Category Archives: Environment

Mayor of Alaska village walks on four paws – CNN.com

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Mayor of Alaska village walks on four paws – CNN.com.

Stubbs the cat has been mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska, for 15 years, since he was a kitten.

Not many mayors in the United States enjoy belly rubs from their constituents. Then again, most mayors don’t prance around town naked and curl up for naps in front of local businesses.

For 15 years, Stubbs the cat has held the top office in Talkeetna, Alaska. And his approval ratings have never been higher.

“He doesn’t raise our taxes — we have no sales tax. He doesn’t interfere with business. He’s honest,” said Lauri Stec, manager of Nagley’s General Store, which doubles as the mayor’s office.

Stubbs may be the only mayor in the country who rose to office asan infant.

“He was in a box full of kittens in the front of the store, and (the owners) were giving them away,” Stec said. She picked “Stubbs” because he had no tail.

Soon afterward, residents weren’t happy with any of the human candidates in the upcoming mayoral election and voted for Stubbs as a write-in candidate. The kitten won.

Because Talkeetna is a “historical district,” the mayoral post is more symbolic than functional, said Andi Manning, president of the Talkeetna Chamber of Commerce. So most residents are fine with a four-legged feline running the show.

Mayor Stubbs of Talkeetna, Alaska, drinks water with catnip from a wine glass.
Mayor Stubbs of Talkeetna, Alaska, drinks water with catnip from a wine glass.

But the power, apparently, has gotten to Stubbs’ furry head.

“All throughout the day I have to take care of the mayor. He’s very demanding,” said Skye Farrar, a clerk at Nagley’s. “He meowed and meowed and meowed and demanded to be picked up and put on the counter. And he demanded to be taken away from the tourists. Then he had his long, afternoon nap.”

In addition, the mayor will only drink water from a wine glass that has catnip in it, Stec added.

But most everyone is willing to put up with the mayor’s high-maintenance lifestyle, especially because he’s a big tourist attraction for the community of about 800 human beings.

Manning said the mayor frequently draws dozens of tourists who are en route to other Alaska destinations such as Mount McKinley.

And as of late Monday night, the Mayor Stubbs Facebook page had well over 6,000 subscribers.

But Stubbs remains true to his community, often showing up in local businesses — albeit unexpectedly.

“When my building burned down in 2002, he was the last to come out of it,” said Todd Basilone, owner of Mountain High Pizza Pie in Talkeetna. “He’s always in the restaurant. Stubbs wanders into every place in town.”

Even though dogs run loose and outnumber people in Talkeetna, he said, the canines seem to respect Stubbs’ authority.

“I’ve never seen a dog mess with him,” Basilone said.

Though the mayor generally receives positive reviews for his laissez-faire politics, he is guilty of frequently sleeping on the job.

“His biggest political rivals would be other local businesses that would hate that he comes over and takes a nap and leaves fur everywhere. They aren’t big fans of him,” Farrar said.”We usually say, ‘You have to deal with it. He runs the town.’”

 

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Citing drought, Wyoming governor seeks disaster declaration Cattle News – Editorial, Grain & Cattle Markets, Current Stories

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Citing drought, Wyoming governor seeks disaster declaration Cattle News – Editorial, Grain & Cattle Markets, Current Stories.

Wyoming’s governor, citing drought conditions, has asked for a federal disaster declaration after dwindling runoff from meager winter snowpack combined with an especially dry spring and early summer hit ranchers hard, his office said on Friday.

The request, if successful, could help farmers qualify for federal assistance based on poor grass and hay production that has driven many to sell off cattle in the face of persistent dry weather.

“Wyoming farmers and ranchers are struggling to work through serious impacts caused by drought,” Governor Matt Mead said in a statement announcing the request for all but a single county.

Though Wyoming’s nickname is the Cowboy State and it was largely settled by ranchers, agriculture now accounts for a small fraction – less than 5 percent – of Wyoming’s energy-driven economy, with coal and natural gas production dwarfing all other industries.

But in a state where nearly half the land is publicly owned, farmers and ranchers play a key role in preserving Wyoming’s open spaces and supporting its abundant wildlife, indirectly boosting the state’s second-ranking industry of tourism.

Statewide, ranchers have lost about half of their pasture grass and hay production on non-irrigated lands this year, and producers in affected areas were “really struggling,” said Doug Miyamoto, deputy director for the Wyoming Department of Agriculture.

“It’s scary, because you don’t have the production to even feed your animals,” said Krista Macy, whose family has been farming and raising cattle for 100 years north of Pine Bluffs, in southwestern Wyoming, near the Nebraska state line.

Miyamoto said the southern part of Wyoming was suffering the most from lack of spring rain.

“There has been a lot of liquidation of cattle this year in Wyoming based on how far behind we were on precipitation,” Miyamoto said.

Data compiled by the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, shows that more than two thirds of the topsoil in Wyoming was now rated as either too dry for normal plant growth or too dry for any growth or seed germination.

Though federal disaster assistance may help drought-stricken Wyoming ranchers in the short run, bouncing back after such a dry year can be tough over the long term, both financially and emotionally, Macy said.

Moving cows between pastures as grass dies and hauling water as springs dry up is about all some ranchers can do, she said.

“That’s the hardest part, to watch your animals suffer,” she said. “They’re your world.”

Wyoming delegation visits China province with much in common

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Wyoming delegation visits China province with much in common.

As a Wyoming delegation visits central China next week, it’ll spend time in Shaanxi province, a place with many similarities to Wyoming.

It’s not the food: Wyoming has top-notch steak, Shaanxi has gourmet noodles and dumplings.

Shaanxi is home to 37 million and is run by a centralized, socialist government. But, like Wyoming, Shaanxi is in its nation’s interior and is a major producer of fossil fuels — home to some of China’s biggest coal reserves and reservoirs of oil and natural gas.

Wyoming and Shaanxi find themselves working hard to find ways to limit or store greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal.

For Wyoming, such research is a chance to make sure the state’s coal will have buyers even amid stricter environmental regulations. For Shaanxi, similar research could open ways to limit the devastating levels of pollution in the province and in China from use of its natural resources.

Two very different places, but two coal-producing regions with some closely aligned goals.

“It’s so striking how similar they are with natural resources issues,” said Lynne Boomgaarden, a Cheyenne-based attorney on energy issues and a speaker at an international forum on coal.

Wyoming’s coal is pulled from the ground with few injuries and lives lost and shipped by rail. Shaanxi province isn’t so lucky. Coal is mined in sometimes deadly conditions by hand and trucked to China’s power-hungry industrial zones and growing urban areas. It’s an inefficient method that belches a lot of additional pollution into Shaanxi’s skies.

The province, which could produce 370 million tons of coal this year, is seeking a more environmentally friendly use of its coal resource, said a scientist from a university in Xi’an, Shaanxi’s capital, in a paper published this year in a Canadian scientific journal.

Shaanxi’s provincial government has said it’s seeking “wealthy people, graceful environment.” The Wyoming delegation will arrive in Xi’an for a coal forum aimed at the second half of that goal: cutting down pollution from coal and oil development, use and transportation in the province.

Shaanxi’s industrial users of coal must be asked to adopt “clean coal” technology to limit emissions, said Li Gou, of Xi’an University of Science and Technology’s Energy Economy and Management Research Center. Coal mines should adopt better production methods and the province should seek new uses for coal.

Only by doing all those things can Shaanxi “guarantee the sustainable development of economy,” Li wrote in the Jan. 1 edition of the Journal of Sustainable Development.

It’s a theme familiar in Wyoming, where state leaders and coal industry officials are also seeking new ways to cut emissions from burning coal and new ways to use Wyoming’s coal, boosting its value within the state.

The province government’s next five-year master plan, announced earlier this year, trumpeted the province’s success in cutting energy demand and called for more conservation of electricity, as well as cuts in pollutants including sulfur dioxide, holding the line in nitrogen oxide and strengthening monitoring of particulate matter.

The success of Shaanxi and Wyoming to limit pollution from the use of coal is something members of the Wyoming delegation recognize, even if they do it begrudgingly.

“At this point, they don’t probably care what anybody thinks,” said state Rep. Ed Buchanan, R-Torrington, speaker of the state House and a conference delegate. “But the more palatable you make burning coal to the international community, the more accepting they’ll be and the more you’ll be able to meet the demands of your population and industrial complex.”

Buchanan was referring to the Chinese, but it’s a thought many in Wyoming share.

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