Science

The Whys and Wherefores: Failures of Governance and Imagination [1]

How did progressive Oregon, and the country, get to stasis on climate change? Other countries have not locked up on the issue. Even the Brexit-inflected and flustered United Kingdom has a coherent and determined if stumbling-toward-solutions policy approach. Even China, as dependent as it is on coal, acknowledges its obligation to exit that fuel and… Continue Reading The Whys and Wherefores: Failures of Governance and Imagination [1]

Puddle Jumper

From above, old Earth offers a cartography of troublesfor any long-flyer beating north or south—duck,swan, swallow, hawk, owl or wren—peering down to the red-lit blur of roads,cities bristling with blinding light, freeway web,tangle of wires tethered to slave trees, ancientmarsh gone to blacktop skin, the lacy skeinof the river’s former wanderings now boundin a run… Continue Reading Puddle Jumper

SCOTUS Should Allow EPA to Address Climate Pollution

Recently, the Supreme Court heard arguments in West Virginia v. EPA, a case challenging Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) long-standing authority to address climate pollution from power plants. Two decades ago, in the Whitman v. American Trucking Association case, Justice Scalia wrote for a unanimous Court affirming EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act (1970) to… Continue Reading SCOTUS Should Allow EPA to Address Climate Pollution

Who Do You Trust?

Have you ever marveled at the intelligence of a one-year old child? If so, you know that in their short lives they have learned a huge amount. Their ability to speak may be limited to single syllables, but they have mastered the ability to get their needs met: vocalizing repetitively “Ma,” and “Da,” and hand… Continue Reading Who Do You Trust?

Returning Sea Otters to Oregon: Repairing a Torn Fabric

The ocean along the Pacific Coast is exhibiting unmistakable signs of stress as the result of a changing climate and pressures from other human activities. Increasingly acidic ocean water, caused by an over-abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and in ocean waters, is affecting calcium-based marine life such as very young crab and oysters.… Continue Reading Returning Sea Otters to Oregon: Repairing a Torn Fabric

Climate Action is Good for Health

Historically, when Americans hear “climate change,” we imagine a polar bear struggling on ever-shrinking ice. But our perceptions are beginning to shift: we may now be as likely to envision people suffering while working in the heat, fleeing wildfires, wading flooded streets, and checking their children for ticks. People are being affected – your parents,… Continue Reading Climate Action is Good for Health

Volcanoes and Superquakes: Living with Geologic Hazards in the Pacific Northwest

For most residents of the Pacific Northwest, the region’s spectacular landscape — from rugged coastlines to towering, glacier-clad peaks — seems permanent and unchanging. For the Native Americans who inhabited the area for millennia before Anglo-Americans settled it, however, the land’s apparent stability and tranquility was recognized as a dangerous illusion. As their oral traditions… Continue Reading Volcanoes and Superquakes: Living with Geologic Hazards in the Pacific Northwest

Salmon and the Northwest

There is not much of it left. Of untouched salmon habitat there is almost none. Although salmon once occupied almost every ocean-seeking stream in the Pacific Northwest, the map where salmon go has been shrinking for over a hundred years, sometimes gradually as human forces slowly worsened the habitat, sometimes suddenly when millions of acres… Continue Reading Salmon and the Northwest