Did you know that the Rocky Mountains contain more oil than Saudi Arabia? Most people don’t. The problem is that, unlike the easily accessed and processed oceans of liquid oil under Middle Eastern sands, the Rocky Mountains’ petroleum is found in rocks called oil shale. Oil shale, which must be mined, is a type of sedimentary rock that releases oil when heated in specific types of chemical processes. The problem, according to environmental groups, is that producing energy from oil [...]
Since 1993, Wayne Sawchuk, a former logger and grizzly bear hunter, has been working tirelessly to protect “the biggest well-kept secret in North America.”
Wayne Sawchuk recently found some atonement for decades of his life spent logging, partying and grizzly hunting. Funded mostly by private donors, Sawchuck played a major role in the conservation of the MuskwaKechika Management Area in Northern British Columbia.
Taking a month to cross, even with horses, the land has been touted as “the biggest well-kept secret in North America,” and “North America’s Serengeti.” Teeming with grizzly, black bear, wolf, lynx, caribou, elk, moose, bison and stone sheep, it is the largest intact wildlife habitat in the entire Rocky Mountain chain and only slightly smaller than the state of Maine.
In the early 1990’s, the government of British Columbia came under pressure to make a final decision on how to manage the province’s resources. Wayne Sawchuk, still a logger at the time, recognized the opportunity of a lifetime and teamed up with other key players to protect the tract of land.
Involved in the efforts were guide outfitters, recreational hunters, the oil and gas industry, snowmobilers, businesspeople, environmentalists, timber industries and government officials. Sawchuk had a tremendous impact in the conservation efforts, as he led the media, government and scientists through the area on horseback so that they could get a first hand glimpse at what they were talking about.
Tuesday’s release of proposed rules for oil shale exploration across the Rocky Mountain West by the Bureau of Land Management was merely another shot across the bow in the political blame game over $4-per-gallon gas.
Smaller homes are more energy efficient generally, and consume fewer resources for their construction. In the United States, the average house size has been skyrocketing in the past few decades from 983 square feet in 1950 to almost 2,350 square feet in 2004.
Smaller buildings are potentially more affordable, are better suited to livable neighborhoods, and serve the needs of smaller families (while our houses have more than doubled in size since 1950, the size of the average family has actually decreased in that same period). There are already developers who understand this, but sometimes, the municipalities make it impossible to build smaller homes.
Marty Pieroni, a developer in Kuna, Idaho was turned down on his request to build some houses smaller than the 1,400 square foot minimum set by the city. With rising energy costs and the current housing credit crunch, there is an increasing demand for smaller, more efficient houses. But the city government (whose tax base is determined by the value of the developed property within its bounds) does not want to allow smaller properties and has turned down the request.
Editor’s note: This is the last post in the “Human Interaction with Nature” series from students in Professor Simran Sethi’s “Media and the Environment” course at the University of Kansas. Our own Adam Bowman (who’s training is in videography) created this two-part wedisode on “the current debate about how to manage a growing Grizzly Bear population in the Northern Rocky Mountains.” The webisode was originally published on Friday, May 9, 2008.
