Introduction by John Baden, Chairman, FREE My friend and colleague, professor Jerry Johnson of Montana State University, just returned from two inspiring trips. One was to Lake Iliamna, the largest lake in Alaska. The other was the Greater Yellowstone Coalition’s (GYC) first 400-mile bike trip through the Greater Yellowstone area. Jerry’s essay below focuses on the […]
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Introduction by John Baden, Chairman, FREE In last week’s FREE Insight Mary Roloff wrote of her family farm and the culture in which it is embedded. “My grandfather … carried a gun to protect himself from those that would do him harm, take what didn’t belong to them, hurt his family, or to kill […]
Read MoreIn her report on Judge Holly Brown’s dismissal of a challenge to the Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks agreement with Ted Turner on the management of Yellowstone Park bison (May 12, 2013), the Chronicle article states the following: “Under the public trust doctrine, which applies nationwide, the state has the responsibility to manage and […]
Read MoreMilton Friedman is one of my all time favorite economists, Tom Schelling another. Both won Nobel prizes and each contributed greatly to my understanding of how the world works. I knew Milton and Rose longer but Tom and Alice much better. While we live geographically far apart and the Friedman’s are gone, the Schelling’s remain […]
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Introduction by John Baden: Ramona and I often are out of town on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, Election Day. Since we are likely to be gone, we are registered to receive “absentee ballots.” How easy they are; mark, sign, stuff into envelopes, put on a stamp, and we’ve done a small portion of […]
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It’s easy to be modest when our neighbor is Ted Turner, owner of the historic Flying D Ranch. The ranch spreads from the Gallatin to the Madison Rivers covering some 113,000 acres, and carries a variety of wildlife, including about 3,500 buffalo. For several years I told Ramona we too needed buffalo. After all, they […]
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Why are economists the last sane optimists and what can they teach church leaders about environmental stewardship? These questions grow in importance as religious organizations dedicate themselves to issues such as climate change and energy use. Last summer gas hit over $3.00 per gallon, cities anticipated electrical blackouts, and the country faced serious prospects of […]
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A year ago I wrote: “Urban and affluent newcomers to our region bring an utterly different value system for the land. To them, commodity extraction is inferior to the amenity value of land — scenery, recreation, open space, fish and wildlife, wilderness. Rather than the ‘boomers’ decried by [Wallace] Stegner, we now attract landscape architects […]
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Here’s a true, important, universal generalization: Across time and cultures, water normally flows uphill toward money. What are the implications for our area? Let’s first consider Yellowstone Park. The thermal features of Yellowstone are fed by aquifers that reach and recharge far beyond Park boundaries. Yellowstone would still be magnificent, but it would be much […]
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Think tanks challenge conventional wisdom and generate alternatives. Gallatin Writers and FREE seek innovative solutions to difficult environmental and economic problems. In this spirit we sponsor the Wallace Stegner Essay Contest. Here are the results for 2004. Wallace Stegner claimed that he was born to write one story — the story of the “boomer” and […]
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