water pollution

  • Public land livestock grazing has a significant social cost in terms of carbon emissions contributing to climate warming. Grand Staircase-Escalante NM Utah.  Photo George Wuerthner  An important paper was published in Environmental Management about the social carbon costs of public land livestock grazing. The paper Climate, Ecological, and Social Costs of Livestock Grazing on Western…

  • Mount Boarh, Idaho’s highest peak rises above the riparian exclosure that is supposed to be ungrazed.  Freighter Spring, Challis National Forest, Idaho. Photo George Wuerthner I recently spent some time hiking in Central Idaho. At the base of Mount Borah just off the Doublesprings Road, I decided to check out a large riparian enclosure surrounding…

  • The ecological impacts of livestock production is significant and there is seldom a full accounting of these costs. Photo George Wuerthner  Livestock is responsible for more ecological damage to the western landscape than any other human activity. However, few accounting of these impacts is ever compiled. One source is my book Welfare Ranching–the Subsidized Destruction…

  • Dairy and beef cattle are grazed at Point Reyes National Seashore sixty years after the properties were purchased by American citizens. Photo George Wuerthner  Fences. Everywhere I went during a recent trip to Point Reyes, I encountered fences. Why are there fences in a national park unit? They exist to facilitate the private use of…

  • Point Reyes National Seashore was established in the 1960s by the purchase of private ranches. The public paid fair market value for these lands. Livestock operations were to be removed over a 25-grace period. But time and again the ranchers refused to leave OUR property. Surprisingly Representative Jared Huffman, ordinarily good on environmental issues, has…

  • The practice of fracking, or hydraulic fracture drilling has been a highly damaging practice wherever it is used and now Congress is asking the EPA to take a harder look. Diesel Use in Gas Drilling Cited as Violation of Safe-Water Law. New York Times

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