As Americans flock to national parks this summer, we can learn a lot from national parks around the world. Field biologists the world over uniformly confirm the woeful conditions of national parks. The Nature Conservancy found many national parks in Latin America are at great risk. Even closer to home, Canada’s experiments with national parks […]
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The slogan in the 1994 election was “It’s the economy, stupid.” In the 1996 election, environmentalists tried to update this to: “It’s the environment, stupid.” After all, the environmental record of the 104th Congress is so misguided that even seasoned observers are left wondering if members of the Republican party are indeed brain damaged. Perhaps […]
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In its foreward, Vice President Al Gore announces that Our Stolen Future “raises compelling and urgent questions that must be answered.” The book has been promoted as the next Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s 1962 book that spawned much of the environmental movement. More likely, it marks the end of an era of gullibility, hysteria, and […]
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GALLATIN GATEWAY, MONT.– Last week, 17 federal judges gathered at the Gallatin Gateway Inn. This inn, the last of its kind, was built by the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad to attract tourists en route to Yellowstone National Park. The judges met to hear policy analysts explain a new environmentalism. Gallatin Gateway is a perfect […]
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Americans are increasingly concerned about our wildlands. Historically we looked toward federal custodians. But, if you believe that Congress will respond with large appropriations, read no further. The federal government has made promises it cannot afford to keep. The implications preclude an expanded federal wildlands system. What will happen when actual spending cuts become unavoidable? […]
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There is a strong tendancy for such organizations to be run for the benefit of those in charge. This has profound implications for those in the agency and for those they are to serve. A bureaucracy is a formal organization that derives all or a substantial portion of its budget from transfers. When the bureaucracy […]
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BOZEMAN, MONT.- Snow is still ten feet deep on the Spanish Peaks just south of town, but summer is coming to the Gallatin Valley. Greening fields and the sudden emergence of kayaks and mountain bikes tells us the annual crush of tourists will soon arrive in the region’s national parks and forests. Recreation is serious […]
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New demographics and cultures are defining the next American West. Newcomers, urban and affluent, are escaping cities to build better lives. They work with information and manipulate symbols rather than stuff, and bring with them an utterly different value system for the land. A value system based on a romantic notion of the West’s ecosystems […]
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Our Stolen Future, Vice President Al Gore writes in the book’s Foreward, discusses “compelling and urgent questions that must be answered.” He calls it the sequel to the first enviromental benchmark, Silent Spring. He’s wrong. Our Stolen Future marks the end of an era of public susceptibility to ill-founded hysteria and crisis entrepreneurship. Unlike Al […]
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I just returned from the other Washington, the one on the Potomac. I met with people in think tanks, universities, the federal judiciary, and intellectuals from the Reagan Administration. A common question was, “are the Republicans in the 104th Congress brain damaged or just cowards?” We all wondered what could possess Republicans to blatantly attack […]
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