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Batten the Hatches, Nail Down the Furniture, Lock up the Valuables…
Sometimes, not often enough but sometimes, the bad guys get their just deserts. (And yes, that’s deserts not desserts in case you wondered. But I digress.) …the next 11 months promise to be even worse than the last 85! By my oh-so-sophisticated calculations we have now endured 85 months of the Bush assault on our…
Read MoreKeeping Colorado Wolf Free
Since the 1930s—following decades of shooting, trapping, and poisoning—Colorado has been a wolf-free zone. There are two ways wolves can return to Colorado: with human help, or under their own power. The Department of the Interior over the last few months made decisions calculated to block both avenues of return. First, the National Park Service…
Read MoreExploiters Rush into Melting Arctic
With late winter, sunlight returns to the North Pole, revealing an ice-bound ocean that looks deceptively like it always has—a frozen, pristine wilderness. Deceptive, because profound and rapid change is underway from the forces of climate change and our relentless quest for energy. Year-round ice that once gouged trenches 1,300 feet below the ocean surface…
Read MoreFollow the Money: Environmental Protection Loses Ground
The Bush Administration’s hostility to environmental protection is not news. But seeing the numbers in black and white (or, as in this chart, in red and green) is startling. Created by the Appropriations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, it shows that the President’s budget for the Interior Department—which manages national parks, national wildlife…
Read MoreSalmon, Bass, Owls, Spin
We've had a spate of stories here in northern California about the crash of the fall run of king salmon returning to spawn in the watershed of the Sacramento River.
Read MoreA Bit of Good News
If the polar bears aren’t drowning it’s flooding somewhere and drying to dust somewhere else. Or, as a folk group from my youth sang, "They’re rioting in Africa. . .and Texas needs rain." Plus ça change. With all the horrible news, a bright spot is welcome, and this week’s comes from the World Wildlife Fund…
Read MoreThe Whine of Drill Rigs … And Energy Executives
The old energy economy—oil and gas—is booming in Colorado, driven by high prices and the Bush administration’s push to aid America’s addiction to fossil fuels. Thousands of new wells have been drilled—many on public land—and ranches, hunting opportunities, wildlife, air quality, public health, and the wildness of the West have all suffered. Colorado legislators and…
Read MoreSenate's Going Green
The stimulus package has pretty much disappeared from the front pages with Super Tuesday upon us and the New York Giants pulling off the greatest upset since David smote Goliath. But, in case you missed it, the suggestion we echoed last week that this moment offers a rare chance to get some green projects going…
Read MoreHere's MY State of the State
I’m writing this a few hours before the State of the Union is assessed (for the last time!) by President Bush, so can’t be sure of what he’ll say. But if I were writing it for him (fat chance), here’s what I’d say, cribbing heavily from Eileen Appelbaum, Dean Baker, and John Schmitt of the…
Read MoreCapitolism — A Postcard from D.C.
This town is obsessed with the coming election. I guess most everyone is, but here, not surprisingly, it’s topics A, B, and C. Every conversation I had quickly turned to the primaries, and there was no consensus about what would or should happen. At the gift shop at my hotel you could buy buttons and…
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