Char Miller
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About Me:
Director and W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona College, and author of "Public Lands, Public Debates: A Century of Controversy" (Oregon State University Press) and editor of "Cities and Nature in the American West" (University of Nevada Press). His new books for 2013 include "On the Edge: Water, Immigration, and Politics in the Southwest" (Trinity University Press), "Death Valley National Park: A History" (University of Nevada Press), and co-edited "Between Ruin and Restoration: An Environmental History of Israel."
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My KCET.org Activities
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Posted What Happens When a Brush Fire Burns College Property? The Students Get a Living Laboratory
in The Back FortyFire is a creative force, a force we need to learn from and learn to live with -
Why is it so difficult to remember 9/11?
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Texas has stiffer regulations of fracking than California. Go figure.
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It's not to early to think about the Rim fire's significance. We should have done so before it blew up.
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Environmental injustice is easy to spot. It's harder to rectify. The town of Opportunity, Montana shows us why.
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Posted At $5 Million, This is a Deal: Jumpstarting the Restoration of Big Tujunga Canyon
in The Back FortyThe Angeles National Forest is L.A.'s biggest playground. We all need to pitch in to restore it. -
Posted Meatless Mondays: It Helps Combat Our Warming Planet -- and Thickening Waists
in The Back FortyHow powerful is Big Ag on Capitol Hill? The Congressional Vegetarian Caucus would be glad to tell you. -
Our mad-dash rush to frack oil-and-gas deposits everywhere threatens significant cultural resources like the national park unit in Chaco Canyon.
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With the death of journalist Mike Taugher, California lost a principled voice in support of environmental protection and open government.
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Posted Defensible Space in Wildfire-Prone Areas Can Save Lives -- So Why Isn't it the Norm?
in The Back FortyCreating defensible space around communities in fires zone seems a no brainer. The Mountain and Yarnell fires show it's not. -
A fire in Rocky Mountain National Park raises questions about the U.S. firefighting policies.
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Yarnell Hill fire reminds that we don't need a new firefighting policy. We need a sharper memory of wildland fire history.
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Posted The 'Border Surge' is Dangerous Political Theater -- and Bad for the Environment
in The Back FortyThe U.S. Senate thinks the "Border Surge" will make the country more secure. Its wrong. -
It took him awhile to get to the point, showing how tentative his proposals are, how carefully couched his prescriptions.
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How odd that in Moab one federal agency sought to preserve wild nature and another promoted the rapid exploitation of nature's rare-earth minerals to incinerate our enemies.
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Rocks, frogs, and humans find refuge in Zion National Park.
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Posted A Usable Past: How Norris Hundley, Jr. Schooled California on the Meaning of Water
in The Back FortyThe late Norris Hundley, Jr. warned that California's "Great Thirst" would be its undoing -- a warning we must heed. -
Banning fracking in California will not save the planet. But it's a start.
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With a governor who seems unwilling to step up, and a set of regulatory agencies that have not yet announced a clear-cut set of rules to control the impact of fracking on public health and the environment, the legislature must take the lead.
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L.A. may have fewer ozone-alert days, but our air quality is still dangerous
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A new documentary, "Seeking the Greatest Good," identifies key steps we can take to restore the Earth -- and ourselves.
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nathan - this is a great piece, utterly reminiscent of the on-going trek in Texas to wherever bluebonnets are growing (including freeway medians - ah, Lady Bird!) for the requisite family photo enflowered....
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Illegal marijuana growers' extreme use of rodenticides is wreaking havoc on California national forests. It's time for the legislature to ban these super toxins.
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Posted Forest Service Gets to Keep Pine Tree Logo, But Controversy Points to Larger Problem
in The Back FortyThe Forest Service's pine tree logo is now safe from the USDA's rebranding effort. Its historic emblem should never have been attacked. -
USDA is rebranding the entire department, forcing the Forest Service and other agencies to adopt its bland logo. This is a really bad idea..
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Thompson Creek is a symbol of how much a creek can matter, to SoCal civilizations past and to the very real wildfires and floods of the present.
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Water made the west, and that's why Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell is promoting its protection.
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Posted Forest Service Chief Talks Climate Change -- in Washington and on the Ground
in The Back FortyHow to manage the national forests amid climate disruption? Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell has some ideas. -
The more we ignore climate change the greater the costs will be, says the Government Accounting Office. Its numbers add up.
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Posted What Do the L.A. Freeway System and the Lewis and Clark Expedition Have in Common? It's All in the Numbers
in The Back FortyThe American West has been organized around numbers, from Lewis and Clark to L.A. Freeways.
Recent Actions from Char Miller
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nathan - this is a great piece, utterly reminiscent of the on-going trek in Texas to wherever bluebonnets are growing (including freeway medians - ah, Lady Bird!) for the requisite family photo enflowered....
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An earlier version of this column incorrectly referred to the Red Rock National Conservation Area in Nevada as the focus of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance's campaign to secure National Monument status; it is actively pursuing that designation for Greater...
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Commented on Razed Expectations: Why It Matters that the Army Corps Bulldozed the Sepulveda Sanctuary
in The Back FortyThanks so much for your good comments - I had intended to make the connection to the Arcadia Tree Disaster but ran out of time; it is that plumbing mentality that is so difficult to shift at times. It looks... -
And now, under the category of Find a Need and Fill It, comes this story from the LA Times; or why fish love Christmas trees: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-christmas-trees-20130104,0,5184304.story...
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And wouldn't you know it, Gifford Pinchot said the same thing (oh, how I wish I had seen this NY Times article of his before writing the column!). "There is no more reason for an outcry against using land to...
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Thanks to Alex Andrus, Communications Director of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, who just sent me a NY Times article from December 12, 1909 in which Gifford Pinchot talks about the Christmas tree industry - or what he projected would...
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Thanks, Gary. The quick response is that few people keep their plastic trees for more than six years, the trees cannot be recycled, and they purchase another adding to the production and non-recyclable cycle of this unsustainable product....
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With the news today that Barry Commoner has just died - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/us/barry-commoner-dies-at-95.html?nl=afternoonupdate&emc=edit_au_20121001 - and that, amazingly, Silent Spring is 50 years old, we are acknowledging just how important the mid-20th-centiry was in establishing the current environmental agenda....
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Stephen - thanks for your response and I am looking forward to reading the book!...
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A good friend wrote this important correction to my claim above that the Antiquities Act and the Lacey Act were one and the same. They're not. "The Lacey Act was a criminal law enacted in 1900 as a response to...
Responses to Comments from Char Miller
No recommendations yet.
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Posted What Happens When a Brush Fire Burns College Property? The Students Get a Living Laboratory
in The Back FortyFire is a creative force, a force we need to learn from and learn to live with -
Why is it so difficult to remember 9/11?
-
Texas has stiffer regulations of fracking than California. Go figure.
-
It's not to early to think about the Rim fire's significance. We should have done so before it blew up.
-
Environmental injustice is easy to spot. It's harder to rectify. The town of Opportunity, Montana shows us why.
-
Posted At $5 Million, This is a Deal: Jumpstarting the Restoration of Big Tujunga Canyon
in The Back FortyThe Angeles National Forest is L.A.'s biggest playground. We all need to pitch in to restore it. -
Posted Meatless Mondays: It Helps Combat Our Warming Planet -- and Thickening Waists
in The Back FortyHow powerful is Big Ag on Capitol Hill? The Congressional Vegetarian Caucus would be glad to tell you. -
Our mad-dash rush to frack oil-and-gas deposits everywhere threatens significant cultural resources like the national park unit in Chaco Canyon.
-
With the death of journalist Mike Taugher, California lost a principled voice in support of environmental protection and open government.
-
Posted Defensible Space in Wildfire-Prone Areas Can Save Lives -- So Why Isn't it the Norm?
in The Back FortyCreating defensible space around communities in fires zone seems a no brainer. The Mountain and Yarnell fires show it's not.
