What Killed Washington's Carbon Tax?

CLEANUP CREWS EXPLOITED | WATER CONSERVATION = FEWER OWLS | SPORTSMEN GAIN INFLUENCE

High Country ForN people whoews care about the West WHAT KILLED WASHINGTON’S CARBON TAX? And what does it say about the future? By Kate Schimel January 21, 2019 | $5 | Vol. 51 No. 1 | www.hcn.org No. 51 | $5 Vol. 2019 January 21, CONTENTS

Editor’s note The greatest of apes

We are at a strange moment in history. On the one hand, a sizable percentage of Americans do not believe in human-caused climate change, as though facts can be rejected at will. On the other hand, people who do understand the implications of a warming planet seem incapable of doing much about it. Our politics will not allow it: Conservatives continually block climate change legislation, while liberals have done little to prioritize it. And yet, the future lurks ahead of us, promising a warmer world, where crops shift, seas rise and species die out. We humans, being such intelligent apes, will probably survive, and I suppose there’s some comfort in that. But it’s worth asking, at this moment, what is stopping climate action? During the 2018 midterms, the state of Washington was asked to vote on a fee that would have curbed emissions of carbon dioxide, the tricky little molecule that puffs from smokestacks and car exhaust and traps the sun’s Washington Gov. Jay Inslee speaks with people last June as he helps to gather signatures for a carbon tax energy in the atmosphere, creating the “greenhouse initiative. Voters in Washington state went on to reject the measure. PHUONG LE/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS effect.” As Associate Editor Kate Schimel reports in this issue’s cover story, the fee — seen by many as a FEATURE tax — failed. The question is: Why? Like a detective On the cover 14 What Killed Washington’s Carbon Tax? in a noir mystery, Schimel goes in search of Initiative The sun rises behind And what does it say about the future? By Kate Schimel 1631’s killer, examining the usual suspects — the the Space Needle in oil and gas lobby, for example — and seeking clues downtown Seattle, CURRENTS among researchers, policymakers and activists. What as seen last August emerges is a terrible plot twist: The culprit (spoiler through smoky skies 5 After natural disasters, workers face exploitation Immigrant alert) is us. created by wildfires laborers are especially vulnerable to health risks and wage theft in the Cascade Homo sapiens are the greatest of apes, and we Mountains and 5 The Latest: New research confirms snowpack changes have mastered the art of survival. Our eyes evolved British Columbia. 6 Can the tiny raptors to scan the savanna for predators, our hands to SIGMA SREEDHARAN Water savings may hurt burrowing owls adapt to changes in California’s warming fields? make stone tools and field-butcher carrion. Our 7 language helped us learn from our mistakes, to tell The Latest: Drilling push in ANWR complicated stories by firelight. We developed our 8 Indigenous podcasts elevate true crime First Nations reporters minds and leaped from an agricultural revolution reinvent a common formula to an industrial one. We’ve made amazing 10 Sportsmen flex their political muscles In the midterms, discoveries and invented complex systems, such as public land access issues helped several candidates nab governorships capitalism, to organize millions of people under tribal ideologies. But somewhere along the way, we DEPARTMENTS became the agents of our own undoing. The death of Washington’s carbon tax teaches 3 FROM OUR WEBSITE: HCN.ORG us a tough lesson: We have not yet learned to 4 LETTERS survive ourselves. For all our smarts, we are still dumb animals, unable to properly imagine the 12 THE HCN COMMUNITY Research Fund, Dear Friends threats of the future, unable to act. The last great Complete access to subscriber-only 12 MARKETPLACE lesson we must learn, then, is how to outsmart content 24 BOOKS ourselves. We must begin an ecological revolution, to find a way of being in the world that does not HCN’s website Extreme Conservation: Life at the Edges of the World by Joel Berger utterly consume it. Our politics, our policies, our hcn.org Reviewed by Michael Engelhard Digital edition habits, rituals, beliefs — all the stories that we tell hcne.ws/digi-5101 25 ESSAY ourselves — these must be realigned if the world The howl of an iconic wolf By Jacob Job as we know it is to survive us. It won’t be easy, and Follow us 27 PERSPECTIVE there will be casualties, like Initiative 1631. But that Cutting carbon requires both innovation and regulation does not mean we should give up. The time to act is  By Jonathan Thompson now. It always will be. @highcountrynews 28 HEARD AROUND THE WEST By Betsy Marston —Brian Calvert, editor-in-chief

2 High Country News January 21, 2019 FROM OUR WEBSITE: HCN.ORG

Trump’s EPA is reluctant to Trending punish law-breaking polluters It’s a mistake Under the Trump administration, the to keep parks Environmental Protection Agency is more likely to give polluters a pass when they open during violate laws intended to keep the air the shutdown healthy and water clean, according to recent In 2016, the National reporting by the Environmental Data and Irrigating in Park Service hosted Governance Initiative, a watchdog group. 320 million visitors, Nationally, EDGI found a 38 percent drop California, which is more than all Disney in the number of orders requiring polluters parks, major league to comply with the law, and a 50 percent entitled to more Colorado River baseball, football, drop in the number of fines between 2017 basketball and soccer and 2018. The EPA acknowledges a shift in water than any other of the games and NASCAR focus from “enforcement” to “compliance.” races combined. Under That means it’s likely to work less as a seven Colorado River Basin the current government cop than as an adviser to the companies shutdown, leaving the it regulates, an approach critics say could states. “LOCO STEVE,” parks open without incentivize companies to cut corners. “It’s CC VIA FLICKR essential staff is another iteration of EPA’s industry-friendly equivalent to leaving approach,” said EDGI member Marianne How to share the Colorado River the Smithsonian open Sullivan, a public health expert at William without any staff to Paterson University. “It says we’re prioritizing To stave off catastrophic Colorado River shortages haven’t figured out how to fund it. that could leave some Western communities protect its priceless industry’s needs and desires over the health New Mexico has signed onto the drought artifacts. Yet as a result of our environment and the health of our high and dry, the seven Upper and Lower Basin contingency agreement, but state water states are close to finalizing a deal to prepare of the shutdown, which communities.” CALLY CARSWELL managers are silent about what exactly the state furloughed most park for a much drier future. As negotiations over the has agreed to do to reduce its water use. Read more online: hcne.ws/reluctant-epa so-called drought contingency plans enter their staff, this is what has final stages, here are the biggest takeaways from Arizona is holding up the basin-wide plan happened. It is a viola- each state: because it can’t agree on how and where to cut tion of the stewardship its water use. Large agricultural economies in mandate, motivated Wyoming, which has more water than it needs, central Arizona, in particular, stand to lose. only by politics. While now will keep more water than previously in the Nevada has offered to forgo about 10 percent of the majority of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir to help regulate the public will be respect- level of Lake Powell. its Colorado River allocation if there is a shortage declaration that reduces water deliveries to ful, there will always Colorado farmers are weary of sacrificing water Nevada, Arizona and California. be a few who take to prop up Lake Powell. Agricultural interests on advantage of the op- the Western Slope say they will oppose a deal In California, a battle is brewing between portunity to do lasting that forces them to use less water because they Imperial Valley agriculture and the coastal cities. damage. JONATHAN believe such contributions should be voluntary. Growers are concerned that restrictions could B. JARVIS, WRITING IN violate their historical water rights and limit their has plans to grow, and it wants more water THE GUARDIAN Utah future use. to do so. The state wants to build a massive A coal-fired power plant in Hunter, Utah. You say “ARBYREED,” CC VIA FLICKR pipeline from Lake Powell to southern Utah. State PAIGE BLANKENBUEHLER officials say the project is necessary, but they Read more online: hcne.ws/river KATHY ROSENTHAL: “The parks should have been closed to the public. There is no Photos personal responsibility anymore. Leaving Metal is the parks open is yet “disenchantment another political move : by those that have no with everything appreciation for our establishment, national treasures.” society, the NANCY GRINDSTAFF: “It’s a mistake to have frustrations you have a shutdown.” in your life, socio- HUNTER GRAHAM: economic problems, “Gotta make excep- tions though, right? family problems, Yellowstone must stay not being provided open from the north entrance at Gardiner the resources or the to Cooke City at the opportunities that northeast entrance or else locals who don’t most people are given have snow machines everyday, just because would not be able to leave Cooke in the you’re on the rez. winter. Just sayin’.” —Jerold Cecil, manager for the Navajo heavy metal band” I Don’t Read more online: Konform, discussing why the 1980s hcne.ws/parks- musical genre resonates on the Navajo Nation. See more of shutdown and Clarke Tolton’s photos at Facebook.com/ The band Morbithory performs in Many Farms, Arizona, left. Mutilated Tyrant’s bass player, Laurence Tsosie, hcne.ws/metalheads highcountrynews in the back of bandmate Rory James’ truck. CLARKE TOLTON

Never miss a story. Sign up for the HCN newsletter at hcn.org/enewsletter. www.hcn.org High Country News 3 LETTERS Send letters to [email protected] or Editor, HCN, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428.

High Country News BRAINWASHED, ALT-RIGHT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/PUBLISHER Paul Larmer I had to read “Welcome to the Alt-Amer- EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ican West” (HCN, 12/24/18) a couple of Brian Calvert times for it to really sink in. A better ti- ART DIRECTOR Cindy Wehling tle would have been the “Alt-Right West,” DIGITAL EDITOR because that is mostly where the altered Gretchen King reality lies. What Editor-in-Chief Brian ASSOCIATE EDITORS Tristan Ahtone Calvert describes jibes with what I saw Maya L. Kapoor in a video years ago by a professor at the Kate Schimel University of Northern Colorado. He was ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR Luna Anna Archey researching why, in the face of scientific ASSISTANT EDITORS data and consensus, people deny climate Emily Benson change. In one scene, he was interview- Paige Blankenbuehler Anna V. Smith ing a man on the street, a very stereo- SCHOT, DE VOLKSKRANT, NETHERLANDS, DE VOLKSKRANT, CAGLECARTOONS.COMSCHOT, EDITOR AT LARGE typical old, fat jowly white guy. As the in- Betsy Marston terviewer recited his facts and figures, in COPY EDITOR sudden exasperation, the big guy blurted Diane Sylvain CONTRIBUTING EDITORS out, “Look, I know it’s true. I just don’t Graham Brewer believe it.” When I read Newt Gingrich’s Cally Carswell Ruxandra Guidi explanation of essentially the same Michelle Nijhuis thing, the conclusion I draw is that there Jodi Peterson isn’t much difference between a person’s Carl Segerstrom testing the incomplete cleanup. Perhaps get too excited about a few fibers from deliberately altered beliefs despite facts, Jonathan Thompson the Mothers for Nuclear should meet my tech clothes. CORRESPONDENTS and being brainwashed. with the mothers of Santa Susana. Krista Langlois, Julie Smith Sarah Tory, Tay Wiles, Mark De Gregorio Carole Hisasue Golden, Colorado Joshua Zaffos Masonville, Colorado EDITORIAL FELLOWS San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace Elena Saavedra Buckley, Los Osos, California FIGHT FOR MULE DEER Jessica Kutz NUCLEAR PROPAGANDA EDITORIAL INTERN In my 70 years in Wyoming, I have wit- Nick Bowlin I was very disappointed by “Generation PERVASIVE PLASTICS VS. TECH CLOTHES nessed a steady decline in mule deer DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Atomic” (HCN, 12/10/18), which read like Regarding microplastics in “Welcome numbers (“The record-breaking journey Laurie Milford pro-nuke propaganda. Uranium mining, PHILANTHROPY ADVISOR to the Plastocene,” (HCN, 11/26/18) and of Deer 255,” HCN, 8/20/18). Fields that milling, processing and transport all take Alyssa Pinkerton the letter “Patagonia’s plastics” (HCN, once hosted hundreds of deer now have DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE up a huge amount of natural resources 12/24/18), it feels like we’re continuing dozens. The proliferation of “town deer” Hannah Stevens and produce carbon emissions. Further- DIGITAL MARKETER to jump on the last thing we heard, like is not a healthy sign, either. These deer more, nuclear waste, which remains toxic Chris King it’s our biggest issue, while forgetting have lost their ability to migrate, so they EVENTS & BUSINESS PARTNER for hundreds of thousands of years, is about the bigger underlying reasons for don’t benefit from migration’s diverse COORDINATOR Laura Dixon currently stored in thin-walled stainless WEB APPLICATION DEVELOPER the problem. Plastics in outdoor clothing nutrition. You don’t have to be a veteri- steel canisters in the United States, un- Eric Strebel is certainly a concern, but it’s dwarfed narian to see that their health is not like the more robust casks that are the IT MANAGER Alan Wells compared to the general once-through optimal. Mule deer stick to their migra- IT SUPPORT TECHNICIAN standard for the rest of the world. At plastic that pervades every aspect of our tion paths more than other big game and Josh McIntire California’s San Onofre nuclear power ACCOUNTANT existence in this modern world of conve- are very sensitive to disruptions in their plant, corroded, cracking canisters, full Erica Howard nience. home ranges. This makes them espe- of highly radioactive waste, are sitting ACCOUNTS ASSISTANT I have been working for years to cially vulnerable to energy development Mary Zachman dangerously close to the ocean. In the eliminate plastics from my life: refusing in crucial habitat. Pinedale, Wyoming, CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER process of moving them farther from the Christie Cantrell to buy bottled water or use plastic grocery has documented a 40 percent decline in shore and into storage holes, a canister CUSTOMER SERVICE bags, asking the meat counter for meat its local herd, even as hunting brings Kathy Martinez (Circ. once nearly fell 18 feet. packaged in paper, keeping my own stain- $300 million a year to the state. Systems Administrator), Once there is an accident, there is Rebecca Hemer, Karen less steel cup handy to avoid to-go cups Without habitat protections, mule no way to completely decontaminate the Howe, Pam Peters, with plastic lids, and so on. I even make deer will diminish, along with hunting Doris Teel environment, as we have seen in Cher- GRANTWRITER my own personal care products, deodor- opportunities and revenue. Meanwhile, Janet Reasoner nobyl, Ukraine, and Fukushima, Japan. [email protected] ant, tooth powder and liquid soap, which the Bureau of Land Management has no Even decades later, radiation levels [email protected] my partner and I sell locally. I haven’t enforceable measures in place to prevent [email protected] remain frighteningly high in rural and thrown a toothpaste tube away in prob- oil and gas interests from fragmenting [email protected] “wild” areas. In the Western U.S., this [email protected] ably 10 years, preferring to refill and re- and disrupting narrow migration corri- will turn into a double threat, due to the FOUNDER Tom Bell use my same plastic bottle repeatedly. dors and winter range. Wyoming should frequency and scale of wildfires. BOARD OF DIRECTORS Once habits that avoid plastic are not allow itself to be treated like a sec- John Belkin, Colo. Recently, a wide area of Southern established, they take hold and are hard ond-class energy colony. We are, in fact, Beth Conover, Colo. California was exposed to radiation Jay Dean, Calif. to break. We all make purchasing deci- one of the last places on the planet that when the Woolsey Fire broke out at the Bob Fulkerson, Nev. sions every day of our lives that either has an intact ecosystem, and it is up to Anastasia Greene, Wash. Santa Susana Field Lab, site of a partial help to reduce the problem of plastic or all of us to let the BLM know that we will Wayne Hare, Colo. meltdown in 1959. Since the accident, Laura Helmuth, Md. contribute to it. Until we can get control not let this be taken away without a fight. horrifying cancer clusters have been John Heyneman, Wyo. of all the other simple ways we can say Osvel Hinojosa, Mexico documented within a 2-mile radius. Res- Nic Patrick no to the once-through plastic that is 99 Samaria Jaffe, Calif. idents are once again rallying and pro- Cody, Wyoming Nicole Lampe, Ore. percent of the problem, I’m not going to Marla Painter, N.M. Bryan Pollard, Ark. Raynelle Rino, Calif. High Country News is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) independent 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post Estee Rivera Murdock, Colo. media organization that covers the issues that define the offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to High Country News, Rick Tallman, Colo. High American West. Its mission is to inform and inspire people Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All rights to publication of articles Luis Torres, N.M. to act on behalf of the region’s diverse natural and human in this issue are reserved. See hcn.org for submission guidelines. Andy Wiessner, Colo. Country communities. (ISSN/0191/5657) is published bi-weekly, 22 Subscriptions to HCN are $37 a year, $47 for institutions: Florence Williams, D.C. News times a year, by High Country News, 119 Grand Ave., Paonia, CO 800-905-1155 | hcn.org Printed on recycled paper. 4 High Country News January 21, 2019 CURRENTS After natural disasters, workers face exploitation Immigrant laborers are especially vulnerable to health risks and wage theft BY JESSICA KUTZ

hen the Camp Fire swept through often performed through temporary con- Undocumented status can also make Wthe town of Paradise in Northern tracts — or in many cases by day labor- workers easy targets for wage theft in the California, it destroyed more than 18,000 ers — the thinking is that safety-related rebuilding period following natural disas- structures in its path. The wildfire expenses just aren’t worth the cost. Last ters, according to the nonprofit American reduced schools, churches, residences and year, San Francisco-based public media Public Health Association. Examples businesses to piles of rubble and toxic outlet KQED detailed several allegations include not being paid final wages when a JEFF VANUGA ash, and a years-long project of cleanup of worker safety violations by Ashbritt job is done, or getting bad checks. Indeed, and rebuilding is now underway. If his- Inc., a company that held one of the larg- researchers at the University of Illinois tory serves as any indicator, immigrants est cleanup contracts after 2017’s wild- found that over a quarter of immigrant THE LATEST will play an outsized role in completing fires. In response, Ashbritt CEO Brittany day laborers interviewed, many of whom this hazardous work, a common pattern Perkins maintained that the company were undocumented, were victims of wage Backstory after natural disasters. But economics addressed protective gear concerns. In the theft after Hurricane Harvey. At a public More than 700 and immigration status can leave them company’s core values, she said, “Number meeting in Houston, workers spoke about SNOTEL telemetry stations run by the vulnerable to exploitation in dangerous one is safety first.” their experiences with exploitation after federal government cleanup situations. the hurricane, The Guardian reported. sit in high-mountain While some of the recovery after a ndocumented workers are a large “It’s sad, because we all count on our watersheds in 13 natural disaster is done by people trained U part of disaster cleanup crews and weekly pay to survive,” explained Claudia Western states, to handle hazardous materials, many sub- their immigration status makes them (last name withheld) who is originally delivering vital contractors utilize an informal labor force even more vulnerable, especially if they’ve from Colombia. Her employer disappeared data about water made up of construction crews, domestic been impacted by a disaster personally. before she was paid for her work after the supply (“Taking workers and day laborers, who lack that Undocumented residents don’t qualify for hurricane, she told The Guardian. “Many water’s measure,” training. But dangers hide among the certain Federal Emergency Management of my co-workers are fearful that another HCN, 6/13/16). damage: A job as innocuous as remov- Agency benefits, a government program contractor will come and do the same Climate models using SNOTEL data ing furniture from a damaged house or that assists natural disaster victims. And thing to them.” predict a decline in ripping out drywall, for example, might if they or someone from their family lacks Workers also experienced wage theft Western snowpack, expose a worker to asbestos and mold, tox- legal status, “they might be less likely after the 2017 wildfires in California, with earlier melting ins that can have long-term health effects. to have evacuated to shelters or sought Marquez said, citing instances where com- in spring — thereby The $3 billion cleanup of this year’s out help, because of fear in the current panies paid day laborers with debit cards increasing the risk of California fires, for its part, will entail political climate,” said Elizabeth Fussell, that ended up being scams. floods, droughts and everything from removing felled trees and a researcher who studied the arrival To help prevent these types of abuses severe wildfires. large pieces of debris to containing haz- of the Latino labor force in the wake of at disaster cleanups, groups like the ardous chemicals like pesticides and paint Hurricane Katrina. University of California, Berkeley’s Labor Followup solvents. California has standards in place The fear of deportation can prevent Occupational Health Program dispatch In December, to protect workers, including laws that laborers from reporting unsafe work con- trainers to work centers to educate labor- University of Arizona researchers presented require employers to provide proper train- ditions. “Many of these communities are ers about the hazards of wildfire cleanup, new on-the-ground ing and protective gear. But the state’s very fearful of anything that has to do how to advocate for their rights, and how findings supporting enforcement mechanism for these rules — with the government,” said Martinez. This to use basic protective gear. At a time when these predictions. the Division of Occupational Safety and fear is well-founded. In 2005, immigration employers are shirking their responsibili- Using SNOTEL data Health, or Cal/OSHA — is severely under- officials impersonated OSHA officers in ties, Martinez said, knowledge is power. and other tools, the resourced, said Jessica Martinez, the co- North Carolina to lure laborers to a meet- “Our concern is that these workers have scientists laid out executive director of the National Council ing, where they made dozens of arrests. access to basic training.” a grid of squares, for Occupational Safety and Health, a 2.5 mile on a side, federation of worker-advocacy groups. across the U.S. — a The department is authorized to employ much finer resolution than previous 40- just 275 inspectors, which amounts to one mile squares — and inspector for roughly every 60,000 work- studied snow records ers in the state. A complaint “could take between 1982 and years” to be investigated, she said. That 2016. In parts of the leaves employers with little scrutiny into West, annual snow their workplace safety practices. mass has declined “Legally (employers) are supposed to by 41 percent, and provide a healthy and safe working envi- the snow season ronment,” said Nicole Marquez, a senior is 34 days shorter. Scripps Institute staff attorney with Worksafe, a California- of Oceanography based workers-rights organization. “But climatologist Amato a lot of times that just doesn’t happen.” Evan told the San Paying for trainings and protective gear Diego Union-Tribune like N95 masks, which protect against that “climate change things like mold, takes money from a in the Western U.S. business’ bottom line. Because the work is is not something we will see in the next 50 years. We can see it Jessica Kutz is an editorial fellow at right now.” High Country News.  @jkutzie Work crews clean up Santa Rosa, California, after the Tubbs Fire in 2017. JEFF CHIU/AP IMAGES FILE JODI PETERSON www.hcn.org High Country News 5 Water savings may hurt burrowing owls Can the tiny raptors adapt to irrigation changes in California’s warming fields? BY LIZA GROSS

n a scorching September morning, the Imperial Irrigation District, pounds a happy accident of industrial agriculture, O three curious young owls peer out stake with a bright pink ribbon stamped when they were mostly left to their own from a burrow carved out of a sunbaked “owl burrow” into the parched ground next devices. But that began to change when irrigation ditch. They train their bright to the ditch. She flags burrows anytime a the Imperial Irrigation District was forced yellow eyes on me, barely moving a feather. district project could disturb nesting owls, to find ways to conserve water in a farm- “There’s one hunkered down, pretending to help maintenance and construction to-city transfer agreement negotiated in to be a rock,” says Stevie Sharp, pointing workers avoid them. 2003. Now, after years of water-tighten- to a slightly larger owl, perhaps the trio’s For decades, the Imperial Valley, where ing measures — and increasing loss of parent, standing sentry above the burrow. the hardpan Sonoran desert meets the farmland to renewable energy produc- “Sometimes you see them, sometimes you verdant agricultural fields that stretch tion — biologists worry that owls may not don’t.” from Mexico to the Salton Sea, has pro- be able to adapt to this rapidly changing Today, Sharp and I see plenty of owls, vided an improbable refuge for these owls. landscape. a bird nearly every 20 feet or so, along They were once relatively scarce here, but “Numerous efforts to conserve water, the hay fields or perched atop stakes now the valley harbors 70 percent of the which is a good thing, have taken a toll scattered along one of the hundreds of state’s population, thanks to a 3,100-mile on the burrowing owls,” says Courtney canals that deliver Colorado River water irrigation system that transformed this Conway, director of the U.S. Geological to half a million acres of farmland in stretch of desert into a multibillion-dol- Survey’s Idaho Cooperative Fish and Southern California’s Imperial Valley. lar agricultural industry. The sprawling Wildlife Research Unit and professor at Sharp, an environmental specialist with patchwork of irrigated farmland offered the University of Idaho. owls the ecological equivalent of big-city “It’s a conundrum,” says Conway, a living: Round-tailed ground squirrels eas- leading authority on burrowing owls. The An owl perches on Liza Gross is an independent journalist based ily tunnel through the earthen canals, population grew as owls took advantage a stake marking its in the San Francisco Bay Area who writes about providing abundant nesting sites, and of an artificial system and a laissez-faire burrow near a dirt the intersection of science and society. She is the agricultural fields support a well-stocked approach to water delivery, he says. “Now road and field. author of The Science Writers’ Investigative buffet of insects and rodents. they’re declining in the Imperial Valley LIZA GROSS FOR HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Reporting Handbook.  @lizabio Burrowing owls flourished here as a because we as a society are trying to get better at water conservation there.”

mperial Valley agriculture has depended I on imported water since entrepreneurs dug the first canal to divert water from the Colorado in 1900. The All-American Canal now provides that lifeline, turning a region with about 3 inches of rain a year into one of the nation’s most productive farming areas. The Imperial Valley, aided by year-round irrigation, produces 100 different crops, from alfalfa hay to wheat, and supplies about two-thirds of the nation’s winter vegetables. Western burrowing owls love to con- gregate along the lateral canals fed by one of the three main arteries that carry Colorado water to the irrigation district. They mostly tolerate the low roar of hay balers and passing trucks but invariably scatter as I approach, diving through the air like dolphins before alighting about 40 feet away. From a safe distance, they start hissing and bobbing, hoping I’ll go away. Nesting season has ended, but remnants of scat, clothing and other scavenged tid- bits still adorn their burrow entrances, likely signaling other owls to find another nest. This robin-sized raptor, barely heavier than a baseball, once bred throughout North America’s grasslands and deserts. But populations have tumbled nearly 40 percent over the past several decades, victims of our penchant for developing open 6 High Country News January 21, 2019 beyond the burrows, white-faced ibises, gulls and cattle egrets join owls to feast on the insects that feed on the crops. They had far more food when alfalfa farmers routinely flooded their fields. “Crickets and other bugs start pop- ping up from the ground, and the birds quickly tune into that and feed along the advancing line of water,” says Christian Schoneman, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist and manager of the Sonny Bono NATHANIEL WILDER Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge. THE LATEST “You’ll get thousands of birds feeding in a single field taking advantage of this.” Backstory As growers have turned to sprin- Some Republicans kler irrigation, which uses about half and energy of the water that flood irrigation uses, companies have Schoneman says, owls and other birds long sought access to the estimated 10 have lost that food source. billion barrels of Less water in the fields also means recoverable crude that less water is diverted to California’s oil in the coastal largest and most endangered lake, the plain of Alaska’s Salton Sea, which supports millions of Arctic National overwintering birds. Wildlife Refuge. Though irrigators and farmers have been careful to not harm burrowing owls, the birds now Biologists think burrowing owls from The 1.5-million- face the threat of more efficient irrigation decreasing their food supply. LIZA GROSS other regions may overwinter here, too. acre area provides And though most Imperial Valley owls essential habitat for caribou calving, polar spaces, spraying pesticides and perse- crushed an owl, according to reports filed stay here year-round, Conway says, it’s bears and migratory cuting the burrowing animals that build with the state. Yet even the best avoidance possible that some disperse to a hand- birds. Although their subterranean hideaways. methods can’t be 100 percent accurate, ful of dwindling populations along the environmentalists, California listed Western burrow- Rosenberg says. “There are just too many coast. “We can’t say for sure that Imperial Alaska Native groups ing owls as a “species of special concern” owls and too much landscape.” Valley owls are providing that source,” he and moderate in 1978. Conservation groups petitioned The tiny raptors must also contend says, “but it’s likely that they’re at least Republicans tried to the state to list the birds as threatened with vehicle collisions, pets and illegal contributing.” protect it, Congress or endangered in 2003 — the same year shootings, along with loss of habitat to The state promised to come up with a passed a bill in 2017 water managers ramped up conservation development and a burgeoning renewable comprehensive conservation plan to pro- requiring the Bureau of Land Management measures — but officials refused, pointing energy industry. Agriculture is still the tect California’s declining populations in to begin leasing to the healthy Imperial Valley population. main economic driver in the valley. But 2008, but never did. “We ran out of money,” the area to energy Now, that population appears to be declin- farmland is increasingly being converted says Esther Burkett, statewide coordina- companies (“In Alaska, ing as well. Conway thinks lining 23 miles to solar, wind and geothermal projects to tor for burrowing owls for the California wildlands lose out to of the All-American Canal with concrete meet California’s Renewables Portfolio Department of Fish and Wildlife. State roads and drill rigs,” to prevent water from seeping into the Standard, which requires utilities to get officials drafted conservation guidelines HCN, 2/28/18). dirt banks may have contributed to the a third of their electricity from renewable in 2012, but they have no regulatory teeth. decline by inadvertently destroying suit- sources by 2020. The state still needs to get a better handle Followup able nesting sites. Ironically enough, the owls are in on population trends and how owls are In late December, Breeding pairs in district lands trouble because we’re getting better at affected by being relocated, Burkett says. the BLM released dropped from about 6,500 in the early conserving resources: Loss of farmland to Lack of information is not the prob- an environmental 1990s to 4,000 in 2012, according to green energy development, much like lin- lem, Rosenberg believes. “Nobody wants impact statement Audubon California’s latest estimates. ing dirt canals with concrete, means loss to make these decisions because of the for ANWR’s coastal plain whose three Irrigation district surveys in 2017 identi- of habitat for burrowing owls. impact on development,” he says. “Instead, options would open fied about 3,330 burrows, but did not esti- Owls are often relocated to accom- they’ve been moving (owls) around — call- between 66 and mate owl numbers. modate solar farms and other renewable ing it mitigation, as if that solves the 100 percent of it to Figuring out how many owls live in energy projects in programs the state calls problem.” leasing. The agency the irrigation district is far less impor- “mitigation,” Rosenberg says. “You might The good news, says Conway, is that acknowledges that tant than improving methods to avoid call it humane removal, in the sense that burrowing owls are highly adaptable. development could them, says Dan Rosenberg, an ecolo- you’re moving it out of harm’s way,” he “There are so many other species, like impact subsistence gist at the Oregon Wildlife Institute says. “But you’re not protecting that owl sage grouse, where it just takes a little hunters and wildlife, and Oregon State University who has population. If you’re going to develop an development and they’re gone,” he says. cause water and air pollution, greenhouse advised the Imperial Irrigation District. area and you’re not increasing their habi- “Burrowing owls are definitely not that gas emissions, loss Rosenberg reported in 2006 that mainte- tat somewhere else, it will cause a decline. way.” of permafrost and nance of canals and roads inadvertently It’s not mitigation.” Yet, as the decline of the owls through- vegetation, and buried three owls in their burrows near out their range attests, even this highly reduced recreational the Salton Sea. Yet maintenance can also he loamy soil that supports the cornu- adaptable species has its limits. For opportunities, but en- benefit owls by clearing vegetation from T copia of crops here retains the gray- decades, these plucky little raptors ergy companies have canals, giving them a clear line of sight ish, red-brown palette of the surrounding thrived on the incidental benefits of an already applied to to hunt and avoid predators. Thanks to desert. That palette suits the burrowing artificial landscape managed for farm- begin seismic explora- water district training programs, no owls owls’ spotted coats, which make them ing, not wildlife. But if the conditions that tion. Public comment on the BLM study is have been killed over the past decade, nearly impossible to spot against the sun- allowed burrowing owls to bloom in this open until Feb. 11. aside from one incident, when a worker dappled earth — until a vulture flies over- desert disappear, they’ll need more than JODI PETERSON knocked a piece of concrete loose and head and the “earth” looks up. In the fields benign neglect to survive.

www.hcn.org High Country News 7 Indigenous podcasts elevate true crime First Nations reporters reinvent a common formula BY ELENA SAAVEDRA BUCKLEY

n May 2017, Connie Walker, a longtime and Thunder Bay weave true crime and I reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Indigenous history together — deploying Corporation, walked through Park View a trusted formula to reveal a world fre- Cemetery in Medford, New Jersey. It was quently invisible to non-Indigenous listen- a sunny morning, with birds squawking, ers, but reaching beyond the violence that and Walker held a microphone to pick up draws much of the public’s attention. the crunchy footsteps that she and her In the cemetery, Walker gasps. “There producer, Marnie Luke, made among the it is,” she says, spotting the headstone. graves. Walker and Luke stand quietly in front Walker knew what she was look- of it. The discovery is a turning point that ing for; she’d seen a photograph of the will lead Walker to documents about Cleo’s squat headstone for 13-year-old “Beloved adoption and to people who knew her dur- “That’s the Daughter, Cleo L. Madonia,” born 1965, ing her short lifetime. Walker works like a died 1978. “It’s quiet here, which is good,” detective in reverse — she finds the grave power of Walker narrated, “because I imagine we’re to confirm Cleo’s death, but it’s a better Indian residential schools, some of which a strange sight.” clue to the mystery of her complicated life. survived into the 1990s. Cleo’s mother, storytelling, The cemetery search begins the fourth Lillian, was sent to one. “I know that to and that’s the episode of Missing and Murdered: Finding n the four years since Serial, the true- understand Cleo, I have to understand Cleo, the second season of Walker’s popu- I crime show so trailblazing it was sim- what her mother went through,” Walker power of being lar podcast. Finding Cleo investigates ply named after its format, podcasts have narrates. able to create what happened to Cleopatra Semaganis become a formidable medium. If audi- Walker prefers being this kind of his- Nicotine, a Cree girl from the Little ences keep growing, within two years, torical detective. “Some of the feedback space, to have Pine Reserve in Saskatchewan, Canada, more than half of all Americans will have we got that was the most meaningful was empathy, and who was forcibly taken by social work- listened to podcasts. Major publications people who said, ‘I thought I knew about ers, adopted in the United States, and have reporters who cover them as a beat, residential schools and about their legacy, to connect given a new name. Over the course of the and juicy ones like Dirty John have been but now I understand it in a different with people show, Walker, also a Cree woman from adapted for television. Gimlet Media, a way,’” she said. “That’s the power of story- Saskatchewan, and Cleo’s biological sib- for-profit podcast network started in 2014, telling, and that’s the power of being able who have been lings learn how Cleo ended up in Medford produces 24 shows and routinely brings in to create space, to have empathy, and to misrepresented and what happened in the final moments millions of dollars. connect with people who have been mis- of her short life. Investigative and true-crime podcasts represented in the media.” in the media.” Finding Cleo is generally considered have reached the point of parody. Saturday Walker isn’t a big fan of true crime –Connie Walker, host of a true-crime podcast, giving it the advan- Night Live has spoofed them more than podcasts herself, but she appreciates their Missing and Murdered: tages of the increasingly popular genre; at once. A sketch about an award show called ability to guide listeners to bigger ideas. A Finding Cleo the time of this writing, six out of 10 pod- “The Poddys” includes categories like longtime television reporter for the CBC, casts in Apple’s top U.S. charts involved “Best Nervous White Girl In A Place She she had never produced a podcast before murders, swindlers or nightmarish doc- Doesn’t Belong.” In her acceptance speech, the first season of Missing and Murdered, tors. Finding Cleo has been downloaded the award winner thanks “the thousands which focused on the killing of a Gitxsan over 17 million times and frequently of women who chose to listen to gruesome woman named Alberta Williams. The appears at the top of Canadian podcast confessions of neo-Nazis while walking on form, she realized, could provide the time charts, along with Thunder Bay, a podcast their treadmills.” and context for stories that two-minute by Anishinaabe host Ryan McMahon that Good parody only comes from familiar- news spots couldn’t. investigates crimes against Indigenous ity, something reporters like Walker use to In Finding Cleo, time is reserved for residents in Thunder Bay, Ontario. their advantage. The true-crime elements talking about the reporting itself. For But Finding Cleo doesn’t focus on of Missing and Murdered: Finding Cleo Walker, transparently discussing the diffi- a death for its own sake. The story’s — scattered clues, cliffhangers — work culties of reporting traumatic events is one true mystery lies in systems that dwarf to push listeners toward the structures of the podcast’s most enduring elements. a single event: the Canadian govern- behind events. Much of the show centers She wrestles with whether to interview ment, child welfare practices, Indian on the Sixties Scoop, when Canadian one of Cleo’s siblings, April, who lives with residential schools and the colonial lega- social workers moved tens of thousands of bipolar depression. “I know that Finding cies that shadow Indigenous lives. The Indigenous children into foster and adop- Cleo is so important to her family, and this Indigenous reporters behind Finding Cleo tive homes. In Saskatchewan, the Adopt family’s story deserves to be told,” she says Indian Métis program ran ads about avail- in the episode. “But I don’t want to make Elena Saavedra Buckley is an editorial fellow able children in newspapers, on television life more difficult for any of them.” at High Country News.  @elenasb_ and on the radio. Walker also interrogates These practices are somewhat rare in

8 High Country News January 21, 2019 the field. Maya Goldberg-Safir is the artis- that propped up its patterns of violence. It could be that American listeners Left, Connie Walker tic director of the Third Coast International “There are podcasts that try to solve simply choose This American Life over tells the stories of Audio Festival, known as “the Oscars of murders,” McMahon says in the first epi- Canadian stories. McMahon, however, Indigenous women radio,” which this year awarded Finding sode. “This isn’t one of those podcasts. The thinks otherwise: “The U.S. has no inter- and children in her Cleo “Best Serialized Story.” “I sort of ate it question I’m trying to answer is not who est in remembering that Indigenous podcast, Missing and up,” she said about the show. She thought killed all those kids. It’s what killed all voices are still there,” he said. Murdered. CBC MEDIA CENTRE the true-crime genre gained a new edge those kids.” “What we’re talking about is an indus- in Walker’s hands. “She’s not only tell- Thunder Bay profiles webs of crime try that has yet to make space for us on Above, Thunder Bay, ing us the story, but she’s demonstrating and the colonial patterns that created purpose,” he said. “We have the chance Ontario’s high murder how to tell the story,” Goldberg-Safir said. them. It’s a collage rather than a case to make sure that the space is equitable, rate and government “We heard Sarah Koenig tell the process file, often highlighting the reporting of diverse and empowered by ensuring that corruption are of Serial, but I think Connie’s process is local journalists. One episode details the there are certain voices at the table. But explored in Ryan particularly important to her.” mayor’s involvement in protecting a law- we have to do that on purpose.” McMahon’s podcast. Walker clearly feels at home in parts of yer accused of sex abuse; another explores MÉLANIE/FLICKR CC Finding Cleo, particularly when she’s vis- the city’s community of sex workers; and hen Finding Cleo won “Best iting the Little Pine First Nation or hear- another, one of the most affecting, traces W Serialized Story” at Third Coast, it ing people speak Cree. This instinctual the pattern of uninvestigated disappear- competed with “the most well-resourced sensitivity is helpful during interviews, ances of Indigenous teenagers. As in and funded institutions in American pod- and it allows Walker, and her listeners, Finding Cleo, structural racism connects casting,” Goldberg-Safir said. Standing to access an internal bank of experience. the dots. with her team at the Chicago award cere- Walker’s emotions are not a separate layer Like Walker, McMahon isn’t on Team mony, Connie Walker accepted the trophy of the podcast; they’re organic outgrowths True Crime. He considers the genre “sort — a custom-made wooden radio — noting from the collective weight of many stories of bottom of the barrel,” with podcasts how the issues they investigated haven’t like Cleo’s. that often value morbidity over thought- ended. fulness. “But I will say that a lot of the top “(Indigenous children) are still being yan McMahon knows few things as true-crime stuff is subverting the genre.” separated from their parents and their R well as a microphone. He’s worked as Finding Cleo, In the Dark and My Favorite families and communities, and ending up a standup comedian for years, and pod- Murder are among his favorites. in the child welfare system. Indigenous casting isn’t new to him: He hosts two Listeners appreciate Thunder Bay’s women and girls are still disproportion- and runs an Indigenous podcast network. approach; the podcast has made it to the ately victims of violence in Canada and in But making Thunder Bay, distributed by top of Canada’s Apple charts, and it broke the United States,” she said. Canadaland, felt different. into the U.S.’s top 100, which McMahon As a part of the award, Finding Cleo McMahon grew up in the Couchiching called a rare feat for a Canadian podcast. was distributed to public radio stations First Nation, a small community in Ontario (Finding Cleo made it all the way to num- around the country, allowing Americans to on the Minnesota border. He always knew ber two in the U.S.) But neither show up stumble across the podcast and skirt the about the problems of nearby Thunder on Apple’s U.S. list of the best podcasts of “subscribe” button. Bay, population 100,000, that affect its 2018, nor do they appear on many publica- The special aired during Thanksgiving Indigenous communities: a high murder tions’ year-end roundups, losing out to the weekend, a fraught time for many rate, dangerous encounters for Indigenous usual goliaths: The New York Times’ The Indigenous people in the U.S. As Isabel residents and government corruption. Daily and Caliphate, or the third season Vázquez, Third Coast’s producer, noted: McMahon wanted to investigate the forces of Serial. That felt right.

www.hcn.org High Country News 9 Anna Ortega on the hunt Sportsmen flex their political muscles for rising trout outside In the midterms, public land access issues helped several candidates nab governorships of Laramie, Wyoming. BY CASSIDY RANDALL BEN KRAUSHAAR

n Dec. 2, 2017, onstage in a cavernous protect access and voting down guber- and hunting is not allowed in national O auditorium at Boise State University, natorial candidates who threaten public parks. In 1972, for example, state lead- two of the three Republican hopefuls for lands. As state legislatures shift in 2019, ers from both parties ended a decades- Idaho governor, Lt. Gov. Brad Little and sportsmen’s groups are positioning them- long fight over making the Sawtooths a businessman Tommy Ahlquist, discussed selves to fight the administration’s ero- national park by designating the region their views on public lands in front of sion of public-land protections. a national recreation area, thereby pro- a crowd of hunters and anglers. The tecting its status as popular hunting forum, sponsored by the Idaho Wildlife n the early 20th century, conservation grounds. In 2016, tensions boiled over Federation, Trout Unlimited, and 16 other I became a political issue in America, when Texas billionaire brothers Dan and sportsmen’s groups, was a pivotal one in fueled largely by Theodore Roosevelt’s Farris Wilks purchased vast chunks of old a state where public lands are a defining desire to protect rich hunting and fishing timber company land that recreationists issue. The third candidate was conspicu- grounds. Republicans carried on that leg- had long used to access adjacent public ously absent: Rep. Raúl Labrador, whose acy until the early 1990s, when the GOP lands. Gates appeared on roads, cutting voting record in the House had already began opposing environmental initia- off hunters, anglers and off-road vehicles. proved him a staunch public-lands critic. tives. Once President Donald Trump took As the Wilkses bought increasing tracts, In a political climate marked by pub- office in 2016, his administration slashed people’s frustrations grew, marked by lic-land threats, Labrador’s absence spoke national monuments and put increasing enraged comments on news articles and volumes, and he lost the primary to Little amounts of public land up for resource letters to the editor. A confrontation at a by 5 points. “In not coming to a sports- extraction. In Congress, Republicans property line between an armed security men’s forum, you allow everyone to fill in refused to renew the Land and Water guard and a recreationist helped push the blanks,” said Michael Gibson, Idaho Conservation Fund, a popular program Idaho lawmakers to update trespassing field coordinator for Trout Unlimited. that safeguards natural areas. law, which sowed further unrest. “Critics “Gov.-elect Little was willing to come in In the West, the Utah, Montana and sought the entire session to pin the bill on front of hunters and anglers and say he Nevada state legislatures have introduced Dan and Farris Wilks, the Texas billion- supports public lands.” In a state where resolutions urging the transfer of federal aires who have angered hunters, ATV rid- only 12 percent of voters are registered lands to state ownership. Sportsmen’s ers, campers and local officials in central Democrats, that primary victory all but groups generally oppose such transfers, Idaho after they closed off 172,000 acres handed Little the governorship. as they would likely limit public access. of forest they bought in 2016,” the Idaho Republicans were once instrumental in In Wyoming, for example, state parks ban Statesman reported. passing laws like the 1964 Wilderness Act camping, preventing multi-day backcoun- Voters like Jerry and Terry Myers, who and the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. try hunting and fishing trips. In addition, manage a ranch and run guided fishing In recent decades, however, the party has state land is managed to fund schools, trips on the Salmon River, made public developed a reputation as the enemy of which means potentially cutting off pub- lands protections a central issue in the public lands, a stance further solidified by lic access in favor of gravel pits, increased Republican gubernatorial primary. “We the Trump administration’s rapid rollback logging and land sales. live here because we love this lifestyle, of protections. But in Idaho and Wyoming, More than half of Idaho is federal and we’re always continually working to two of the West’s most conservative states, public land, including the Frank Church- keep that lifestyle as part of Idaho,” said hunters and anglers threw down the River of No Return, the biggest contigu- Terry Myers, who is also president of the gauntlet, demanding state policies that ous wilderness in the Lower 48, and 891 local chapter of Trout Unlimited. “Even if miles of wild and scenic rivers, including leadership isn’t coming from the top down, Cassidy Randall writes about adventure, public the Salmon, Owyhee and Snake. But the it’s coming from the bottom up, with the lands and conservation from Revelstoke, B.C., and state has no national parks. That’s partly idea that those things built locally will Missoula, Montana.  @cassidyjrandall because Idaho is a sportsmen’s state, build into the political arena.”

10 High Country News January 21, 2019 Labrador’s lackluster reputation on Steve Pearce went on the record as sup- decisions. That is one reason the Wyoming public lands galvanized the Myerses porting the Land and Water Conservation Wildlife Federation is launching bill and other sportsmen. Opinion pieces in Fund despite previously voting against tracking with real-time alerts to follow local media like Idaho County Free Press, it in Congress. Pearce lost the race to specific legislators, so that citizens can Idaho State Journal, and Idaho Press Democratic Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, let their elected representatives know denounced the congressman as a public- who supported public-land protections how to vote. The group is also stepping up “If you’re trying lands-transfer activist, while groups like and is also an avid fly-fisher. “Our com- recruitment of local ambassadors in rural Idaho Wildlife Federation and League of munity is a staunch supporter of public communities, to help explain how public- to change the Conservation Voters highlighted his vot- lands,” said Kerrie Romero, executive lands transfer and the administration’s political right ing record on public lands. His subsequent director of the New Mexico Guides and removal of protections could limit public refusal to attend the candidate forum at Outfitters Association. access. Groups like Trout Unlimited and on environment, Boise State confirmed voters’ suspicions. “Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona Artemis, a new sportswomen’s advocacy you have to Little — the establishment candidate, are all moving more toward the organization, plan to ramp up trainings who was seen as likely to continue outgo- Democrats, and that’s in part because that teach people how to testify in hear- show how that ing Gov. Butch Otter’s opposition to the of the GOP being tone-deaf as to why ings, call their elected officials and gen- land-transfer movement — prevailed. people of all political stripes value pub- erally engage in local politics, all tactics aligns with their In Wyoming, public lands proved one lic lands,” said David Jenkins, executive intended to remind state politicians of the values — and of the defining issues in the race for gov- director of Conservatives for Responsible groundswell of local support that helped ernor. As in Idaho, sportsmen are a pow- Stewardship. “I’ve always said that if put public-land proponents in office. in the West, erful force: Thirty percent of the state’s you’re trying to change the political right Sportsmen’s groups are already tak- people’s affinity 600,000 residents applied for a hunting on environment, you have to show how ing action in the federal arena as well: On permit in the last five years, and 18 per- that aligns with their values — and in the the first day of the 116th Congress, House for public lands cent bought fishing licenses. “If you look West, people’s affinity for public lands is lawmakers reversed a 2017 measure that is part of who at the voting public, which is 50 percent, part of who they are.” made it easier to sell off or transfer public I’m going to bet every one of those guys lands — a measure that had been widely they are.” who hunt, vote,” said Dwayne Meadows, n 2019, sportsmen’s groups plan to con- criticized by hunters and anglers. –David Jenkins, executive executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife tinue the advocacy that helped Little “The overarching thing that every director of Conservatives I for Responsible Federation. “And if you look at the fact and Gordon win their governorships. In sportsman can agree on is public-lands Stewardship that roughly two-thirds of the state are rural states like Idaho and Wyoming, defense,” said Gibson. “Over beers or at registered Republicans, that’s a lot of vot- it can be hard to track what the legisla- meetings, we might argue about regula- ing Republicans who are hunters.” ture is voting on day to day. Even if citi- tions or season length. But whether the In August 2018, at a candidate forum zens have a subscription to a Cheyenne season is a week or a month, or you keep hosted by the Wyoming Wildlife Federation or Casper newspaper, those papers two fish or four fish, you have to have in the crowded Republican primary, three won’t always list individual legislators’ access to them.” candidates, Harriet Hageman, Taylor Haynes and Rex Rammell, expressed support for public-lands transfer, with Hageman going so far as to suggest a one- million-acre pilot program of land transfer to the state. Hunting groups picked up on the issue immediately. Right to Roam, the most listened-to hunting podcast in the state, made it the focus of an episode on the candidates. The Wyoming Hunters and Anglers Alliance endorsed Mark Gordon — a multiple-use public-lands advocate who frequently hunts on Wyoming’s public lands — because of the forum, citing his stance on issues related to hunting, and his opponents’ stances on land transfer Becca Aceto, an (Full disclosure: Both Gordon and Little Artemis ambassador, formerly served on the board of High poses for a post on the Country News.) Gordon won the primary Idaho Wildlife with 33 percent of the vote, while Foster Federation Facebook Friess, who received Trump’s endorse- page encouraging ment but “provided a mix of positive, neg- Idaho voters to ative, and neutral stances on sportsmen’s register. MAGGIE ACETO issues,” according to the alliance, got 26 u Boise Ridge Road, Idaho, percent. Hageman, who had been polling a U.S. Forest Service road, was well before the forum, came in with only closed to recreationists after 21 percent. being purchased by the Wilks “I think all the public-lands transfer brothers in 2016. DAYTON YOUNG conversation has done is galvanize the u u Dwayne Meadows, sportsmen,” said Meadows. “You can see it executive director of the in the growth of organizations like mine Wyoming Wildlife Federation. COURTESY DWAYNE MEADOWS over the last few years, and it’s powerful.” Public-land issues also had an impact in other Western states. In the New Mexico race for governor, Republican Rep.

www.hcn.org High Country News 11 THE HCN COMMUNITY

RESEARCH FUND

12 High Country News January 21, 2019 DEAR FRIENDS

Paperboy, Toquerville, Utah, 1953. A new year, a new intern and a DOROTHEA LANGE new investigative story IN A RUGGED LAND: ANSEL ADAMS, After a holiday break that gave Minnesota, where he majored in DOROTHEA LANGE, AND THE THREE MORMON TOWNS COLLABORATION, much of our staff a well-earned political science and edited the 1953-1954, By James R. Swensen reprieve from the daily news school newspaper. After a short 432 pages, softcover: $34.95 along with some cozy time stint at a daily newspaper in University of Utah Press, 2018 with loved ones, we are happy the Philadelphia area, he then to be back and starting a new moved to Washington, D.C., year. Some of our team spent where he polished his reporting In the 1950s, two legendary photogra- the holidays in far-flung places skills and delved into the money phers created a body of work that has like Berlin and the U.S. Virgin politics that govern national en- since been nearly forgotten. Dorothea islands, while others used the ergy and environmental policy. Lange, whose images distilled the Great extra time to venture into the He’s “very excited to write about Depression, and landscape photographer Ansel Adams visited Utah — “The Place,” West’s winter wonderland. energy development and public as Brigham Young called it — to document Editor-in-Chief Brian Calvert lands in the West” for HCN, he the lives of Mormon communities. Their (almost) figured out how to fit said, and we are very excited to “Three Mormon Towns” collaboration both his dogs into a skijoring rig make use of his expertise! appeared in Life magazine, capitalizing so they can drag him through Meanwhile, readers Bruce on the public fascination with the grow- the Colorado mountains. Associ- Baird Struminger and Isabel ing religion, but the photographs all but ate Editor Maya L. Kapoor took a Constable stopped by our head- faded from memory. In a Rugged Land re- backpacking trip to Point Reyes, quarters in Paonia, Colorado, assembles the images, capturing snippets California, where, thanks to the and left us some juicy story tips of moving life as families rise from church pews, children balance atop horses and government shutdown, visitors from their home state of New a mother cans pounds of green beans. In were forced to bushwhack to Mexico. Thank you both! the text, James R. Swensen describes the nearby creeks to filter water, as Speaking of tips: Assistant project’s thorny history, showing how the water stations had been shut Editor Paige Blankenbuehler is images provide windows into the commu- off. And Associate Photo Editor opening an investigative report- nities they depict as well as into the lives Luna Anna Archey went hiking in ing project examining home of their aging photographers, who hoped the sandstone canyons of Utah’s insurance and wildfires. If you to “re-enter the discourse of photography.” Capitol Reef National Park, or someone you know has ex- ELENA SAAVEDRA BUCKLEY after finding both Arches and perience dealing with post-fire Canyonlands closed. At Capitol insurance claims and would like Reef, Luna saw a “saintly park to share, please send an email ranger still working and taking to [email protected]. Discretion Neil A. Weaver | Brush Prairie, WA Darlene Neid | Denver, CO out trash.” Thank you, ranger, assured. Kathy & Dennis Wellman | Boulder, CO Michael Olsen | Grass Valley, CA for your service. Finally, a correction and a Josh Whetzel | Ligonier, PA Gordon Patrick | Denver, CO Back in Gunnison, our clarification from our “Good Brooks White | Santa Fe, NM Karrin Peterson | Redmond, WA editorial staff welcomed Nick News, Bad News” special issue Barbara Wise | Murray, UT H.R. Pitt | Sonoita, AZ Bowlin, our newest intern. Nick (HCN 12/24/18). In “Blooms in Stephen Powell | Central, SC formerly worked as a politics the Desert,” we described The FRIEND Myron & Lavona Price | Dove Creek, CO reporter for Energy and En- Colorado Sun as a nonprofit; Anonymous (7) David Primrose | Broomfield, CO vironment News (E&E News). in fact, the venture is an LLC. In memory of Katie Lee | Sparks, NV Joan Pryor | Lake Stevens, WA He took three days to drive in In “Patty Calhoun has hope,” Steve Anderson | Fountain Valley, CA Fred W. Rabe | Moscow, ID from the East Coast, which gave we failed to disclose a prior Richard D. Axtell | Denver, CO Vicki Reich & Jon Hagadone | Sagle, ID him just enough time to listen working relationship between CarolAnn Brown | Denver, CO Peter Reser | Albuquerque, NM to The Odyssey before he starts Calhoun’s Westword and the Marilyn Burwell | Ferndale, WA Randy Rhodes | Denver, CO his own at the magazine. Nick writer of the story. We regret Richard & Lois Carter | Reserve, NM Mary Richards | Evergreen, CO started his journalism career at the errors. Stanley Chavez | Albuquerque, NM Brigitte Rieser | Arvada, CO St. Olaf College in Northfield, —Jessica Kutz, for the staff Su Check & C.R. Abele | Littleton, CO Judith Roberts | West Linn, OR Mary Coulter | Bellingham, WA Joan Roberts | Phoenix, AZ James & Sally Crompton | Colorado Springs, CO Rhonda Robles | Jackson, WY Myron Davis | New Plymouth, ID Nicole Rodriguez | Phoenix, AZ Gary Falxa | Eureka, CA Susanna Ross-Stewart | Lake George, CO Gertrud Firmage | Salt Lake City, UT Charles Rowland | San Leandro, CA Cass Fonnesbeck | Pocatello, ID Tom & Katie Rubel | Glenwood Springs, CO Bill Gordon | Thermopolis, WY Allen & Susan Rutberg | Holliston, MA Dan Grenard | Cañon City, CO Steve Ryder | Wheat Ridge, CO Linda Grey & Terry Root | Golden, CO Gregory Rynders | Salt Lake City, UT LaDonna V. Harris | Albuquerque, NM Easterly Salstrom | Bellingham, WA Doug Hesse | Denver, CO Eric Schabtach | Eugene, OR Tina Kingery | Centennial, CO Shannon Schantz | Emmett, ID Gerald Kolbe | Hermann, MO Patty Schille | Albuquerque, NM Steve Lewis | Eagan, MN Ed Schlegel | Capistrano Beach, CA Manfred Luehne | Centennial, CO Roger Schneider | Lakewood, CO Johnny & Pam MacArthur | Ranchos de Taos, NM Brian Schumacher | Alameda, CA David McCord | Denver, CO Phyllis Schwartz | Superior, CO Pat & Barry McEldowney | Fort Collins, CO Tony Valim | Chico, CA James McGrath | Santa Fe, NM Charles Woods | Tucson, AZ HCN’s new intern, Nick Bowlin, is looking forward to skiing in the William A. Molini | Reno, NV Kendra Zamzow | Chickaloon, AK mountains surrounding Gunnison, Colorado. JESSICA KUTZ/HIGH COUNTRY NEWS www.hcn.org High Country News 13 WHAT KILLED WASHINGTON’S CARBON TAX?

14 High Country News January 21, 2019 WHAT KILLED And what does it WASHINGTON’S say about CARBON TAX? the future?

FEATURE BY KATE SCHIMEL

arly on election night, as a drizzly dusk settled over Seattle, I made my way to the Arctic Club, a hotel decorated with explorers’ maps and a fake polar bear — a fitting place to await the results on Washington’s carbon tax initiative. Upstairs, in a dimly lit ballroom, com- Emunity organizers and other supporters of the ballot measure had already gathered. Recent polls suggested a close call on the measure, officially called Initiative 1631, a local, political effort to address the global challenge of climate change. This was the state’s second attempt to tax carbon emissions, and in the months leading up to the vote, an unusually wide swath of Washington society had turned out in support. A coalition of environmental groups, labor unions, racial and economic justice advocates, health workers and leaders from nearly two dozen tribal nations had designed the tax proposal, and their supporters, in a mix of work-wear, fleece and the occasional suit, filled the airless room. If people were nervous, it didn’t show. A few campaigners sat hunched over computers in the back corner, but mostly, it seemed, people were there to socialize. The line for the bar stretched the length of the room, and a bank of television screens on the far wall drew barely a glance as the evening progressed. At 8:15 p.m., the buzz of conversation spiked, becoming a roar. “We did it,” a young woman standing next to me said. I checked the televisions: A few counties were leaning toward approving the measure. The room began to perk up. Daisy-chains of young supporters,

Craig Cundiff’s mural My Child, Our Air, in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood, was inspired by a day in 2017 when his 4-year-old son wanted to go to the beach, even as smoke from wildfires mixed with the usual smog that lingers in Seattle’s air from all the traffic there. CRAIG CUNDIFF

www.hcn.org High Country News 15 Northwest tribes linked arm-in-arm, wound through the THE FAILURE OF WASHINGTON’S CARBON from the Yakima to the Columbia River, and supporters crowd, their shirts proclaiming “Yes on TAX proved a dim coda to the state’s long thanks to warming rivers and oceans. rally for Initiative 1631.” “This energy!” a man standing fight to control rising temperatures and Just a few weeks after the election, the 1631 last October nearby exclaimed, surveying the clusters reverse their effects on its most vulner- National Climate Assessment confirmed at the Western of people shouting enthusiastically about able communities. Its demise raised big that all that was likely just an ominous States Petroleum the results. “People who weren’t sure if questions about humanity’s ability to portent of things to come: Climate change Association they were going to win — that’s the best.” address climate change. Yet its failure threatens the region’s infrastructure building in Lacey, The celebrations lasted a few minutes. had seemed improbable. After all, in the with landslides, rising seas and aberrant Washington. PHOTO COPYRIGHT OF AND Then a strange hush swept the room, months leading up to the vote, climate weather, while its most vulnerable com- LICENSED FROM CASCADE rippling outward from the televisions. change made its mark on much of Wash- munities face deteriorating air and water PUBLIC MEDIA. PHOTO BY MATT M. MCKNIGHT, People pulled out their phones to refresh ington life. Over the summer, a ragged quality. CASCADE PUBLIC MEDIA. elections pages. A second wave of results line of wildfires scorched the Northwest, Given these reminders, now would had come in, and the tide had turned. By curling from British Columbia through have seemed a prime time for Initiative 9 p.m., Initiative 1631 was dead. eastern Washington and down to Oregon. 1631. For years, economists have said A few speakers got up to laud the Wheat fields and forests burned and that a carbon tax — which essentially hard work of campaign staff, and the towns throughout the region were choked builds an economic incentive to curtail room, which hadn’t quite lost its party with wildfire smoke. In Seattle, people emissions of carbon dioxide — is one of feel, echoed with the murmur of people halted their daily runs and commuters the most efficient ways to combat climate dissecting a loss that hadn’t sunk in. wore masks to work, as an orange murk change. Initiative 1631 proposed to do Then the speeches ended, and people hid the hills of the suburbs and clung to this by putting a fee ($15 per metric ton) began to leave, making their way to the the Space Needle. In August, a mother on carbon emissions from the largest city’s gloomier bars or pedaling home in orca lost her calf, then carried its body on polluters, then slowly increasing that fee, the dark. As the room emptied, I stood her nose for 17 days, a painful reminder with the revenue going toward programs there refreshing my own phone, wonder- of species loss and habitat degradation. that reduce greenhouse gases and pollu- ing what had just happened, and what it In the fall, many of the state’s largest tion and their effects. Washington voters, might mean. salmon and steelhead fisheries closed, in other words, were given a specific ac-

16 High Country News January 21, 2019 tion to undertake while they lived out the attendant pipelines and trains in Oregon PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS, yes, and political specific consequences of climate change. and Washington. animals at that, forming loyal packs and It made sense here, in a green-leaning Had every project been built, “it would scrapping over neighborhood HOAs, city state where calls to climate action ring certainly make us one of the top fos- councils, Congress and the courts. In the louder than in, say, coal-dependent sil fuel transport hubs anywhere in the months since the vote, national climate Wyoming. Throughout the Intermountain world,” said Eric de Place, a programs politics have remained mired in feuding West, the oil and gas industry provides director at the Sightline Institute, a over partisan responsibility and inaction. a lot of jobs and wields a lot of influence, nonprofit think tank focused on regional But what killed the carbon tax was not a and a significant number of voters sup- sustainability. In addition to concerns blind, party-line vote: the measure failed port mining and fossil fuel extraction. about air pollution and the safety of coal in red and blue strongholds alike. Of the But in the Northwest, that’s not the case. trains and gas pipelines, the proposals 59 percent of Washingtonians who voted In Washington, hydroelectric dams, not threatened the region’s sense that it was to re-elect Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Demo- fossil fuels, have long provided the state’s a leader on climate change. “So much of crat who supports aggressive climate ac- energy. In 2017, the state received just the region had already invested in its tion, about a quarter rejected the carbon over 20 percent of its energy from coal identity as being on the forefront of clean tax. In the end, the measure passed in or natural gas, and its only coal power energy,” Golden said. Climate activists just three places: Seattle’s King County, plant is on track to close. That reality has drew what they called a “thin, green Port Townsend’s Jefferson County and helped green Washington’s politics and line” at the coastal Northwestern states, the county that encompasses the San identity, especially in the western part adopting a term coined by de Place to Juan Islands. of the state. Seattle made a commitment describe their role as a barricade against The simplest explanation is that in 2002 to eliminate the city’s carbon a fossil fuel boom. people just don’t like taxes, and oil and emissions from electricity, one of the The fight to block fossil fuel infra- gas outspent green groups to exploit first American cities to do so, and voters structure drew widespread support in that dislike. In Washington, fossil fuel passed renewable energy standards in Washington and Oregon. The Keep It In companies and lobbyists spent more than 2006. The state put a limit on emissions The Ground movement, which opposes $30 million to defeat Initiative 1631, in 2008. But Initiative 1631 failed, and any new fossil fuel production, firmly versus $17 million from supporters. Initiative Washington must now confront a darker established itself with direct action in The solution, then, would seem to be to version of itself, in the kind of identity “Blockadia,” as activists strapped them- convince people they’ll be just as well 1631 crisis that comes only in defeat. selves to a drill rig headed to the Arctic, off before a carbon tax as after — and blocked trains and demonstrated in the to match fossil fuel interests’ spending failed, and IN THE PAST DECADE, the Northwest has streets of Seattle and Portland. The rural dollar for dollar. But some observers say Washington seen a slew of wins in fights against communities of Hoquiam and Aberdeen the challenges with raising taxes to pay carbon-emitting infrastructure — and unanimously banned new crude oil stor- for climate action run deeper. must now a slew of losses on climate policy. age facilities in their towns. The Lummi Nives Dolšak and her husband, KC Golden is a longtime climate Nation successfully killed a proposal Aseem Prakash, are both professors, confront a campaigner and, until recently, a senior for an export terminal for Montana coal focused on climate change and its hu- darker version policy advisor at Climate Solutions, outside Bellingham. In 2018, voters in man dimensions, at the University of which helped craft Initiative 1631. Now Kalama, Washington, elected Mayor Washington, in Seattle, who spend their of itself, in almost 60, Golden claimed his first Mike Reuter, who promised to block con- days studying climate policy and pushing climate victory in the 1980s, when his struction of a plant for methanol, a fossil environmentalists to reflect on their ap- the kind of group Northwest Energy Coalition was fuel with a heavy pollution fingerprint. proach. I thought they could tell me what part of regional energy efficiency efforts. In Oregon, voters elected a blue bloc killed the carbon tax, and I spent many identity crisis In those days, Golden was fighting the of representatives, including Golden’s rambling hours on the phone with them, that comes “greenhouse effect,” an early name for the brother Jeff in southern Oregon, who discussing the tax’s details, and its flaws. warming effects of carbon dioxide, and he promised to block permits for an LNG Whichever one I’d call, I’d find them only won support by pointing to both reduced export terminal at Jordan Cove. together: They have been married for 19 energy costs and environmental benefits. Why were these so successful, com- years and often greeted me in unison in in defeat. By 2008, Golden had helped craft local pared to the carbon tax? Since 2013, leg- a well-worn routine. Still, they argued and state commitments to clean energy, islative proposals for either cap-and-trade about the relative importance of this or and climate activists stepped back, or carbon taxes have failed three times. that point and right up to election night, thinking their local fight was mostly over A carbon tax failed on the ballot in 2016. they were divided on one key point. and the federal government would pick In part, the problems with more abstract “We disagreed on whether 1631 up the slack. President Barack Obama’s carbon-pricing proposals, including 1631, would pass,” said Dolšak, a serious- White House seemed committed, along were societal and structural. “(Fossil fuel seeming woman in her early 50s from with much of the world, to reducing companies) have spent centuries creating Slovenia, speaking with a wry note in emissions of greenhouse gases through a system of dependency,” Aiko Schaefer, her voice. Dolšak thought it was doomed, regulations and other incentives, with one of the architects of 1631 and the while Prakash acknowledged ruefully, states like Washington, Oregon and director of Front and Centered, a climate “I thought it would pass.” California poised to help lead the way. advocacy coalition for people of color, Not that Dolšak enjoyed being right; By 2010, the decline of the U.S. coal said. Reimagining it will require a radical 1631’s defeat left them both deflated, she market had become obvious, and the overhaul of societal structures, a process said. “It had all the structural factors in fossil fuel industry began to eye the West she thinks will take longer than an elec- its favor,” said Dolšak, from the menac- Coast for access to Asian markets. “They tion cycle or two. “We’re trying to break ing weather that preceded the vote to the were holed up in the mountains with free and make a fundamental shift in our overall support for climate action in the their coal, and they were trying to figure society.” state. “It had no business not passing.” out where to go,” Golden said. The West And the difficulties with that shift In the weeks after, as they ate dinner Coast offered the quickest way from coal run deep in the human psyche. Termi- or got ready for work, they’d dissect country to China, and so began a wave nals, refineries and railways exist in the the results: Is Washington turning of proposals for trains to haul the coal material realm, de Place said. “If you conservative? Is any carbon tax doomed and for coastal terminals from Oakland, take a mile-long coal train going through to fail? For Dolšak, the less optimistic of California, to Bellingham, Washington, to Seattle, it just doesn’t look good,” said de the two, the tax’s failure reinforced her export it. The natural gas industry also Place. “We’re animals, and we live in a sense that sweeping climate action is far began to swell, proposing a dozen sepa- physical world. That physicality did con- from imminent. “When we’re thinking rate refineries and terminals with their nect up the dots for people.” of solutions, I’m thinking in two to four

www.hcn.org High Country News 17 Along the beach years,” she said. She came to believe it base, he said, to their detriment. Many to climate action’s broader challenges. in Edmonds, was a failure of Washington’s green self- groups, including the Sierra Club and “We have anecdotal evidence that money Washington, a mythology: “In Washington, we’re excited The Nature Conservancy, did not back doesn’t lead to electoral success,” Prakash coal train passes to support environmental action, as long an earlier carbon tax that was designed said. And the messaging of the “No” on behind Nives as we don’t have to pay for it,” she said. Dolšak and Aseem to appeal to more conservative voters. 1631 campaign fed on the rich vein of Prakash, professors “If a carbon tax cannot pass in good That, Prakash said, “was myopic.” (Mo discontent around accountability for the at the Center for economic times, in a pro-environment McBroom, director of government funds the tax would raise, as well as the Environmental state like Washington, then action on relations for The Nature Conservancy’s worry that voters, rather than large-scale Politics at the climate is far more difficult than it used Washington chapter, noted that 1631 polluters, would end up paying for the University of to seem.” Prakash’s longer view gave differed from 732, as it “would have cost of climate change. Washington. him a more hopeful perspective, she provided investments to make our KAREN DUCEY FOR HIGH COUNTRY NEWS said, forecasting what might happen state more resilient to climate change, STILL, IT WASN’T ADVERTISING campaigns thousands of years from now. including reducing risk of forest fire or partisanship alone that killed the tax: “That’s the Hindu in me!” Prakash and addressing drought” and drew it got mired in the same murk that has quipped, meaning the tendency to think support from businesses, prominent slowed climate action for decades. The not just of this reincarnation, but the philanthropists like Bill Gates, and climate is too big for us to easily wrap next and the one after that. Although health professionals.) our minds around, and so it proves to be he believes people will embrace climate In the wake of the election, the couple a difficult issue to legislate. This election action eventually, in the short term, he published half a dozen pieces analyzing cycle, Jordan Stevenson was a fellow at conceded, “I think things are going to get the failure that drew on their own discus- the advocacy group Our Climate, which worse before they get better.” sions. “Nives and I have not given up on supported Washington’s carbon tax. A Prakash blamed environmentalists conversation,” Prakash said. “It comes 20-year-old woman with square glasses and their approach. “The mainstream out as a family compromise.” What they and a knack for getting people to talk, environmental groups are less willing arrived at was simple: The failure of 1631 she spent weeks knocking on doors in to hear from the periphery,” he said. was about more than a deep-pocketed the Spokane area, on the far eastern side They focus on consolidating a liberal oil and gas campaign machine; it spoke of the state, along with her husband.

18 High Country News January 21, 2019 She also talked to her father, back home In short, the difficulty of addressing parking ticket for emitting, rather than a in Vancouver. “He said, ‘I’m glad you’re climate stems from its very power: Its cost to everyday consumers, but most vot- working on this,’ ” she told me. “ ‘I’ll take effects are inextricable from the way ers identified it as a tax. a look.’ ” But in the end, she’s not sure we have configured our society. If we Economists generally support a he even voted. When she spoke to voters have to name 1631’s killer, it might be carbon tax over regulations or building in Spokane, not many people there knew what geographer Mike Hulme called the standards, because it costs all emitters what the tax was, let alone what it had to “climate of climate change.” Hulme, an fairly, in proportion to their emissions. do with the wildfire smoke outside their expert in climate change theory at the A building standard, for example, might windows. “It still didn’t seem concrete or University of Cambridge, argues that require different windows, different in- tangible to people,” Stevenson said. Vot- our concept of climate is only partly sulation, a different design … and by the ers told her: “The money I pay in taxes, rooted in objective truths about the time you’re done, it’s hard to disentangle the increase at the gas pump, it will material world. At least as powerful what you did from what you might have never benefit me.” is the fact that climate fundamentally done otherwise, and even harder to say Initiative 1631’s demise might have formed human cultures, contributing to how much more money per ton of carbon had something to do with moments like our idea of it as static. It is impossible to was effective. In practice, however, many this, where the connection between tax- separate ourselves from the climate far key emitters are relatively unaffected ing carbon and more immediate fears enough to get a clear look at it, something by a carbon tax. Those who build new about one’s health or one’s job becomes equally true of many injustices and obscured. The initiative promised to economic structures. All of these things pool funds for projects, including new are wrapped together, but the climate is bus lines, land conservation grants, and changing, and so must our analysis of it. training to transition fossil fuel workers “All aspects of human life are now into other jobs. But when people need to analyzed or represented in relation to choose between their day-to-day concerns climate: gender, violence, literature, and a future pot of money for projects security, architecture, the imagination, they can’t imagine, the day-to-day wins. football, tourism, spirituality, ethics, and Our minds are better suited to immediate so on,” Hulme wrote. “All human practices threats — like snarling hyenas or flam- and disputes can now be expressed mable trains — and we struggle with the through the language of climate change, abstract dangers of a changing climate. which has become a new medium “People don’t get worried about through which human life is lived.” problems that aren’t happening today or Given this, the fight over what to do tomorrow,” Dolšak said. Those climate about rising temperatures epitomizes hawks who believe that extreme weather all our other disagreements over what events, like wildfires and hurricanes, justice — let alone climate justice — will inspire climate inactivists are overly might, and should, look like. For example, optimistic, Prakash said. “An extreme Stevenson, the canvasser, was first drawn weather event doesn’t affect political to climate activism through her interest leanings.” Ongoing, intensifying hur- in reproductive health and justice: “There ricanes in Florida, for example, have not are areas where people’s children are necessarily driven people to vote for lib- not growing up healthy because they’re eral candidates who back climate action, breathing in fumes or drinking fossil and extreme weather has a relatively fuels in their water,” she said. She used small impact on public opinion. that argument to talk to her dad about “A lot of environmentalists are ap- climate change, invoking his sense of proaching conservation and pollution re- familial values and his worry for his kids duction from a normative perspective: We and grandkids. The fight for the carbon have to reduce pollution and protect the tax, then, becomes a fight for what the environment,” Dolšak told me. Instead, future of our society ought to look like — buildings are rarely the ones paying the Hal Harvey, CEO of the question is over the cost required to and on that, we remain deeply conflicted. energy bills, so a tax on emissions is more Energy Innovation, take action: “How much is society willing likely to hit the building’s occupants. who says proponents to pay to reduce this problem versus an- SOME SAY THE DEATH OF THE CARBON TAX On the other hand, voters — most of of Washington’s other, equally important problem?” was easily foreseen. “The word ‘tax’ is whom aren’t economists — tend to prefer Initiative 1631 needed a better Despite the work of scientists and probably the most reviled word,” said Hal energy standards because they put the strategy. COURTESY OF researchers, whose models are getting Harvey, CEO of the firm Energy Innova- costs on those most directly responsible ENERGY INNOVATION better at explaining the chaotic relation- tion, which helps design renewable en- for carbon-emitting systems, the real ships between climate and weather, the ergy policies around the globe. “The first estate developers and car designers. And truth is that the destructiveness of a par- lesson is: Don’t lead with your chin.” Har- although the cost of new standards var- ticular storm is hard to link straight to vey, an energy wonk with a cheery, blunt ies between industries, within them, the a changing climate — what experts call manner, said the state’s climate coalition costs are the same. An engineer at Volvo “the attribution problem.” Smoky sum- should have pushed for more immediate- isn’t likely to compare her efficiency costs mer days in Idaho can seem far removed ly achievable ends first, such as fuel effi- to those of double-paned windows in a from a tax, or fee, that will somehow ciency standards modeled on California’s, new high-rise. Rather, she’ll look to her reduce carbon emissions, somehow slow or tighter building regulations. “If you competitor at Peugeot, who is under the climate change, and somehow decrease had to choose between performance stan- same constraints. wildfires. In this way, climate change can dards and a carbon tax, you’d be insane to Washington may already be learning boggle the imagination. Unsurprisingly, pick a carbon tax,” said Harvey. its lesson. Less than a month after the Caption. CREDIT the carbon tax found wide support among Dolšak tends to agree: She hypoth- carbon tax failed, Gov. Jay Inslee, a Dem- the state’s tribal nations, some of whom esized that even cap-and-trade, which ocrat who backed it and has suggested face the obvious possibility of displace- often amounts to the same thing as a car- that he might run for president on a cli- ment due to rising seas, and in Seattle’s bon tax, might have passed in the state, mate change platform, held a press con- communities of color, where air pollution given that it sidesteps the word tax and ference to announce a new green legisla- already causes higher-than-average rates directly limits emissions. A quirk of state tive deal. “This is the greatest endeavor of asthma. law classified 1631 as a fee, evoking a of our time,” he told a crowd of reporters

www.hcn.org High Country News 19 of moving offices, and they’d unearthed years of news clippings on the long fight for climate action in the state, records of campaigns and failures going back more than a decade. Golden’s mind was on what would come next, including setting aside the fight for a carbon tax, for now. “Carbon pricing is not our quest,” he said, his voice both uptempo and steady. Carbon taxes are just a tool. “Our quest is to deal with climate change.” Without a course correction, climate activists may well find themselves right back where they started, raising the body count on failed climate initiatives while blithely marching forward. In Canada, for example, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced blowback for his carbon tax proposal. And not long after the U.S. midterms, France underwent a major political crisis, brought in part by a fuel tax meant to curb emissions. In the U.S., advocates are crafting an economic stimulus package — a Green New Deal. And there, at least, they seem to have taken the hint: That package sidesteps a carbon tax entirely. Over a cup of tea, Golden dissected, and then dissected again, the faults of the tax and the future of climate action. “The fundamentals are there,” he concluded. But the moral urgency, the sense that life after oil is a real possibility, the feeling that anything useful can be done — those aren’t. In Washington, even as winter fal- tered and delivered a meager snowpack, concerns over climate change had been quickly replaced by more immediate worries: a federal shutdown and a volatile stock exchange. So even if a majority of Americans believe in climate change, that statistic amounts to very little. It’s just another thing to worry about, on a heap- ing plate of worry. What, then, should we take away from the death of 1631? The big lesson is that we need to seek the root cause of our KC Golden on the Seattle waterfront, overlooking the Alaska Way Viaduct. As a senior policy worries, clarify our fears and to face them advisor at Climate Solutions, he helped craft Initiative 1631. KAREN DUCEY head on. Golden thinks the first step is to regain a sense that our collective actions can actually affect the course of climate at a workspace for energy efficiency inno- refusing to declare defeat. This wasn’t change. On our dependence on fossil vators in Seattle. “It is a moment of great the end, they swore; it was just the be- fuels, “we’re fighting something that’s peril but it is also a moment of great ginning. “2019 is a year we can make a dying,” Golden told me. “We’re just not on promise.” He unveiled a plan he hopes to lot of progress on this,” Nick Abraham, a the same timeline as physics.” Climate put before the state Legislature this year, spokesman for the Yes on 1631 campaign, change is not just an environmental prob- one that encompasses clean fuel stan- told me. “We’ve moved the conversation lem or an economic problem, and it can’t dards, tighter building codes and a shift away from, ‘Should we take action?’ to, be framed that way. It’s a challenge to our to 100 percent clean energy. ‘What should action look like?’ ” moral imagination — and a big one. Put- The time for a carbon tax will come, “I want to make sure people don’t ting a policy to that will be as daunting Harvey said. The warming climate will take the vote count and say, ‘Pffft,’ and as it is urgent. produce — in fact, it is already producing move on,” Schaefer, the head of Front and We finished our drinks and parted — challenges that altered consumption Centered and one of 1631’s designers, ways. Outside, the winter weather was Kate Schimel is an habits and more efficient buildings can’t said. “When my kid plays soccer, when he particularly nasty, with rain that flew associate editor for pay for. The costs of relocating communi- loses a game, I don’t say, ‘Don’t play soc- sideways and high winds shoving people High Country News ties farther inland from the coasts, for cer anymore.’ ” around the sidewalks. I made my way based in Seattle. example, won’t be recouped from sales of But if climate hawks want to make through the streets, my thoughts scat-  @kateschimel Teslas. But for now climate activists are progress, they’ll need to grapple with the tered, and before I could really think This coverage stuck with the art of the possible. “The cause of death for Initiative 1631. Not through all I’d just learned, a gust of is supported by essence of strategy is making choices,” long ago, I met Golden in a noisy coffee wind caught me by surprise and nearly contributors to the Harvey said. “ ‘Everything’ is not a choice.” shop a little over a mile away from the slammed me into a building. I stumbled High Country News site of the election night failure, for a down a flight of stairs looking for some- Enterprise Journalism IN THE WEEKS AFTER THE DEATH of 1631, final postmortem. He was in a reflective where to retreat to, but there was nothing Fund. climate activists took little time to grieve, mood: Climate Solutions was in the midst around but bad weather.

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www.hcn.org High Country News 23 BOOKS

A muskox mother with her newborn near the DeLong Mountains, Alaska. COURTESY JOEL BERGER

ment and modern technology erodes our curiosity about the natural world,” he writes. As a result of runaway industrial- ization, Central Asia’s “Roof of the World,” which boasts the greatest amount of ice outside the poles, is heating up like the Arctic, two to three times faster than other regions. Sprawling development by itself is lethal. It is in “remote geogra- phies,” Berger avers, that “wild animals may have a better chance to survive the world’s crowded lowlands.” Drawing on 33 expeditions, the book shows biological fieldwork, warts and all. Berger digs “chip-like” or “slimy nugget” stool samples from muskox anuses with frost-stiffened fingers when he’s not de- fending projects to belligerent locals. Conservation can be a bloody business, as in sawing horned heads off for postmortems. And before muskox calves could be captured for Depression-era reintroductions to Alaska, all the adults in their fiercely steadfast parental groups had to be killed. An old-school biologist of Jane Goodall or George Schaller’s cut appears in these pages, one sharply in tune with modern ethics. The poetry-quoting Berger feels for the animals, which he regards as sentient Plight of the ‘snow oxen’ individuals, not anonymous research subjects. He worries they’ll burn calories ife in the planet’s latitudinal and breechloaders, in a textbook example, or break bones stampeding. “We would L altitudinal margins has long weath- exterminated muskoxen in 19th century never know the emotional toll of becom- ered extremes: Tibetan wild yaks, Arctic Arctic Alaska. In 1930, the animals were ing a muskoxen orphan in the Beringian muskoxen, Bhutanese takin (“gnu goats”), replenished with Greenlandic stock wilds, or that of females we (accidentally) or the Gobi’s saiga gazelles became shipped thousands of miles. Inupiaq detached from their herds,” he writes. inured to dryness, thin air and cold. Now Eskimos no longer familiar with the long- Berger acknowledges PTSD in these rampant climate change together with skirted bruisers see them as competition creatures and its effects on their physi- hunters, poachers, herders and predators to caribou, an important subsistence cal and emotional wellbeing; he therefore (which increasingly include feral dogs) is game. (Similarly, yak pastoralists on the favors non-invasive approaches. “Another driving these “elusive, dazzling treasures” Tibetan Plateau think wild yaks take day, another datum,” he quips, speaking to the brink. In refreshingly footnote-free food from the mouths of domestic herds.) of a tranquilized animal. He constantly dispatches, the conservation biologist Some grizzlies learned to breach the bul- weighs the trade-off between science and Extreme Joel Berger discusses the Pleistocene warks adult muskoxen form when they conservation. Conservation: Life ancestry of these ungulates — physical feel threatened, slaughtering numerous His methods range from the high-tech at the Edges of the and behavioral traits that may yet allow animals — more than they can eat — and — radio-collaring; heli-darting; photo- World social slow-breeders to adapt. In spite eliminating entire herds. Mortality from graphic profiles to determine growth of a “disquieting desperation” pervading bear kills has increased twenty-fold late- Joel Berger rates; hormone analyses to assess stress- the no-longer-so-icy barrens, Berger finds ly. Sealing off plants on which muskoxen levels or pregnancy — to the experimen- 368 pages, grace notes of humor and lyricism, even feed, frequent winter thaw-and-refreeze tal, as when he plays wolf-howl record- hardcover: $30. a stubborn solution: “Maintain what we episodes have been causing the animals ings to caribou or stalks muskoxen in a University of Chicago have and restore what we’ve lost.” hardship, stunting the calves’ growth. bear costume, only to be charged. Many Press, 2018. In 2011, a February storm whipping a mysteries remain. How do thousands of or Berger these animals are not just western Alaska lagoon drowned 52 out caribou cows give birth within the same F fascinating puzzles but powerful of a herd of 55 that Berger was studying. 10-day window, overwhelming bear and symbols as well, “relics of the past and Was this ice surge nature’s business as wolf predators with sheer numbers. And fugitives in a modern world.” The Los usual, a statistical fluke, or a harbinger of do muskoxen remember their dead? Angeles-raised wilderness buff tries things to come? Urgency drives Berger’s The book’s blunt title holds dual to understand their relationship with scientific agenda. He wonders how long meaning: It references the conditions un- other species, their perceptual worlds, it takes extremophile mammals to adapt, der which Berger and his assistants labor and the interplay of food base, climate, and what it takes for them to do so. (whether climatic, physical, logistical or reproduction rates, predation and human Decrying new trends, this conserva- political) and also the measures we need incursion that either dooms them or tionist cannot help being a culture critic to take to avoid the worst of the sixth makes them thrive. Yankee whalers with too. “Our focus on individual achieve- mass extinction. BY MICHAEL ENGELHARD

24 High Country News January 21, 2019 ESSAY | BY JACOB JOB

The howl of an iconic wolf

Though millennia of evolution separate by a hunter just outside park boundaries our domestic dogs from these wild ones, I in Montana. When I first saw the story, it Two shadows saw the evolutionary links between them was just another headline noting the loss slipped across the frozen landscape and in their evening play. of another famous animal at the hands of away from a freshly killed elk. Their Had it ended there, it still would have a trophy hunter. Her even more famous movements quick and light as they been the memory of a lifetime. But as eve- mother had met the same fate six years navigated a maze of sagebrush, the two ning fully set in, the three broke off their prior. But then, a note of recognition rang, wolves made their way toward me. The play. They stood still in the darkness and, and my stomach slowly sank. darker one led the other, a younger wolf along with the rest of the pack hidden in I scrambled around, searching in the pack, just as she had done during the hills, sang out in a prolonged chorus through old pictures and leafing through the hunt. which hung impossibly long in the cold my field notes. It was her: my first wolf, As I watched, they moved closer, their night air. Luckily, I’d hit “record.” and a prominent figure in my first field warm breath momentarily visible in the I work as a natural sounds recordist recording of a truly wild and iconic preda- cold air. Soon, I could hear their rhythmic for moments like these. My mission is to tor. She was gone and her voice silenced. footfalls on crunching snow. create an aural history of the sounds of I sat alone in disbelief in my basement of- It was my third trip to Yellowstone our wild lands, in sad anticipation of the fice, everything still except the humming National Park, my second as a natural future loss of species and the changes to of the ventilation system. I’d listened to sounds recordist, and my first in search ecological communities caused by hu- her howl hundreds of times from this of wolves. I’d come to document the man impact on the planet. At best, these same spot, fondly reliving our encounter. sounds of these animals in January 2016, recordings help inspire support for the In my recordings, 926F’s voice is in order to preserve their voices for the conservation of species and ecosystems. At forever preserved. I wanted to be upset at park archives and for use in displays and worst, I create acoustic fossils of animals the hunter and angry at the hunting laws stories for the public. and landscapes that are gone too soon. that allowed her death, but I couldn’t If the pair I watched knew I was pres- I believe in the importance of my work, move past grief. For comfort, I put her ent, they gave no sign of it. Instead, they but sometimes I wish it wasn’t so damn recording on repeat. As howls filled the greeted a third individual off to my right necessary. room, I drifted back to that January day with brief sniffing and posturing. Then, as That January sighting was my very in the park where our paths first crossed, the light faded and darkness slowly over- first glimpse of a wolf pack, and a remark- and I remembered the sounds of a group took the day, these three members of the able one at that. The dark leader was the of wild creatures at play. Lamar Canyon wolf pack spent the next famous alpha female known to park biolo- 20 minutes in what can best be described gists as 926F — affectionately nicknamed Jacob Job is a natural sounds recordist as play. Just as I have seen my own “Spitfire” by wolf watchers. In the two working for the Sound and Light Ecology domestic dogs do countless times before, years since, this memory had faded, the Team at Colorado State University. these three very wild dogs ran, jumped details blurring, leaving me with just the and wrestled with each other, tails wag- unforgettable outlines. To hear Job’s audio recording of 926’s voice, ging as they brought the day to a close. In November, 926F was legally killed visit hcn.org.

926F stands at the edge of the Lamar River during the winter of 2016. MELISSA DININO

www.hcn.org High Country News 25 PERSPECTIVE

Cutting carbon requires both innovation and regulation Where coal-state Sen. John Barrasso got it wrong in a recent New York Times op-ed

In December, after world leaders adjourned a major into active oil and gas wells, a technique known as climate conference in Poland, Sen. John Barrasso, enhanced oil recovery. This widespread method of a Wyoming Republican, penned an opinion piece in boosting an old well’s production usually uses carbon The New York Times headlined “Cut carbon through dioxide that has been mined from a natural reser- innovation, not regulation.” voir, the most productive of which is the McElmo Those first two words were enough to get me to Dome, located in southwestern Colorado under Can- continue reading. After all, when was the last time yons of the Ancients National Monument. you heard a conservative Republican, particularly Using captured carbon instead makes sense. It ob- one who represents a state that produces more than viates the need to drill for carbon dioxide under sensi- 300 million tons of coal per year, advocate for cutting tive landscapes, and it can help pay for carbon capture NEWS carbon? projects. But none of that changes the underlying COMMENTARY “The climate is changing,” he wrote, “and we, col- logical flaw in the whole endeavor, which amounts BY JONATHAN lectively, have a responsibility to do something about to removing carbon emitted from a coal plant only to it.” What?! In one sentence he not only acknowledged pump it underground in order to produce and burn THOMPSON the reality of climate change, but also admitted, more oil and therefore emit more carbon. obliquely, that humans are causing it — and have a Barrasso writes: “The United States is currently responsibility to act. I had to re-read the byline. Had on track to reduce emissions to 17 percent below someone hacked the senator from Wyoming? 2005 levels by 2025 … not because of punishing Unfortunately, no, as became clear in the rest regulations, restrictive laws or carbon taxes but of the op-ed. The “responsibility” thing was just the because of innovation and advanced technology. …” first of three “truths” that Barrasso gleaned from And he’s right. Carbon emissions from the electric- the climate conference. He continued: “Second, the ity sector have dropped by some 700 million tons per United States and the world will continue to rely year over the last decade. But it on affordable and abundant fossil fuels, including wasn’t because of carbon capture, coal, to power our economies for decades to come. or more nuclear power. It was There are currently only And third, innovation, not new taxes or punishing because U.S. utilities burned far 18 commercial-scale global agreements, is the ultimate solution.” Ah, yes, less coal, period. there’s the sophistry we have come to expect from Sure, innovation played a role. carbon capture operations the petrocracy. New drilling techniques brought worldwide, and they’re not Translation: We’ve got to stem climate change, down the price of natural gas, but we have to do it by plowing forward with the and advances in solar- and wind- being used on coal power very same activities that are causing it. And we have power did the same with those plants, where they’re most to take responsibility by, well, shirking that same re- technologies, making them all sponsibility and hefting it off on “innovation” instead. more cost competitive, displacing needed, because of technical WHY BUILD WHAT Fine. Meanwhile, I’ll be over here getting rid some coal. But Barrasso seems Dyneema content more challenges and high costs. than doubles the fabric’s of my growing love handles while I continue to eat not to understand whence that WON’T LAST? tear strength, and the organic three pints of Chunky Monkey per day. innovation comes. It doesn’t hap- cotton is Texas-grown Aside from the abstract answer of innovation, pen in a vacuum. More often than not, innovation Barrasso offers two specific solutions to take the is driven by money, regulations or a combination of place of regulations or carbon taxes. The first is both. Fracking was a way to increase profits in old To make the most durable work denim possible, we turned to Hammer loop and large nuclear power. Aside from the waste and the ura- oil and gas fields. Renewable technologies moved the strongest lightweight fi ber in the world. drop-in utility pockets nium mining and milling problems, nuclear power forward in response to state energy requirements. hold small tools and larger phones can be a great way to cut emissions — as long as it Carbon taxes would encourage renewables, nuclear The newest addition to the Patagonia Workwear line, our Steel displaces coal or natural gas, which doesn’t seem to and, yes, carbon capture, by making them more com- Forge Denim blends 92% organic cotton with 8% Dyneema®, a be what Barrasso has in mind. petitive with fossil fuels. fi ber that’s light enough to fl oat on water but 15 times stronger Jonathan Thompson Double-fabric knees is a contributing His primary solution, however, is carbon capture “People across the world,” Barrasso wrote, “are than steel. It’s used in crane slings, tow ropes and anchor cables, accommodate knee pads, editor at High and sequestration. It sounds great. Just catch that rejecting the idea that carbon taxes and raising the and now it’s helping us fuse a traditional fabric with advanced tech- with bottom openings Country News. He carbon and other pollutants emitted during coal cost of energy is the answer to lowering emissions.” nology to build a more durable material that will withstand years that allow easy cleanout is the author of or natural gas combustion and pump it right back He mentions France, and the Gilet Jaune, or Yellow of demanding work. River of Lost Souls: underground to where it came from. Problem solved, Vest, movement, the members of which have passion- The Science, Politics Dyed with natural indigo and Greed Behind without building any fancy new wind or solar plants. ately protested against higher taxes on fuel, among But there are currently only 18 commercial-scale other things. But the Yellow Vests aren’t opposed to Timber framer Bodie Johansson chisels out fl oor joist housings in the Handcrafted Log grown in Tennessee, the Gold King Mine & Timber yard in Ridgway, Colorado. BLAKE GORDON © 2018 Patagonia, Inc. replacing petroleum- Disaster. carbon-capture operations worldwide, and they’re carbon-cutting or environmental regulations. They derived synthetic dyes not being used on coal power plants, where they’re were demonstrating against inequality, and against WEB EXTRA most needed, because of technical challenges and the fact that the fuel tax was structured in a regres- Read more from high costs. sive way, hurting the poor far more than the rich. Jonathan Thompson Once the carbon is captured from a facility, it The lesson is not that regulations are bad, but that and all our must be sequestered, or stored away somewhere, they must be applied equitably and justly. That, Men’s commentators at perhaps in a leak-free geologic cavern. Most current in turn, will drive innovation, and, we hope, more Steel Forge www.hcn.org carbon-capture projects, however, pump the carbon thoughtful future op-eds. Denim Pants

26 High Country News January 21, 2019

PAT_F18_HighCountry-Denim-FP.indd 1 8/2/18 3:32 PM WHY BUILD WHAT Dyneema content more than doubles the fabric’s WON’T LAST? tear strength, and the organic cotton is Texas-grown

To make the most durable work denim possible, we turned to Hammer loop and large the strongest lightweight fi ber in the world. drop-in utility pockets hold small tools and The newest addition to the Patagonia Workwear line, our Steel larger phones Forge Denim blends 92% organic cotton with 8% Dyneema®, a fi ber that’s light enough to fl oat on water but 15 times stronger Double-fabric knees than steel. It’s used in crane slings, tow ropes and anchor cables, accommodate knee pads, and now it’s helping us fuse a traditional fabric with advanced tech- with bottom openings nology to build a more durable material that will withstand years that allow easy cleanout of demanding work.

Dyed with natural indigo Timber framer Bodie Johansson chisels out ﬂ oor joist housings in the Handcrafted Log grown in Tennessee, & Timber yard in Ridgway, Colorado. BLAKE GORDON © 2018 Patagonia, Inc. replacing petroleum- derived synthetic dyes

Men’s Steel Forge Denim Pants

PAT_F18_HighCountry-Denim-FP.indd 1 8/2/18 3:32 PM HEARD AROUND THE WEST | BY BETSY MARSTON

MONTANA J. Fee, 63, and Amber L. “I don’t target practice — but Freudenstein, 31, made two if I see something that looks children aged 6 and 10 ride in like Bigfoot, I just shoot at the trunk while the two dogs it.” That’s what an unidenti- lolled in the back seats. In fied man in a national forest court, Fee offered this ratio- outside Helena, Montana, told nalization: “There was not a 27-year-old hunter, explain- enough room for everyone, so ing why he shot twice at him, the children were relegated reports the Idaho Statesman. to the trunk.” The couple pled The hunter in question told guilty to two misdemeanor Lewis and Clark County counts of child endangerment Sheriff Leo Dutton that he but received what seems like had been setting up targets an astonishingly mild sen- for a practice when sud- tence of 30 days in jail. We denly a bullet hit three feet can’t help wondering if maybe to his left and another one 30 days in a car trunk would whizzed by him on the right. be more educational. But when he confronted the shooter, who was in a black THE CANADIAN BORDER Ford F-150 truck, instead of Three species of bear — the an apology he received an black bear, polar bear and ultimatum: Wear orange or grizzly bear — have been ob- IDAHO MARK BRUNSON get “confused for Bigfoot.” Better take the road more traveled. served for the first time hang- The shooter apparently has ing out at the same time in been seeing, and shooting at, the same habitat in Canada’s Bigfoots — or is it Bigfeet? Wapusk National Park. We are unsure of the cor- advertised, but near Richfield, Utah, there’s a EcoWatch reports that the 366 rect plural here — all over Montana. Initially, 106-acre treasure of some 47,000 aspen clones. visits from polar bears and 25 from black bears “there was some question about the veracity All are genetically male, and according to Atlas were not that unusual, since both species live in of the incident,” but after the story got around, Obscura, the 13 million-pound clone is “almost the region, but the number of grizzly visits — 20 “another woman came forward,” saying that she, certainly the most massive organism on earth.” — came as a big surprise. too, had been shot at by a man in a black F-150. But there’s sad news about its likely future. “How they interact is a really big question,” “We’re working to find this person,” Dutton said. Called “Pando,” which is Latin for “I spread,” Doug Clark of the University of Saskatchewan “It is of great concern that this individual might the Utah forest has begun to shrink in size. Clark told the Canadian Press. “There’s all think it’s OK to shoot at anything he thinks is The keystone species, which has hundreds of kinds of things that could go on.” Yes, indeed. Bigfoot.” dependents, has come under assault from hu- Our biggest question: What to call the progeny, Curious citizens wanting to know how to tell man encroachment, including the development if any? EcoWatch notes that “so-called ‘pizzly’ or the difference between a Bigfoot and a regular- of campgrounds and cabins, as well as hungry ‘grolar’ bears — or grizzly-polar hybrids — are footed biped might be interested in the Inter- cows and mule deer fleeing from hunters. Paul the result of grizzly bears in Alaska and Canada national Bigfoot Conference, usually held in Rogers, a Utah State University ecologist who expanding north due to the warming environ- Kennewick, Washington. Unfortunately, howev- has analyzed 72 years’ worth of aerial photo- ment,” but adding a third species makes the no- er, this year’s gathering has been postponed, ac- graphs along with recent ground surveys, said menclature even more complicated. Say hello to cording to the event’s Facebook page, “due to a that though the aspen forest had thrived for “chocolate grizlars,” or maybe “black plizbears”? scheduling conflict with a film production.” That thousands of years, “it’s coming apart on our means we’ll all just have to wait for the movie. watch.” WEB EXTRA For more from Heard around the West, see UTAH WYOMING hcn.org. Aspen are truly one of the West’s more bizarre Under the “we love dogs, too, but come on, people” trees. When you look at a thick grove of these department, we were shocked to learn of the way Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and white-barked trees with their trembling leaves, two German shepherds outranked two children often shared in this column. Write [email protected] or tag you need to remind yourself that you are really during a road trip from Arizona to Wyoming, photos #heardaroundthewest on Instagram. looking at a forest of only one: Every tree has as reported by the Associated Press. Michael sprung from a single root system. It’s not well

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High Country News covers the important issues and stories H igh that are unique to the American West with a magazine and a Country website, hcn.org. For editorial comments or questions, write News High Country News, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 or For people who care about the West. [email protected], or call 970-527-4898. 28 High Country News January 21, 2019