When Politics Overrules the Science

April 5, 2023

A few days ago on Capitol Hill, I attended a truly bizarre committee hearing. The Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee heard testimony on bills to remove gray wolves and grizzly bears from the endangered species list. Both species are fully recovered and no longer in danger of extinction, but the hearing wasn’t really about that. […]

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Still Not Good Enough

March 29, 2023

When Vincent Van Gogh painted “Starry Night” in 1889, he did not consider it a masterpiece, certainly not the third most famous painting in world history, although Internet searches have given it that distinction (behind only DaVinci’s Mona Lisa and Last Supper). In fact, Van Gogh didn’t even think it was very good, as he […]

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How to Unite a Divided Region

March 24, 2023

With the departure of Club 20’s executive director, and the search for a new one, several observers openly wonder whether the organization can still accomplish what it became famous for, uniting the Western Slope to speak with one voice on important issues. Two weeks ago we discussed why that still matters, but also had to […]

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Are We Encroaching, or Are They?

March 17, 2023

A little girl was playing in the ocean with her family at Huntington Beach, California when a coyote came charging across the sand and attacked, putting the little girl in the hospital. Another coyote went after a child on her home’s front porch in Dallas. Human encounters with angry wildlife are rare but seem to […]

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Why CLUB 20 Still Matters

March 14, 2023

I served as President of Club 20 through the decade of the 1990s, a period of great change and significant growth for the organization, which had been around for forty years as the voice of the Western Slope. I followed in the footsteps of two giants, my predecessors John Vanderhoof and Bill Cleary, who had […]

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How Many Times Must We Do This?

March 7, 2023

Twenty-three states have now sued the EPA over its so-called “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule, because once again, the agency is asserting federal authority over water not covered under the law. The lawsuit says the rule “goes beyond the power Congress delegated in the Clean Water Act, raises serious constitutional concerns, and runs […]

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Time to Bite the Bullet Again

February 25, 2023

When we have to do something unpleasant, the common expression is “bite the bullet.” The phrase originated on Civil War battlefields when amputations often had to be done without anesthetics. To distract the patient from excruciating pain, he would be given a lead bullet to bite down on. Sticks or leather were common, too, but […]

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To Be Effective, Stay in Your Lane

February 14, 2023

A New York Times “climate desk” reporter named David Gelles recently wrote a fascinating account of the internal battle plaguing the Sierra Club for three years. His lead explained that “Like many other American institutions, the Sierra Club was convulsed by the 2020 murder of George Floyd…” Some of his readers must have thought, “Wait, […]

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Where Exactly Is This Property?

February 8, 2023

“Cadastre” is an early 19th Century word describing a property inventory used to allocate taxes. The word has just found its way into federal law, thanks to an amendment added to the recent 4,155-page “omnibus” appropriations bill. The new section refers to an inventory of federal lands, which are not taxed at all, so technically […]

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No Energy is Clean Enough, Green Enough

February 1, 2023

Apparently, people in rural Ohio are not overly fond of renewable energy. In fact, various county commissioners there voted down 42 wind energy and 43 solar energy projects in 2022. Sixteen of the proposed wind farms were in Logan County. Interestingly, Logan County, Colorado also said no to a proposed wind farm. The two counties […]

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