I follow the New York Times and the Washington Post daily. I watch the Covid news especially closely because the virus could kill me and anyone I know. Today I …
Harsh Lessons from an Ancient People
Bandelier National Monument offers the perfect blend of strange wilderness beauty and human interest with the mysterious cliff dwellings of long-gone Pueblo people. Early Pueblo people lived across this landscape …
Running out of Time: COP26 and the Human Future
The COP26 climate change talks just ended in Stockholm and Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish activist, told the world the truth about what went on. She summed up the …
How One Man’s Disease Changed the History of New Mexico
Had J Robert Oppenheimer not gotten sick in 1922, the Manhattan project would have been sited elsewhere in the US and Los Alamos National Laboratory would never have existed in …
The Forest Advocate, or Forest Fantasy
Most Santa Fe residents recently got a mailing from a group called “The Forest Advocate” which discusses forest management around Santa Fe. While I appreciate the spirit of the publication, …
Forgotten Ancestors in a Sultry September
This is a hot, sultry September. I think about the hurricanes overwatering the eastern states, and the big Southwest rivers fading away with millions of people gathered at their sides …
There are no Indigenous People in the Americas
There is an unmistakable trend in progressive and environmental thinking today. All compasses point toward a focus on Indigenous people and their long experience on this continent and the discrimination …
Lightning Fire, Wild and Free
In mid-June lightning struck a remote slope in the Pecos Wilderness east of Santa Fe. The bolt started a fire that ignited dry fuels in a spruce-fir forest and quickly …
A Life of Caring about Bandelier National Monument
I found myself clearing out old files from my activist work in the 1980s about Bandelier National Monument. It struck me how I have been focused on this area and …
The Future and the Past of the South San Juan Wilderness
The main mass of the San Juan Mountains dominates Southwest Colorado with its fourteen-thousand-foot peaks and steep gorges. These mountains feed their snowmelt into the Colorado River basin, a vast …