West
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Phil Brick, environmental politics professor, answers questions
Phil Brick. What work do you do? I am professor of politics and codirector of environmental studies at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. I am also the founder and director of an environmental-studies field program, Whitman College Semester in the West, a three-month field tour focusing on the political, ecological, and human dimensions of […]
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The new anthology Rio Grande chronicles the life and troubled times of a fabled river
The week before I sat down to read Rio Grande, a thick new anthology about the famed river edited by Texas scribe Jan Reid, a strange sight appeared on the actual Rio Grande outside the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas. A fiberglass statue of Jesus was discovered grounded on a sandbar in the river, drawing faithful visitors from both sides of the border to its river-stained robes. Admittedly, little connects the literature of the river and the religious relic that appeared there this fall -- except, perhaps, this: the contributors to the book and the worshipers of the statue share the conviction that the river needs a savior.
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The feds are backing nuclear power — in the name of the environment
It’s a long-held tenet of U.S. environmentalists that nuclear power is bad news. Critics argue that the clean-air benefits of nuclear reactors are far outweighed by the consequences of uranium mining and radioactive waste storage — not to mention the damage that could result from an accident at an atomic power station. Now more than […]
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Order in the Court
With a staunchly anti-environmental White House and a Republican-dominated Congress, environmentalists are turning to the third branch of government to fight their cause. Happily, the courts have presented a relatively safe haven for greens, upholding strict clean air standards the Bush administration sought to water down, blocking oil and gas exploration in the West, limiting […]
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Can’t See the Trees for the Forest Service
Two House Democrats have accused the U.S. Forest Service of cooking its books in order to blame environmentalists for the fires that raged across much of the West this summer. Reps. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) spoke out yesterday against a recent USFS report in which the agency claimed that environmental appeals delayed […]
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Lambs to the Slaughter
The wildfires that are raging across the western U.S. this summer aren’t just threatening the trophy homes of billionaires; they are also posing a danger to wildlife. Take bighorn sheep, which were reintroduced to the shores of Washington state’s Lake Chelan after a century’s absence. The sheep were finally gaining a foothold in the area; […]
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Life in the Stupid Zone
Writer Ed Quillen says that town and county planners should adopt a new category called the Stupid Zone. You know some Stupid Zone residents, I’m sure: those nearsighted folks who choose to live at the bottom of avalanche chutes, on top of earthquake faults, or in the middle of a 10-year floodplain. Like me, you […]
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With national attention elsewhere, what will happen to the hinterland?
It turns out that this “new economy” of ours may be just as subject to boom and bust as was the economy based on cattle, oil, and lumber. Last month’s terrorist attacks emptied Las Vegas, caused hunters to cancel trips to Idaho and Montana and silenced the phones for ski-resort reservations in Colorado. The West’s […]
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Can laws be written that inspire reverence for the land?
As usual, Charles Wilkinson is pacing. Hands stuffed in the front pockets of his Levi’s, head down, he paces the lecture hall, up one stairway and down the other, his students’ heads swiveling to follow him. Charles Wilkinson, law man. Photo: Larry Harwood, University of Colorado at Boulder. But on this December morning, during the […]