Search Results
-
Why You’re Still Not Bringing a Reusable Mug for Your Daily Coffee
What would you do to save a few pennies? Thirty to 45 percent of shoppers will remember their reusable grocery bags to save on a five-cent bag tax. Consumers will wash out and return 70 to 80 percent of recyclable bottles to cash in on bottle bill refunds. But fewer than two percent of coffee lovers will bring their own mugs to Starbucks to save a dime on their beverage....Read more » -
Why Vancouver Trounces the Rest of Cascadia in Building ADUs
Editor’s note: This article is Sightline’s very first from our new senior researcher, Dan Bertolet. We’re thrilled to have him on board to help both continue and expand our work pursuing smart solutions to our region’s big questions on housing and urban growth. Read his full bio here, and follow him on Twitter at @danbertolet. Cascadia’s three largest cities have all sworn themselves devotees of the accessory dwelling unit (ADU)—also known...Read more » -
Peabody Energy’s Financial Death Spiral
At this point, we should be accustomed to hearing bad news from the coal industry. What else but bad news can you expect from a sector that’s seen nearly 50 bankruptcies since 2012? But today’s announcements by Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company, really pushed bad news to new limits. Peabody revealed that it had maxed out its credit lines, just prior to disclosing a $2 billion accounting loss for 2015....Read more » -
Here Are All the Northwest Cities, Governments, and Organizations That Oppose Oil Trains
Seattle Oil Train Die-in by 350 Seattle used under CC BY-NC 2.0 (Photo taken during Forest Ethic's week of oil train action.)
Editor’s note: This article is cross-posted with permission from Oil Check Northwest. Across the Pacific Northwest, residents are talking about the growing risks from oil train traffic in their communities. The numerous derailments and fiery disasters since oil-by-rail became the go-to form of transportation for Bakken shale oil has many speaking out about concerns for public safety and health. There are new projects currently seeking permits in Vancouver, Grays Harbor, and Longview,...Read more » -
How Industry and Regulators Kept Public in the Dark After 2014 LNG Explosion in Washington
Nearly two years ago, an explosion and massive gas leak at a liquid natural gas (LNG) facility in Plymouth, Washington, thirty miles south of the Tri-Cities, injured five workers and forced hundreds of people to evacuate their homes. To this day, state and federal oversight agencies have not published the findings of their investigations into the accident, and the facts about what happened are almost completely unknown to the public. Sightline’s...Read more » -
Event: Coal and Oil Trains in the Columbia River Gorge
Next Tuesday, February 9th, Eric de Place will join leaders in the Vancouver, Washington, area for the Columbia River Gorge Commission‘s monthly public meeting. Eric de Place will speak from 12:30-1:00 PM, focusing on the threat of oil and coal trains to the Columbia River and local communities. The Northwest is on the front lines of oil and coal transport by rail. More than a dozen new proposals have emerged in recent years to ship...Read more » -
Five Stories To Watch in the Arch Coal Bankruptcy
In case you missed the news, Arch Coal, North America’s second largest coal company, filed for bankruptcy a few weeks back. Arch’s management hopes to use bankruptcy protection to shed $4.5 billion in debt—money that Arch borrowed from investors near the peak of the coal market but that the company can’t pay back now that coal prices have tumbled. To anyone paying attention, Arch’s insolvency came as no surprise. The company had missed a bond interest payment in...Read more » -
Poll: African-Americans Ahead on Climate Change
It’s the same old song and dance. Whenever and wherever a climate policy solution is proposed, the fossil fuel industry and its allies and front groups target people of color and low-income families with scary messages about energy costs. They have been singing the same tune to rural communities and working class families in Washington and Oregon. It’s constant background music for vulnerable communities in California as oil companies attempt to...Read more » -
Weekend Reading 1/22/16
Alan When I was serving on Seattle’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) committee last year, I wish I had already read Harvard economist Edward Glaeser’s 2011 The Triumph of the City. It wouldn’t have changed my mind on any of the core issues before the committee. My analysis, forged over three decades of reading everything I have been able to find on urban sustainability, already agreed with Glaeser’s: that...Read more » -
Tacoma Steering into Uncertain Waters
Tacoma may soon be home to the Northwest’s next liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, with a $275 million plant positioned to move forward after the City of Tacoma published the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) in October 2015. Most observers have treated the project as a done deal, but the FEIS contains some alarming oversights. Specifically, it fails to specify the demand the facility will place on the region’s...Read more »