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In 1970, year of the first Earth Day, lead was still a gasoline additive. Pollution from industrial and municipal facilities was largely unregulated. Commentators likened breathing in Portland to smoking a pack a day. Most environmental laws hadn’t even been conceived. How is the Northwest doing now? Obviously, we’ve cleaned up some—but we also face newer, more global challenges, such as the rising accumulation of greenhouse gases and newly troubling...

We all know them: English ivy, European starlings, Himalayan blackberry, Scotch broom. No, they’re not foreign exchange students or international meals. They’re part of the legion of exotic invasive species that threaten the ecological integrity of the Northwest. Of course, the Northwest is hardly alone. The American south is overrun with kudzu, for instance. The poster children of over-abundance are deer, as anyone in the Upper Midwest or the Northeast...

An article on energy security we just published in BC online magazine The Tyee has generated a spirited and interesting debate in the comments section about not only energy issues, but also the concept of Cascadia, economic colonization, the nature of transboundary environmental issues, migration, and a few other small issues. A couple of excerpts: "There is no Cascadia, there is BC, Canada, USA, Washington & Oregon State, etc…and may...

Via Planetizen, some depressing news:  an international study has found that transportation planners regularly get their traffic and rail ridership forecasts wrong.  And not just by a little.  Half of all road traffic forecasts are wrong by at least 20 percent (though road projects tend to get a little more traffic than forecasted).  Rail ridership, on the other hand, is typically less than half (ouch!!) of what the planners forecast. ...

While sales of regular old conventional milk have been flat in recent years, sales of organic milk are soaring, according to the Dallas News. According to one estimate, organic milk sales now make up 8.2 percent of total milk sales, which represents a huge increase since 2000 (when it was anywhere from 1 to 4 percent of sales). Markets around the nation are having a hard time keeping it in...

Amidst a spate of new US government publications on healthy eating and exercise, a number of people (myself included) have become increasingly obsessed with whether they’re getting adequate nutrition and activity. But what’s strange, I think, is that we’re buffeted by countervailing forces that tug at our behavior, and ultimately at our waistlines. We’re ever-better informed about the consequences of inactivity and poor diet; and yet it seems we’re ever-more...

I intend to celebrate this piece of news with a pint of strawberries and a bunch of arugula: the number of farmers markets in the United States doubled from 1994 to 2004. Of the Northwest states, Washington may have the greatest total number of markets (more than 90, according to this Seattle Times article (the USDA lists 87) with a record number, at least two dozen, expected to open in...

Oregon is wrestling with whether to establish marine reserves, where fishing and other extractive industries would be prohibited. Fishing management has been especially contentious since 2000, when the state’s once-lucrative groundfish industry collapsed and was declared a "national disaster." Conservationists believe that protected ocean waters will allow fish stocks to rebound. Fishermen, especially sport fishermen, aren’t so keen on the idea. As one old-timer in a Salem Statesman-Journalarticle puts the...

Yesterday, a number of papers reported on a nationwide study of toxics in house dust that tested 70 homes in seven states—including Washington and Oregon—for six classes of chemicals, including PBDEs. (PBDEs are toxic flame retardants that have also been found at high levels in the bodies of northwesterners.) Thirty-five of 44 chemicals measured were found in one or more of the seven states’ samples, providing another clue to the...

This week’s US News and World Report has a great article on food—and, in particular, why it’s becoming increasingly difficult to resist overeating. Although there’s been some recent controversy over exactly how bad obesity is for your health,  it’s now perfectly clear that rising obesity rates are a major public health problem. And the US News article serves as a great reminder that, as important as it may be to...