Locus Focus

All summer Trump has ranted about how Portland is being burned down by

radical anarchist Antifa mobs. Of course Portland has not burned down, but as

we speak, much of Oregon actually is on fire, wildfires inflamed by Trump’s

flagrant disregard and denial of impending climat...

All summer Portland has been the brunt of vicious attacks by Trump and his

minions, denouncing the city as a liberal democratic bastion under siege by

mobs of radical, anarchist thugs. After sending in uninvited federal police

to put down the city’s nightly black lives matt...

THIS PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON JULY 13 before the wildfire season had

really gotten underway. Now as we are experiencing one of the most intense

fire seasons ever, this episode of Locus Focus is more relevant than ever.

In a time of global pandemic, this summer's fire sea...

Ursula LeGuin’s story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" describes a

utopian city where everyone lives good lives, except for the neglected child

chained in a basement. Portland, which prides itself on its progressive

attitudes, also has such a metaphorical child: the com...

Right now salmon are making the miraculous journey from the Pacific Ocean, up

the Columbia, to the place each fish was born. All salmon ask for is a river

with cool flowing water. But because of the stagnant reservoirs behind dams

as well as climate change, the Columbia hea...

Cruise ships are three times as polluting as airplanes, spew carcinogenic and

other toxic particles from their smokestacks, and pump sewage and fuel oil

contaminants into the ocean. Yet the Port of Seattle is largely

dependent upon the cruise ship industry and is now planni...

For nearly a month, federal troops dowsed Portland protesters with CS tear

gas, a chemical weapon banned in war. Now its residues still cling to the

trees and grass in Lownsdale Square and Chapman Park and may be making its

way into Portland’s storm water system. Yet no one...

In mid July I went out to Chinook Point on the Washington side of the

Columbia River near its mouth, to talk with Sam Robinson, a longtime Lower

Chinook Tribal Council member. He told about the history of his people and

the land they know better than any of us whose ancesto...

The fossil fuel industry is a very risky business, and often these risks

materialize. Think of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, the 2016 oil train

derailment in Mosier, Oregon, and the 2017 gas pipeline explosion in

Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood. It might seem logical th...

Last fall we aired Holding the Thin Green Line, a two part radio documentary

about the increasing pressure on the Pacific Northwest to become an export

hub for the fossil fuel industry - and the thin green line of resistance that

is standing in the way of this development. ...