Access Utah

Scott Hammond and his golden retriever, Dusty, are volunteer search and rescue workers with Rocky Mountain Rescue Dogs. In his new book, “Lessons of the Lost: Finding Hope and Resilience in Work, Life, and the Wilderness,” Hammond says that wilderness can be unforgiving and dangerous, yet fill our souls with awe and wonder and that the wilderness is a classroom where we learn to survive, thrive and sometimes die.

For the past 12,000 years, the earth has experienced a relatively stable climate. Today, that predictability has ended, and global warming is our new reality. Yet such shifting weather patterns threatened Homo sapiens once before, right here in North America as the continent was first being colonized. About 15,000 years ago, the weather began to warm, melting the glaciers of the Late Pleistocene and driving the beasts of the Ice Age toward extinction. In this new landscape, humans managed to adapt to unfamiliar habitats and dangerous creatures in the midst of a wildly fluctuating climate. Are there lessons for modern people lingering along this ancient trail?

In May of 1934, outside of Hugo, Oklahoma, a homeless man and his 13 year-old daughter are befriended by a Texas drifter newly released from the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. The drifter, Clint Palmer, lures father and daughter to Texas, where the father, Dillard Garrett, mysteriously disappears, and where his daughter Lucile begins a one-year ordeal that culminates in four Utah killings and Palmer’s notorious Greenville, Texas “skeleton murder” trial of 1935.Chuck Greaves’ historical novel ”Hard Twisted” tells the true story of Lucile“Lottie” Garrett.

This morning we’re at Logan Regional Hospital. My guest for the hour is Dr. Zorba Paster from Zorba Paster On Your Health. Our live broadcast is kicking off several events featuring Zorba Paster in Logan and Moab. I’ll ask him to take us behind the scenes of his show. We’ll talk about how to live a long, sweet life. We’ll also talk about health literacy and food.

Most of us think there’s nothing new to say about nuclear weapons. Yes, they’re horrible, possibly immoral, and definitely dangerous, but they feel necessary. If force is the final arbiter between nations, and nuclear bombs are the most powerful weapons, then we’re basically stuck with them. In his new book, “Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons.,” Ward Wilson says that much of what we believe about nuclear weapons is based on emotion and exaggeration.

Edward Schumacher-Matos is the Ombudsman for NPR, dealing with issues of ethics, fairness and accuracy, media and society, and language. He joins Tom Williams to talk about some of the issues he has addressed recently: the patriotism of NPR and its sponsor Al Jazeera; questions of bias in NPR coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian divide; and whether NPR should use the term “Obamacare.” He will also talk about immigration, the fragmentation of media, the future of newspapers, the goals of NPR News, and relationships between NPR and its member stations.

Cache Valley has some of the worst air in the nation a few days out of the year, typically in the winter time. Even short-term exposure to air pollution can cause long-term health effects according to studies conducted at Utah State University. Today on the program, Utah State University toxicologist Dr. Roger Coloumbe joins us to discuss the Cache Valley air pollution studies and how it impacts our health.

It's been estimated that nearly 40,000 Utahns have been furloughed because of the government shutdown, programs like the Women’s Infant Care (WIC) are struggling to provide their services to mothers and their children, all six of Utah’s National Parks are closed, leaving surrounding businesses and towns fearful.

From October 2 to October 3, Park City hosted the Extension Sustainability Summit. The event brought in extension educators on sustainability from all across the nation, to discuss what major environmental sustainability programs are currently being delivered through Cooperative Extension and began talking about future goals.

What is it about the aspen tree that captures our imagination? The pleasant sound and sight of quaking leaves? Maybe aspen trees remind us of favorite mountain retreats? Perhaps it’s the fact that many aspen “groves” are really a single organism, sharing a massive root system. One such aspen, Pando, is one of the world’s oldest living organisms and lives in Fishlake National Forest in Utah. School children from Monroe have proposed that the aspen be named Utah’s state tree. Today on Access Utah we’ll explore all things aspen, from the scientific to the metaphorical.