Think Out Loud

The new Climate Friendly Public Schools program is just beginning. It will provide as much as $10,000 per school for public middle and high school students in seven districts over the next five years. The Portland Clean Energy Fund is providing the program $50 million. Portland Public Schools' share is close to $20 million. The idea is to support public school students to create their own projects and spur innovation in the climate solution space. Joining us to give us more details and discuss what this looks like at PPS is Petal Peloquin, a senior at Grant High School; Eesa Taylor, a junior at Ida B. Wells High School; and Ari Ettinger, the climate resiliency program manager for PPS.

The November general election is just eight weeks away. In Oregon, the responsibility for local, state and federal races falls to the state’s 36 county clerks. But that job has gotten harder in recent years with budget cuts, staffing shortages, the spread of misinformation, physical threats and intimidation of election workers in Oregon and around the nation. A survey of Oregon county clerks released last autumn by researchers at Reed College revealed the increasing stress they’re under to fulfill their duties. 

The county clerks are also overseeing elections at a time of deep political polarization, and often have to debunk false claims challenging the integrity of Oregon’s vote-by-mail system. Joining us to share their perspectives are Rochelle Long, Klamath County Clerk and incoming president of the Oregon Association of County Clerks; Derrin “Dag” Robinson, Harney County Clerk and vice-president of the Oregon Association of County Clerks; and Dena Dawson, the Lane County Clerk. 

Human Rights Watch and Nurturely released a report last month that shows how pregnant people are affected by wildfires. It also suggests that officials and agencies place an emphasis on reproductive justice when providing support and information around disasters. Additionally, it recommends better education for health workers on environmental determinants of health. We learn more about the report from Skye Wheeler, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, and Aver Yakubu, the program director for Nurturely, which is based in Oregon.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy recently issued an advisory saying stress from parenting is a public health issue. The nation's doctor shared his concerns over the well-being of parents, noting overwhelming stressors affecting parents today – from financial pressures to worries around kids' health and safety. The advisory notes that nearly half of parents say most days their stress is overwhelming and more than 40% say they are so stressed they cannot function. Marlo McIlraith is an associate professor of pediatrics and a pediatrician at OHSU. She joins us to share more on what is causing more parents to be stressed today and ways she recommends they try to help deal with these emotions.

month, the National Women’s Soccer League announced it’s getting rid of the draft. This winter, promising college players will instead choose among their favorite teams and negotiate a contract. The NWSL will still have roster limits and a salary cap, but under its new collective-bargaining agreement, no player may be traded without her consent. The League is the first in the U.S. to grant unrestricted free agency to all players. Rachel Bachman, reporter for the Wall Street Journal, tells us how this change will impact the players, the League, and possibly other sports as well.

Since 2017, the Vancouver nonprofit Share has been operating a program that removes roughly 20 tons of trash each month from homeless encampments, parks and other sites in the city. As reported by The Columbian, the Talkin’ Trash program recently received a grant to purchase three large containers and a donated dump truck to improve efficiency and safety for its work crew.

But perhaps the biggest impact the program is having is in the lives of the workers it hires, all of whom are either currently experiencing homelessness or transitioning out of it. They receive case management from a social worker to help them secure stable housing while receiving benefits, a salary, work experience and coaching for job interviews - along with other professional skills. Tony Colin is the manager of Talkin’ Trash. He joins us, along with Cassandra Buck, an employee who is currently experiencing homelessness, to share their perspectives about the program, and the challenges facing people who are unhoused.

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced the creation of the Willamette Valley Conservation Area last month. The area is part of an effort to protect oak and prairie habitat and the species that live there like the monarch butterfly and Western Meadowlark.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service published a conservation study in 2017.  It found that grasslands, oak woodlands and riparian habitat in the Willamette Valley needed more protection. 

We hear more details from Damien Miller, the project leader of the Willamette Valley National Wildlife Refuge complex.

Wilma Acosta, an unenrolled Pascua Yaqui woman living in Portland, went missing in November of last year. Her body was found in the Willamette River in January 2024. The Portland Police Bureau said she was suicidal.  Her family insists she was not. Communication between Acosta’s family and the Portland Police Bureau illustrates some of the challenges in Missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases. Luna Reyna, Northwest Bureau Chief at Underscore News, wrote about this case and joins us to talk about it. 

The award winning poet, writer and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s genius lies in making connections between the astonishments of the natural world and the particular wonders of her own - and all of our - lives. Nezhukumatathil is the author of four collections of poems, including “Oceanic, and her latest book, a bestselling collection of essays, is called “World of Wonders.” Nezhukumatathil is a professor of English at the University of Mississippi, and joins us in front of an audience of students at McDaniel High School.

Charles Yu has written a lot about the nature of reality, how we understand what is real, and the assumptions we make about each other and the universe we live in. Yu’s first novel, “How to live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe,” follows a time machine repairman who is searching for his father who is lost in time and memory. His latest book, National Book Award winning “Interior Chinatown,” takes place in a Chinese restaurant that’s also the set for a police procedural TV show and a sendup of stereotypes of Asian American characters. Yu talks to us in front of an audience of students from Ida B. Wells High School.