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Good Air Day
This is pretty cool. Real-time air quality measurements for 17 locations around Puget Sound. At the moment, every monitoring station is showing good air quality. It’ll be interesting to check back periodically as wintertime inversions trap pollution in the basin. Anyone know of other web-based measurements like this one for other places in the Northwest? UPDATE:Here’s a clickable map of county-by-county air quality for Washington state. (Hat tip to the...Read more » -
A New Chapter in an Old History
This summer marks the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark’s arrival in the Pacific Northwest. The expedition is storied, but almost exclusively by white historians. Enter a new book with a new perspective on the expedition and its consequences for the native peoples they encountered, The Salish People and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Here’s a portion of the book description: For the first time, a Native American community offers an...Read more » -
Global Warming or Genetic Warming?
Because of growing concern about the effects of global climate change, nuclear energy seems to be gaining a new lease on life. Of particular note: some enviros have switched sides and now support, at least in principle, moving toward more nuclear power. (See Alan Durning’s most recent remarks on the viability of nuclear power here). Today’s news from Hanford provides some counterpoint. The Seattle P-I reports on a new study...Read more » -
Growth
Good news, Washington’s economy is getting stronger, at least as it’s measured by GDP. From 2002 to 2003 the state’s economy expanded by a rousing 5.1 percent. But is that really an accurate way to evaluate the health of the economy? Unfortunately, in tandem with economic growth, reported releases of toxic chemicals from major industries also increased by 3 percent (an additional 600,000 pounds of toxics distributed around the state’s...Read more » -
Product Stewardship: Who’s responsible for our trash?
By embracing a concept called “product stewardship”, British Columbia has adopted a far less regulatory, government-centered approach to dealing with trash, leaving Americans in the dustbin.Read more » -
On the Air
The most-discussed environmental news story of the week is undoubtedly Bruce Barcott’s “Changing All the Rules,” that ran in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday, April 4. It’s a case study of the Bush administration’s approach to environmental law, centered on one obscure but powerful section of the U.S. Clean Air Act. Called “New Source Review,” the section covers whether and when old factories and power plants—especially the dirtiest...Read more » -
Green Collar Jobs
Green-Collar Jobs takes a close look at timber towns in the Northwest–ground zero in the perceived battle between jobs and the environment. If we do what’s right for the environment, what is everyone going to do for a living?Read more » -
Tax Shift
Tax Shift is a program for using the tax system to get more of what we want, such as flusher bank accounts, clean air, and healthier communities.Read more » -
Misplaced Blame
Misplaced Blame argues that much of the population growth overrunning parts of North America originates from five rarely noted root causes: poverty, sexual abuse, underfunded family planning services, subsidies to domestic migration, and ill-guided immigration policy. Along the way, Misplaced Blame uncovers one revelation after another.Read more » -
Stuff
Stuff follows a day in the life of a fictional, typical North American middle-class resident of Seattle. Nothing terribly unusual or dramatic happens. Unless you count average consumption–which Stuff does. Tracing back the layers of distribution, commerce, and production involved in everyday consumer goods Stuff is an engaging and fact-packed look at the people and places that are affected every time you sip your coffee, tie your shoes, click your...Read more »
