Locus Focus

It’s been a wild year in many respects and this week is the time of year

when we reconnect with Eric de Place with Salish Strategies in Seattle, to

puzzle out all that’s happened. Today we talk about the positives – of

which there have actually been a few – as well as the m...

For the past year a coalition of climate and social justice activists have

been presenting a series of monthly Rumble On The River community forums that

bring together expert voices to explain the risks of having 90% of Oregon’s

fuel stored within city limits at the Critica...

We still have a brief window of opportunity to avoid the worst impacts of

climate change if we drastically and quickly begin to cut all carbon

emissions. However meaningful efforts to achieve these cuts are being

undermined by the heavy use of carbon offsets, which allow bu...

The United States’ food system has become a corporate-dominated

marketplace, strangled by an elite few, that holds farmers and consumers

hostage to greed. Currently Congress is negotiating the 19th Farm Bill which

is an opportunity to pass a fair Farm Bill for all, after de...

At a critical bend in the Columbia River Estuary, a company called NEXT

Renewable Fuels, Inc., is seeking to build a new, massive renewable diesel

refinery. The proposed refinery at Port Westward would be one of the largest

producers of renewable diesel on the West Coast. M...

The Port of Columbia County, along the Columbia River northwest of Portland,

has been trying to expand industrial development by rezoning valuable

agricultural land for industrial use. But many farmers in the area have a

different vision for the future of their community.

...

There is no question that we need to cut our carbon emissions substantially

and quickly in order to prevent our planet from becoming uninhabitable. While

the move to electrify transportation is an obvious step toward

decarbonization, the fossil fuel industry has other ideas...

Last spring Zenith Energy, the Houston-based fossil fuel company who has been

operating a massive oil-by-rail operation in Portland Harbor, met secretly

with staff from city commissioner Dan Ryan's and Carmen Rubio's offices, to

hammer out a backroom deal that granted the c...

In the early 1970s, a group of scientists researched how to make more food

for the growing population of the world and designed a new salmon that was

fatter and faster growing. Thus the beginning of a new industry: salmon

farming. The industry spread from coastal Norway to ...

Just as we are realizing how important trees are for climate resilience,

carbon storage and mitigating heat islands, political leaders are proposing

to do away with tree codes and other forest protections. On this episode of

Locus Focus we talk with Brenna Bell, Forest Clim...