April 27, 2023
Land exchanges serve the wealthy
In 2017, the public lost 1,470 acres of wilderness-quality land at the base of Mount Sopris near Aspen, Colorado.
In 2017, the public lost 1,470 acres of wilderness-quality land at the base of Mount Sopris near Aspen, Colorado.
Although I’ve lived in a small Western town for 30 years now, I have never known much about one of its fundamental institutions, the service club. Many small-town residents still center their lives on Lions, Elks, Rotary or similar organizations.
In the race to “electrify everything” there are glitches which may derail the plan over the next 20 years. One is a shortage of skilled electrical workers needed to rewire homes, make grid modifications, and install new electrical capacity.
The odds are against us. That is the bottom line in the latest IPCC report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on global warming, the most comprehensive scientific report to date. Once again we are told that 2030 is the year of living dangerously — when humanity must cut greenhouse gas emissions in half, and then proceed to stop them altogether by 2050.
The return of wolves to the West has always been contentious, and the deaths last fall of more than 40 cattle in western Colorado really alarmed ranchers. But here’s the true story: Wolves did not kill those cattle found dead near Meeker.
Every year since 2015, East County Fire & Rescue (ECFR)’s board chair has submitted this column as a special outreach to our citizens, as well as those in the areas we provide mutual aid (Camas, Washougal, Skamania County, Vancouver, etc.) This year is one to start out with the following warning: “Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!”
Six people have died in avalanches in the United States since the snow started to fly this fall. Every year, an average of 27 people —skiers, snowboarders, snowmobilers, snowshoers — die this way.
Last November, the Great Salt Lake, iconic landmark of the Great Basin Desert, fell to its lowest surface elevation ever recorded. The lake had lost 73% of its water and 60% of its area. More than 800 square miles of lakebed sediments were laid bare to become dust sources laden with heavy metals.
When Tyre Nichols woke up the morning of the last day of his life, I feel certain that he wasn’t thinking about racism or the chance that it might be his end, though he’d likely had “the talk” from his parents at an early age. He’d pushed it back, seeking peace and joy in a life he shared with friends, family and his community. To do otherwise would create a constant state of fear, precluding any quality of life, the ability to just get through it all and grow up.
High on a mesa where everyone can see it, a trophy house is going up in the northern Colorado valley where I live. Some of my neighbors hear that the house will be as big as 15,000 square feet. Others say it will take three years to complete. Whether that is valley gossip or truth, the house is now the center of everybody’s attention.
