At a recent get-together of 435 members of the Quivira Coalition in Albuquerque, N.M., I visited the future of the grasslands. In a dark bar, I even met the rancher’s worst nightmare — a Buddhist vegetarian. Yet my glimpse onwards filled me with hope. In fact, I’m surprised at how closely the time-to-come resembles the […]
Essays
Posted inWotr
Looking for the curve on the Great Plains
I grew up in South Dakota, but spent my summers in Portland, Ore., with my mom. As an adolescent, I enjoyed how my city experience pushed me ahead of the curve when I got back home for school. I had my classmates beat by at least a year on the overalls-with-one-strap thing. It wasn’t all […]
Posted inWotr
Death in the backcountry comes with the territory
Search-and-rescue teams have been busy the past few weeks in the mountains of Southern California, looking for lost hikers, and instead finding corpses. Six times since Jan. 1, men described by friends and family as “experienced” outdoor travelers have slipped from icy trails and suffered injuries that, if not fatal outright, proved to be so […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Does Wal-Mart really need our tax dollars?
Typical of shopping centers built decades ago, Alameda Square in Denver is a cheap, single-story strip of stores. It’s ugly and rundown. But that does not deter shoppers: Mostly Asian Americans, they come from miles around to patronize more than a dozen Asian-owned businesses, including two grocery stores, two restaurants, a hair salon, a clothing […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Generation gap
The laws meant to protect future generations may not last one more
Posted inWotr
Why I’m running: Immigration is the ultimate environmental issue
Because I believe that environmental organizations have ducked the immigration-population issue too long, I am running for the board of directors of the Sierra Club. I am not part of a slate; I represent only myself and the issues I care deeply about. One of the most important challenges of public policy is to recognize […]
Posted inWotr
Super-heated Yellowstone and the restoration of awe
In the Yellowstone ecosystem, super-heated water bubbles from fissures and cauldrons, cascades over rock, steams in sub-freezing air, encrusts trees, hair and clothing with frost. It’s a landscape of paradox: enchanting and fierce, suggestive of both eternal stillness and perpetual change, a reminder that — even now — we inhabit a molten world that existed […]
Posted inWotr
The nation’s premier environmental group is target of a coup
Last year, over 750,000 people joined or renewed their membership in the Sierra Club, presumably because they believe in its historic mission to protect America’s public lands and wilderness for future generations. John Muir and a small band of conservationists founded the Club in 1892, and it’s been working for more than a century to […]
Posted inWotr
Why a would-be jock plays mainly with his brain
It is a standard classroom, except for two things. First, it’s Saturday, and second, teenagers in the room don’t look bored or blank: they look elated or dismayed. They’re clustered in groups of four, each holding contraptions that look like bomb detonators. An adult at the front reads from a sheet of paper: “The category […]
Posted inWotr
To lions, we may be just a link in the food chain
A 100-pound mountain lion can kill an 800-pound elk. Keep that in mind the next time you go hiking in cougar territory. If you are alone and unarmed, and one of these powerful predators attacks you — intent on killing and eating you, rather than merely trying to drive you away from its offspring or […]
Posted inWotr
I’ve tried, but I can’t eat the view
I’ve given up on one of the great American dreams — owning a home of my own. Why? Because it’s becoming impossible to find affordable housing in the West, even in the non-resort towns. It’s easy to tell Missoula, Mont., is still a working class town. Just check out the traffic on the tree-shaded lanes […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Have another pig-brain/beef-blood/chicken-spine hamburger
I ate my final diner burger the other day. It’s not that I don’t like burgers (my last one was juicy pure delight) or that I want to become a vegetarian (the tofu diet isn’t for me), but thanks to some recent discoveries, I no longer believe that my last burger, was, in fact, a […]
Posted inWotr
The next wars may be fought over water
Water has been called the oil of the 21st century. The World Bank predicts that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will not have enough drinking water. With scarcity making water an increasingly valuable commodity, private companies are tempted to corner water supplies and delivery. “We think there’ll be world wars fought about water […]
Posted inWotr
Defenders of public lands are needed now
Gifford Pinchot, pioneer in American forestry and conservation, learned the hard way about political power and influence. In his autobiography, Breaking New Ground, he recorded going West late in the 19th century to study Western forests. Instead, he discovered that commercial interests controlled and exploited land and people. Pinchot wrote: “Principalities like the Homestake Mine […]
Posted inWotr
Just bury me out on the lone prairie
It’s not easy being buried green, but here’s how I want it to happen: Someone, preferably an old friend, dresses me in my oldest, softest clothes.Let’s see, how about my favorite and virtually threadbare navy blue flannel shirt and my tatty black sweat pants? If shoes seem important, hopefully they’llgo for my sheepskin bedroom slippers. […]
Posted inWotr
Have another pig-brain/beef-blood/chicken-spine hamburger
I ate my final burger the other day. It’s not that I don’t like burgers (my last one was juicy pure delight) and I don’t want to become a vegetarian (the tofu diet isn’t for me), but thanks to some recent discoveries, I no longer believe that my last burger, was, in fact, a burger. […]
Posted inWotr
Here’s to an honest man
Chances are you’ve never heard of Jim Alderson, and I’m willing to wager that no toy company is going to model an action figure after him. He’s more than a little balding on top and he’s working on a middle-aged paunch. You won’t find charisma to match that of California’s movie-actor Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But […]
Posted inWotr
Wanted: queer eye for the rural guy
When the aspens reached their peak color last fall, my friend Diane and I drove from our tiny, western Colorado town into the nearby mountains. We sat at the side of the road to enjoy the snow-dusted peaks, tumbling scree fields and golden-and-peach aspen forests. Soon enough, a truck pulling a camper with Washington state […]
Posted inWotr
The ego has landed on the California coast
If you ever want to see the epitome of what we in the West call a “starter castle,” I recommend you visit close to the real thing, the Hearst estate on the California coast. This once-upon-a-time bastion of privilege conquered by the California State Park system sits on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Close […]
Posted inWotr
No-growthers gain strength in Albuquerque
Albuquerque residents on Oct. 28 voted down a $52 million bond issue — the only bond issue to fail out of 10 on the ballot, and the first one to fail since 1985. The vote grabbed headlines because it meant the temporary defeat of plans to extend roads through a national monument dedicated to petroglyphs […]