The climate crisis affects everything, from where we live to what we eat to how we deal with crime. In Washington, extreme weather and COVID-19 pushed over-strained prisons to the brink, leading some to ask: Why not let people out? In Kasigluk, Alaska, buildings are succumbing to rising sea levels and melting permafrost, but relocating entire communities isn’t easy. Eureka, California, wanted to build affordable housing in parking lots, but opponents are exploiting an environmental law to fight back. The danger’s not over when the wildfire ends: Debris flows can be deadly. Trucking young salmon past dams seemed like a great idea, but what happens if the adult fish can’t find their way home? Can Green River, Utah’s famous melons survive climate change? Montana ranchers come together to start their own meatpacking facilities. An Indigenous writer reflects on everything his mentors taught him. Though DACA failed Tony Valdovinos, he still pursues his dreams. Just walking through a beloved landscape can help ease the pain of grief.
Letters to the editor, November 2023
Comments from readers.
Gold Ring
A poem by Cecily Parks.
Kasigluk endures the many challenges of thawing permafrost
Residents of the Alaska village maintain community in the face of climate change.
When burn scars become roaring earthen rivers
Geologists in Washington are monitoring scorched forest to help create a better warning system for deadly debris flows.
The climate crisis is pushing Washington’s prisons to the brink
Why not let people out?
Encountering HCN
Readers describe how they first ran into the magazine in the wild.
Eating the ecosystem
It’s possible to eat your way to a more sustainable future.
Beauty is always bigger than the pain
A writer finds what she needs on a snowy walk through a cherished and familiar landscape.
Contemplating Cormac McCarthy
On pain specific to America and artistic influence.
California’s Central Valley chinook are getting lost on their way home
The culprit is a tactic designed to save them – one that could decrease the species’ resilience in the long run.
California’s affordable housing contested under the guise of environmentalism
In Eureka, the California Environmental Quality Act is used to target projects that benefit low-income people.
Too many snakes, a hard-rockin’ dog and a GPS truck-up
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
‘It’s my way of remembering who I am and why I do what I do’
#iamthewest: Giving voice to the people that make up communities in the region.
What Montana’s independent ranchers need to survive: customers
Small-scale processing is on the rise, but ranchers still need buyers’ buy-in.
How Green River celebrates its melon farmers
Thousands turn out for Melon Days, but the future looks uncertain.
As DACA falls again, what does it mean to be American?
Tony Valdovinos was brought to the U.S. at the age of 2. The challenges of not having citizenship haven’t stopped his success.