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If anyone tries to tell you that there’s no real evidence that humans are having much effect on the atmosphere, just show them this: The graph represents carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and the red line at the end—part of which is enlarged in the upper left of the graph—respresents the increase since the industrial revolution began.  So right now, CO2 levels are the highest they’ve been in, oh,...

The mountain pine beetle, that scourge of British Columbia’s inland forests, has officially reached new heights of infamy. Yesterday, provincial Premier Gordon Campbell called it, "the most significant natural disaster to ever hit British Columbia’s forests." The province is planning to spend Can$100 million to stop the estimated 1.13 trillion tree-killing bugs. (Incidentally, that means that pine beetles outnumber people by about a quarter-million to one in BC.) One ray...

Editor’s Note: This is the second post in a series by Dan Staley on land use and quality of life in Buckley, Washington, a small town near Mount Rainier. (See the first here.) Recently I commented on Clark’s post about Vancouver, BC’s decision to create dedicated bike lanes on a bridge, where I stated I wished I could get that kind of varied participation here in my little town of...

Wolf populations are continuing to grow in the northern US Rocky Mountains. New wolf census data shows a steadily rising population, especially in Idaho where remote habitat-rich wilderness is ideal for expanding wolf numbers. After being extirpated in the early 20th century, wolves were reintroduced into central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s. (A few wolves had also begun re-colonizing Montana.) I’m always inspired simply by the raw...

Here’s a reasonably good article on BC’s Centre for Integral Economics, which works on an issue very dear to our hearts—promoting reforms in tax policy that foster sustainability. From the article… [P]eople eat less and are healthier afterwards when they "pay by the slice" instead of going to the all-you-can-hold-down buffet. But most city services … are based on the buffet model. That’s not exactly a strategy for rewarding or...

Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski just tipped over the last clean car domino on the west coast:  he’s directed his Department of Ecology to draft regulations for adopting California’s clean-car standards. This is a major step.  Washington State had opted for California’s standards, provided that Oregon adopted them too.  Because Canada has adopted similar standards, Oregon’s move has created a clean car corridor stretching from San Diego through northern British Columbia. ...

As a side-note to all the excitement in New Orleans today, Hurricane Katrina has been making waves in the energy markets.  Oil hit $70 per barrel in overnight trading last night.  Gasoline futures topped $2 per gallon.  Natural gas prices spiked as well; at about this time last year, they were at about $5.50 per million BTU, but today they’re over twice that high. Prices may well decline in the...

Via Wired Magazine, a nifty idea from Lyon, France: a rent-a-bike program that lets subscribers borrow a bike for just over a dollar an hour.  The first half hour is free—which makes the service ideal for people who want to make short jaunts downtown, but don’t want to lug their bicycles with them wherever they go. Impressively, the service attracted 15,000 subscribers within the first 3 months. As the article...

A new analysis by California EPA scientists of Sightline Institute’s data on levels of toxics in 40 Northwest mothers (from BC, WA, OR, and MT) was released at an international scientific conference, “Dioxin 2005,” in Toronto, on August 25, 2005. The paper is a follow-up to Sightline’s 2004 study of toxic chemicals in 40 mothers.

Dumb headline (unless you’re a Fantastic Four fan), but a serious subject.  A new chemical analysis, being released today by California EPA scientists at an international scientific conference in Toronto, shows that 30 percent of Northwest moms tested in Sightline’s 2004 toxics study had higher levels of the toxic flame retardants PBDEs in their bodies than of well-known chemical threats PCBs.  This study is a follow-up to the PBDE study...