Denise Chávez believes that art can — and should — make a difference in everyday lives. “Why is the arts community so mute?” asks Chávez. “On the one hand, it’s a terrible time — people are so fearful, afraid of each other, afraid of people who are different, afraid to learn something new. But it’s […]
Politics
Posted inWotr
It’s not whether you win or lose…
The trouble with running for public office is the very real possibility that you will lose the race publicly. I considered this as I declared my candidacy for my small town’s city council. But there were three seats up for grabs, and I figured there would be a good chance I might run unopposed. When […]
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
‘Sticking around’ for an alpine valley
From his kitchen window, Attilio Genasci can see past barns and alfalfa fields to a small knoll jutting up from the flat expanse of Sierra Valley. Angie, his wife of 50 years, is buried there. For Genasci, 96, the vista is a daily reminder of his promise to Angie to protect this spacious valley, 45 […]
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
In Washington, the most outrageous sins are legal
On the grand stage of political tragicomedy, the spotlight rarely shines on the Council for Republican Environmental Advocacy, prestigious though its origins may be. The nonprofit CREA was founded by Gale Norton, now secretary of the Interior, shortly after she lost the 1996 Republican U.S. Senate primary in Colorado. Helping finance it was Grover Norquist, […]
Posted inWotr
Those rugged Alaskan individualists still love the federal dole
Opponents of Alaskan statehood in the 1950s feared a state would continue to be a subsidized ward of the federal government. Supporters argued that once it was a state, Alaska would make its own decisions, attract new business and become less dependent on the federal government. Statehood may have come to Alaska in 1959, but […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
She wins friends for lions, wolves and bears
Janelle Holden is in the business of changing minds — including her own. Holden, the coexistence director for the nonprofit Predator Conservation Alliance, grew up on a cattle ranch on the Great Plains, just east of the Rocky Mountain Front. When grizzly bears began moving into the area in the 1980s, her father was far […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
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
Homeland Security gets to bypass environmental laws
On Sept. 14, Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff used a new anti-terrorism and immigration-control bill to waive environmental laws along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Real ID Act, passed by Congress in May, permits Chertoff to bypass any federal or state law — including environmental, safety and labor laws — that might hinder the construction of […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
In Bush’s Supreme Court, who’s on first?
He may or may not be the next Bill Klem, but at least John Roberts is no Janice Rogers Brown. OK, these names are not household words, save perhaps in selected households of the political left, the political right, and the baseball-obsessed. So let’s explain. William J. Klem was the first of the great umpires, […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
For this English chef, home is the Colorado Plateau
On Sunday mornings, all summer long, you can find chef John Sharpe at the Flagstaff Community Market, moving among the outdoor produce stalls with the practiced intensity of a hardcore bargain hunter at an outlet mall. He tests the white peaches Rob Lautze has grown at Garland’s Orchard near Sedona: nice, but not enough of […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Salvage logging speeds up
The timber industry and environmentalists can agree on one thing: The Forest Service’s Biscuit Fire salvage logging program has been a fiasco. Despite accidentally allowing logging in a botanical reserve, the agency has sold just one-fifth of the timber it promised (HCN, 5/16/05: Unsalvageable). Now, two Oregon Republicans have a plan to prevent similar […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
His photographs trace the passage of time
NAME Mark Klett VOCATION Photographer and regents’ professor of art at Arizona State University AGE 53 KNOWN FOR Documenting our changing relationship with Western landscapes HE SAYS “Photos always seem to exist as sort of stuffy, unnecessary antiques that we put in a drawer — unless we take them out, put them in current dialogue, […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Pombo takes on the Endangered Species Act
‘Critical habitat’ is likely a thing of the past
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
States lead charge against global warming
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Ghosts of Yosemite.” From California to Colorado and from Washington to New Mexico, Western states, tired of federal inaction on climate change, are saddling up to tackle the issue on their own. Whether it means deciding that a certain percentage of their electrical […]
Posted inWotr
The House takes an ax to the Endangered Species Act
As former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis put it, the states can serve as “laboratories of democracy” by testing new approaches to see if they might work for the nation as a whole. The idea is that if a new approach falls flat, the rest of the country can learn from the mistake without going […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
A smart-growth bulldog
Albuquerque city councilman goes head-to-head with the incumbent mayor, and the developers who have long ruled here
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Dinosaur tracks on a desert shore
NAME Martin Lockley VOCATION Paleontologist KNOWN FOR Tracking dinosaurs in Glen Canyon HOME BASE Denver, Colorado HE SAYS “Some people go to Lake Powell to eat, drink and be merry, but we go to sweat, toil and bust our knees on the rocks.” On a warm summer evening in southern Utah, paleontologist Martin Lockley is […]
Posted inWotr
Be a patriot — get your hands dirty
While foraging through my backyard garden the other day for cucumbers, peppers and hot-to-touch chilis, a slogan occurred to me: “Support Our Troops – Plant a Garden.” A garden would demonstrate patriotism because each backyard Eden lessens our dependence upon imported oil. Of course, by itself, imported oil isn’t bad, but an addiction so intense […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
The return of the hodgepodge
That wasn’t just a transportation bill that President Bush signed earlier this month in Illinois. No, the measure — which will spend $286.45 billion in six years on highways, rail and bus service, and bike and hiking trails — has a far more elaborate name. It’s the “Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act — […]
Posted inWotr
The West shared in a meal of highway pork
That wasn’t just a transportation bill that President Bush signed in early July in Illinois. No, the measure — which will spend $286.45 billion in six years on highways, rail and bus service, and biking and hiking trails — has a far more elaborate name. It’s the “Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act — […]