Tag Archives: Wildfires

The Year Without a Winter Over, Wildfire Season Begins

“So it’s hard to convey or describe just how oddly warm this winter has been in the Southwest.” Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, Santa Fe, The West, Weird Weather, Wildfire Season 2026, Year Without a Winter | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Shocking Bird Population Decline as in The Bird Saviors

So for years I’ve been reading about and studying Climate Change (though I do find Global Weirding to be witty and accurate), for various reasons, some of them personal of course: I have a daughter who will live in this … Continue reading

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The West Is Burning: On Michael Kodas's "Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame"

So after having owned a home in Custer County, Colorado (Go Wildcats!) for fifteen years and having been a frequent visitor to the Rockies since 1978—the year of my first trip to Yellowstone—I’m both fascinated by and have a fear … Continue reading

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On Flying Rivers and Ghost Forests: A Visit to Mesa Verde

So I spent last weekend at Mesa Verde National Park—a bit west of Durango, Colorado, in the famous Four Corners region of the American Southwest—grokking with the spirits of our Native American ancestors, hiking through ancestral puebloan cliff dwellings, and … Continue reading

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The Heat Is On: Melting Santas and Family Values in the Era of Climate Change

So I haven’t blogged in—oh, just about forever (over two months)—but I’ve been fine and dandy, thank you very much, and trying to keep my ducks in a row: Besides being a professor, and all that entails, mainly I’ve been … Continue reading

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Guest Blog Post on Dan Bloom's "CliFi" Blog

So I have a guest blog post/interview on Dan Bloom’s “CliFi” blog today, here. As I mention in the post, I’m working on a novel set during a catastrophic wildfire, and there’s one going on right now west of where … Continue reading

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Review of Kent Wascom's "The Blood of Heaven," Plus a Mission Debrief

So my review of Kent Wascom’s impressive debut novel, The Blood of Heaven, appears today in the Dallas Morning News, here. It’s a rollicking book, and I have to say I keep thinking of that Hatfields & McCoys miniseries whenever … Continue reading

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On "The Road," Choking on Smoke

So I’ve owned a house in southern Colorado for ten years, and during that time have seen our summer weather go up and down, some years wet and some years dry, only it always seems to be trending toward hotter … Continue reading

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On Kent Haruf's "Benediction," Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" and the Colorado Fires, Again

So this post should be a candidate for some kind of parlor game like “Try to pinpoint the logical connection (though there may not be one)”: I finished Kent Haruf’s Benediction, which includes a scare at the end (I won’t … Continue reading

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On What We Learn from Birds, as "The Bird Saviors" Appears in Paperback Next Month

So in yesterday’s New York Times there’s a good piece about what birds can tell us about climate, here. I’m definitely a birder, though I prefer the term “birdist,” and have my own style in BirdWorld: I don’t join herds … Continue reading

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