Locus Focus

This spring communities across the country will be celebrating the 200th

birthday of Federick Law Olmsted, co-creator of New York City's Central Park

and numerous subsequent parks. Writer, literary publisher, philosopher,

abolitionist and committed social reformer, Olmsted ...

The latest climate projections are increasingly dire as the world

climate clock now has only 7 years to reverse course. Increasingly large

and intense wildfires are one of the major changes we are seeing as climate

change accelerates. Megadroughts are also increasing which ...

The regenerative farming movement has mostly centered around restoring soil

and ecosystem health and leaving our land, waters, and climate in better

shape for future generations. But regenerative farming also requires

reckoning with our nation’s agricultural history that is...

The Pacific Northwest has fought off two methanol refineries in Washington

and an LNG Export terminal and pipeline in Coos Bay, but the fracked gas

industry still has this region in its crosshairs. TC Energy is full steam

ahead with plans to expand its Gas Transmission Nort...

Oregon’s 2022 short legislative session is drawing to a close. While short

sessions, which happen during even years, often focus on budgets, unfinished

business, and a limited set of new policy ideas, this year is different.

Numerous bills have been introduced and are now m...

The Oregon Department of Transportation, known to its friends as ODOT, has

been displeasing lots of people, whether it’s for their excessive postfire

logging along the Santiam Highway last year, or their latest deceptively

named proposal to expand Interstate 5, disguising i...

The Mount Hood National Forest has been getting more and more overrun in

recent years by throngs who are loving it to death and this crush of humanity

has only become worse since Covid. On the one hand it's great to see more

people getting outdoors and (hopefully) appreciat...

When it comes to tackling the climate crisis, there are already plenty of

reasons for Oregonians to take pride in our state. Earlier this year, the

Legislature passed three clean energy bills focused on energy affordability

and climate-smart housing. In 2018, Portland also ...

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

Renewable Fuels, Inc., wants to build a renewable diesel refinery. The

proposed refinery at Port Westward would be one of the largest producers of

renewable diesel on the West Coast. While renewable die...

The Portland metro area is a land of water at the confluence of two of the

major rivers in the Pacific Northwest. The Chinookan People, who lived along

the Columbia and Willamette Rivers before European contact, were master canoe

builders, and the rivers were their highw...