By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – It was a cold day in the nation’s capital on February 21, 1885 when the Washington Monument was finally dedicated on the National Mall after decades of fits and starts and problems finding matching stones and money to build it, according to the National Park Service, and there…
National Parks
‘Ominous’ UN Report Warns Human Activity Has Pushed One Million Plant and Animal Species to Brink of Extinction
“Nature is collapsing around us and it’s a real wake-up call to humanity.” By Jake Johnson – A United Nations report described as the most authoritative and comprehensive assessment of global biodiversity ever published found that human exploitation of the natural world has pushed a million plant and animal species to the brink of extinction…
A Large Majority of Americans, 65 Percent, Now Favor Protecting the Environment Over Economic Growth
By Glynn Wilson – The Trump administration’s partisan war on the environment is taking its toll not only on public lands and the planet. A new Gallup poll shows that and the booming economy due to the Obama administration’s policies are driving public opinion away from unregulated economic growth and toward more environmental protection. By…
Scott Pruitt Should Have Been Fired from EPA for Violating the Agency’s Mission
Environmental Activist Offers Solutions to Climate Change Disasters
By Glynn Wilson — WASHINGTON, D.C. — It’s hard to get any official sources in the nation’s capital to talk openly about the reality of climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels. With the climate change denier in chief in the Oval Office ordering federal agencies to wipe science information…
Privatizing National Parks Puts America’s Best Idea At Risk
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nothing is more American than the iconic National Park Ranger hat. The idea of protecting nature and providing public access to natural beauty began in the United States and has spread across the world, but now it’s at risk. While the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest…
An Update on Thoreau’s Necessities of Life
“The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden By Glynn…
Trump’s Federal Hiring Freeze Makes America Less Safe
Even Members of Congress and Trump Voters and Fans Who Visit Washington – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — When New York celebrity businessman Donald J. Trump took office in January, one of his first acts as president was to immediately sign a symbolic memo calling for a “hiring freeze” on federal employees. The…
Scientists Issue Statement Opposing Trump Order Withdrawing from Global Climate Change Fight
By Glynn Wilson – Just as the Trump administration moves to roll back environmental protection regulations and withdraw the United States from the growing world community of countries joining the major battle against climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels, the American Association for the Advancement Science has issued a…
Ryan Zinke of Montana Sworn in as Trump’s Secretary of the Interior
Should Environmentalists Be Concerned? – By Glynn Wilson – Americans who value national parks and other public lands have a right to be concerned about President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department of the Interior, Ryan Zinke of Montana. Zinke, whose record on protecting the environment shows some promise, but also potential problems, was…
Standing Rock Sioux Oil Pipeline Protest Comes to an End: Elections Matter
House Republicans Move to Open America’s National Parks to More Oil and Gas Drilling
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the latest move by the Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress to weaken federal regulations and conduct a war on science and the environment, Congressman Paul Gosar, a Republican from Arizona, introduced a bill on Tuesday that would pave the way for more oil and gas…
President Donald Trump Issues Media Blackout at Federal Agencies
Full Scale War on Science Begins – By Lauren McCauley – Though the majority of President Donald Trump’s controversial cabinet nominations have not yet been confirmed, his so-called “beachhead” teams have arrived at their respective agencies, carrying out orders that make clear that the “War on Science” has begun. On Tuesday, the news broke that…
Republican Congress Moves to Privatize Public Land
By Glynn Wilson – Editor-in-Chief – We hate to say we told you so. But it is what it is. Donald J. Trump has not even been inaugurated president yet and the privatization of public land has already begun. On the very day we published a video trailer talking about the commercialization and privatization of…
President Obama Declares Bear Ears in Utah a National Monument
By Glynn Wilson – Navajo hideout Bears Ears in southern Utah will now be protected as a national monument. President Barack Obama signed the proclamation Wednesday to protect this land for future generations “Thanks to his action, this land will be finally given the legal reverence and protection it deserves,” said Russell Begaye, President of…
From a Lakota Perspective, the Holocaust Against Native Americans Must End
Standing Rock Sioux Protest is About More than Stopping One Pipeline – By Glynn Wilson – CANNON BALL, N.D. – Justice Rowland, a young Lakota man camped out in the overflow Sacred Stone camp here, grew up in Wounded Knee, South Dakota. But back in April when he heard about the Standing Rock Sioux protest…
Follow An ‘Expedition of Rediscovery’ on the Way to Cannonball North Dakota
“Art at its highest and nature at its truest are one.” — Knute E. Westerlind, the architect of Municipal Auditorium in Sioux City, Iowa, designed in 1938 and finished in 1950 By Glynn Wilson – CHAMBERLAIN, S.D. — From this vantage point looking out from the American Creek Campground, the Missouri River looks as blue…
What the National Press and the Park Service Won’t Tell You on the 100th Anniversary of NPS
By Glynn Wilson – Reading the national press coverage on the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, even listening to the reporting on National Public Radio, you would think the biggest problem the parks face is a lack of visitors. The entire story is framed as if the parks were just another capitalist tourist…
President Obama Bypasses Republican Congress, Creates National Monument in Maine’s North Woods
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, President Obama bypassed the inaction of the Republican Congress and used the power of the presidential pen to create the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, the first national monument to preserve the landscape and honor…
President Obama Visits Yosemite, Urges Americans to ‘Get Outdoors’ on National Park Service Centennial
President Barack Obama took a few days to go on a working vacation this week and, to help celebrate the 100th anniverrsary of the National Park Service, the first family visited Yosemite National Park, one of the nation’s most popular national parks. In a brief speech on Saturday at Sentinel Bridge with the 2,425 feet…