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Due West by Dan Whipple

There is a petroglyph panel in northern Wyoming has been reliably dated by archaeologists to about 12,400 years before the present. This makes it a very early record of human habitation in the American West.

And not long ago, you could have said that it was among the very earliest records of people living in the Rockies. For about 60 years, researchers have believed that humans known as the Clovis peoples migrated from Asia via the Bering land bridge and settled in North America, gradually working their way down into South America, incidentally driving the Pleistocene giants like the mammoth and mastodon to extinction along the way.

But this week researchers have published new carbon dates of Clovis sites that indicate that the Clovis cultures arrived about 11,050 years ago and survived only until about 10,900 years before the present. These new dates, which overturn wisdom about the peopling of America accepted since 1950, means that humans very likely inhabited the continent long before the Clovis. This in turn means that the family trees of today’s Indian tribes will have to be rewritten. [more]

We're Number 13!

The Earth Day Network released a report today ranking U.S. cities based on their overall goodness of environmental indicators.

Western cities fared pretty well in this effort. Out of 72 small, medium and large cities measured, Fargo was number one; Portland, three; Colorado Springs, four; Sioux Falls, five; Boise, six; Seattle, seven; Cheyenne, 12; Denver, 13; Billings, 14; Mesa, 16; Las Vegas, 26; and Phoenix, 30.

I’m a little disappointed with these results. Westerners are tough, roll-up-your-sleeves, git-’er-done kind of folks. It seems there isn’t much left to do. I mean, hell, anybody can live someplace nice. It takes real character, genuine gumption, to tough it out in Detroit (72) or Miami (71). [more]

Column: Due West by Dan Whipple

Among those of us who have been hurled from our horse or our car unprotected through a sagebrush landscape, it’s hard to arouse any tender feelings toward this humble plant. Despite its inviting gray-green coloration and its soft appearance in the dusky evening panorama, Artemisia does not provide a gentle cushion for folks loosed inconveniently from their conveyance. Sagebrush has all the gentle forgiveness of the Bush Iraq policy. Under the circumstances described, there seems to be too much sagebrush by half.

Plus, the damned stuff seems to be everywhere. So it comes as a surprise to discover, “Sagebrush is one of the most severely threatened bird habitats in the United States,” according to a new report by the American Bird Conservancy.

So while personally we can take sagebrush or leave it alone, we are very fond of birds, considering them to be the dinosaurs our parents would never lets us have when we were kids.
[more]

Column: Due West by Dan Whipple

The climate research community expelled a long collective breath last week as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its fourth “Summary for Policymakers,” a condensation of the most recent reliable scientific research on the warming earth.

The global take-home message from this effort was that, yes, the earth is getting warmer, and it will be between 1.8 degrees C (3.25 degrees Fahrenheit) and 4.0 degrees C (7.2 degrees F) warmer on average by the end of the 21st century than it was at the end of the 20th century. The actual temperature change will depend on how much greenhouse gas is pumped into the atmosphere.

In addition to the global message, though, there is news for the American West tucked away in the report. As computer model simulations have gotten more sophisticated, they are able to take a closer look at regional impacts that result from the changing climate. [more]

Column: Due West by Dan Whipple

John B. Kendrick was a classic rags-to-riches western story. A penniless, half-educated, Texas orphan, he moved to Wyoming, rising in the livestock industry until by the beginning of the 20th century he was one of the region’s biggest cattleman, with nine separate ranches in two counties in Wyoming and four counties in Montana.

In 1910, Kendrick was elected to the Wyoming state Senate. He became governor in 1914 and the first popularly elected U.S. Senator in 1916. He served in the Senate until 1933, when he died of a brain hemorrhage.

Like other ranchers of that era, Kendrick was plagued by wolves. In 1912, Kendrick paid a trapper $10 for dead pups and $20 for killing grown wolves, according to Cynde Georgen’s biography, One Cowboy’s Dream. His records indicate he paid out about $1,000 a year -- somewhere between 50 and 100 wolves annually removed from the gene pool.

Monday, in a widely expected action, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed removing the timber wolf in the Rockies from its list of threatened and endangered species. (This process is usually called “delisting,” but those of us attuned to the music of the English language have a hard time employing the word.) The outcry from the cattle and sheep producing states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming when the wolf was reintroduced was shrill. The reaction to the “delisting” (sigh) proposal is nearly as shrill, though spread a little more evenly among the population. [more]

Due West: Column By Dan Whipple

Poor Coyote. He gets blamed for everything.

The Crow say Coyote created the world. The Wasco say Coyote left two grizzly bears and two wolves in the sky to form the Big Dipper. The Colville say Coyote dug a hole in the Cascade Mountains to create the Columbia River Several tribes claim that Coyote brought the world fire, like Prometheus.

Coyote’s most popular role in tribal stories is as Trickster, the rebel against authority, the breaker of taboos. He is the sacred clown, buffoon, lecher, poacher, cheater. He’s also very crafty at destroying his enemies.

So Coyote was at it again last week, making the town of Baker, Montana and the organizers of an annual coyote hunt look foolish with his antics.

Billed as a tourist attraction, organizer Jerrid Geving also wrapped the event in the rural flag when he offered the hunt up as an effort predator control: “they do a lot of damage to livestock." [more]

Due West: Column by Dan Whipple

2006 was the warmest year on record, according to data released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). We can proudly boast that the interior West led the charge with average temperatures “much above normal” in every Western state from Mexico to Canada.

California, Oregon and Washington were only “above normal.” Hah! New Jersey was the nation’s hottest spot, setting a record for average warmth. Not a single state in the entire U.S.A. was near normal or below for the year. The average temperature for the nation was 55.01 degrees Fahrenheit. This is 2.2 degrees F above the mean average for the 20th century and a little warmer than the previous warmest year, 1998.

Now for those of us already convinced of the reality and importance of climate change, this comes as no surprise. We were ready for it, and fully expect 2007 to be warmer still. But what about those diehards who are atheistic or agnostic about global warming? Is this the smoking gun? Will they finally throw up their hands and say, “Don’t shoot, sheriff. Ya’ got me.” Does it mean that global warming is real? [more]

Due West, Column by Dan Whipple

Few of us are very good at predicting the future. Just ask any bookie. But no matter how cloudy your crystal ball is, you can take comfort in the fact that the predictive abilities of Western hard rock mining companies are even worse.

A report released in December, 2006, by the natural resources consulting firms Kuipers and Associates of Butte, Mont., and Buka Environmental of Boulder, Colo., for the environmental group Earthworks looked at the water quality predictions made by Western mining companies for environmental assessments prior to their mining operations. They then compared these predictions with what the actual water quality was after mining was under way.

And guess what? Nearly all the time, the mining operators predicted that there would be no impact or minimum impact to water quality as a result of their operations. But about three-quarters of the time, these predictions were wrong, resulting in either surface or groundwater quality deterioration in excess of established water quality standards. [more]

Due West: Column by Dan Whipple

At a daily newspaper, reporters dive under their desks when the editor comes around looking for somebody to do the weather story. Stories about the weather are boring. You’ve got to call up an “expert” and get her to tell you the same things you can see by looking out the window. A meteorologist must be roused from his customary torpor to describe the ninety-mile-and-hour wind howling through town, something the reporter can see himself from the patio by the parking lot.

The second problem with being assigned the weather story is the inherent implication that the reporter to catches the duty is too incompetent to do anything else. At the morning editorial meeting, the city editor says, “There’s a blizzard coming in. We’re gonna need somebody to cover the weather story.”

And the managing editor says, “Give it to Oscar. He couldn’t cover a dead dog with a blanket.” [more]

Due West

What’s an environmental issue?

Roger Pielke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder, says, “If you spend money on water security in sub-Saharan Africa, its certainly has environmental benefits. You have avoid policies that are too narrowly focused Take things like reducing conflict. The two Gulf Wars have had tremendous environmental consequences, but few people consider conflict reduction an environmental issue.”

In the 2006 book How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, edited by the Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Business School, a group of economists considered the costs and benefits of attempting to reduce civil wars. In their priorities of spending that $50 billion -- better world and so on -- the panel of experts were unable to decide whether reducing civil wars was a good idea or not. [more]

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