November 2018

Our city and county officials are gearing up for change. We can plainly to see that already climate changes are impact­ing our everyday lives in northern Utah. Over the past three years we have experienced unprecedented harmful algal blooms in bodies o …

Soften your gaze, empty your mind and the loud city will go quiet Most mornings, I step out my front door and wonder how the world has changed shape from the day before. I feel the wind and listen to the traffic and think about what route I’ll walk to …

I’m taking a break this week from the regular format of these pages. Yes, the current Mercury Retrograde is overwhelming with techno-challenges (wasn’t last Friday just a bitch?). And you certainly don’t need me to delineate the retrograde do’s and don …

The window of time to deal with climate change has narrowed to an urgent 12 years according to a new report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report says global temperatures are already 1°C higher than in pre-industrial tim …

On October 15 Utah Governor Gary Herbert issued an Executive Order to declare a drought emergency for the entire state. Last winter, snowpack was only 50-60% of normal and melted several months early. Prolonged dry conditions led to a formidable wildfi …

A federal judge in Montana restored endangered species protections to grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone area, cancelling planned trophy hunts in Idaho and Wyoming. Utah’s congressional delegation has an agenda to “modernize” (i.e. destroy ) the …

Canyon crowding is not just for powder days anymore. Researchers at Utah State University found that poor winter air quality in Salt Lake City increased the volume of traffic heading up both Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons. The researchers say that’s …

The Trump administration is trying to ram through new management plans for Utah’s downsized national monuments before courts have weighed in on whether the president has authority to shrink or eliminate national monuments. An October 1 letter sent by C …

Public comments are due on the Draft Monument Management Plans of the Indian Creek and Shash Jaa Units of the former Bears Ears National Monument (these are remnant units after President Trump slashed Bears Ears boundaries by 85% in December 2017) . Be …

Public comments are due on a hastily written Draft  BLM management plan for areas that Trump eliminated from Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Grand Staircase Escalante e-planning website: https:// goo.gl/EHvhbc  Click “comment on Document” …

This isn’t about this news cycle; it’s about every news cycle since shared cave paintings. Could Kokopelli really play a mean flute? Did elk really look like that? I doubt it; ‘pelli probably just had a good publicist and those elk were hunting story e …

Someday, perhaps not long from now, the inhabitants of a hotter, more dangerous and biologically diminished planet than the one on which I lived may wonder what you and I were thinking, or whether we thought at all. —William T. Vollmann, Carbon Ideolog …

Hello to readers everywhere, on and off planet! I am in a time warp—and it’s the same one I enter every national election year: I’m writing this column several days before its publication, which means I have no idea what the midterm election results ar …

November is Alternative Fuel Vehicle Awareness Month in Utah. “Alternative” means a fuel other than gasoline or diesel for powering motor vehicles. Manufacturers currently offer over 650 models of alternative fuel vehicles for sale that  run on a range …

A visit to “away” (where things are thrown) Earlier this year, CATALYST presented A Clean Air Affair—an evening of experts speaking on the topic of air quality. CATALYST worked with the local chapter of the international group PechaKucha 20×20 (20 imag …

Keep food out of landfills When it comes to the zero waste movement, the recent buzz locally has all been associated with food waste. You might be thinking, food waste just decomposes over time, so why should we care? Food waste, in fact, is a huge con …

Soften your gaze, empty your mind and the loud city will go quiet Most mornings, I step out my front door and wonder how the world has changed shape from the day before. I feel the wind and listen to the traffic and think about what route I’ll walk to …

The Artesian Well Park has a past – and a future On any given day in Salt Lake if you pass by a little park just one block north of Liberty Park you may notice people lined up with a mish mash of empty milk containers, five-gallon camping jugs, extra-l …

Here’s the big astro news of the week: Venus Direct begins Friday, November 16, at 5:51 AM EST. Yay! But don’t get too excited. On that very same day, at 8:33 PM EST, Mercury Retrograde begins. Take heart—it’s the last one of this year. Best be prepare …

When courts of law forbid the truth I started out writing about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recent report on the challenges in keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Centigrade. See Amy Brunvand’s Environews for an update. …

Big Brothers Big Sisters needs you Apollo Burgamy’s story with Big Brothers Big Sisters starts in 2003. His undergraduate advisor was a mentor in the program and encouraged Burgamy to volunteer. In 2013, after serving time in the Navy and traveling aro …

“The artist’s mission is to make the soul perceptible.” Alex Grey At the end of each year, Urban Arts Gallery places a call for submissions and creates exhibits for the following year based on the work that arrived. “As we reviewed the submissions for …

Cultivating equanimity in relationship It’s been a full year since a dear friend succumbed to cancer. A longtime yoga student and generous soul, I was privileged to know her for 20 years. (I met her at a CATALYST party.) I think about her often. Even n …

Osho Zen Tarot:  Playfulness, Projections, Going with the Flow Medicine Cards: Antelope, Hawk Mayan Oracle:  Three of Wands, Three of Cups Ancient Egyptian Tarot: Three of Disks, The Chariot, Prince of Disks Aleister Crowley Deck: Princess of Wands, Ac …

Librarian-activist-essayist Chip Ward can write fiction, too I know Chip ward personally as a librarian and as an environmental activist. He wrote the non-fiction Canaries on the Rim (1999) about pollution and radioactive waste in Utah’s West Desert wh …

November 1 All Saints’ Day. Sunrise 7:58am. Sunset 6:23pm. High: 50°F. Low: 31°F. Precipitation: 0.64 in. For the next couple weeks, we lose an additional three minutes of daylight every day. November 2 Ever want to write a novel? Do it now:   NaNoWriM …