My Page: Dan Whipple

The Region's Precious resource

Despite being lectured frequently about water constraints and the preciousness of the resource, I have always been a closet agnostic on the topic. Doubtless, this is because I don’t know enough. But in my thirty-plus years of living on the spine of the continent, I’ve yet to hear of a single project that’s been delayed or canceled because of a water issue. We were once promised that rain would follow the plow. That turned out to be wrong. Water, it seems, actually follows the real estate developer.

I’m an agnostic but not an atheist on western water because lots of smart people keep telling me how valuable it is. They were doing it again on Friday at the University of Colorado Natural Resources Law Center’s Annual Summer Conference. Bart Miller of Western Resources Advocates said, for instance, “Water in the West is too precious to use for intermediate crops – crops that are given to animals.” [more]

Water, Wind and Climate Change

Colorado House Majority Leader Alice Madden put up a slide of Lake Mead with the rhetorical question: Half empty or half full?

Madden’s immediate subject at the University of Colorado’s Natural Resource Law Center’s Annual Summer Conference was water, but the question echoed around a wide variety of subjects: energy, climate, renewable resources. [more]

In The New West magazine

How a few homes in the West are reviving the oldest construction material.

Consider dirt. It's old, and it's making a comeback as a construction material under a new name: rammed earth.

Rammed earth is exactly what it sounds like.

Hard-packed dirt, as a building material, predates all others. Under the right conditions, it endures. About 22 centuries ago, the Qin Dynasty built parts of the Great Wall of China using rammed earth. Some portions still stand. There's an earthen building near Luxor, Egypt, which was built some 3,300 years ago. [more]

Due West by Dan Whipple

The race is not always to the Swift Boat, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet. With apologies to both Ecclesiastes and Damon Runyon, the three-person Democratic primary in Colorado's Second Congressional District is already taking a turn for the worse, with Democrats finding ever more creative ways to implode. [more]

Due West by Dan Whipple

While some congressional districts are stuck with candidates like William Jefferson, in August the Democratic voters of Colorado’s second congressional district are going to be able to choose among three excellent candidates, any one of whom would make a fine congressperson.

And those three candidates are going to spend a lot of money to convince the voters of that excellence. A lot of money. The race is already the most expensive Democratic primary in the country in this election cycle – the three have raised nearly $2 million with a year to go before the November election – and it has a chance to become the most expensive primary election ever. [more]

Due West by Dan Whipple

At the Republican presidential debate the other night, Colorado hopeful Tom Tancredo haltingly raised his hand when the moderator asked,"Is there anybody on the stage that does not agree, believe in evolution?"

I confess that Tancredo is giving me doubts about evolution myself. When a single-issue candidate only mentions his single issue twice in an hour-and-a-half on the national stage, how else can you explain it except as a failure to evolve?

Tancredo has to remember that the answer to every question is, "Immigration." For instance when moderator Chris Matthews passed along this question from the audience, "Do you have a plan to solve the shortage of organs donated for transplant?" Tancredo should have immediately responded, "Yes, I plan to carve the organs out of illegal immigrants." Instead he said that saving lives via organ transplants isn’t a concern of the government. [more]

Column: Due West by Dan Whipple

I had a very Kerry weekend.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was in Denver to promote his new book, and he wouldn’t leave me alone. The senator and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, have co-written This Moment on Earth: Today’s New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future (Public Affairs Books, $25).

I have always felt a strong identification with Sen. Kerry, except for the fact that he is senatorially tall and slender, with full, flowing grey locks that catch the sunlight just so and chiseled granite good looks, while I am short, bald and ugly. But we both were vigorous opponents of the Vietnam War, and ... well, that’s all I can think of right now, but I’m sure other similarities will occur to me. [more]

Due West by Dan Whipple

They’re thinking of reintroducing wolves in Scotland.

While sensible people keep up with Britney’s drug problems and Anna Nicole’s autopsy, around here I follow global wolf reintroductions. This is because while I have little to offer to improve the lives of celebrities, like everyone else in the Rockies I have all the answers about wolves.

In a paper (PDF) published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B at the end of January, several scientists suggested that reintroducing the wolf into Scotland would have substantial conservation benefits, especially in controlling an exploding population of red deer. An estimated 500,000 red deer may be roamin’ the Scottish gloamin’, a number perilously close to the “carrying capacity.”

The first thing you notice with this report is that there isn’t a single American among the six authors. It seems like if you’re going to try to slip Scottish wolf reintroduction through in the dead of night, you ought to have at least a couple of cowboys who have been around the block on this issue. They’ve got three guys from Norway and three from London. Norway? I’m not sure the descendants of mere Viking marauders are strong enough to face the stresses of reintroducing wolves on an island as small as Britain. [more]

Column: Due West by Dan Whipple

The 30-mile-by-45-mile volcanic caldera that makes up most of Yellowstone National Park erupts with disturbing regularity -- every 650,000 years or so.

It erupted 2 million years ago, then again 1.3 million years ago. Then about 642,000 years ago it exploded again, with 1,000 times the force of the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption. Even that cataclysm pales in comparison to the two-million-years-ago event, which ejected 1,500 cubic miles of rock into the atmosphere. That’s a cube of rock and dirt eleven-and-a-half miles on each side. Waist-high layers of tuff from that eruption have been found in Iowa, nearly a thousand miles away.

By way of comparison, Mt. St. Helens ejected 0.3 cubic miles of material. That’s a cube of material about two-thirds of a mile (or about 3,500 feet) on each side.

Let’s see, a quick calculation: an eruption every 650,000 years; last eruption 642,000 years ago; next eruption due -- the day after tomorrow, QED. [more]

column: Due West by Dan Whipple

This Sunday, the Denver Post had a front page story headlined “Elite or Elitist: Framework of prestigious Denver School of the Arts getting mixed reviews.”

I asked my 17-year-old son, who is a junior at the Denver School of the Arts, whether the school was elite or elitist. He answered, “Sometimes one, sometimes the other.” [more]