Writers on the Range

The slippery slope of e-bike access

When I visited Bryce Canyon National Park recently, the shared paths were crowded with electric motorcycles. They say they are e-bikes: If they can rip uphill at 20 miles per hour without pedaling, I …

Public land goes back on the chopping block

You probably don’t see wildland firefighters on the job because they usually work in remote areas. But, with wildfires moving from the backcountry to backyards, the public is becoming more …

Must we kill one species to save another?

Barred owls, with their vivid brown stripes, are acting like bullies of the forest in the northwest, driving their smaller cousins, the northern spotted owl, to the brink of extinction. Once barred …

Protect the firefighters who protect our homes and forests

You probably don’t see wildland firefighters on the job because they usually work in remote areas. But, with wildfires moving from the backcountry to backyards, the public is becoming more …

Energy dominance harms our public lands

I live in Jackson County, in northern Colorado, where hundreds of inactive and abandoned oil wells litter the landscape. Not only are they an ugly sight, they are also just a few of the estimated 2.6 …

For waste and inefficiency, you can’t beat corn ethanol

Corn ethanol, also known as grain alcohol, has been burned in gasoline engines and human stomachs since before Henry Ford was born. It’s hard on both, so until 35 years ago it never caught on …

The threat of tariffs continues to be my problem

Unless revoked or substantially reduced to what they are now, 30 percent for 90 days, President Donald Trump’s tariffs will still wipe out the investments made in our small family business and …

Public lands are a national treasure and must not be sold

Public lands are one of our country’s great equalizers. It doesn’t matter how much money you have — a billionaire and a bus driver both get the same access to our parks, deserts, …

'De-extinction' is a fool’s errand

To breathless media coverage, a company called Colossal Biosciences now claims to have produced three genetically engineered pups of the long-extinct dire wolf. Scientific criticism quickly followed. …

ICE is eroding the rule of law

“I got lucky,” José told me. “Because they got the wrong person.”  José, 28, who did not give his last name for fear of retribution from U.S. …

Solar panels have more than proven themselves

I’d never heard of “net metering” until my electric bill hit $600 last February. Desperate for a way to reduce utility costs that skyrocket in the winter because we use electric …

Rural Colorado county gets ready for wildfire

When La Plata County in southwestern Colorado needed a director of emergency management in 2021, they found a winner in Shawna Legarza. An experienced firefighter, her career has spanned battling big …

When reality weighs you down

  A lot of us feel hopeless today. There’s the return of energy dominance as a federal goal, which places oil, gas and coal extraction above all other uses. There’s the …

It’s still the West against itself

Nearly 80 years ago, Bernard DeVoto, the Utah-born writer and historian, wrote an essay titled “The West Against Itself” for Harper’s Magazine. DeVoto summed up the platform …

We see the climate change in New Mexico

Here in New Mexico, our growing season has lengthened since the 1970s, even as stream flows have decreased. Fire season starts earlier, lasts longer and, in some years, ignites the forests into …

The gutting of our national park system

Imagine a million-acre wilderness: Mountain peaks. Rushing rivers. Bears and wolves. Now imagine a city the size of, say, Chicago.   In my corner of Montana every summer, those two things …

Mass firings cut the muscle, not the fat

The stories are heartbreaking. U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and other federal workers — some of them within weeks of ending probationary periods — fired. And not for cause; …

Trump’s policies put us in economic danger

Donald Trump’s platform was clear when he was running for president. He promised to make bold improvements — quickly raising revenue by imposing tariffs on foreign goods, slashing prices …

Beware the Trojan Horse targeting public land

Sometimes when I drive past the little house my wife and I bought when we first married, 30 years ago, it makes me sad. Not only because of nostalgia, but because of economics. We were young …

The Salton Sea’s weirdness is what’s appealing

Fascinating and fetid, the Salton Sea in southern California lures me back, every year. Driving south from Utah, I take bits of historic Highway 66 and then skirt Joshua Tree National Park to …

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