July 2016

Thirty, 20, even 10 years ago, Salt Lake’s food culture was still as uncreative and bland as funeral potatoes and chicken fried steak and its non-existent cocktail culture remained under the heavy fist of antiquated liquor laws. In the last decade, tha …

I’m a redhead. A ginger. A freckle-covered sunburn waiting to happen. To bathe my skin in sunscreen everyday is my habit and my curse, but every time I read the back of a sunscreen bottle I see more chemical ingredients than there are states in the Uni …

Listening to music can be a profoundly ecstatic experience. So it’s no great surprise that researchers have found listening to music floods our brains with dopamine even long after the song has ended. Music is also, as most of us have experienced, a po …

Venus will bring out your inner flirt, making things very va-va-voom during its transit in Leo.  Osho Zen Tarot: Participation, Projections, Creativity Medicine Cards: Ant, Rabbit, Wolf Mayan Oracle: Language of Light, Transparency Ancient Egyptian Tar …

Each spring, a new group of art students leaves the school-structured discipline of art education and enters the working world as painters, sculptors, graphic designers, photographers and mixed media artists. This spring, University of Utah Bachelors o …

Few things crash the garden party harder than the arrival of aphids. In an instant, visions of effortless harvest and flawless plants come to an abrupt halt. One of the first pests a beginner gardener learns to identify, it’s really hard to miss them o …

It’s not that the bus has never let me down. It’s hard to forgive that one particular bus driver last winter who blew past without stopping while I was waiting at night in a blizzard with snow creeping over the tops of my shoes. Or the bus that left my …

I’m not going to go all Matrix on you, but contemplating reality can really make your head reel. It’s more than just the reality of the lowlight reel of the real choices of presidential candidates; if you stop and contemplate the things that might not …

Environmental news from around the state and the West. Now though the season warms the woods inherits harms of human enterprise. Our making shakes the skies And taints the atmosphere. We have ourselves to fear. We burn the world to live. –Wendell Berry …

In June, citizen groups working on air quality won a major victory when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a decision that will reduce haze-forming emissions affecting Arches, Canyonlands and seven other National Parks and Wildern …

In March, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposed removing grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem from the federal Endangered Species List. Only 136 grizzlies lived in and around Yellowstone back in 1975 when grizzlies in the lower 48 …

Opponents of designating a Bears Ears National Monument in San Juan County Utah posted fake flyers designed to look like they came from the federal government or from environmental groups. One flyer with a forged “U. S. Department of Interior” letterhe …

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, Terry Tempest Williams  has released a new book, The Hour of Land : A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks (Sarah Crichton Books, 416pp.) Red Rock Testimony: Three Generations R …

HEAL Utah has been critical of Rocky Mountain Power’s “Blue Sky” program for purchasing renewable energy credits from out-of-state instead of developing new clean power sources in Utah. But what’s the alternative? Subscriber Solar is an option for peop …

SLC Green, Salt Lake City’s sustainability department, has received more than $54,000 in federal grants to set up a mobile farmers market bringing good green things to the Glendale and Poplar Grove neighborhoods. Partners in the project are Green Urban …

In the July CATALYST we gave the basic rundown on pros and cons of sunscreen. One of our trusty gingers, Emma Ryder, roadtests a batchful and offers up her opinions.   Physical sunscreens can be hard to apply. Some won’t disappear onto your skin n …

A monthly compendium of random wisdom for the home, garden and natural world. JULY 1 Famous Utahns born today: Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, physician and first woman state legislator in 1857, and Richard Kletting, architect of the Utah State Capitol and t …