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My Page: Todd Wilkinson

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ON ASTEROIDS, CLIMATE CHANGE AND U.S. ACTION

Cosmic forces of the universe—chalk it up to God, the work of Tricksters, or simply random chance if you're an atheist—are again assuming the role of a major league baseball pitcher, hurling a brush back fastball that is expected to arrive in a close trajectory with Earth on April 13, 2036. If the asteroid, nicknamed Apophis, beans the planet, the 460-foot chunk of rock could take out an entire city, kick up enough dust to wreak global havoc, or worse.

With little controversy, the idea of a cataclysm caused by a flying object—and the necessity of confronting it to avoid disaster— can be accepted as fact, with spare resistance from right-wing think tanks, their denialist toadies at Fox News, and some of the most powerful people on Earth, including one individual who happens to have a residence near the fairways of the Teton Pines golf course in Jackson Hole.

Yet when it comes to dealing with something that has far more extensive scientific understanding and likelihood of occurrence associated with it, to say nothing of the eminent scientific minds at NASA being applied to the challenge, the Teton Pines resident, yes, the Vice President of the United States of America (the man who is helping to orchestrate a new plan for decisive military action in Iraq), reportedly blanches at the thought of doing something real and substantive about climate change. Even Mr. Cheney's financial advisor has encouraged the Bush Administration to accept action as a lucrative business opportunity. [more]

LOBO HATERS EMERGE FROM GRAVE OF 19TH CENTURY

It was during the latter half of the 1980s in a conference room at Snow King Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The topic was restoring gray wolves to the greater Yellowstone ecosystem and to a wider swath of the intermountain West. Ronald Reagan was in the White House and William Penn Mott,Jr., Reagan's director of the National Park Service, made a trip to Wyoming to talk about why wolves deserved a second chance. Privately, behind the scenes, Western senators and members of Congress made calls to the president's staff, demanding that Reagan fire the small old man with snow-white hair for speaking what they claimed was cultural blasphemy. Reagan refused to capitulate to those who wanted Mott muzzled or ushered down the road into a nursing home. What I remember most about interviewing the gentle, soft-spoken Mott was that under one arm he carried the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's wolf recovery plan—making the scientific case for wolf conservation— and with an index finger extended on his other hand, he politely instructed: "Young man, you shouldn't listen to the kooks." Today, in the statehouses of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, there's plenty of kookie, hate-filled rhetoric going on that has little to do with scientific fact. And again, the spirit of William Penn Mott's instructions loom large. [more]

HEARINGS ENTER LOBBYING-WORLD RABBIT HOLE

In yet another twist in the murky relationship between convicted Washington D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the U.S. Interior Department, it is now being reported that alleged ethical violations may extend into the U.S. Justice Department—the very cabinet branch charged with preventing and prosecuting corruption in government. Where will the next shoe drop? [more]

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR DINNER CAME FROM?

When the idea was circulated last fall at a North American conference on buffalo in Denver sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society, "bison nation" had a ring of sounding like it came from the mouths of counterculturists. Indeed, the document being passed around was titled "A Manifesto by Gary Nabhan and Kelly Kindscher." And the question could be asked: Counterculture to what? The answer is the way we've grown our food since the end of World War II. Suddenly, consumers in the Rockies find themselves at the center of a delicious rebellious movement. [more]

BEYOND YELLOWSTONE'S BRICKS AND MORTAR

The new 2008 federal budget proposal has been touted as a windfall for America's national parks, but is it, really? As the President and his Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne travel across the country espousing a new committment to park protection, watchdogs say the pitchmen fail to mention the pattern that has defined this Administration over the last six years. Prominent themes of Mr. Kempthorne's predecessor Gale Norton were attempts to privatize professional positions which resulted in many veterans leaving the agency; attempting to dilute the language of the Park Service Organic Act which served as a shield against private interests hoping to profiteer on park resources; and forcing park employees to agree to carry out the Interior Department's marching orders (even if they didn't agree with them) by making their compliance part of employee job performance evaluations. As Bill Wade of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees notes, if Mr. Bush and Mr. Kempthorne want to truly restore the spirit of the agency, they should start by heralding the Park Service's conservation mission that is personified by dedicated people who wear the uniform but who have felt tormented by fear. [more]

AN INTERVIEW WITH A 'LIFESTYLE STATISTICIAN'

Jonathan Schechter, a popular "lifestyle statistician" from Jackson Hole, opened up New West's successful Real Estate and Development Conference last autumn with one of the more provocative analyses of why some communities are prospering -- and likely to be buffered somewhat from a deflating real estate bubble nationally -- and why others may not.

In an interview with New West today, Schechter talks about the difference between "growth" and "change" in the northern Rockies, how the the new mobility of workers is affecting the region and what Schechter's hometown of Jackson Hole has to teach the rest of the West.

Read on for the interview. [more]

TETON AUTHOR'S BOOK ALREADY EYED FOR A MOVIE

Tim Sandlin's new book, "Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty", is already gaining attention in Hollywood. The story of a bunch of elderly Baby Boomers, who have been institutionalized by their kids in a retirement facility called "Mission Pescadero", has been called a blend of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest meets The Alamo and Cocoon. While it represents yet another classic comedy for Sandlin, a longtime resident of Jackson Hole, this work is also far more deeply personal and introspective, bittersweet in its portrayal of how people grow old and heartfelt in the author's own reflections on what really matters when we take stock of the meaning of life. [more]

FAMED COLUMNIST A BOZEMAN GRANDMA

Today's America has grown up and come of age reading Ellen Goodman. The Pulitzer Prize winner, whose nationally syndicated column appears weekly in 375 newspapers across the county, is for good reason regarded as the grand dame of newspaper commentary. In recent years, she has cultivated a special personal affinity for the West. Her daughter, Katie, and son-in-law, Soren Kisiel, live in Bozeman, Mont. where they founded and oversee the nationally touring Equinox Theatre Company known for its improvisational and skit comedy. When Ellen Goodman is in Montana, she assumes a different role than scribe, that of grandmother. Recently, she made a public appearance at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, where New West caught up with her. [more]

A SEA CHANGE FOR WORLD'S LARGEST OIL COMPANY?

Is a titanic shift taking place at Exxon Mobil? Like a major piece of glacial ice cracking away from a larger continental ice sheet and calving into the sea, only to melt away, the largest oil producer in the world appears to be on the verge of seriously engaging greenhouse gas as a policy question rather than funneling millions of dollars to faux-think tanks created to deny the existence of global warming. Or so suggests a rapidly-developing story from Reuters reporter Timothy Gardner. The implication is that Exxon Mobil may be starting to distance itself from the shrinking group of climate change denialists. [more]

A 'TOURIST EVENT' IN BAKER, MONTANA

Coyotes. What good are they? "I don't know why God put them on this Earth. If He put them on this world to give us sport for hunting, maybe. But I'll tell you what, they do a lot of damage to livestock."

Thus says Jerrid Geving, a hunter and organizer of an annual coyote-calling and shooting contest in the hardscrabble town of Baker, located in far eastern Montana. The event is sheduled to commence again this weekend but will be accompanied by the kind of public outcry one mght expect. Originally started five years ago to attract tourist dollars to the tiny community, it offers $6,000 in prize money, according to a story written by Associated Press reporter Matthew Brown.

For myriad reasons, the contest is controversial, not the least of which is the contention made by its organizers that they're doing it on behalf of ranchers to help protect livestock. [more]

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