After a series on monumental errors, our legislators are debating Montana’s energy future. They want to avoid a crisis of California proportions. They’re wrestling with forces and prices distorted by decades of regulation and flawed deregulation. California adopted policies that worsened problems. Basic economics can help us avoid mistakes by predicting likely consequences of alternative […]
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This summer’s fires kindled examinations of federal fire policy-but most folks failed. The problems bequeathed by a century of poor forest management have no easy solution such as more logging and road building. And Smokey the Bear’s “Only you can prevent forest fires,” mantra, the world’s most successful public relations campaign, exacerbates the problem. Western […]
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The fire which burned out of control from Bandelier National Monument and destroyed 260 homes near and in Los Alamos, New Mexico is a story of virtue leading to monstrous vice. A conjunction of ecological and economic understanding explains the tragic connections among humans, nature, and wildfires. With a thin snow pack, low soil moisture, […]
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Gallatin County is in the midst of growth as dramatic as the original settlement. Land prices have increased rapidly and the value of house lots near Bozeman now trumps that of hayfields by a factor of ten. This, coupled with the general weakening of the agricultural economy, is responsible for the rapid subdivision of ag-lands […]
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The recent budget deal and mid-term elections show why Republicans continue to take a beating. Despite their purported ideology of limited government, Republicans kowtow to special interests favoring crass exploitation of public resources. They are silent when profitable private acts have negative public consequences, for example former Senator Lauch Faircloth’s hog farms in North Carolina. […]
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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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