To explore Waller Creek and environs is to live intensively in the modern world and at the same time to be aware of how brief an instant modernity has been with us; how brief an instant, indeed, the human presence has been here in any guise to contemplate a very old set of surroundings. […]
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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 […]
Preventing Fires, Before Everything’s Aflame
Story originally appeared on Climate Central: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/preventing-catastrophic-fires-what-goes-on-when-everythings-not-aflame/ By Ari Phillips Wildfires have been national news this summer. Massive, destructive burns in Colorado and New Mexico have emblazoned websites and TV screens across the country. But just as the monsoon rains roll into the Southwest bringing much needed moisture, the nation’s gaze over the fires will move […]
