Ten reasons bringing down these barriers are key for mitigation and adaptation.
Gary Wockner
Posted inArticles
To save our oceans, let’s start with our rivers
Dams and pollution affect rivers across the West, to the detriment of our oceans.
Posted inArticles
California isn’t accounting for this major emitter
Even though large reservoirs emit methane, the state doesn’t off-set their impact.
Posted inAugust 31, 2015: Unlocking the Methane Mystery
While the Animas River spill is eye-catching, Western rivers face an even bigger threat
If there’s any good news to be gained from the toxic spill of mine wastes into the Animas River upstream of Durango, Colorado, it’s that public attention has suddenly shifted to the health of rivers in the West. The 3-million-gallon accident riveted the media, even rating a story in England’s Guardian newspaper. Here at home, […]
Posted inArticles
Obama’s clean water rule won’t protect the West’s water
Summer is here! This is the time when the great outdoors beckons, and we can’t wait to get out to the rivers of the American West to raft, fish, swim and just cool off. But unfortunately, the water we all enjoy has just become imperiled by the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency. Though the EPA’s […]
Posted inArticles
Is Las Vegas betting the Colorado River will go dry?
Las Vegas is a city that plays the odds, and if you want to know which odds to play, you need to follow the smart money. Unfortunately, that money seems to be moving toward building yet more dams that will drain yet more water out of an already oversubscribed Colorado River. Unlike most cities in […]
Posted inWotr
The Colorado River’s reunion with its usually bone-dry Delta
They kissed. Like two long-lost lovers who had been cruelly kept apart for 20 years, the Colorado River and the Sea of Cortez finally embraced. The historic reunion occurred this May as the United States and Mexico worked together to restore the Colorado River Delta. The “pulse flow” of water raced down from Lake Mead, […]
Posted inWotr
Our coyote war in the West reminds me of the war in Iraq
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail,” said psychologist Abraham Maslow. As a wildlife ecologist here in the American West, I can’t help but draw analogies between the Bush administration’s foreign policy in Iraq and one of its proposed wildlife policies in the American […]
Posted inWotr
Fencing off Mexico is an ecological blunder
Medical doctors have their Hippocratic oath in which they pledge to heal the sick to the best of their ability and do no harm. We ecologists have our own guiding principle: Call it the Leopold oath. The late Aldo Leopold, who worked for the U.S. Forest Service and is considered to be one of the […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
Planting seeds for preservation
In Cities in the Wilderness, former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt asks: “Is it realistic to suggest expanding land protection programs in a season when the Bush administration and Congress are intent not upon expanding, but upon shrinking the reach of our environmental laws?” Babbitt’s answer is a resounding “Yes.” He continues, “History instructs […]
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Yellowstone fires still ignite controversy
On Sept. 7, 1988, author Rocky Barker stood with a fellow journalist near Old Faithful and witnessed this scene: “Coals were pelting his back and I could see fist-sized firebrands by my head. We jumped a small stream and stumbled through the forest toward safety. The entire area turned black as night and the howling […]
Posted inWotr
Rooting for the underdog
The hailstones came down like meteorites. They crashed against the house and whistled through the trees, ripping and shredding as if their icy edges were honed razor-sharp. I stood behind the screen door and watched as the clear fiberglass roofing on the front porch was torn, twisted and obliterated, bits and pieces of fiberglass flying […]
Posted inWotr
Can billionaire philanthropy save the earth?
A few days ago, I was commiserating with a friend about the sad state of environmental affairs. We were talking about the infamous “death of environmentalism” paper and its call for the environmental movement to connect more to issues involving social justice. My opinion, I told my friend, is that it’s not environmentalism that’s dead. […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Showdown over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and its people
Oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge seems to be the current showdown issue for the environmental movement. Now, some of the movement’s top gunslinging writers, including Rick Bass, are stepping forward in defense of the refuge and its inhabitants. In his latest book, Caribou Rising, Bass shreds the argument for oil development while […]
Posted inWotr
Don’t call shooting from the sky hunting
The small airplane circles in the sky, its pilot and passenger peering out the windows as the plane banks to the left and right. They see a dark-colored dot moving against the snow below, and quickly, they circle tighter and downward until, yes, they realize it’s a wolf. The circling then changes to a slow […]
Posted inWotr
Drive-up nature is better than nothing
The woman dubbed “eagle lady” grabbed a chunk of fish and threw it out on the sand in front of her trailer. Fifteen bald eagles immediately jumped off their perches and flew into a scuffle for the meat. A large, younger eagle, its feathers still gray-brown and mottled, emerged with the prize clamped in its […]
Posted inWotr
See a river through a child’s eyes
I live in Colorado near a river called the Cache La Poudre, French for powder cache. During the last school year, I was thrilled to take part in several field trips with my daughter’s fourth-grade class. Each time the children learned more and more about this local river. Twelve times during the school year we […]
Posted inWotr
A tale of two Yellowstones
The ice cream cones were super-sized, and my two young daughters’ faces lit up as they held them in their hands. We walked out the door of the Old Faithful Lodge and headed down the paved path to the official viewing area. About 1,000 people had gotten there before us and were now sitting and […]