Your recent article regarding renewable energy on brownfields is accurate and well-timed (HCN, 6/7/10). This idea makes sense for developers and site owners like mining companies, but the advantages for land conservation deserve to be more fleshed out. Siting large renewable energy projects on disturbed areas eases the pressure to develop pristine public lands such […]
Communities
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
HCN rocks with eTown
ETown, the eco-groovy weekly radio music show based in Boulder, Colo., will honor HCN Founder Tom Bell and HCN‘s 40th Anniversary with its E-chievement Award at a special concert July 30 at the Redrocks Amphitheater near Denver. The “Greenrocks at Redrocks” event will feature great music from Lyle Lovett and Taj Mahal, a little stage […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
How to return a pot
Imagine discovering a pot tucked inside an ancient ruin on a hike. That’d really look nice on my mantel, you think, and grab it. Later, you learn that collecting artifacts from public lands is not only illegal, it permanently destroys the object’s original context and meaning — the information that helps archaeologists piece together the […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
Strength in small victories
Two letters slammed Kim Todd’s essay “Walking Woman” for alleged inaccuracies of grammar and, more deeply, for incorrectness of attitude — demonstrating exactly what too often turns us enviros into self-defeating scolds (HCN, 5/24/10). First, to the would-be grammarian: In 30 years of hiking and climbing the range as a native-born L.A. boy, I and […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
Turning back the tide
Preserving the beautiful and fragile Elkhorn Slough
Posted inBlog
This Saturday, Prayers for the Peaks
Earlier this week I had the good fortune to share a conversation with David Johns, acting president of the Navajo medicine men’s association. Mr. Johns and his colleagues in the Dine Hataalii Association (DHA) are preparing for a Navajo Nation-wide day of prayer this Saturday, to support the campaign to protect the holy San Francisco […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Greetings from Nevada
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly reflections on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. I live with my wife and two young daughters in the high desert of the western Great Basin, at 6,000 feet on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, on a desiccated hilltop so […]
Posted inWotr
Our cheap food comes at a high price
We have the food system we asked for. There’s a reason a burger at McDonald’s sells for about a buck. There’s a reason the food is of such poor quality in places where healthy nutrition is most important — our schools, hospitals and nursing homes. What we support prospers; what we feed grows. If we […]
Posted inRange
HCN Reader Photo – the Palouse
This reader photo spotlights a beautiful section of the Northwest, the Palouse. Photographer Joe Rocchio points out that the now-agricultural region was once a prairie; it must have been incredibly beautiful then, too. Browse eh existing images and add your photos to our HCN Flickr pool; we periodically feature them on the Range community […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
An example and an antidote
Imagination in PlaceWendell Berry196 pages, hardcover, $24.Counterpoint, 2010. Wendell Berry, the author of 50 books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, is a farmer who has lived his life in service to “local geography and local culture.” By chance and choice, he tells us in his new collection of essays, Imagination in Place, he has lived […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
Peril in paradise
The Light In High Places: A Naturalist Looks at Wyoming Wilderness, Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, Cowboys, and Other Rare SpeciesJoe Hutto256 pages, hardcover: $24.95.Skyhorse Publishing, 2009. To Joe Hutto, a “romantic scientist,” it seemed that the vast grandeur of Wyoming’s Wind River Range existed “in spite of us,” that “human civilization and technology had proven […]
Posted inWotr
Climate change: Check the data yourself
A collaborative online effort allows both skeptics and believers to study and compare the facts.
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
Some of the key players
LEONARD BURCH, who died in 2004, is widely considered the Southern Utes’ most influential leader. He was elected tribal chairman in 1966 and served for 30 years, with just one three-year hiatus to comply with term limits. SAM MAYNES, sometimes called the last real water buffalo in the West, was instrumental in getting two water […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
The Southern Utes’ empire
A history of lost land … and a big comeback
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
The Ute Paradox
A small Colorado tribe takes control of its energy resources and becomes a billion-dollar corporation — but has it gone too far?
Posted inGoat
The West’s growing waistline
Every time the national obesity numbers come out, with the obligatory map showing Colorado as a beacon of skinniness in an increasingly tubby American population, I can’t help but feel a smidge of pride. Colorado! The active state! But the comparative numbers only tell a partial tale of the United States’ weight-gain woe. Even in the mountain state, […]
Posted inWotr
Oil in the swimming pool
Once, during a time when I was separated from my wife, I lived in an apartment complex with a large and inviting swimming pool. One day, when I went to take relief from the heat at that glistening oasis, I found it fouled by motor oil. The apartment manager was there, shaking her head, speculating […]
Posted inWotr
We need a solution to too many wild horses
As a kid growing up in Colorado, I was crazy about wild horses. I read books about mustangs and drew pictures of them. In school, I was thrilled to learn about the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which was passed in 1971, after “Wild Horse Annie” saw bleeding mustangs being hauled off to slaughter […]
Posted inWotr
We’re still throwing horses overboard
During the 16th century when conquistadors crossed the ocean from the Old World to the New, their ships often became stranded along the equator at a place where the winds stopped blowing. To lighten their load, they would throw horses overboard. Eventually, the sails would fill with air and the voyage could continue. Over time, […]