A few years ago, I stopped reporting on Los Alamos National Laboratory. I was no longer confident in my ability to remain objective when writing about the nuclear weapons facility. There’s no way I can pretend that the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons is a good idea, no matter where it’s done. And I’ve interviewed too many people whose stories turned my stomach.

Eight miles south of Socorro, Vannetta Perry owns a 54-acre farm. Her husband bought the land in 1973, and five years later, the couple started growing crops like alfalfa, winter wheat and corn for grain. Both worked other jobs to keep the farm running. “It’s almost impossible to be out of the poverty level just by farming if you’re a small farming operation,” says Perry. “But for us, for my husband and I, we chose that as a way of life. We chose it for our children and because we love farming.” But when Perry’s husband, Gary, died in 2010 of a rare brain disease, she couldn’t keep up with the loan for the land where they raised their children and where she continues to live while working as the Socorro’s interim superintendent. That’s when she decided to sell her water rights—164 acre-feet, or more than 5.3 million gallons—from the Rio Grande to the City of Santa Fe.

Environmental news is a downer. I know. Despite trying to balance news about climate change and energy development with a love for wild places and muddy rivers, I’ve pretty much spent a decade of my life depressing readers. Lately, I’ve even been wondering how much I’ve contributed to the helplessness people feel about the environment.

Staring at a killdeer skittering across a sandbar, I wonder why we don’t see anyone else up or down the Rio Grande here in Albuquerque. “Most people,” says my friend, a biologist (and an irrigator, too), “seem to think you come to the river to take water or to fish—or to drown.” We think about that for a minute, then shove our way back through the salt cedar and Russian olive that separate the river from the system of trails through the bosque.

On May 15, Gov. Susana Martinez issued a formal drought declaration for New Mexico. According to the National Weather Service, 2011 was the second driest year on record. The entire state experienced decreased moisture levels, and 90 percent of it suffered severe drought conditions.

I felt no smug satisfaction when reading of a recent federal court case involving The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company. In March, the company pled guilty to charges that it had knowingly sold poisoned birdseed.

In a shaky, hand-shot video from 2010, Nimish Vyas of the United States Geological Survey pans across a field in Vernon, Colo. Vyas focuses on a dirt mound and then zooms in on a pale spot atop the dry, tawny grass. The spot twitches, and he zooms closer.

Most New Mexicans have never spotted a wild river otter. In the 19th century, the animals were trapped out of existence in much of their historic range. The last one known to have lived—or at least died—in New Mexico was caught in a beaver trap set in the Gila River near the town of Cliff in 1953.

There are a lot of things Edward Abbey didn’t like: dams, fences, billboards—and cars in national parks. Writing of his time working at Arches National Park, in Desert Solitaire, he railed against visitors who never stepped from their vehicles: “Let the people walk. Or ride horses, bicycles, mules, wild pigs—anything—but keep the automobiles and the motorcycles and all their motorized relatives out.”

Climate change affects everyone, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve driven through a handful of dust storms that made me feel, even just momentarily, that I wouldn’t find a safe way out of the darkness and stinging grit. Even inside the vehicle, it was hard not to hold my breath.