I recently received your email regarding the Colorado Health Care Summit with Senator Daschle. Like so many of the problems we face today in America, health care is an extraordinarily interdisciplinary problem. And while we can talk about hospitals’ record keeping systems, government assistance with health care costs, etc., we will have missed the point entirely if we don’t confront directly that our country is hooked on unhealthy foods which are directly subsidized by the federal government.

The first and most effective step the new administration and the Democractic Congress can make in shifting the focus from sickness to wellness is abolish all corn subsidies. It is a travesty that we subsidize corn at a rate of roughly $5 Billion per year in this country. And it is a myth that this helps small farmers. It helps out the agribusiness giants like ADM while subsidizing the type of food ingredients that are making our citizens so sick. Should we “fight diabetes?” No, we should stop handing the food industry an artificially cheap sweetener in High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) by subsidizing corn.

It is my understanding that junk and fast food are as cheap as they are in part because the main ingredient in everything from the corn-fed beef and chicken to the soda and french fries served at fast food outlets is subsidized by our government.

And look at what we are feeding our kids in public schools. It’s as bad if not worse than fast food. The federal government ought to follow closely the advice of Michael Pollan and mandate that all food served in school lunch programs come from a small radius encompassing the immediately surrounding countryside. I appreciate Senator Daschle’s recommendation that we teach nutrition in schools. AND, the only effective way to do so is to actually feed them good, healthy food. Handing them a nutrition textbook or mandating a nutrition course is a joke if children are still being trained to crave food that will make them sick.

Until policy makers and citizens in America make the fairly basic connection between our widespread illness and the food we put into our bodies, we will never improve our health. Any health care policy that ignores this simple fact is a waste of time and money.

Sincerely,

Dustin Urban

Senator Salazar,

I shook your hand recently during your rural tour visit to Buena Vista, Colorado. You seem like a man of integrity who listens to his constituents. So please here me on this point: don’t give a blank check to the American auto industry. I must say that I am surprised at the enthusiasm with which Democratic lawmakers across the board are supporting proposals to advance $25 Billion in taxpayer money to Detroit automakers. While I am sensitive to the risks that an auto industry collapse poses and the impact such a collapse would have on thousands of workers’ lives, these companies do not deserve to be bailed out.

I am the proud owner of a Japanese Toyota Prius. I am 24 with a baby on the way, and I am committed to saving our planet and curbing global warming. So I have watched with scorn as GM and others have clung white-knuckled to their SUVs while spending billions on marketing campaigns claiming that these dinosaurs are green.

And now that this plainly myopic business strategy has American automakers scrambling, they want a bailout. As Thomas L. Friedman said recently in an excellent column in the New York Times, “We have to subsidize Detroit so that it will innovate? What business were you people in other than innovation?”

Senator, I am no economist. Many experts seem to agree that a total collapse of the American auto industry would be devastating. But if you must give them aid, make sure it’s not the kind of package that would have Detroit executives cheering. In fact, executives like GM’s vice chairman Bob Lutz, who calls global warming a “crock” and claims hybrids make “no economic sense,” deserve no place in Detroit. Drive a hard bargain. Do what Paul Ingrassia of the Wall Street Journal suggests:

“In return for any direct government aid,” he wrote, “the board and the management [of G.M.] should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical — should have broad power to revamp G.M. with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company … Giving G.M. a blank check — which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant — would be an enormous mistake.”

And as Friedman suggests, demand that these companies get their acts together around fuel-efficiency. If GM is not committed to creating an extensive fleet of vehicles that break at least 35 or 40 miles per gallon immediately, then they deserve to go under. My hope is that the Democratic party will usher in a new age of environmental stewardship. If Democrats push a blank check for Detroit through congress, you all will be off to a seriously bad start.

Respectfully,

Dustin Urban

One plant whose blossoms I have been admiring is the Globe Mallow of the Sphaeralcea family. 

Pictured is a plant I encountered this spring on the Dolores River, but Globe Mallow grows plentifully around Buena Vista as well. Globe Mallow has many medicinal uses, including properties which make a ground preparation of its roots useful in casting broken bones.  

Walking the river trail several weeks ago, Katie and I were startled to come upon a tree full of blossoms, an oasis of fragrance and tender life along the still-gray river path. According to Gary at Pleasant Avenue, the tree is an apricot (Prunus armeniaca). I have spotted several other apricots in town since, and whether this specimen on the banks of the Arkansas was planted, sprouted from a tossed seed or came to grow here in a more spontaneous fashion, I do not know.

The tree was buzzing with pollinators for several days.

Mahonia repens

I took this picture of an Oregon Grape (Mahonia repens) with its holly-like leaves and distinctive yellow blossoms during a recent trip to Durango. This plant will bear sour but edible fruit later in the season which resemble but are not related to grapes.

By Dustin Heron Urban

Last August, a day before I set out on my first trip down the Grand Canyon, I stood on the Glen Canyon Dam Bridge, peering through the diamond lattice created by a chain-link fence which some government official determined years ago was needed. Perhaps he realized that some of my generation would feel compelled to jump as they confronted the monolith which had stolen from them any opportunity of redemption in the wilderness of Glen Canyon. Thankfully the likes of David Brower and Martin Litton preserved for me the majesty of the Grand Canyon, but the dam before me lent a bitter-sweet tone to my first trip down the Grand.

The Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams are, however, not the first obstructions to hold back the flow of the mighty Colorado through the Grand Canyon region. No, over the past ten million years the Colorado has confronted and destroyed numerous obstructions, some much larger than our man-made dams. In this I take comfort when I despair over the fact that I may never have the opportunity to explore Glen Canyon in all its pristine and majestic beauty.

Today, according to the prevailing theory of how the Grand Canyon was formed, the first major dam in the region to be obliterated by water’s unrelenting erosive force stood just west of what is today the confluence of the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers.

According to Ron Redfern in Corridors of Time, at the end of the Cretaceous Era uplift began to raise the Kaibab Plateau, diverting the flow of Ancestral Colorado to the Southeast and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico. At the point of this diversion, a massive body of water by the name of Lake Bidahochi was formed. The Hualapai Drainage, meanwhile, flowed west off the Kaibab Plateau, its headwaters cutting ever-deeper with the Plateau’s continuing uplift to form what is today the western course of the Grand Canyon. Around five million years ago, the remaining rock separating the Hualapai and Ancestral Colorado drainages toppled, and the Lake Bidahochi emptied through the breach. The Ancestral Colorado River reversed the direction of its flow and became what is today the Little Colorado River drainage. This was the first major dam to topple in the Grand Canyon region.

Another was formed around a million years ago when a great lava dam blocked the Colorado in the vicinity of what is now Lava Falls, the most intense of the Canyon’s rapids. This dam was at least eight hundred feet tall, over three hundred feet taller than Glen Canyon Dam. It was one in a series of lava dams to form there, impounding the Colorado River as much as much as one hundred miles upstream. But these dams too would ultimately be overcome by the mighty Colorado, and today where a dam of at least eight hundred feet once stood, there remains only Lava Falls and Lower Lava rapid with a combined drop of only twenty seven feet.

It is easy for me to be bitter with those responsible for the destruction of Glen Canyon. But the mentality that produced Glen Canyon Dam is far from gone. It’s the same mindset that sees countless deep-green golf courses and private swimming pools as a good use of water in desert cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas. It’s the disconnect exhibited by my former classmates who consider hydropower a good, sustainable source of electricity. If we consider the power generated by Glen Canyon Dam to be sustainable, then I believe we need to seriously reevaluate our definition of that word. It is the spirituality of sixteen days in the Grand Canyon, the heart of the earth, which sustains me. And it was the profundity of Glen Canyon’s beauty that sustained Edward Abbey when he wrote in Desert Solitaire “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”

It’s hard to say when the Colorado River will overcome the obstruction that is Glen Canyon Dam. If by eco-terrorists in the tradition of The Monkey Wrench Gang, it may be sooner. If by the steady forces of sedimentation and erosion, it may be later. But if history teaches us anything, it is that the waters of the Colorado River will flow brown and free once again.

My Mom recently sent me my childhood copy of The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds. Inside the back cover, “Dustin Urban” is penciled in my hesitant, 6-year-old lettering. I have memories from my toddler years of approaching birds at the feeder in our Maine yard. I would spend what seemed like 15 minutes or so creeping toward these birds, hoping they might perch on my hand or let me touch them if I moved slowly enough. My Mom also tells me that I would stand outside, holding the Audubon guide open skyward, hoping the fine glossy pictures might attract curious birds. I loved that guide and have recently been using it for the first time in a decade or more.

I have begun to identify a small number of local birds. Yesterday I spotted what I now know was a Common Flicker of the western variety, I think it was male. As you can see from this picture, the Flicker has a red patch on its throat, the guide calls it a “mustache.” The Audubon Guide also provides this interesting fact about the bird: “They are the only woodpeckers in North America that commonly feed on the ground, searching for ants and beetle larvae on lawns or even sidewalks.” Interestingly enough that is exactly where I spotted this one; on a lawn next to a stop sign in town, pecking holes in the dirt.

I suppose it was inevitable… the high price of gasoline has now become an issue in the Presidential race. This New York Times article covers the story. I am happy to see that Obama is opposing the suspension of the 18.4 cent/gallon federal gasoline tax for the summer. McCain and Clinton, on the other hand, are advocating this politically easy move in the face of angry protests from truckers in Washington.

This is a classic test of leadership. It’s easy for politicians to bow to constituents who want quick fixes and government assistance in dealing with market fluctuations. But high prices at the pump are a symptom of a much larger issue. This country needs high gasoline prices. Our way of life is the most unsustainable in the world, with America consuming more resources per capita than any other country. There’s lots of happy talk out there about “ending our addiction to foreign oil,” but how will this ever happen if people continue to drive as much as they do? And why would people drive less and buy more gas-efficient cars if gas continues to be affordable?

The path of true leadership in this scenario is to tell the American people what we need to hear, not what many of us want to hear. What we need to hear is that our way of life must change, our development patterns must change. It needs to be explained that the housing slowdown is directly connected to our sprawling development patterns which create an economy totally dependent on gasoline consumption. We need to fundamentally reevaluate how we transport goods to market rather than giving truckers tax breaks. We need change and innovation, and these processes are often painful and rarely easy.

The worst thing Washington could do right now is to subsidize our gasoline consumption. To do so would be to take the responsibility off of the American people to change. Give us high gas prices and let us innovate. Don’t delay the inevitable and subsidize our CO2 production. Give us high gas prices and let entrepreneurs revive the rail system. Don’t bow to the trucking industry and prolong the survival of an illogical and unsafe way of transporting goods. I’m sympathetic with those families that will be most challenged by high gas prices, but it simply inappropriate for Washington to step in here. I’m proud that Obama is opposing this measure, and I think it says a lot about Clinton that she’s advocating such a politically expedient but ineffective measure.

Cheap gas is not a birth right. If you drive an SUV and commute an hour or more to work, what right do you or the politicians that represent you have to complain about record profits in the oil industry. Let them make their billions. If you want to curb their profits, start a wind or solar power operation.

On Friday afternoon a group of us ran the fractions from Elephant Rock to town. What a gorgeous evening. At one point a massive great blue heron flew up from the river side and caught some airborne bit of food in an abrupt aerial maneuver. This majestic creature then flew South only to return, circle over me and head off again. It was wonderful to have such a close encounter with my namesake.

Saturday Katie, Mike, Chad and I did Pine Creek/ numbers. A gorgeous day again, and I thoroughly enjoyed sitting back and watching the scenery pass as I floated downriver. I’ll often be similarly distracted by the scenery behind the wheel, and I’ll just say that Katie is not a fan of this. I can’t say I blame her. But on the river I was free to gaze up at the granite formations to the East and observe the various tree varieties sinking their feet into the water at river’s edge. Turns out that Douglas Fir are quite common in the Riparian corridor. A beautiful tree easily identified by its cones; below each scale extends a three-pointed “bract” which to me looks like a dragon’s tongue.

Saturday afternoon Andre and I went climbing at the Pleasure Dome in Four Mile. Another gorgeous location. This west-facing crag was warm and the climbing was fun. I did some exploring up a small gully to the South of the main routes and was greeted by two ravens intent on defending their territory. Although there were some good looking routes up there, I decided not to harass the locals whose vociferous squawking could have conceivably turned into aerial assaults. I was particularly struck by two ancient trees growing here. One was a Ponderosa whose trunk diameter was considerably larger than the diameter of my arms (yes, I engage in tree-hugging from time to time). I have no idea the age of this old sage, but it has seen many seasons come and go. Another massive Douglas Fir perhaps even larger than the Ponderosa grew in the Raven’s range and may have even housed their nest. I would have embraced it had the raven’s not made clear that it was their territory.

Finally on Sunday Andre and I made an extended personal first ascent of Davis Face in Four Mile. This four pitch climb was really fun and also pretty epic considering the 20-30 mph winds we were encountering. After a week inside in Boulder, my weekend at home and in nature was much-needed therapy. Spring is on its way and although the Cottonwoods and Aspens aren’t leafing out yet, the wildlife is active and the days are long and warm. Stay tuned for updates on the plants popping up here.