Carbon banking could help restore forests and fight global warming
Climate change
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Dust and Snow
High in the snowy San Juan Mountains, tiny particles have big implications
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Science vs. science fiction — get it straight
Science and scientists are taking quite a beating in the public opinion department these days. Sometimes there’s a good reason for it. Consider the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Every year, the geologists’ association honors someone “for notable journalistic achievement in communications contributing to public understanding of geology.” The oil geologists gave Michael Crichton their […]
Posted inWotr
Raising Bella in springtime
Spring can be a time of quirky deception in the Rocky Mountains. All manner of creatures are born into this seasonal maelstrom, where soothing sunshine one moment can give way almost instantaneously to a howling snow squall. I pity the frail calves and lambs born wet on the High Plains. They trudge dutifully behind their […]
Posted inWotr
A real rain is what happens in New Mexico
It is a short flight from one extreme to another. My plane takes off in lush, green Portland, Ore., and lands two hours later in Albuquerque,N.M. As the plane comes over the Sandia mountains, another passenger, making a first trip to New Mexico, is startled to see a panorama of browns shining in the sunlight, […]
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
Corporations ask feds to set emissions limits
Last month, executives from six of the country’s largest energy companies made a startling request to federal lawmakers: Set mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions. At an April 4 climate conference held by New Mexico Sens. Pete Domenici, R, and Jeff Bingaman, D, the leaders of Shell, General Electric and others said they would prefer […]
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
A season of change
At the beginning of winter a few years ago, nature writer Bruce Stutz lay in a hospital bed in New York, recovering from heart surgery. Eight months later, seeking the same renewal that nature experiences each year, Stutz set out on a trek from New York to Alaska to mark the coming of spring — […]
Posted inWotr
Global warming can give you the chills
It was an odd juxtaposition: As news outlets were reporting last winter about astonishingly frigid conditions in Russia, where nearly 40 deaths had been linked to temperatures as low as 24 degrees below zero, they were also reporting an announcement by climate experts that 2005 was the hottest year worldwide in more than a century. […]
Posted inWotr
What’s behind all these natural disasters
That was some mudslide that hit Leyte Island in the Philippines last month, when something like several tons of sludge and rock a mile wide slid down a mountain onto the village of Guinsahugan, killing children in their schoolrooms and villagers in their stores and homes. No wonder. In just two weeks before the Feb. […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Save Our Snow
Can Aspen and other Western towns put a dent in a global problem?
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
States tighten rules, challenge feds to follow
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Save Our Snow.” During the summer of 1943, the streets of Los Angeles filled with a nauseating brown haze. Visibility shrank to three blocks, and residents endured smarting eyes, sore throats and spells of vomiting. The problem, it turned out, was a combination of […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
Facts about greenhouse gas emissions
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Save Our Snow.” AIR TRAVEL Each mile of commercial air travel produces a little more than half a pound of carbon dioxide per person. Each passenger on a one-way flight from Denver to San Francisco is responsible for about 608 pounds of carbon dioxide […]
Posted inWotr
We all lose when scientists sell their credibility
Ever wonder why science and scientists are taking such a beating in the public opinion department these days? Then consider the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Their recent decision to praise pulp novelist Michael Crichton as “journalist of the year” feeds not only cynicism about the oil and gas industry, but also drains public faith […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2006: High Noon for Habitat
‘Ghost fleet’ in search of a final resting place
Ship recycler promises jobs, but coastal community decides costs outweigh benefits
Posted inFebruary 20, 2006: High Noon for Habitat
Waiting for Rain
This year, I spent Christmas in Albuquerque lounging on my back porch, reading in a tank top and suffering a fool’s sunburn. Now, in late January, it’s sunny and in the mid-50s. And although two days ago, the local newspaper kept posting updates about a storm system heading into the state, here in the city, […]
Posted inWotr
What price New Mexico’s sky?
When I moved back to New Mexico this summer, I did my best to contain my enthusiasm for a long-awaited homecoming. In short, I tried to avoid tangling memory with reality. New Mexico is often easier to love in the abstract. Despite its often idealized history — full of noble American Indians, a stern Georgia […]
Posted inWotr
Portland and Seattle steal all the rain
My wife was just climbing into bed, and I was already heavy with sleep after a coastal trip the other night, when something began tearing at the screen outside our small bedroom window. This something was eager to come inside. In the few seconds it took for us to yell and wave our arms madly […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Toothy nuisance moves north
Global warming may be one of the reasons behind the recent appearance of football-sized, orange-toothed aquatic rodents in the Skagit River Valley of northwestern Washington. Nutria, beaver-like creatures native to South America, are notorious for destroying flood-control levees and chewing through wetlands in the Southeastern United States. Fur entrepreneurs brought them to this country in […]
Posted inWotr
Are we ready to learn the lessons of fire and flood?
Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig caused a stir Oct. 14 when he suggested that the 9th Ward, home of many of New Orleans’ poor, should be restored as a wetland. No one would call Craig a tree-hugger. Craig has built a career out of supporting dams and levee systems that have reshaped the West. He […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Oil and gas drilling clouds the West’s air
Energy industry’s air pollution increasing