Portland, OR often receives credit for green leadership, but that doesn’t mean that the city is free from environmental risks. Like anywhere else, the commerce, industry and daily activities of millions of people in Portland’s metropolitan area combine to strain the environment; and, like in any city, Portland’s disparate neighborhoods don’t feel these strains evenly. […]
billlascher
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The State of the Union and the environment
When President Obama delivers his State of the Union address tomorrow night he’ll likely focus much of his attention on the economy and jobs — and the lack of them in this country. It’s also expected that the President will further signal a centrist drift. It’s unlikely the President will spend much time discussing the […]
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The age of loudness
“No age is louder than ours,” Ken McAlpine writes in his book, “Islands Apart.” “We have reached a crescendo of clamor, and it is both curse and comfort,” he continues. “Solitude, in our times, is rare and, for many, profoundly unnerving.” What might solitude offer those who never have a chance to experience it? Can […]
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Extracting the West
As another year begins, extractive industries continue to mine the West for opportunity, even when the economic activity they promise has little to do with the American West. Now it’s increasingly clear that battles that seem localized to the West have far-reaching impacts. The West has long been treated as a transitional zone, as if […]
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A tale of two cities
“The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience,” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once wrote. This can be interpreted to mean that justice is subjective, shaped and reshaped over the years by social norms, by evolving moral priorities and shifting power structures. Even under the rule of law its application differs […]
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What’s old is new again
Two stories about mining projects in California that crossed my path last week remind me that some narratives just don’t seem to go away. Whether it’s taking advantage of gold’s record high prices or carving away at river-side hills for rock and stone, it seems a given that economic boons obscure questions about associated environmental […]
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Go play outside
An article in the most recent edition of New Scientist about a fascinating study conducted at the University of Washington offers yet more evidence that investing in community green space can pay off in significant public benefits. The University of Washington study tracked the Body Mass Index of 3,831 children over two years, New Scientist […]
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Where should green planning efforts come from?
Hundreds of urban planners, architects, developers, environmentalists, entrepreneurs and policymakers danced around this question last week as they convened on Portland for the second annual Ecodistricts Summit. Hosted by the Portland Sustainability Institute (PoSI), the event complements a maturing experiment to make five of the Oregon metropolis’s neighborhoods into “Ecodistricts,” neighborhoods designed to be more […]
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Obama admin speaks on diversifying the NPS
Boldness hasn’t been an appropriate adjective for the Obama Admistration’s approach on environmental issues. The White House seems better known in green circles for allowing Van Jones to be squeezed out of a job, failing to take aggressive strides on passing a climate bill, lifting a moratorium on oil drilling, lowballing information about the extent […]
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News of a parched West continues to flow
How many times must it be written that in the West, the story is water, and how many times must the story of the West’s dependence on the Colorado River for its water be told? Many readers probably know by now, but it bears repeating. The current running beneath many environmental justice stories is water. […]
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A tiny energy revolution
We’ve come to the point where community gardening is well understood – could community energy be far behind? Just as many people don’t know how their food reaches their plate, many aren’t plugged into where their power and heating originates. “We have been completely disconnected as consumers from our sources,” says John Sorenson, the executive […]
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Environmentalism’s communications problem
On Sept. 22, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported the most recent development in an ongoing dispute over the future of the Boardman power plant, located in the north-central part of the state. To meet state environmental regulations for emissions, Portland General Electric – the utility that operates the plant – has to figure out what to […]
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Taking action on hunger
Stimulus money might have a chance to stimulate appetites with a series of new grants in New Mexico. New data on poverty and food access suggest, though, it might not be enough to quiet hunger in the West’s most food insecure state or elsewhere in the region. First, the encouraging news. In August, New Mexico […]
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At what price aesthetics?
Last weekend I sat outside Los Angeles’ Union Station, the last of the great train stations,waiting as two of my closest friends prepared to marry one another in the station’s sunlit courtyard. They finally arrived, along with their chuppah, by way of the Red Line subway and the station’s main passenger hall. As they joined […]
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A renter’s market?
For the first time in decades it’s cool to be a renter. So why is it so hard to rent a home and still be “green”? This week, as news outlets across the board reported a steep decline in home sales and prices in July, especially in the West, some reported increased preferences for renting, […]
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Transportation policy’s third rails
We live in a society of backseat drivers. Or backseat urban planners. Or train engineers. But often, no matter how loudly we clamor, we’re not as right as we think. And that costs all of us, even if our convictions rely heavily on rational critiques of public policy. Think of transportation policy in Los Angeles […]
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National Parks for the Whole Nation
I’ll admit it. There are some environmental topics I just don’t know much about. For example, I first heard of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir when friends living near Yosemite invited me to visit during my move from Los Angeles to Portland (that January trip was itself my first visit to Yosemite). I saw a sign […]
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What a week for wind
On Tuesday, July 27, the Los Angeles Times reported the groundbreaking of the immense Alta Wind Energy Center near the Mojave Desert town of Tehachapi. The story described a facility “being called the largest wind power project in the country,” and its potential to generate three gigawatts of electricity for Southern California homes. Though light […]
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Growth, economics and justice
As I fretted over what to write in my debut post for A Just West, my mind kept returning to a controversy I used to follow in my first two professional journalism jobs. At both the Pacific Coast Business Times and the Ventura County Reporter, I covered the story of truck traffic from rock aggregate mines in the Los Padres National […]