A day in the life of agricultural laborers whose work and lives straddle the Arizona-Mexican border.
Allen Best
Posted inArticles
Ski areas add warm-weather options
Forest Service has made it easier for resorts to include summer activities.
Posted inArticles
How this year’s general election repeats history
The messy 2016 presidential election echoes deeply flawed candidates of the past.
Posted inArticles
Let’s be clear: TSA’s new tactics are bribery
A new program lets you cut in line at security, for a fee.
Posted inArticles
It’s time to put a price on carbon
The United States should set a persuasive example for the rest of the world.
Posted inArticles
The tiny Nebraska town where Keystone opposition began
Note: the opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of High Country News, its board or staff. If you’d like to share an opinion piece of your own, please write Betsy Marston at betsym@hcn.org. To call Newport, Nebraska, a small town inflates its size. Located on the edge […]
Posted inArticles
Lessons from the Animas River: dig first, clean up later
The mustard-colored water flowing down the Animas River in southwestern Colorado is a painful reminder of the lengthy gestation time of environmental disasters. The ugly surge was unleashed last week by an EPA contractor, which unwittingly breached a dike that allowed contaminated water from the Gold King Mine to flood into Cement Creek, a tributary […]
Posted inArticles
Cloud seeding is still a work in progress
Wyoming just spent $14 million and the better part of 10 years on a rigorous scientific experiment to evaluate whether it’s possible to get extra snow from winter storm clouds through cloud seeding. The conclusion? The final results were thin: There was a 3 percent increase in precipitation, but a 28 percent probability that the […]
Posted inArticles
Considering historical correctness in New Mexico
Kit Carson’s name is everywhere on maps of the West. Nevada’s capital city is named after him, and in California, a Carson Pass crosses the Sierra Nevada. Colorado has Carson County, a town named Kit Carson and 14,000-foot Kit Carson Peak. But was the man himself really worth honoring? A few years before Carson died […]
Posted inWotr
He’s the linchpin of a remote western Colorado town
Take the Western boots off Don Colcord, add more trees to the main street of Nucla, Colorado, and you’d have the movie set for “It’s a Wonderful Life,” with Colcord, a pharmacist, playing Jimmy Stewart’s role as the principled banker of a small New England town. But Colcord lives in arid western Colorado, in a town […]
Posted inWotr
The lessons of Ludlow, 100 years later
If April 20 is an informal holiday for celebrants of cannabis, members of labor unions observe the day more somberly. That’s especially true this year. One hundred years ago, striking coal miners and their families were killed in what’s now remembered as the Ludlow Massacre. It was the landmark catastrophe in the broader, nearly year-long […]
Posted inWotr
77 years later, here comes pot
The history of marijuana is clouded by racism and muddled thinking.
Posted inNovember 25, 2013: Ecosystems 101
A Colorado carpenter takes a chance on hemp
Can an agrarian insurrection revitalize this High Plains town?
Posted inWotr
Telluride voters will find sugar on the ballot
The pros and cons of banning sugary sodas in a mountain resort town of Colorado.
Posted inWotr
In describing weather, remember the caveats
The numbers get squirrely when it comes to explaining massive flooding.
Posted inArticles
We need a locagua movement
Whole Foods Market earlier this year opened a store in the Colorado mountain town of Frisco. Located at 9,097 feet, it can boast it’s the chain’s highest-elevation outlet. Like each of the 393 other Whole Foods markets, the Frisco store goes out of its way to emphasize local connections. In a nod to Frisco’s four […]
Posted inWotr
Hard choices for an uncertain future
Stepping onto the stage of the Sheridan Opera House in Telluride, Colo., his biceps bulging after chopping vegetables six hours a day for 21 months while in prison, Tim DeChristopher got a standing ovation for an act of insurrection. DeChristopher became the public face of climate-change activism in 2008 with an audacious act of principled […]
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
Aspen, Colo. environmental community split over small hydro
Last summer’s Fourth of July parade in the resort town of Aspen, Colo., was apple-pie middle America. There were Rotarians and librarians, prancing horses and dirt bikers. The mayor passed out flags. Cheers erupted as veterans passed, their signs like bookmarks in American history from World War II to Afghanistan. Then came some unusual floats: […]
Posted inWotr
Smug alert
Perhaps drilling rigs should be allowed in cities, towns and even into our own metaphorical backyards. It would be good for the environment. Maybe not your personal environment, but more broadly for our environment. Community planners for decades have urged mixed-use development, in which we combine work, play and shopping in closer physical proximity. Lately, we’ve […]