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Bush Strikes Clean Air Rules Protecting Parks
Washington Post
05/16/2008
The Bush administration is on the verge of implementing new air quality rules that will make it easier to build power plants near national parks and wilderness areas, according to rank-and-file agency scientists and park managers who oppose the plan.
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Unnatural Preservation
Missoula Independent
05/16/2008
In the age of global warming, public land managers face a stark choice: They can let national parks and other wildlands lose their most cherished wildlife. Or they can become gardeners and zookeepers.
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Views: Nickel and Dimed in Oregon
Portland Oregonian
05/16/2008
While Oregon ranks at just about the national average in the percentage of its workers who have good jobs, that's not particularly good news: Nearly three out of every four Oregon jobs pay less than $17 an hour or don't provide health care and pension benefits. And the situation is likely to worsen soon because wages are not keeping pace with rising food and energy prices.
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Strong smells push action for nail care workers
Portland Oregonian
05/16/2008
A nail salon makes its first impression on the nose. Even regular customers can feel overpowered by the smell of the chemicals necessary for that professional finish.
On a typical visit, a customer might spend two hours exposed to that smell while getting a manicure or pedicure. Yet day after day, thousands of Oregon women, a large number of them immigrants from Vietnam, must tolerate air quality that could make them sick.
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Views: The bear necessities
Portland Oregonian
05/16/2008
The administration's clear reluctance in listing the polar bear as threatened highlights the need for a coherent climate policy.
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Canadians ranked among world's top 'public intellectuals'
Vancouver Sun
05/16/2008
Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff is among four Canadians named on a list of the world's 100 top public thinkers.
The ranking was done jointly by the Washington, D.C.-based magazine Foreign Policy and the British magazine Prospect.
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As food prices shoot up, so do backyard gardens
Christian Science Monitor
05/16/2008
Gasoline and food price spikes have had what could be called a 'Miracle-Gro' effect on the backyard garden movement.
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Timothy Egan: It's November in Oregon
New York Times
05/15/2008
This state is known for many things -- good wine, the imperial branding of the Nike swoosh, a political culture that produces contrarians of both parties -- but ethnic diversity is not one of them. This state has an African-American population of less than 2 percent.
And yet on May 20, when voters here could finally end the Democratic presidential marathon by giving Senator Barack Obama an outright majority of pledged delegates, don't expect to hear much about how a black man has broadened the playing field for his party by winning a heavily white state.
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Conspiracy Theory
Atlantic Monthly
05/14/2008
Climate-change litigation is heating up. Will the legal strategy that brought down Big Tobacco work against Big Oil?
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Highest Food Prices in Nearly 20 Years
Washington Post
05/15/2008
Rising global grain prices helped spark the largest increase in monthly food costs in nearly 20 years, as consumers paid more in April for cereals, baked goods, and the dairy, meat and other animal products that rely on feedstocks, the government reported today.
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Source on Chilean Salmon Farming Not Credible
New York Times
05/14/2008
An article on March 27 in the New York Times reported on a virus, infectious salmon anemia, or I.S.A., that is killing millions of salmon cultivated for export by Chile’s salmon farming industry. The newspaper has run an editor's note on why one of the top sources for the story may not have been the best.
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Dems, McCain Jockey on Environment
Washington Post
05/14/2008
Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are rejecting Republican rival John McCain's characterization of them as newcomers to the issue of global warming.
McCain (Ariz.) said Tuesday that voters would trust him more than the Democrats on climate change because he has focused on the issue since voters questioned him on it during the 2000 presidential campaign.
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Views: McCain's Green Streak
Eugene Register Guard
05/14/2008
The presumptive Republican nominee John McCain pioneered the issue of climate change in the Senate where he, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman, introduced the first Senate bill aimed at broad, mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in 2003.
Yet there was an undeniable sense that McCain made history in Oregon Monday, when he promised a radical shift from the Bush administration policy on global warming.
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Polar Bear Named 'Threatened' Species
Washington Post
05/15/2008
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne listed polar bears as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act yesterday, saying the loss of Arctic sea ice in a warming climate could drive them to the brink of extinction in less than four decades. This would be the first animal in the world to be labeled because of climate change.
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Farm Bill Passes by Veto-Proof Margin
Washington Post
05/15/2008
The House yesterday passed a final version of a new five-year farm bill by a vote of 318 to 106, a margin large enough to override President Bush's promised veto of the nearly $300 billion measure.
The bipartisan show of support came after intense lobbying by a coalition that included farm groups, anti-hunger advocates, environmental organizations and the biofuels industry.
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Views: Refreshing Change for Global Warming Politics
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
05/15/2008
It's refreshing to hear that Sen. John McCain is willing to lead on global warming, based on the scientific consensus. We hope the next president will respect, use and incorporate the best science into the nation's policy decisions.
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Views: The Fuel of Food
Seattle Times
05/15/2008
The depth of the world's food crisis is hard to fathom sitting in Washington state at the onset of what likely will be another bountiful and diverse harvest of more than 200 different crops.
Yet people have lost their lives in Somalian rioting, unrest has erupted in Egypt and Haiti and the people in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar will have to wait even longer for assistance.
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Foreclosures Take An Emotional Toll on Homeowners
USA Today
05/15/2008
the housing crisis is wrenching the emotional lives of legions of homeowners. The escalating pace of foreclosures and rising fears among some homeowners about keeping up with their mortgages are creating a range of emotional problems, mental-health specialists say. Those include anxiety disorders, depression and addictive behaviors such as alcoholism and gambling. And, in a few cases, suicide.
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Views: A Leader Who Gets Global Warming
Tacoma News Tribune
05/15/2008
However the presidential election turns out, the fight against global warming is going to have an ally in the White House next year.
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Views: Farm Bill Benefits Wrong People
Longview Daily News
05/15/2008
Farm prices are robust and rising, contributing to a global food crisis. Yet, the $300 billion, five-year farm bill recently hammered out by congressional negotiators is pretty much business as usual. The legislation would continue costly and largely unneeded farm subsidy programs that serve to drive up food prices at home.
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Environment Wrecks Havoc on Girls
Portland Tribune
05/15/2008
First, girls who hit puberty sooner are more likely to wind up with a long list of health and social problems.
Second, it raises the unpleasant possibility that something sinister in our environment may be sabotaging the complex hormonal system that governs sexual development.
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U.S. Farm Bill Affects B.C. Lumber
Vancouver Sun
05/15/2008
The U.S. Congress passed a farm bill Wednesday that could wrap lumber imports from Canada in red tape and has the potential to impose limits beyond the restrictions already in the softwood lumber agreement.
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Views: Sustainability-Fueled Profits
San Francisco Chronicle
05/14/2008
Far from being a cost to society and business, sustainability is emerging as a huge opportunity for both. The key to sustainability is innovation, and that in turn spells competitive advantage, which economists define as above-average profits.
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Views: The Class Isn't Always Greener
New York Times blog
05/14/2008
What if we looked beyond the notion of schools as institutions (like jails, banks, courthouses) and thought about them more as laboratories for creativity, exploration and innovation? Some schools are doing just that, and going green while they are at it.
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Obama Gets Young People Back in the Race
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
05/14/2008
Presidential campaigns have grown geriatric -- witness Al Gore's ceaseless pledge to put Social Security in a "lockbox," and dueling TV spots on whether Republicans' prescription drug plan did more for seniors or pharmaceutical companies.
Beginning in Iowa, however, 2008 has brought out the young.
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