Imagine riding a tramway from the rim of the Grand Canyon all the way down to the canyon floor at the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers along the East Rim. Once your gondola docked, a 1,400-foot “riverwalk” would guide you to the Confluence Restaurant or to an amphitheater in the other direction. […]
Archive | July, 2012
The Solar Trailer That Could: Energy Innovation Inside Navajo Nation
It’s early afternoon and Brett Isaac, a barrel-chested 27-year-old whose soft-spokenness gives the impression of a gentle giant, is explaining the purpose of the solar trailer hitched to the back of his truck. “One thing we never think about is that each of us produces energy,” Isaac, renewable energy Project Manager for the Shonto Community […]
The Secret Life of Tree Rings: What They Can Teach Us About Drought, Climate And Fire
I meet Tom Swetnam, Director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson, on a Sunday morning because he’s leaving for Siberia in a few days and is otherwise totally booked. As part of the paleofire team that will be traveling to the “Alaska of Siberia, if you will” to […]
Up In Smoke: Electric Cigarettes, Bark Beetles, and New Mexico’s Environmental Challenge
It’s easy to see why Eastern New Mexico is referred to as “Little Texas.” The same proliferation of pump jacks dot the landscape here as it does in its neighboring state and gas is cheaper than anywhere in the country outside the greater Texas region. After five days in Odessa, West Texas I’m anxious to cover […]
Interview: Author William deBuys On Climate Change In The Southwest
William deBuys is the author of seven books, including most recently “A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest,” for which I wrote a Dot Earth book review last month. As part of my summer reporting project on energy and climate change in the Southwest, I had the pleasure of driving deep into the heart […]
