The Emerald People’s Utility District near Eugene, Ore., says it will provide “green power” to its customers. The district has agreed to pay 75 percent more to a new partnership between the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and a trio of environmental groups formed to encourage energy production that doesn’t harm air quality or salmon. The […]
Books
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Spotted owls vs. jobs?
Does environmental protection really cause timber workers to lose their jobs? An article by University of Wisconsin sociologist Bill Freudenburg says no. His peer-reviewed study tracks employment numbers through three flashpoints of the modern environmental movement: 1964, when the Wilderness Act became law; the advent of Earth Day in 1970; and the northern spotted owl […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Endangered Mexico
Living in Mexico City – a place that has already suffered a kind of ecological collapse – has convinced me that the most crucial environmental struggle in the coming decades will be providing water, food and clean air, and ensuring basic human health in a world where resources are more and more limited. The most […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Big Sky or Big Sprawl?
As cities swallow countyside, two upcoming conferences will consider ways to protect open and agricultural land from urban growth. Montanans meet in Helena Nov. 20-21 for Big Sky or Big Sprawl? Montana at the Crossroads: Montana’s First Statewide Summit on Growth. Call or write AERO, 25 S. Ewing, Suite 214, Helena, MT 59601 (406/443-7272), or […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
9th Headwaters Conference, “Relationships Between Learning and Locality’
The collision between rural society and academia is the subject of the 9th Headwaters Conference, “Relationships Between Learning and Locality,” at Western State College in Gunnison, Colo., Nov. 13-14. Presentations include a one-man docudrama about philosopher John Dewey and a role-playing exercise about “fractious mountain valleys.” For information contact George Sibley, Western State College, Gunnison, […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Gutsy scientists stand up to bureaucratic juggernaut
Science Under Siege: The Politicians’ War on Nature and Truth By Todd Wilkinson, Johnson Books, Boulder, Colo., 1998. Paperback, $18. 364 pages. The struggle to protect the American landscape is often portrayed as a boxing match between powerful corporations and gritty environmentalists. That simplistic picture leaves out a less-heralded yet equally critical player: the federal […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
A Montana writer’s real-life tales of bears and terror
Joe Heimer had the sow grizzly’s upper lip clenched in his fist, shoving and squeezing as hard as he could. The bear had knocked him flat on his back in the deep, sticky snow, and she was standing on his mauled legs, trying to shake his hand loose and sink her jagged teeth into his […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Varmints
Some think of prairie dogs as oversized, furry rats – agricultural pests that compete with cows for forage. Others see them as essential parts of prairie ecosystems. Varmints, a soon-to-be-released documentary from High Plains Films, explores the heated controversy that has mobilized the Sierra Club in defense of the critters, and has spawned the Varmint […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Guidebook with attitude
After traipsing around Washington state’s wildlands for the past 50 years, Ira Spring and Harvey Manning have put together an eccentric and entertaining guidebook, 100 Classic Hikes in Washington, covering the North Cascades, Olympics, Mount Rainier and South Cascades, Alpine Lakes and Glacier Peak. Unlike other guidebooks, in which environmentalism goes unmentioned, 100 Classic Hikes […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Look who’s sprawling now
When Marc Heilson saw the Sierra Club’s rankings of the cities most afflicted by suburban sprawl, the Salt Lake City member called the national office and demanded, “How could you do this to us?” reports the Salt Lake Tribune. He was upset because The Dark Side of the American Dream: The Costs and Consequences of […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
A new look at old pictures
Historical photographs of ranch life tend to be so full of men that an observer might think no women ever lived on the range. But in 1898, Mabel Souther did more than just live on the Big Red Ranch in northeastern Wyoming – she took pictures that documented the working life there. Perhaps her cowpoke […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Trading away the West
Historical photographs of ranch life tend to be so full of men that an observer might think no women ever lived on the range. But in 1898, Mabel Souther did more than just live on the Big Red Ranch in northeastern Wyoming – she took pictures that documented the working life there. Perhaps her cowpoke […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Mine fires up potters
For thousands of years Picuris Pueblo potters have darkened red pottery with hematite and sparkled it with mica. Now, a mine threatens this tradition. Tenfold expansion of a privately owned mica mine near Peûasco, N.M. – not far from the proposed copper mine recently dropped by Summo (HCN, 6/23/98) – would use up the last […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Yellowstone’s wandering bison
The interagency team developing a plan for managing Yellowstone’s wandering bison (HCN, 9/28/98) is extending the deadline for public comments on its draft environmental impact statement to Nov. 2. For a copy of the draft EIS, or to comment on the plan, write Bison Management Plan EIS Team, National Park Service, Sarah Bransom, DSC-RP, P.O. […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Rock Talk
Rock Talk isn’t about music, it’s the Colorado Geological Survey’s new quarterly newsletter. Geared toward the general reader, each free, 12-page issue covers a facet of the rocky world. October’s issue concentrates on avalanches, with a brief history of Colorado’s Avalanche Information Center, practical advice about avalanche hazards in the backcountry, and county-by-county avalanche death […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Northwest Mining Association’s 104th Annual Meeting
Alaska Sen. Frank Murkowski, R, will be a speaker at the Northwest Mining Association’s 104th Annual Meeting, Nov. 29-Dec. 4, in Spokane, Wash. The “Exploring New Opportunities’ conference offers educational sessions. Call the Northwest Mining Association at 509/624-1158 or e-mail nwma@nwma.org. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Northwest […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
They left only footprints
When storms hit central Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin, dry washes turn to muddy streams, scouring the limestone bedrock. In one gully near the Red Gulch/Alkali Backcountry Byway, the yearly floods uncovered more than 2,000 dinosaur tracks from the Middle Jurassic period. “There were thousands and thousands of small- to medium-sized meat-eating dinosaurs scurrying around here,” explains […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Broadway, mountain-style
Bitter environmental conflict inspires demonstrations, op-ed pieces, sometimes violence. In the Mattole Valley of Northern California, fights over logging and salmon have generated something else entirely: musical comedy. Activist David Simpson and his choreographer wife, Jane Lapiner, both San Francisco Mime Troupe veterans, launched a theater group, Human Nature, to try to ease tensions between […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Seeing parks with 20/20 vision
Some fast-moving congressional legislation is aiming to change how the National Park Service does business. The bill would make visitors continue to “pay to play” and also would require Hollywood to cough up some cash before filming scenic park vistas. But critics say private park concessionaires would continue to take the Park Service for a […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Holding the line
For a diligent review of environmental issues facing Arctic and interior Alaska, you might look to the 27-year-old Northern Alaska Environmental Center and its 20-page, quarterly newsletter, The Northern Line. The title recalls a Gary Snyder poem, “Behind is a forest that goes to the Arctic … and here we must draw our line.” Supported […]