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 […]

Title IX of a law passed in 1972 bans discrimination on the basis of sex in schools receiving federal funds. It has received wide attention when applied to college sports for it mandates equality of treatment and numbers in arenas long dominated by males. Positive reforms, however, often have negative implications, some serious. When the […]

It was a treat to see Jane Goodall during her recent visit to Bozeman. Dr. Goodall’s path-breaking research with chimpanzees was done on the Gombe Stream Reserve, now a small national park in western Tanzania. Dr. Goodall told her Bozeman audience that the park (and its chimpanzees) face serious threats as local residents clear the […]

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently delisted the grey wolf from the ESA. This generated outcries from many directions and it’s no wonder; few western issues are as emotionally charged as wolf reintroduction, recovery, or regression (to the 1800s). One’s choice of words speaks to his position on this controversial issue. All can cheer […]

The World Bank reports that over the past three years global food prices have nearly doubled. I see three primary reasons, and greed isn’t one of them. First, as populations grow and people become wealthier, they change their diet. They demand not only staples, but also now regularly eat once out-of-reach luxuries like meat, dairy, […]

Trust is a precious and often underappreciated quality in political, personal, and business relations. Trust fosters productive exchange and minimizes the burdens of cooperation. When trust is high, monitoring costs are low, surely a good thing, for when handshakes suffice, formal contracts are redundant. Trust fosters long-term success. Consider Owenhouse, perhaps America’s best hardware store, […]

I occasionally meet truly remarkable individuals. Sometimes, I have the good fortune to work with them. Rarely is it over decades. When such folks pass on, America is a lesser place. Such a loss occurred when Myron Vinger died April 12. He was a top hand, a real mensch, a good friend, and a patriotic […]