Letter to the editor

Jonathan Thompson’s Jan. 23 article on the Bears Ears National Monument, in a paragraph concerning Utah lawmakers’ pledge to urge Trump to overturn the designation, states that “no president has ever tried to abolish a monument; it’s not clear that it’s even possible.” Right, insofar as current presidential powers. But Congress can, and has, delisted […]

I appreciate learning about the perspectives and feelings of people participating in the “Showdown at Standing Rock” (HCN, 1/23/17). Much of this has been lacking in the news. What I would find useful now are investigative articles that address a number of questions: • I do wonder how this pipeline and its route came about, […]

The article “Bears Ears National Monument is a go” shows how, even with compromise, Utah lawmakers continue to attack this newest national monument using, as President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway would say, “alternative facts” (HCN, 01/23/17). There is one potentially strong economic benefit behind the monument that wasn’t mentioned in the article. The Outdoor […]

I write in response to Elizabeth Shogren’s excellent article on regulations (“As Trump takes power, the White House targets regulations,” HCN, 1/19/17). I highly recommend that your writers understand and follow the advice of George Lakoff, who studies human behavior. Even for those capable of critical thinking, 90 percent of our processing is below our […]

Please relay my appreciation to author Michael Baughman for his essay on turkey vulture for Thanksgiving dinner (“Right holiday, wrong bird,” HCN, 12/26/16). I’m still laughing. When my boyfriend and I were duck hunting in the mid-’70s, I asked him if he’d ever tasted a mud duck. He hadn’t, so, being a curious type of […]

I worked as a park ranger, one of the first woman hired into a state park system. I felt lucky and privileged that this career was even possible. Part of the package was fitting in with “the guys” (“How the Park Service is Failing Women,” HCN, 12/12/16). Countless times I bit my tongue with a […]

Your article on the Dakota Access Pipeline was good as far as it went (“The twisted economics of the Dakota Access Pipeline,” HCN, 12/12/16). You omitted a very important issue that makes your assumptions incorrect. You are probably right in that there will be profit by someone from the pipeline installation. What you left out […]

I subscribed to HCN in the ’80s and ’90s. I enjoyed it because at that time HCN seemed to be somewhat more balanced. I can remember articles about farmers and others who were profiled positively for protecting the environment, yet still retaining farming as their livelihood. I find no balance at all in today’s HCN. […]

“Will a twice-burned county change its ways?” (HCN, 12/26/16) details how residents of Montana’s Bitterroot Valley block efforts by their state and county governments to require homeowners in the fire zone to prepare for -inevitable wildfires. Residents reject county regulation and demand private-property rights. These Bitterroot Valley conservatives can teach us a great deal about […]

I thoroughly appreciated, although was equally saddened by,  “How the Park Service is Failing Women” (HCN, 12/12/16). It does not surprise me that women — and most likely people of color, of Hispanic or Muslim backgrounds, and others who are not white males — are treated in this manner throughout multiple government organizations and business […]

Please give Lyndsey Gilpin my congratulations on her great investigative reporting for “How the Park Service is Failing Women” (HCN, 12/12/16). I am in my 23rd year of retirement after wearing the National Park Service ranger uniform for more than 30 years. I can validate and corroborate every point that Lyndsey writes in her article. That traditional flat […]

Elizabeth Shogren’s “Latest” column in the Dec. 12 issue grossly mischaracterized the North Fork coal-mining exception to the Colorado roadless rule, as a “loophole.” The state of Colorado was never ambiguous with its intent to make provisions for the $1 billion-dollar coal-mining industry in the North Fork coal-mining area with its own roadless rule, and […]

“So Shines a Good Deed” gives incomplete coverage to solar energy development and presents only one view of a rather complicated situation (HCN, 12/26/16). Both the federal government and the article cited are avid promoters of industrial-scale solar development on public lands. In California, the total solar energy produced from installations on parking lot structures, […]

Reading Elizabeth Shogren’s update about the Forest Service’s decision to expand the Somerset Coal Mine (near your office in Paonia), I was a bit stunned to see the following quote from USDA Undersecretary Robert Bonnie: “No one is under the belief that we’re going to immediately change the energy mix starting today. There’s going to […]

I have generally found Peter Friederici’s writings erudite, colorful and informative. Now, having just read, and reread, his essay in the Nov. 28 issue, I add the adjective, confusing (“A Place Between,” HCN, 11/28/16). He believes, as I do, that human activities are largely responsible for Earth’s current climate changes that continue to grow and […]

The recent opinion piece by Jonathan Thompson explains very clearly why killing regulations won’t restore energy jobs (“When it comes to energy, Trump’s promises are empty,” HCN, 11/28/16). There must be an increase in demand for oil. Thompson is too good a person to conjure up how Trump will increase demand: He will start a […]

Thank you so much for publishing Leath Tonino’s “The Anthropological Aesthetic” (HCN, 11/28/16). Reading it was akin to looking in the mirror and reclaiming the deepest part of myself, which I had foolishly gotten too far away from. I spent the late ’80s and early ’90s in a graduate anthropology program at the University of […]

I am pleased to have read this interview with Kim Stanley Robinson (“Science fiction’s climate visionary,” HCN, 11/14/16) as I just put his novel Aurora into my donation box, unfinished, because I couldn’t grasp where it was going. When Robinson said he “pushed that button on purpose,” the light went on. I realized that part […]

On behalf of the Student Conservation Association, I would like to thank Gundars Rudzitis for recognizing the miraculous accomplishments of the original Civilian Conservation Corps (“We need a new Civilian Conservation Corps,” HCN, 10/31/16). I would point out, however, that a new CCC already exists! The 21st century Conservation Corps is composed of over 130 […]