Here’s a fact that astounds many of my friends: the average person in 1800 was not materially better off than his counterpart 10,000 years earlier. Prior to about 1776, wellbeing measured by food, clothing, shelter, and heat varied across societies, but was generally miserable. Last April, Yale Press published historian Emily Cockayne’s Hubbub: Filth, Noise, […]

The Bozeman Citizens Climate Protection Task Force was formed to help the city reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 15 percent below 2000 levels by 2020. It has proposed some dozen recommendations, ranging from adopting green building codes to buying energy from alternative sources. The task force believes many of their recommendations will be “cost neutral.” As a […]

Each year we winter a few dozen horses on our ranch. A good neighbor arranges this with his friends who have horses but lack winter pasture and want to avoid the cost and bother of feeding hay. The horses have good, inexpensive feed for six months. We derive modest income while our rangeland benefits from […]

Record high energy prices and a recent trip to Europe prompt these thoughts on our energy future. The current energy situation, i.e., high prices, high demand, and tight supplies, is a glimpse of what life in a carbon constrained world looks like. We’re entering the early stages of a transition from fossil fuels that will […]