New Mexico Mercury

Attacking Chaco Canyon

Imagine traveling to one of the world’s greatest and most desolately beautiful monuments to human genius and finding when you get there that drilling equipment, jack pumps, truck dust, back up beepers, and road noise have been allowed to destroy the mysterious solitude of such a singular and magnificent place.

That’s what will happen to the Chaco Culture National Historical Park if the state of New Mexico and our congressional delegation doesn’t insist upon an extensive buffer zone around the 53-square mile monument where drilling and other extractive process are prohibited. This is not only a buffer zone, it’s a zone of respect...

New Mexico uranium and mini-reactors

Mention nuclear energy in New Mexico, and many of us get a cold shiver. Despite all the claims that nuclear energy is clean and safe, what it means to New Mexico is a long history of dirty – very dirty -- uranium mining and processing and the cancer that it brings.

So the thought of the federal government subsidizing the development of hundreds of mini-reactors to stimulate a new American nuclear industry that could generate thousands of portable nuclear power plants for export around the world, and use in our own backyard, has unnerving reverberations here...

400 parts per million

As New Mexico becomes the sun’s anvil, and carbon dioxide rises past 400 parts per million (PPM) in the planet’s atmosphere trapping heat and drying out the American west, the haunting question is: Have we reached the tipping point?

Not five years ago, 350 PPM was said to be the outer limits of CO2 saturation before we’re reached the point of no return. All the warnings, of course, went unheeded. The use of fossil fuels grew enormously all over the planet. Renewable energy was drubbed in the marketplace by its government subsidized opposition...

Insight New Mexico - Paul Robinson

V.B. Price speaks with the Paul Robinson, Research Director at the Southwest Research and Information Center, about the legacy of uranium mining in New Mexico, how the uranium market works and who suffers if there's another boom.

Resolana - A book review

What we can all learn from the concept, history and practice of collective wisdom in Northern New Mexico.

Insight New Mexico - Richard Fox

V.B. Price talks with political scientist Richard Fox about the push for privatization of education, Skandera's ties to for-profit education interests and Gov. Martinez' liabilities for the upcoming race for Governor.

UNM’s Honors College: Bigger isn’t better

In a world of future shock, where nothing seems stable and change often happens for no rhyme or reason, institutions with continuity and humane values are worth preserving, even as they evolve.

The crucial thing to avoid is ruining a great and on-going achievement while trying to make it bigger and better.

The University of New Mexico’s new Honors College has morphed this year from the Honors Program, which is one of the gems of the American Honors movement. It’s regularly ranked as one of the top three programs in the nation...

Insight New Mexico - Yvette Tovar

V.B. Price speaks with Yvette Tovar, Executive Director of the New Mexico Water Collaborative, about the ins and outs of water conservation in an era of persistent drought.

Courage in Mora County

If you knew that fallible human beings were going to drill for oil or gas through your precious groundwater would you feel confident about drinking and washing with that water? Not if you valued your health.

Of course you can’t see what actually happens when corporate persons out for profit pollute your ground water.  But it doesn’t take much imagination to suppose pollution will occur many times, if not most times, when drilling rigs and all their gear and goop go at it...

What’s happened to Albuquerque? Part 4: A city of edges

Is it time for a complete revamping of the goals Albuquerque has set for itself as a city?  Are we ready for a genuine city-wide discussion of what the current economic and environmental conditions mean for our future?

The great goals setting exercises of the l970s and l980s took place in an atmosphere of intense public interest and involvement in city issues.  By comparison, 21st century Albuquerque seems asleep at the wheel...