On August 28, Utah Congressional candidate Mia Love took the podium at the Republican National Convention to riff on “personal responsibility” and the convention’s “We Built It” refrain — a distortion of President Obama’s words about how public infrastructure helps people run their businesses. Love didn’t mention Tropical Storm Isaac, which a few days before […]
Politics
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Treadwell can’t have his oil and solve climate change, too
Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell is under the dangerous impression that he can have his cake and eat it too when it comes to Alaska’s non-renewable natural resources (“The U.S. is an ‘Arctic Nation,’ ” HCN, 8/20/12). We all hope for economic recovery, and oil reserves are certainly a fast path to that for Alaska. But […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
What about Pebble Mine?
As a recently retired U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist, I’m reassured to know that Alaska Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell appreciates the role of science in protecting the environment (“The U.S. is an ‘Arctic Nation,’ “ HCN, 8/20/12). Many decision-makers don’t. I would have been extremely interested to hear Treadwell’s position on the Pebble Mine proposed for […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Watching land swaps in Idaho and the West
For Western Pacific Timber and its then-President and CEO Tim Blixseth, the spring of 2006 promised big business. The company had recently purchased 39,371 acres in the Clearwater National Forest in the Upper Lochsa, on the Idaho-Montana border. The Lewis and Clark trail winds through here, and the rivers and woods are home to threatened […]
Posted inGoat
Conventioneering
The Democrats didn’t throw environmentalists many bones at their convention this week — at least not any with much meat on them. Yet it was striking how even bland, unspecific statements about the environment drew stark contrasts between the parties. Take a few lines from Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s speech, who is not a […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Who is Denny Rehberg, really?
The three candidates look too formal for Montana, dressed in suits and neckties for the first debate in the state’s most important race this election season. But the setting is classic Montana: A pine-paneled room in a lodge on the edge of the Big Sky ski resort, beside a trout-filled river surrounded by mid-June wildflowers. […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Rehberg and Tester: Policy differences
Jon Tester, a conservative Democrat: Sen. Tester sponsored the controversial measure that took Northern Rockies wolves off the endangered species list in 2011 — a move praised by ranchers and elk hunters. It triggered disagreements among environmentalists. (Some liked it and some condemned it.) He also: • Sponsored a bill that guaranteed 678,000 acres of […]
Posted inWotr
Start a wildfire, go to jail – or worse
For many decades, the practice of lighting fires in wildlands to clear brush, improve browse, or to create jobs for fire crews was virtually a prerogative of rural living. For the most part, nobody got hurt and nobody went to jail. In the past decade, however, as a more urban-oriented population has spread into previously […]
Posted inGoat
Label Battle
When it comes to reading food labels I’m something of a pedant. I like my ingredients lists bold and short on complex-sounding chemicals. As a dedicated reader of wrappers, cartons and allergen warnings I’ve been watching California’s Proposition 37 with interest. If passed, the act would require food manufacturers to label genetically engineered food, both […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell on the U.S. as an Arctic nation
Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell isn’t what you’d expect of a man rising in the GOP’s ranks. He’s a conservationist who loves John McPhee and uses New Yorker cartoons about climate change in presentations about Arctic issues — and not mockingly. He’s also a staunch supporter of oil and gas development and a former pipeline […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
In search of camas, a Native American food staple
Skull Island sits in Massacre Bay, in Washington’s San Juan archipelago. Here, in 1858, Haida raiders killed a band of Coast Salish and left the bones behind. I can think of other, perhaps more cheery spots to look for flowers, but Madrona Murphy’s enthusiasm is unstanched. “Look!” she calls as our boat nudges against shore. […]
Posted inGoat
Don’t let it burn
A long plume of red smoke covered the sun as I drove back from Gunnison, Colorado on Sunday afternoon. The East Coal Creek Fire, started by lightning two days earlier, had torched 100 acres of Douglas fir by the end of the weekend. As it grew, it headed deeper into the West Elk Wilderness, away […]
Posted inWotr
On the front line of mental illness and violence
Moments after I entered the room where the patients locked in the secure area tend to hang out, a young man asked me for enough meds to “put him to sleep” until the day of his commitment hearing. “If I’m asleep, I won’t say anything that they can use against me,” he said calmly, indicating […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Save a chimney, save a swift
Doesn’t look like it’s going to be a great night,” Larry Schwitters says, sitting in his car outside the Old Selleck Schoolhouse, about 40 miles southeast of Seattle. It’s nearly sunset, the sky is cloudless and warm. “It’s too nice for swifts,” he grouses. “If there were going to be a lot of them, they’d […]
Posted inGoat
What’s up with conservation and the farm bill
On Thursday, the House Agriculture Committee released its version of the new farm bill, a ginormous piece of legislation passed every five years or so that doles out money not only to farmers, but to food stamp recipients, school lunch programs, and conservation efforts. The Senate passed its version in May. The House Ag Committee released […]
Posted inRange
Seeing the (overcrowded) forest for the trees
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House I was wandering around Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) last week, absorbing the cooling sight of snowfields and the 30-degree temperature drop earned by more than doubling my elevation from Boulder. On my way along Trail Ridge Road, I stopped at the Farview Curve overlook on the west […]
Posted inGoat
Grand Cacophony National Park?
Peace and quiet can be hard to come by at the Grand Canyon. When I camped among the ponderosa pines just outside the park gates last summer, my nightly soundtrack was a chorus of Jeep-towing RVs, the baritone rumble of Harleys and Guns N’ Roses wafting from a nearby campsite. These sounds could be the […]
Posted inWotr
Watch out for those fake Canadians
I’ve spent much of my life roaming the wild backcountry of northern Montana on hunting, fishing and backpacking trips. Although I’ve had a few humbling encounters with grizzlies, lightning and avalanches, for the most part I’ve always felt reasonably safe and secure. I never ran into any suicide bombers or terrorists and never dreamed I […]