Science

The Nuclear Option, Revisited

For another take on energy, see “The Nuclear Option in Oregon” by Robert Sack, M.D. I’m always baffled by the neediness of nuclear advocates (I exempt Dr. Sack, who is less advocating nuclear than keeping an open mind to the option). They have to argue that their preferred electricity source is mistreated, its downsides exaggerated, […]

The Nuclear Option in Oregon

 For another take on energy, see “The Nuclear Option, Revisited” by Angus Duncan Can an environmentalist be in favor of nuclear energy? I consider myself “green.” My wife and I live in a “net zero” house with solar panels, and we drive a plug-in hybrid EV. Need I mention that I am very worried about global […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]