” in public use and in regulation, as non-carbon, non-destructive of salmon and non-damaging to poor and First People. That still seems right to me, in fact, in law and morality. There is some hydroelectricity in the Northwest that deserves the word “clean.” But not much.
Pat Ford
Boise, Idaho
ONWARD
Great rundown of how states and cities in the U.S. West are fighting the climate crisis, despite Trump (“The climate fight endures,” February 2025).
Nick Engelfried
Via Bluesky
NECESSARY BURNING
Thanks for Kylie Mohr’s great read (“Lit up,” February 2025). You paint a great picture of a new burner! I always see things from the truck window wondering how it can burn or thinking about what areas really need it. It will also spoil your hikes as well.
Kyle Lapham
Washington Department of Natural Resources, Certified Prescribed Burn Manager Course
Spokane, Washington
ONE FINE FIRE REPORTER
Great synthesized article on wildfire smoke (“What we learned about wildfire smoke in 2024,” Dec. 27, 2024). Kylie Mohr has done her research and inspired me to resubscribe to HCN.
Randi Jandt
Alaska Fire Science Consortium
Fairbanks, Alaska
PACIFIC BRANT’S PERILS
As another possible threat, you could have also mentioned the planned road through Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge (“Get to know the Pacific brant,” December 2024).
Karen Sjogren
Salem, Oregon
DON’T WASTE THAT WOOD!
I was shocked to see the caption for the photo of dead trees that were cut down to reduce wildfire risk (“Consider the source,” October 2024). While I get the theory behind the practice, I can’t begin to imagine why the wood would be burned in place when there are likely plenty of homes with wood-burning stoves in the area that would love to have that wood. Doesn’t the Forest Service understand that all that wood will add the same carbon dioxide to the air as the wood that homeowners will burn anyway? What a waste! If we’re going to kill trees that are in fact CO2 sinks, can we at least be sensible about it?
Julie Smith
Breckenridge, Colorado
INCHES AND ACRE-FEET
Reading “Sponge cities” (September 2024), it struck me that one reason why illiteracy about water use and conservation is so widespread in this country is the variety of units that appear. Inches of rain result in millions of acre-feet of runoff; even a single roof can contribute many gallons. The only unit missing in the article is that uniquely American unit, the Olympic swimming pool!
I’m a retired international water engineer, and even I find it hard. In Utah, where I now live, very few people would be able to tell you how much water would be used if they turned on their sprinklers. Even fewer would be able to say what that would cost them, at the summer rate of dollars per 100 cubic feet.
Of course, using the metric system would make everything far easier, but so far the U.S. stands staunchly with Liberia and Myanmar in resisting this change. What should be done to make the situation more easily comprehensible, so that public support can be built for the significant changes that climate change is forcing upon us?
Richard Middleton
Salt Lake City, Utah
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