September 2016

We are moving into peak harvest season this month. Everything that’s been growing— your tomatoes, winter squash, corn— will be ripening and ready to pick. It’s the kind of bounty that inspires people to celebrate and all across Utah fall harvest festiv …

As Eat Local Week nears, we ask three Salt Lake City “local food” activists: What’s “local”? Eat Local Week’s mission is simple: challenge yourself to eat more locally for a whole week. Now in its seventh year, this annual, localized eating fest began …

Autumn is arguably the best time to cycle in Utah. The oppressive heat of summer backs off, and the ozone pollution hanging heavy over the valley dissipates to a light haze—and by the end of September, even that haze evaporates, leaving behind dazzling …

A beautiful fall morning dawns in the great city of Salt Lake. You are enjoying a brisk walk. The sky is crisp azure blue and the birds are singing. The streets are still empty and quiet. A cool wind blows over the Wasatch Mountains and dry leaves clat …

Bulgarian-born surrealist choreographer translates pain into movement. Tzveta Kassabova holds three masters degrees and has been, at various points in her life, a gymnast, a physicist and a meteorologist. It was, in fact, a PhD program in meteorology, …

It was that time of year when almost all the cosmonauts in the entire universe were untangling LED lights and preparing their campers to enter the dusty, week-long, 80,000-attendee Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada (August 28-September 3) …

Ideas Worth Spreading. This is the tagline of the global phenomenon called TED Talks that is taking the internet by storm. The 18-minutes-or-less presentations in the beginning were within categories of Technology, Entertainment or Design (TED) but now …

High-quality fat is essential for optimal wellness. For years, saturated fat has been made out to be the dietary villain. We’ve identified the gristle on our streak, that pat of butter and the yolk of the egg to equate the heart attack special and muff …

From traps and poison to terriers, botanicals and contraception: It’s a new world. Rats chew. “They can chew through lead, cinderblock, brick, mortar, aluminum, wood, glass, vinyl and improperly cured concrete,” according to Diana Key who, at the time …

Legacy Initiative Pet Outreach helps dogs, cats and even an occasional duck. If you go to the northwest corner of Pioneer Park at noon on any given Sunday, you’ll meet a small crew of extraordinary people performing an act of extraordinary kindness: Th …

We have a long history tinkering with things. Through domestication and artificial selection, humans have bred many familiar and useful food organisms—beef cattle, chickens, hybrid corn, large-fruited tomatoes, and hundreds of others. This artificial s …

Salt Lake City recently purchased 305 acres of open land in the foothills near City Creek to help preserve the Salt Lake City watershed and a segment of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. The purchase used up the last remaining money from a $5.4 million O …

Utah Senators Orrin Hatch (R) and Mike Lee (R) are trying to change the definition of wilderness by forcing land managers to allow bicycles on wilderness trails. The 1964 Wilderness Act specifically bans “mechanical transport” which includes bicycles, …

Despite loud shouting of opposition voices, a poll on behalf of the Pew Charitable Trusts found that a small majority of Utahns actually favor creating a Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah; 53% of those polled supported the idea of a monumen …

Safe wildlife road crossings are essential to prevent habitat fragmentation, and a citizen group in Park City is pressuring the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) to help stop excessive wildlife roadkill on Interstate 80 by connecting animal migr …

The Navajo Nation has named the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and several gold mining companies in a lawsuit seeking damages for an accident that spilled three million gallons of toxic acid mine waste into the San Juan River watershed. The lawsu …

During the G.W. Bush administration, the Utah Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was told to rush through new Resource Management Plans (RMP) for public lands in order to prioritize resource extraction. The sloppily written plans were challenged in court …

HEAL Utah, Uranium Watch and Living Rivers have dropped a lawsuit to prevent Blue Castle, LLC from building a controversial nuclear power plant in Green River, Utah. It’s not that dewatering the Green River and risking nuclear meltdown has suddenly bec …

Closing a coal-fired power plant solves air quality problems, but leaves behind other pollution problems. Last month a flash flood washed 2,700 cubic yards of coal ash from the retired Rocky Mountain Power Carbon Power Plant into the Price River. The U …

A featured speaker at the 2016 Unitah Basin Energy Summit was filmmaker Phelim McAleer who the San Francisco Chronicle calls “climate denial’s Michael Moore.” McAleer is the director of a pro-fracking film titled FrackNation, which has been compared to …

Wait! Don’t throw that old bike helmet in the trash. It can be recycled. The Utah Recycling Alliance is hosting a pop-up CHARM event (Collection of Hard-to-Recycle Materials) on September 24 at 352 West 900 South, Salt Lake City. The list of accepted i …

A monthly compendium of random wisdom for the home, garden and natural world Day by day in the home, garden & sky. SEPT 1 NEW MOON. Neptune reaches its closest approach to Earth tonight. With a telescope, you can see the blue disc-shaped planet. Di …

Intuitive patterns for September 2016: Sometimes you just have to allow the flow of life to take you where it will. Osho Zen Tarot: Sharing, Going with the Flow, The Dream Medicine Cards: Whale, Coyote Mayan Oracle: Realm Shift, Ik Ancient Egyptian Tar …

Some of my fondest elementary school memories are of field trips to Honolulu—we lived on the North Shore of O’ahu—to experience plays, concerts and ballets. I’ve always wanted to write a play for young audiences and to somehow pass on what was shared w …

I attended my first yoga class in early 1982 in a small studio with pink plush carpet. After an hour-plus of slow, mindful movement and a nice long Savasana, I pretty much floated out to my car. I’d never felt so clear and calm. I was hooked. A few mon …

Here’s how to pick your produce at the peak of perfection. In the garden, it’s rush hour. After the early summer ritual of patience you’ve endured waiting for that garden full of green tomatoes to start blushing red, it’s time. Those carefully placed s …

This nation has such a lack of happiness it depresses me. What did I just say? I don’t even care if America is still great or needs to be made great again. What we really need is to be happy again. Maybe it is impossible in this political climate but w …

Environmental news from around the state and the West. For the 15th consecutive month, the global land and ocean temperature departure from average was the highest since global temperature records began in 1880. This marks the longest such streak in NO …