There's a lot of bad news out there, and it comes from every direction: TV, radio, newspapers, the Internet. A few examples from recent days: We're still at war in Iraq with an amorphous enemy  and US policymakers can't formulate any solutions better than complete withdrawal or some entropic vagary called "staying the course." A small-plane crash near Miami kills all 20 aboard, including three children. (That makes it worse, doesn't it?) People are still homeless from the Asian tsunami, the earthquake in Pakistan, and Hurricane Katrina—and the weather catastrophes are most likely directly related to our overheating planet, a new sign of which appears in the media each week: melting ice caps, drowning polar bears, Santa in a Speedo, etc. To top it all, the government has been eavesdropping on our phone calls without warrants, and Vice President Cheney unapologetically frames this felonious wiretapping as a way to reassert the powers of the presidency, which had eroded post-Vietnam and Watergate. And the New York Times held the story for over a year at the request of the Bush administration. On certain days, watching CNN can make you feel like you've fallen in a hole.

Chronogram is not immune from the bad-news bug. This past year we've published pieces on war profiteering, conservative Christians who wish to destroy the environment in order to quicken the Rapture, the regressive tax system, the inability of the international community to stop the ongoing genocide in Darfur, my own frequent tirades against lousy journalism. And this month we feature a frightening report on the perils of electronic voting (p. 20).

Bad news is the blood that runs through the veins of the media ("if it bleeds it leads"), and we need it. To be truly informed about our world and to be able to better strategize positive responses to the news of the day we need to know all the terrible stuff. In most cases, this is not feasible—short of raising a private army and ferrying it to the Sudan, there is little beyond anguished hand-wringing that most of us can do about the genocide in Darfur. There are times, however, when a determined group of people can mobilize themselves on a local level and achieve an astonishing success.

In 2002, one of Ulster County's largest private landowners, John Bradley, unveiled a plan to develop 350 luxury homes and a golf course on 2,500 acres nestled up against the Shawangunk Ridge, abutting Minnewaska State Park and Sam's Point Preserve, an area the Nature Conservancy has dubbed "one of earth's last great places." Land conservation groups had approached Bradley at various times over the years with offers to buy the land, only to be rebuffed by him. To facilitate the "conservation-based development," a limited liability corporation was formed, Awosting Reserve LLC, with Bradley, a group of investors, and the developer Chaffin/Light as shareholders. The path seemed cleared for large-scale development on the ridge with minimal resistance from the municipal authorities.

And then the signs went up. Everywhere you drove in southeast Ulster there were tiny lawn billboards declaring "Save the Ridge." This was the work of a grassroots group formed by concerned citizens—those who lived near the proposed development and those who didn't but believed it was inappropriate to site it on pristine land sandwiched between two nature preserves. Public forums were staged where hundreds of people came out in force to debate and challenge the developers. Fundraisers were held. Strategies discussed. Alliances were formed with other land-conservation groups. Candidates opposed to the proposed development were elected to the town board. Save the Ridge didn't have Bradley's millions, nor the litigation and PR savvy of veteran developer Chaffin/Light, but they wielded their most powerful weapon—persistent vocal opposition—ferociously.

In 2004, lacking significant progress on the development as the regulatory and zoning process ground on and on, Bradley attempted to fire Chaffin/Light, dissolve the LLC, reclaim his land, and build a smaller development. The delicious irony of it was, due to the intricacies of how the LLC was created, Bradley no longer owned the land, and couldn't fire anybody. Chaffin/Light sued Bradley, and it landed in court, where a judge ruled that the land should be auctioned off, and the investors—Bradley and Chaffin/Light among them—should receive their money back.

Among the potential buyers were Bradley, who offered $15 million to buy back his former property; another developer, who offered $20 million but wanted reassurances from the town that he would in fact be able to build 300 homes on the site, and a bid of $17 million from the Trust for Public Lands in conjunction with the Open Space Institute, two large, deep-pocketed land-conservation groups who pledged to give the land to New York State to expand Minnewaska State Park. The court-appointed trustee chose to sell the land to Trust for Public Lands and the Open Space Institute, as they had no contingencies attached to their bid. They signed a contract for the land on November 5 and expect to close in late March.

Bad news can often be disheartening and downright enervating, it can sap the spirit like a succubus and make you beg to be released from the responsibility of all this knowing. It's instructive, and refreshing then, especially as a new year begins, to be reminded that grassroots collective action, like that of Save the Ridge, can move mountains—or save them from being moved.

—Brian K. Mahoney