Subscribe:
RSS feed
Chronicle of Conservation in the New West
Browsing All Posts filed under »Value of Wilderness«
Exclosures – August 2012
Kirsten and I went up to the Fish Lake National Forest and camped on Thousand Lake Mountain in southern Utah for a couple of nights this last Thursday through Saturday August 16-18. This area is just north of Torrey and we like to get up there in the summer just to get out and to […]
Where deepest dreams await.
December 29, 2011
In Desert Solitaire Abbey offers us a benediction: May your rivers flow . . . where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you -- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls. In this video excerpt from Adventure Journal, surfer/adventurer Kepa Acero lives Abbey's blessing like a master. Infectious, intoxicating . . . >>more
The Plateau as Canary
December 16, 2011
I like this idea of Kirk Johnson's of the Green blog at the New York Times. The fragile Colorado Plateau acting as canary in the coal mine. It doesn't take a dust storm in Arizona to notice that the air is always hazier on the Plateau than it was even 10 years ago. So few people live on the Plateau that man made haze here is a sign of illness elsewhere. ...more>>
Earth’s Great Omninvore
November 1, 2011
I've been thinking a lot about the fact that the planet now has 7 billion people alive on it, all at the same time. I think just knowing the fact makes it seem more crowded. We are up from 6 billion souls in just 12 years. I wrote earlier about the latest epoch becoming known as the Anthropocene, the age of man. Here, Wired magazine has an essay with some jaw dropping perspectives to help make sense of 7 billion. . . . more>>
Rural jobs and public lands
October 21, 2011
I want to keep track of this report and blogging on it is a handy way. Here in Utah our own congressman Rob Bishop and senator, Orrin Hatch are busy in a misguided way trying to create jobs via short term direct extraction at the expense long term expense of recreation. Recreation sounds trivial compared to drilling, mining, logging or grazing. It's not. According to the Wilderness Society outdoor recreation, natural resource conservation, and historic preservation activities contribute a minimum of $1.06 trillion annually to the economy, support 9.4 million jobs and generate over $100 billion in federal, state and local taxes. Economics aren't the only argument for sustaining an attactive natural environment, but it is an argument that tends to get traction. . . . more>>
Have you noticed that it is almost always hazy?
October 20, 2011
I was at a star gazing party in southern Utah recently and met a businessman my age as he showed me around his telescope setup. As we got to know each other it turned out this guy, who seemed otherwise a lot like me, was a climate change denier. He told me his reasons and I listened. He was pretty sure of himself. The only notion that seemed to set him back was the observation that the air around Capitol Reef National Park, air that used to be so clear there were view point signs touting it (150 miles visibility used to be), is now almost always hazy. He had noticed that too. Here, William Anderson, chairman of the Moapa Band of Paiutes in southeastern Nevada, talks about the external cost of air pollution and benefits of clean air, that is the externalities that don't show up on a balance sheet or income statement but are real none the less, in this concise entry from Writers on the Range. . . .more>>
Value of wilderness debate: Wilderness wins 9:1
October 19, 2011
I found this debate in The Economist to be a terrific, brainy way to get a review of how we got to where we are today on our sense of the value of wilderness. The best points I thought were made by "featured guest" contributors that centered on the relatively poor results environmentalists achieve when they take a no compromise position. Michael Shellenberger & Ted Nordhaus make the lucid point that,
Ignoring those questions (of how to manage development), and engaging in romantic visions that such a world can be sustained through small-is-beautiful projects, imperils the effort to produce a beautiful and healthy planet more than any corporation or government.It is surprising to me that readers of The Economist would be so profoundly in favor of the notion that:
This house believes that untouched wildernesses have a value beyond the resources and other utility that can be extracted from them.. . . more>>
Rob Bishop is flunking economics.
October 17, 2011
Utah Representative Rob Bishop has brought out Southern Utah University professor Ryan Yonk, to give testimony to the Public Lands Subcommittee about his recently issued paper, a paper without peer review, asserting wilderness and protective designations for federal lands have a negative economic impact on local communities. No wonder right wing climate change deniers like Bishop feel like academia can be bought. Just as when Bishop towed Escalante Mayor Jerry Taylor before Congress to testify against national monuments and Taylor received serious backlash from his own chamber of commerce when he got back to Escalante, Yonk is getting backlash. Headwater Economics and Republican Jim DiPeso of thedailygreen.com and the policy director for Republicans for Environmental Protection reply. . . . more>>
The Wisdom of Wilderness
October 14, 2011
According to The Christian Science Monitor in a reader recommendation, psychiatrist, contemplative theologian, counselor, teacher, writer, and Shalem Institute fellow Gerald G. May wrote his last book, The Wisdom of Wilderness, as he was dying. We journey with him into the wilderness, which he says is “not just a place; [but] also a state of being.” He guides us to what is natural and wild in our own lives – and to the healing grace of nature. Sounds good, I haven't read it yet, if anyone does, please let us know your thoughts.
More Republican assault on our wild land heritage.
October 12, 2011
The right-wing notion that the environment is the enemy has come around blindingly fast. The notion doesn't make enough sense to stand on its own. Rather, it is being PR packaged by big industry special interest in a form of pernicious cronyism. Here, the Grand Canyon Trust reports that a group of Republican lawmakers, including Senator McCain, is introducing legislation to stop the Obama administration from blocking new mining claims around the Grand Canyon. There won't be many Americans who think that the Grand Canyon is a good place to mine. What are these cowboys thinking? . . . more>>
They are dry in the mouth too.
October 10, 2011
Just like the Colorado River does not make it to the Colorado River Delta and on to the sea, Australia's largest river, the Murray-Darling is dry in the mouth. A 10 year drought there has made for necessary changes. Brad Udall, director of the Western Water Assessment in Colorado, spent four months in Australia working with its Department of Water. Cally Carswell of High Country News explores with Udall what happens when the door is opened and more than special interests and lawyers are allowed in the room to talk about solutions. Udall says, "For 150 years, we’ve had three kinds of people in the room talking about water: we’ve had water users, we’ve had attorneys and we’ve had engineers. And for the most part, the public, economists and scientists have not been a part of this dialogue. In Australia, they don’t even let attorneys in the room — at least according to one gentlemen down there — when it comes to water. And they talk in these very holistic (terms): what’s good for our economy, what’s good for our social systems, what’s good for the environment — they have those three perspectives. It’s not just driven by the legal system, which is usually almost always the case here in Colorado." . . . more>>
Starry night enthusiast and his camera
October 7, 2011
The Colorado Plateau has some of the most light pollution free dark skies in the continental U.S. On a dark Plateau night, the Milky Way casts a shadow. Dark nights may not feel intuitively like a resource worth protecting, but on this blog by Jaymi Heimbuch of treehugger.com, youthful photographer Ben Canales captures some of the grandeur and wonder of a dark, starry night with his camera. In a (somewhat long winded) attached video he even will show you how. . . . more>>
Torrey House Press Web Site:
THP Green Trails 
August 19, 2012
1