Jodi Peterson

Associate Editor

Leonardo DiCaprio’s latest film, 11th Hour, is a documentary on the sorry state of the global environment. And it features a well-known scientist from HCN’s hometown, Paonia, Colo.

Theo Colborn, PhD, runs a nonprofit that educates the public about the dangers of endocrine disruptors. These chemicals, found in many consumer products, can harm human health and reproduction even in very low doses.

The film opens nationally this week; check it out. The Detroit Free Press says it “provides good advice and an abundance of well-considered ideas from forward thinkers of all stripes and persuasions who refuse to give up hope.”

Jonathan Thompson

Editor in Chief

It’s now official: Phoenix, Arizona, is stinkin’ hot. On Aug. 29, the mercury topped 110 degrees for the 29th day this summer, setting a new record (the reader comments on this story are especially fun). Blame global warming, if you want, but the culprit could be much more localized than that. Try pavement and concrete. As HCN pointed out here, urban environments create their own ecology, and climate. The Christian Science Monitor reiterated that fact today, with a look at “heat islands” in Phoenix. It’s been over 100 degrees in the city for 29 of the last 32 days; to get the raw data on climate in Phoenix and elsewhere, check out this groovy section of the National Weather Service site.

In totally unrelated news … Aspen, worried about the diminishing staying power of its snow, gives a lot of lip to climate change. Problem is, they have thousands of cars carrying commuters coming into town every day; hundreds of private jets landing at the airport and spewing out greenhouse gases; and dozens of ginormous, mostly unoccupied homes. And, it turns out, those empty houses — often in excess of 10,000 square feet — contribute more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than lived-in houses, according to a Denver Post article. It’s all those pesky driveway heaters, roof snow melters, towel heaters, steam showers, humidor fans, wine cellar coolers, and other necessities that are gobbling up the megawatts and contributing to climate change.

Solution? How about opening up the Aspen wine cellars to Phoenicians who are struggling with the heat? It’s cool down there, and chances are, no one’s around to be put out by the guests.

Jodi Peterson

Associate Editor

The federal government finally hauled some scofflaw Nevada ranchers into court. For years the ranchers have been grazing their cows on public lands without the required permits. According to a Justice Department press release:

The civil complaint filed today in U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada accuses ranchers Wayne N. Hage, Benjamin J. Colvin, and the estate of E. Wayne Hage of intentionally grazing cattle on multiple occasions on federally managed lands in Esmeralda and Nye Counties. In addition, the defendants are accused of receiving monetary compensation for unlawfully “leasing” lands owned by the United States to other ranchers for grazing purposes, despite having no property interest in these lands.

In 2001, we wrote about another federal attempt to shut down Ben Colvin and Jack Vogt’s illegal grazing (see Showdown on the Nevada Range and an earlier story, Nevada’s Most Rebellious). The BLM impounded the ranchers’ cattle and sold them off:

But quelling the rebellion will require even more impoundments, and inevitably more confrontation. There are around seven to 10 other ranchers who regularly trespass, agency officials say, about half of them for ideological reasons.

And those “ideological reasons,” for the Sagebrush Rebels, basically amount to this: “When it comes to federal land, we refuse to acknowledge federal authority or follow federal rules. But we will happily use that land, owned by the government on behalf of all Americans, for our own private gain — graze it, lease it to others, build roads across it, and in general do whatever the hell we want on it.”

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

We’re “the most heavily armed society in the world,” says a Reuters story. Ta-daaah. It sums up the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Switzerland-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.

The survey’s findings include:

U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world’s 875 million known firearms … (and) about 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States.

India had the world’s second-largest civilian gun arsenal, with an estimated 46 million firearms outside law enforcement and the military, though this represented just four guns per 100 people there. China, ranked third with 40 million privately held guns, had three firearms per 100 people.

… On a per-capita basis, Yemen came second behind the U.S., with 61 guns per 100 people, followed by Finland with 56, Switzerland with 46, Iraq with 39 and Serbia with 38.

France, Canada, Sweden, Austria and Germany were next, each with about 30 guns per 100 people, while many poorer countries often associated with violence ranked much lower. Nigeria, for instance, had just one gun per 100 people.

A different Reuters story says:

From 1993 to 2000, the United States was the leading supplier of conventional arms to the developing world. In 1999, more than 4 million firearms were manufactured in the United States for domestic sale or export … More than 300 U.S. companies produce arms and/or ammunition.

Yet a crisis looms. Despite all our ammo-makers, we’re running short of ammo. The Dallas Morning News has the overview of the crisis, reporting:

The baby needs milk. The car needs gas. The gun needs bullets.

Rising dairy and oil prices grab the attention of shoppers and motorists. But the increasing price of ammunition — a consumer product the government considers when calculating the rate of inflation — has largely gone unnoticed.

The price increases began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and were compounded by a double whammy: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which pushed up overall demand, and growing industrial powers such as China, which bid up the cost of needed raw materials.

… (Ammo) dealers, hunters and law-enforcement officers are feeling squeezed … Some calibers cost only 10 percent more than a year ago; other varieties have more than doubled in price … Some gun owners stockpiled all they could get, sending prices even higher. Now dealers said that as soon as new supplies come in, customers grab them.

The ammo shortage in the West is being felt by police departments in Washington, Idaho and Wyoming.

Another possible reason for the shortages in the West: Some people enjoy getting together to shoot their fully-automatic machine guns, profiled nicely in the Casper Star-Tribune.

For more background on guns in the West, here’s my package of gun stories in High Country News.

Let’s close with an excerpt from the Star-Trib on machine-gunners:

The Wyoming sun has just begun to set when Stuart Ruben opens up on the mini gun.

In 15 seconds the powerful weapon spews out 1,000 rounds of tracers, incendiary bullets and starburst ammunition. It’s not exactly a subtle gun. Onlookers standing nearby feel, rather than hear, it fire.

Moments later, hundreds of shells casings lie at Ruben’s shoes and an old sedan several hundred feet away bursts into flames.

The voice of range safety officer Bill Black booms over the loudspeaker.

“The line is hot, the line is hot. Everybody may start shooting now.”

All along the firing line, dozens of people are shooting at targets set up on an empty prairie about 30 minutes south of Casper. They’re participating in the North Rockies 10th annual Machine Gun and Cannon Shoot …

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

Hall and Hall is a leading seller of Western ranches. The company, in business for 61 years, has headquarters in Billings, Montana, and more salesmen in branch offices in Bozeman and Missoula; Jackson, Wyoming; Sun Valley, Idaho; Denver and two more Colorado cities; Nebraska and Texas.

Sample listing, among dozens of ranches Hall and Hall has for sale at the moment:

Encompassing 255,371± deeded acres and a 500±-acre lake … Flanked by two large rivers flowing 80 miles along two of the ranch borders … 70 percent of this land lies within … the largest wetland in the world. Currently producing 8,000 to 10,000 calves a year and farming soybeans on 12,000± tilled acres with far greater potential. Very high quality ranch improvements and residences with a main airstrip and auxiliary runways for the cow camps. $50,000,000 …

If you’re interested and want to see the property, keep in mind, it’s called Fazenda Santo Antonio do Paraiso, and it’s in Brazil.

Hall and Hall, you see, has responded to the current mess in the U.S. ranch market — prices soaring, sellers with unrealistic expectations, buyers holding back, causing a slowdown in sales — by listing ranches in South America, where apparently bargains can still be had.

Another sample listing, from Hall and Hall’s summer 2007 newsletter:

Bahia Mala (a ranch in Chile): Located along 2.5± miles of Pacific beachfront, this ecologically-rich gemstone property includes a comfortable lodge, 4 cabins with views of the ocean and up a river valley to a snowcapped volcano. These 1,730± acres augmented by 17,000+ acres of 30-year concession are truly a paradise 12 miles south of Raul Marin Balmaceda. $3,500,000 …

Or maybe you would prefer to buy:

Estancia Pilpilcura (in Argentina): Only 45 miles NE of Bariloche, this classic Patagonia ranch has 7,375± acres with 3+ miles of the Pichileufu River, a medium–sized stream known for excellent trout fishing. Residential compound overlooks the river with a superbly constructed 8,000± SF owner’s residence plus staff accommodations. The property is a haven for wildlife — eagle, red deer and valley quail. Pilpilcura Creek crosses the ranch for 2+ miles. Easy access to the airport. This ranch is a recreational treasure complemented by a working cattle operation. $3,300,000 …

Hall and Hall’s website is here, and the summer 2007 newsletter is here.

My take? Don’t know much about it really — might be good for South American locals and landscapes, or not. But it’s definitely one more sign that we’re in a new Gilded Age, in which those with tons of money to burn, and their business associates, bless their hearts, have their way regardless.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

Wild Horse Island, a state park on Montana’s Flathead Lake, is posted as a no-pet zone. Nevertheless, reports the Missoulian’s Michael Jamison, dog folks bring their dogs to the island. And the dogs stress the island’s bighorn sheep.

It’s a story about irresponsible pet owners … our overall loving yet arrogant relationship with the rest of nature … and it has a photo of a dog backing a bighorn into the lake’s water, worth a look.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

Most people want to protect the environment — but they rank many other issues as more important.

That’s the dilemma environmentalists face, whenever they attempt politics.

It’s documented anew — in powerful terms — in voter surveys collected by American Environics (a cutting-edge consultant) for the Nathan Cummings Foundation (green-politics).

The surveys show, for example:

Even self-described environmentalists place gay marriage, abortion, and illegal immigration higher (in importance) than the environment.

For all voters, the environment ranked dead last.

Recent surveys have confirmed this finding. A late April 2007 CBS News/New York Times poll found that a majority of voters (51 percent) could still vote for a candidate who did not share their views on environmental issues.

Check out page 5 of the consultant’s report — and the rest of it is also worth reading — here. An Atlantic Monthly blogger covers it here, and the New York Times covers it as the second item here.

How can environmental issues break through?

They can, when they’re immediate, in voters’ backyards and drinking water and inhalations of air. Once in a while, environmentalists — or catastrophes — succeed in making the green issues immediate, at which point the voters respond.

That’s the essential challenge in getting action on our biggest environmental issue, global warming.

Rainforests apparently aren’t riding to the global-warming rescue. A story in the latest issue of Harvard Magazine notes that research by the Center for Tropical Forest Science shows that two tropical forests on opposite sides of the globe did not increase their growth as carbon dioxide levels rose over the last 25 years. In fact, because of complex relationships among temperature, cloud cover and CO2 levels, the forests have actually slowed their growth and, consequently, their ability to act as a carbon “sink.”

Here’s how the magazine explains the counterintuitive results of the research:

What accounts for the slowing of growth that CTFS data revealed to (researchers)? Even though increases in atmospheric CO₂ provide fertilizer that can stimulate growth by aiding photosynthesis, they found that over the period of the study, the number of rainy days had increased at both sites, meaning that less sunlight was available to fuel photosynthesis. Moreover, nighttime temperatures had increased at the sites, and higher temperatures mean higher respiration rates. When trees have less energy coming in and more going out, they have less for growth, as appears to have happened in these two forests.

“Temperature and CO₂ may operate in opposite directions on tree growth,” says Stuart Davies, Ph.D. ’96, a coauthor of the paper. “That’s what we’re arguing, but we have to be honest and say that we don’t know the answer yet.”

The story on tropical forest growth rates is a sidebar accompanying a profile of the amazing Peter Shaw Ashton, a cofounder of the Center for Tropical Forest Science who recently won the Japan Prize, awarded by the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan in the category of “Science and Technology of Harmonious Co-Existence.” Though stodgily told here, the story of Ashton’s life is worth a look, too.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

Chauncey Bailey, editor of the Oakland Post weekly, got shotgunned on a city street three weeks ago. Like investigative journalists get treated in Mexico or Pakistan.

Apparently, Chauncey Bailey got murdered for digging too deeply into the enterprises of something called Your Black Muslim Bakery. A teenage handyman who works for the bakery has confessed to being the hitman. That’s according to LA Times columnist Patti Morrison. She says in this country, in 2007, there’s still a tendency to ignore the death of a black man in Oakland. She calls for other journalists to gather in Oakland to connect the rest of the dots, identify all those responsible for the hit, and expose just how rotten some of the Oakland system is.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

The Cascade wildfires in central Idaho have burned more than 250 square miles. Soon they’ll merge with the 75-square-mile Landmark fires, reports AP. Up to a thousand firefighters are still deployed on that front. Some shot video of flames licking and roaring up to the edge of a firefighters’ camp. Dramatic. Working through a group called Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology, they’ve posted it on YouTube. Worth a look, to help us understand the forces and risks of our fire policies, here.

It’s a growing genre: wildfire crew videos. You can watch another crew’s wildfire video — and be warned, it comes with rock ‘n’ roll — here.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

In angry terms, Ariana Huffington, boss of one of the best national lefty political blogs, links President Bush’s anti-regulation ideology to the apparent nine deaths in Utah’s Crandall Canyon coal mine:

More and more frequently, federal regulatory agencies are being used to reward major political donors. Industry hacks are given key government positions not because they are the best people to protect the public interest but because they are ready, willing and able to protect the very industries they are meant to supervise, industries they have often just left.

Take coal mining. This industry has donated more than $12 million to federal candidates since the 2000 election and the beginning of the Bush era, with 88% of that money — $10.6 million — going to Republicans.

And what did that largesse buy? Mine safety regulators far more interested in looking out for the financial well-being of mine owners than for the physical well-being of miners.

Exhibit A is President Bush’s “mine safety czar,” Richard Stickler, whose agency approved the controversial mining technique used at the Crandall Canyon Mine. Stickler is a former coal company manager with such a lousy safety record at the companies he’d run that his nomination as head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration was twice rejected by senators from both parties, forcing Bush to sneak him in the back door with a recess appointment.

The New York Times editors also call for more government care for worker safety, and point out:

In the past three years, energy companies have opened nearly 50 new coal mines a year. The number of coal miners has grown by almost a fifth since 2003. Yet last year M.S.H.A.’s inspection hours per mine and the inspection completion rate both hit their lowest point in at least a decade. And deadly accidents soared. Last year, 47 coal miners died, more than twice as many as in 2005 and the most since 1995. The fatality rate, which measures deaths as a percentage of all workers, was at its highest since 2001.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration — kind of blithely, if you ask me — proceeds with its highly questionable OK of the extremely destructive coal-mining method called “mountaintop removal.”

Huffington’s full column, in the LA Times is here, the NY Times editorial is here, and the NY Times story on mountaintop removal is here.

For more of the best stories on the Utah disaster and its context, go here.

Gotta admit, no matter what your leanings are, when it comes to political tactics and style, the Bush administration is consistent, to the point of relentlessness.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

And guess it was inevitable … I wonder, are they designer firefighters, arriving in custom, swooshy fire trucks and cute outfits? One more sign of the times, here.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

For some grins or teeth-gnashing, thanks to writer Kimi Yoshino, check out this LA Times story about another ominous trend — the “luxury” camping experience for those who “only sorta kinda want to rough it.”