Locus Focus

This week is the first anniversary of Oregon's Big Burn. A year later the

impacts of the wild fires that raged across Western Oregon on Labor Day last

year are still very much with us. But the gravest impact of all is the U.S.

Forest Service and the Oregon Department of Tra...

This program originally aired on June 21, 2021.

There have been several new developments since the original broadcast of this

show, but the biggest news is that on Friday, August 27, Portland City

Council denied Zenith's Land Use Compatibility Statement, blocking Zenith'...

This program was originally broadcast on July 19, 2021

Back in March we talked with Suzanne Fouty, a hydrologist who worked for

Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in eastern Oregon as a water resource and

soils specialist. One of her specialties is beaver and at that time s...

Now that we’re in the midst of another mega fire season, we’re still

feeling the impacts of last year’s unprecedented season of fire intensity,

the like of which we have rarely seen. How do we cope with this new reality

of climate chaos-induced wild fires and have we learne...

As the infamous Heat Dome peaked over Portland on June 28, Vivek Shandas, a

professor at Portland State University, drove around the city using a thermal

camera to measure the temperature in neighborhoods from the Pearl District to

Gresham. He found that the hottest spot wa...

On July 27, Governor  Kate Brown signed Oregon's 100 percent clean energy

bill into law. This law requires Oregon energy companies to provide their

customers with 100 percent clean electricity by 2040, an ambitious deadline

matched only by the state of New York. This comes ...

Four hydropower dams, built between 1962 and 1975, have transformed the

lower Snake River into slack water reservoirs, deadly to salmon and the 137

other species that are critical to the salmon food chain. After decades of

debate and legal challenges over the need to remove...

A couple months ago we talked with Suzanne Fouty, a hydrologist who worked

for Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in eastern Oregon as a water resource and

soils specialist. One of her specialties is beaver and at that time she was

working with a group trying to get legislatio...

This program first aired on April 19, 2021

For nearly two decades communities across the Pacific Northwest have been

fighting off multiple efforts to turn the region into a fossil fuel export

hub. Today we’ll look back at the successes of what Eric de Place with

Sightli...

Lithium, the lightest metal on earth, is a key element in the effort to

combat climate change. Since lithium ion batteries are far lighter than other

batteries and hold a charge for much longer, they are an important component

of solar and wind energy systems, storing energ...