Environment

BY BARRIE GILBERT Photo by  Janko Ferlič When grizzly populations expand, they run up against more armed people. This has resulted in unsustainable mortality for bears, especially where livestock graze on public land. Many more grizzlies are ending up dead in recent years. Same for confrontations in elk hunting camps in the backcountry. Bears learn gunfire means dinner and they smell and approach gut piles where they’re frequently killed. Is this the future or is there a solution? Grizzly bears are protected under the Endangered Species Act, but their mortality rate is exploding mainly from human conflicts. Bears are expanding their range, largely due to food shortages in places like the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Grizzlies are confronted by armed people at catt...

BY TOM ENGELHARDT Photo by Elena Mozhvilo Oddly enough, I’ve read obituaries with fascination from the time I was quite young. And yet, in all these years, I’ve never really reflected on that fact. I don’t know whether it was out of some indirect fascination with death and the end of it all or curiosity about the wholeness (or half-ness or brokenness) of an individual life in full. But here’s the odd thing: in all that time — put it down to the charm of youth or, later, perhaps a lingering sense of youthfulness or, at least, agelessness — I never really thought about my own obituary. Like so many of us when younger, I simply couldn’t imagine my own death. Against all reason, it seemed strangely inconceivable. Now, at 78, I find that obituaries are again on my mind — and ...

BY ROBERT HUNZIKER Image by Li-An Lim. A fresh approach to fixing climate change/global warming is outlined in a new book: Climate Restoration, which focuses on how the climate can be restored. Indeed, the book is full of fascinating details, meriting a closer look and critique (Peter Fiekowsky and Carole Douglis, Climate Restoration, Rivertowns Books, 2022). But first: The words climate change and global warming have become imbedded in the fabric of society so much so that the attendant dangers become a nonevent in people’s minds. Over time, they become comfortable with their own personal knowledge of what it means. That’s a problem because studies suggest that only a tiny fraction of people truly understand the real science and inherent da...

BY ROBERT HUNZIKER Image by Hiroko Yoshii. The Southern Ocean is 10% of the world’s oceans. Yet, it is arguably the most significant ecosystem of the planet for marine sea life as well as regulation of CO2 and ocean heat, serving as a buffer to climate change and thereby benefiting the entire globe. It is the final frontier of life support for Earth. A new scientific research paper is calling for immediate protection of the Southern Ocean: “Climate change and fishing present dual threats.” (Source: Cassandra M. Brooks, et al, Protect Global Values of the Southern Ocean Ecosystem, Science, October 20, 2022) Indeed, the Southern Ocean is key to sustaining life on the planet. It deserves special focus and must be protected to stop irreparable damage to a powerful ye...

BY PATRICK MAZZA Photo by Adam Wilson Upon our mastery of fire has humanity risen to global dominance. It is the most powerful tool employed by our toolmaking species, and the energy with which we make our tools and run them, from chainsaws to computers.  The fires we have unlocked are also the greatest threat to our existence, from the fossil fuel combustion that is changing the climate to nuclear weapons that hold the potential for world-ending immolation “We are uniquely fire creatures on a fire planet,” the great historian of fire, Stephen J. Pyne, begins his global history of flame, World Fire.  In the solar system, he explains, only Earth has the oxygen atmosphere and carbon fuels that can support fire. “More disturbing, the planet possesses a creatu...