Although I expect more heartless wind and freezing nights, I think winter’s tight grip has been loosened. Summer lies ahead.
Climate change
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
What happened to winter?
A bizarre season leaves Westerners wondering what’s next
Posted inWotr
Spring
My friends warn me of the perils of moving to the mountains outside Boise, Idaho, in December, just as winter rolls into the Northwest. “You’ll get depressed,” they say. “And don’t expect to see us until spring.” My friends are city folk. The worst they can imagine is snow piling in the drive and power […]
Posted inWotr
Those who choose risk should bear the cost
Americans are not generally regarded as fatalistic. Christianity, the prevalent religion in America, teaches that individuals possess free will and are therefore responsible for their actions. The nation was founded and shaped by immigrants intent on building new lives in which they — not oppressive governments, intolerant clerics or class distinctions — would determine their […]
Posted inWotr
The secret of Wyoming winters is the snow-eating chinook
I’m often asked by relatives and friends back East how I stand the winters in northwestern Wyoming. I put on a stoic facade and tell them: It’s tough, but we Cody folks can suck it up. What I don’t mention is that an average of 300 days of sunshine annually isn’t hard to take, nor […]
Posted inWotr
Where did the Northwest’s moisture go?
For years I’ve hated the winter rains of Oregon’s Willamette Valley — hated the way they start in late October and continue well into April. Soaking the landscape and leaving everything wrinkled and rotted, the rain was something to hide from, something to make me hold my breath, shut my eyes and imagine a drier […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
California’s farmers ditch dirty diesel pumps
California’s two biggest utility companies want to help farmers ditch their polluting diesel pumps to comply with air-quality crackdowns. In the process, the companies stand to gain thousands of new customers. In November, Pacific Gas and Electric Company and Southern California Edison submitted a proposal to the California Public Utilities Commission — which authorizes all […]
Posted inWotr
Global warming brings a clash of civilizations
Global warming is not just another issue in a long line of environmental problems that have received attention starting with Earth Day 1970. With honor and respect to all the great environmental victories, and to the people who fought for them, we feel that global warming will take a revolution in the way we see […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Written in the Rings
Tree rings reveal the climate of the past— and help foretell the future. Their message? Get ready for hot, dry times.
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Tree rings reveal a fiery past — and future
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Written in the Rings.” Tom Swetnam, the director of the Arizona tree-ring lab, grew up with wildfire. His father was a forest ranger in northern New Mexico, and after Swetnam graduated from college in the late 1970s, he spent two years as a seasonal […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Glaciers offer a glimpse of the distant past
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Written in the Rings.” Inside one particular warehouse in suburban Denver, it feels like Antarctica. In a sense, it is. Within the cavernous walls of polystyrene foam lies an 80,000-cubic-foot deep freeze, filled with columns of ice: a few from Wyoming’s Wind River Range, […]
Posted inWotr
Here’s hoping the drought is not over
Since Christmas, an almost continuous stream of Pacific moisture has raced over Colorado and much of the West, dumping rain in the valleys and heavy snows in the mountains. The sun and crystalline blue skies I brag about to my non-Western friends and relatives have only made rare appearances in the narrow seams between storms. […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2004: Conservationist in a Conservative Land
A beautiful ode to a melting earth
Gretel Ehrlich’s latest book, The Future of Ice, is an intimate “ode and lament” on the effects of global warming. The conclusions are dire, of course: In the Arctic, as billions of gallons of fresh water pour into places like the Greenland Ice Sheet and where, in 2002, “at least 264,400 square miles of ice […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2004: Conservationist in a Conservative Land
State loopholes upset Clean Air Act
Six Western states are among those accused of shortchanging public health by ignoring certain hazardous chemical emissions from power plants. A new report from the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Integrity Project reveals that the majority of state regulatory agencies overlook power plant “upset” emissions that exceed federal pollution limits. Gaming the System: How the Off-the-Books Industrial […]
Posted inNovember 8, 2004: Keepers of the Flame
Think global (warming,) act local
The Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, a new nonprofit in Colorado, is taking a backyard approach to the global problem of climate change. “Our main thrust is what (global warming) can mean right here, and that is more drought, more fire, and less biodiversity,” says founder Stephen Saunders, a 30-year Colorado resident. “It’s threatening what makes […]
Posted inOctober 11, 2004: The First Family of Western Conservation
Citizens wary of their nuclear neighbor
Rather than excavating a Cold War-era landfill just outside Albuquerque, Sandia National Laboratories wants to leave the nuclear waste in the ground and “monitor” it indefinitely — and the state of New Mexico has agreed that’s a good idea. From 1959 until 1988, Sandia used the site, now known as the Mixed Waste Landfill, to […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
In a warming West, expect more fire
Overall wildfire size likely to double by 2100, new study concludes
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
When yesterday’s garbage becomes today’s collectible
To get to Glass Beach, you turn toward the ocean at the Denny’s on the outskirts of Fort Bragg, Calif., and drive down the lane to park. Signage is minimal. This is not Big Sur. The day we go, two local guys drive up and park next to us in a Volvo that has seen […]
Posted inWotr
When yesterday’s garbage becomes today’s collectibles
To get to Glass Beach, you turn towards the ocean at the Denny’s on the outskirts of Ft. Bragg, Calif., and drive down the lane to park. Signage is minimal. This is not Big Sur. The day we go, two local guys drive up and park next to us in a Volvo that has seen […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Wanted: Leak-proof dumps
Until the 1980s, conventional wisdom held that Wyoming was so arid that landfills didn’t need liners to prevent leaks. As a result, at least 21 of the state’s currently operating and closed municipal landfills are now leaking dangerous chemicals, such as nitrates, chlorides, pesticides and dry-cleaning solvents, into groundwater. The number could be even higher; […]