Current Stories
Editor's Top Picks
After the floods: A geological history of the NW
High Country News
11/23/2009
The view from State Route 281, a few miles south of Quincy, Wash., doesn't seem like one of the world's more dramatic landscapes. Not to me, anyway. This is country to be endured (better yet, slept through) on the way to other, more captivating environments. The topography here is mostly flat, and whatever isn't paved is russet or beige or an irrigated green.
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Utopia: Are we there yet?
Crosscut
09/10/2009
An art exhibit in Port Angeles displays creative responses to the Cascadia dream.
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Report: Tax junk food to fight child obesity
Vancouver Sun
09/01/2009
A strongly worded report on child obesity released on Tuesday recommends that state and local governments tax junk food and soft drinks, give tax breaks to grocery stores that open in blighted neighborhoods and build bike trails.
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Views: Farmers' market -- the new village for today?
Portland Tribune
08/13/2009
Farmers' markets may be the "new villages" of our modern day as we live in such isolation in our suburban homes, driving to and from the stores.
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Puget Sound orcas face uncertain future
Everett Herald
08/09/2009
Four years after orcas living in Puget Sound waters were declared endangered, the prospects for their recovery are still unclear and their fate inextricably linked with that of the also-troubled Puget Sound chinook salmon. While noise from boats has been cited as a culprit in the decline, fish are foremost, according to most experts.
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Study: NW wildfires, air pollution to increase
Oregonian
07/30/2009
A warming climate will lead to more wildfires and more air pollution in coming decades, with the most dramatic increase in the Northwest, a new study predicts.
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Researchers project intense fire season in the West
New York Times
07/28/2009
It will be hot, dry and a bad fire year for much of the West, Forest Service researchers are predicting. Researchers have completed an updated national drought and fire forecast for the next six months saying that 3.66 million acres are expected to burn. That is about average nationally, but there is an "unusual" concentration of activity in the West, they said.
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What will 'cap and trade' mean to the NW?
Oregon Public Broadcasting
07/23/2009
Climate change legislation that Oregon lawmakers approved during the last session is now law, putting the state one step ahead of the federal government. We wanted to consider what a cap-and-trade law would mean for us in the Northwest. For that, we turn to Sightline Institute's Alan Durning.
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NW: Saudia Arabia of renewable energy?
Boise Idaho Statesman
07/13/2009
From wind power to tar sands to nuclear power and even tidal power, the Pacific Northwest has a bounty of energy sources the region can turn into industrial development and jobs, experts meeting this week in Boise say. "We'll be talking about this region as the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy," said one organizer.
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Views: Going easy on the gas
Oregonian
07/08/2009
Conventional wisdom holds that Americans generally keep right on driving and burning gasoline, through good times and bad. In fact, per-capita gas consumption has diminished in the Northwest in eight of the last nine years.
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From okra to orcas, it's all connected
Bellingham Herald
07/05/2009
A plan to restore salmon runs on California's Sacramento River that could curtail water in the nation's most productive farm region could also help revive killer whale populations 700 miles to the north in Puget Sound, as federal scientists struggle to protect endangered species in a complex ecosystem along the Pacific Coast.
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Northwest drivers using less gas
KPLU
07/02/2009
If it seems like you're buying less gas these days, you're probably right. A new study from a Seattle-based sustainability think tank finds total gasoline consumption across the Northwest dropped sharply last year. In fact, per-capita gasoline use has dropped in 8 of the last 9 years, and it's now at its lowest level since 1965.
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Winter snowpack melts into waterfalls
Seattle Times
07/02/2009
A record hot June and a winter snowpack more than 2,000 percent of normal in places have combined to detonate an explosion of waterfalls this summer in the Central Cascades.
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Northwest drivers using less gasoline
Boise Idaho Statesman
07/01/2009
Idaho, Washington, and Oregon drivers cut back their per-capita gasoline consumption by 5 percent in 2008. Total gasoline consumption in the three states fell about 180 million gallons between 2007 and 2008, the largest drop since 1980, according to a new study from Sightline Institute.
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Even those with health insurance going broke
Seattle Times
06/28/2009
When Mark Moody and Glenda Krull could no longer afford both health insurance and mortgage payments, the Edmonds couple knew which had to go. They sold their house.
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Future up in air for bat colony
Olympian
06/22/2009
At a conservation preserve near Olympia, WA, plans are being made to remove some of the man-made structures that clutter the shoreline. While salmon and oysters would benefit from a more natural habitat, some of those log booms and piers have become havens for other wildlife, such as bats.
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Feds want to keep protections for rare Pacific seabird
Fairbanks Daily News Miner
06/17/2009
The marbled murrelet in Washington, Oregon, and California should remain protected as a threatened species, the US Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday. The agency finished its five-year status review of the small seabird that nests in old-growth timber. Federal biologists found that the birds in the three states are a distinct population that continues to decline and faces a broad range of threats.
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The greatest green building race
Seattle Times
05/31/2009
Jason McLennan has launched a race among more than 60 teams of architects to build the first "Living Building" - one that that pushes beyond energy conservation to more broadly address the well-being of people and the environment. Really, his plan is nothing short of radically transforming the way the world builds.
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Salish Sea could unite West Coast waters under single name
CBC BC
05/19/2009
West Coast mariners could soon be sailing on the Salish Sea if a proposal by a Washington state marine biologist goes ahead.
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Views: A common vision for Cascadia
Vancouver Sun
05/10/2009
The population of the Pacific Northwest, also known as Cascadia, tends to yearn for individual freedom, including freedom from the past. On the positive side, it can lead to a live-and-let-live attitude. But a near-obsessive desire to find liberation from the forces that shaped us, from history, can also hinder our ability to create solid communities.
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Hope for high-speed rail on West Coast
Tacoma News Tribune
05/10/2009
WA and CA officials have held preliminary discussions about a high-speed, state-of-the-art rail line that would connect San Diego and Vancouver, B.C., with trains that could travel in excess of 200 miles per hour. The talks come weeks after Congress approved a stimulus bill that included $8 billion for high-speed rail in the Northwest and nine other corridors around the nation.
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Mountain-dwelling pika may be protected
Seattle Times
05/07/2009
A tiny mammal that can't handle warm weather could become the first animal in the lower 48 states to get Endangered Species Act protection primarily because of climate change.
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Study: Wildfires speeding global warming
San Francisco Chronicle
04/23/2009
Wildfires that ravage California and other major forested areas around the world are speeding the pace of global warming as they pump more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
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Coast Salish say ferry is an important link
Indian Country Today
04/20/2009
For millennia, big cedar canoes regularly plied the waters between British Columbia and mainland Washington state. With today's ferry route threatened by state budget cuts, passengers campaigned to show how important the ferry route is to the region’s economy, as well as relations between Americans, Canadians and Coast Salish peoples on both sides of the border.
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Obama unveils billions for fast trains, tags NW corridor
Oregonian
04/16/2009
President Barack Obama Thursday unveiled a plan for the highest level of funding for high-speed rail in decades, including the potential for faster service from Eugene to Vancouver, BC, as one of the nation's 10 priority corridors.
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