Despite the midwinter economic-recession blues plaguing much of the West, environmentalists have reason to feel good. After eight years of being frustrated by President George W. Bush, suddenly they’re getting traction. Signs include: On Jan. 20, just hours into his term, President Barack Obama froze all the Bush deregulation efforts that had not been finalized […]
Climate change
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
DOE and the volcano
Judith Lewis’ story “Mountain of Doubt” in the Jan. 19, 2009, issue of HCN provides an admirably accurate and balanced description of the history of Department of Energy-led efforts to establish Yucca Mountain as a safe repository for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste. Beyond the politics, Lewis explains, “Doubts about Yucca Mountain’s geologic suitability have […]
Posted inGoat
Climate Bale Out
Stuart Strand takes climate change seriously, and I’m not just talking about the groovy recumbent bicycle he rides to work. The environmental engineer from the University of Washington was searching for a way to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere when he came across an intriguing report. Its authors suggested that annual […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2009: Non-navigable River Blues
The darkest element
Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the WorldTom Zoellner317 pages, softcover: $26.95.Viking, 2009. Writer Tom Zoellner has a great sense of timing. His latest work, Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World, hits the shelves as media attention zeros in on Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs, the explosion […]
Posted inGoat
Managing a busted climate
How do you manage for “natural” conditions when humans have twisted nature all out of pitch? If you’re trying to make decisions in an unprecedented situation, what experience do you lean on? These are a couple of the underlying concerns in a recent report from the federal Climate Change Science Program. The report focuses on climate-sensitive […]
Posted inGoat
59,000 trees can’t be wrong
Westerners can see that there’s trouble in the woods — these days, it seems like there’s a beetle-killed lodgepole stand around every corner — but here’s some especially sobering evidence of forest die-offs, just published in the journal Science. A long-term study of almost 59,000 trees in plots throughout the region shows that tree deaths […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2009: Blood Quantum
Mountain of doubt
Will the country’s only planned nuclear waste dump survive Obama?
Posted inJanuary 19, 2009: Blood Quantum
Notes from the (water) underground
Gordon Grant’s pioneering work on the northwest’s hydrologic sponge
Posted inGoat
Waking up to coal’s other mess
Raymond “Squeak” Hunt is not one to be ignored. He’s not afraid to speak his mind (even if it means building a giant billboard to do so). More often than not, he’s holding a large, sharp knife (he butchers sheep for a living). And he’s prone to spouting aphorisms which, though they don’t always make […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Who’ll clean up when the party’s over?
Land managers and industry are stepping up efforts to reclaim public lands scraped and drilled for oil and gas. Is it too little, too late?
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Passing gas
Western states struggle to capture methane emissions from coal mines
Posted inWotr
Think again before going nuclear
Both major candidates for president are effusive in their praise of alternative ways of producing energy, and their lists of how to go green usually include nuclear power. John McCain’s energy plan calls for 45 new nuclear power plants. Barack Obama is less enthused; he says he’d go forward only if the problems of nuclear […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
Acidifying oceans
James Zachos fishes around his desk and pulls out a plastic bag filled with chunks of deep-sea sediments. The sediments, wrested from the South Atlantic in 2003, are 55.5 million years old and ‘deep red in color because they are almost entirely clay. Missing is the abundance of shelly residue that gives abyssal sediments their typically […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
Back to the future
The earth warmed considerably some 55 million years ago. What does that tell us about our current climate dilemma?
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
“1,000 messy facts”
Riparian systems are varied and dynamic; riparian models are human constructs particular to individuals. Cleo Woelfe-Erskine’s article, “Riparian Repair,” failed to capture a fundamental of reclamation and even restoration: We practitioners don’t deliver a perfect facsimile of nature full-blown at the inception but rather advance the recovery process, which continues if we have been successful […]
Posted inGoat
Late aspen, early melting
Despite the best efforts of many concerned friends, I remain something of an agnostic on whether climate change is caused by humans or is part of a natural cycle. After all, on my daily walks with the dog along the Arkansas River, I can gaze across our wide valley and stare up the narrow valley […]
Posted inAugust 25, 2008: Hot Wheels
All along the watchtower
A weekend shift with Washington’s Fire Gatekeeper
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
The wandering lepidopterist
It’s a sadly typical spring day in Seattle, all scudding clouds and spitting rain even though the forecast promised sun. On top of that, Dr. Robert Michael Pyle has some bad news. “Marsha won’t be joining us,” he says. I’m sorry to hear it. Marsha has been at Pyle’s side for more than 30 years, […]
Posted inGoat
Agricultural water pollution on the line
The Bush Administration has been trying since 2005 to change Clean Water Act rules so that agricultural interests can dump polluted water into public lakes and streams without obtaining a permit. Each step of the way, Florida environmentalists represented by Earthjustice lawyers have filed lawsuits to block the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) from implementing the […]
Posted inArticles
We thought we were safe
Editor’s note: On July 9, Gordon Gregory reports that he and his family were forced to move again. The house they’d found to rent after wildfire destroyed their home on the southern edge of Paradise turned out to be in the path of a new advancing fire. I live close to tall trees in Northern […]