Current Stories
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Ready to jump off the grid?
Oregonian
11/05/2009
Researchers believe the day is coming when the electricity you use will be your own. Instead of relying on large central generating stations - hydroelectric dams, coal plants and the like - scientists say we're moving toward an era of "personalized solar energy."
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Views: Smart, green and humane
Vancouver Sun
11/04/2009
According to the latest UN population projections, the next 40 years will see an almost doubling of urban populations. This growth will offer both unprecedented challenges and great opportunities to cities around the world.
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Backyard cottages OK'd in Seattle
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
11/02/2009
Backyard cottages will be allowed in single-family zones throughout Seattle under an ordinance approved unanimously by the City Council. City Councilman Tim Burgess said it would help people provide housing for family members or to offer low-cost rental units. "That's a positive way to create affordable housing in our city."
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Oregon city becomes lab for sustainability
Oregonian
10/27/2009
Gresham, OR was chosen for the first collaboration with 250 University of Oregon students and professors working toward a more sustainable, livable city. Students will analyze suburban development, possible designs and locations for new buildings, development of a brownfield site, incorporating natural light into transit hubs and ways to make schools more sustainable.
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Oregon grid to get $30 million smarter
Oregonian
10/27/2009
President Barack Obama announced $3.4 billion of taxpayer investment in so-called smart grid projects, and about $30 million of that is headed to Oregon. The improvements are meant to make energy use more efficient and include things like meters that charge homeowners less for power that's used when overall electricity demand is low.
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Portland opens new downtown park
Oregon Public Broadcasting
10/27/2009
The city of Portland will advance toward a long-held vision by opening another urban park in the heart of downtown, called Director Park. The lead landscape architect says the space presents interesting challenges, sitting atop an underground parking garage, on uneven ground.
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Greenbacks for green energy
Seattle Times
10/27/2009
President Barack Obama made a pitch for renewable energy Tuesday, announcing $3.4 billion in government support for 100 projects aimed at modernizing the nation's power grid and delivering energy more efficiently. The projects include installing "smart" electric meters in homes, automating utility substations, and installing thousands of new digital transformers and grid sensors.
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Portland's climate plan is ready for action
Oregonian
10/28/2009
After eight town hall meetings, more than 400 responders and some 2,500 comments and suggestions, Portland's Climate Action Plan is ready for review. Brought on by climate change and the need to reduce carbon emissions, it covers everything from public safety in the case of more severe weather to improving sidewalks and roadways in underserved communities.
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Thousands rally for action on climate
Vancouver Sun
10/25/2009
About 5,000 people, including a shouting, sign-waving group of secondary school students, demonstrated on Vancouver's Cambie Bridge as part of the International Day of Climate Change. They were among millions of people around the world who took part in weekend demonstrations demanding government action on climate change.
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WA company crafts a sleeker solar panel
Everett Herald
10/25/2009
Sometimes it's what you don't see that makes a product special. When you stand beneath a solar panel built by Arlington's Silicon Energy, Washington's first solar panel manufacturer, you won't see jumbled, ugly wires or opaque padding. You'll see blue from the silicon cells and sunlight streaming through.
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Obama presses case for renewable energy
New York Times
10/25/2009
Taking aim at business interests that have lobbied against an energy and climate bill moving through Congress, where some members worry about job losses and rising energy costs, President Obama urged lawmakers to rally around the push toward using more renewable energy.
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Focus on 350
Bend Bulletin
10/25/2009
By bike, on foot and by dog-pulled scooter, Central Oregon residents converged Saturday morning on downtown Bend as part of an international effort to prompt world leaders to act on climate change. The event was one of thousands of such gatherings Saturday in 181 countries, organized by 350.org.
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Views: A Tale of Two Rivers
Seattle Times
10/26/2009
Call it a tale of two rivers. On the one hand, there is the Klamath, where after decades of battling over water, salmon, jobs and livelihoods, stakeholders have come to an agreement to put the river and its communities on a path to recovery and remove four outdated dams. On the other hand, there is the Northwest's Columbia-Snake River basin.
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A big payoff for fish
Medford Mail-Tribune
10/26/2009
A contraption of plywood and metal strips is helping do what a dam removal and a new bridge so far has failed to accomplish on their own - turn little Lazy Creek in east Medford, OR into an urban steelhead nursery.
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Vancouver as world's greenest city?
Vancouver Sun
10/20/2009
Mayor Gregor Robertson announced an ambitious 10-year plan Tuesday to make Vancouver, BC, the world's greenest city by 2020. It would include creating a low-carbon economic development zone, reducing waste, requiring green building techniques and having more than 50 percent of residents walking, biking or using public transit to move around the city.
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'Net zero': Sexy or no?
Oregonian
10/20/2009
Portland Community College is poised to begin work on a project aimed at turning the Sylvania campus into what's called "net zero" - newspeak for generating all energy on site and offsetting all carbon emissions. But despite the zippy name, many energy efficiency projects are less than sexy, focusing on improved HVAC systems and new lighting.
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Green spaces: Good as Prozac?
Vancouver Sun
10/20/2009
People who live near green spaces may be less likely than those surrounded by concrete to suffer a range of health problems, particularly depression and anxiety, according to a new study.
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Views: Wise energy use creates partnerships
Olympian
10/21/2009
At first blush, a group in business to stimulate the local economy and another that fights global warming might seem like strange bedfellows. But the two Olympia, WA, groups have found common ground and a place to work together: helping homeowners and businesses navigate confusing incentives to become more energy efficient.
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Oregon second in US for new wind projects
Oregonian
10/20/2009
Oregon ranked second among states - behind only Texas - for the amount of wind power capacity installed in the third quarter of 2009. In recent years, wind power has gone from meeting about 1 percent of the Oregon's energy use to about 7 percent.
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A BC middle school bike-powers its computer lab
Vancouver Sun
10/20/2009
Abbotsford middle school has become the first school in Canada to power a computer lab with three sources of renewable power.
A wind turbine, solar panels, and a bicycle-powered generator combine to charge a photovoltaic cell and provide carbon-neutral energy for the innovative computer lab.
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A new recycling strategy is catching on
New York Times
10/20/2009
Across the nation, an antigarbage strategy known as "zero waste" is moving from the fringes to the mainstream, taking hold in school cafeterias, national parks, restaurants, stadiums and corporations.
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Nickels' mayoral swan song?
New York Times
10/18/2009
With prospects dimming that world leaders will agree to a substantive successor treaty to the expiring Kyoto accord, what mayors do in their cities - constructing green buildings, establishing electric car charging stations, planting urban forests or creating legions of good-paying green jobs - may take on a whole new level of importance.
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A David-and-Goliath food fight
Oregonian
10/18/2009
In the face of a growing obesity epidemic that coincides with large numbers of Oregonians who still go hungry, Multnomah County has decided it's time for a food fight. In a region that plans for nearly everything it values - climate, transportation, land-use, ending homelessness - food is the next frontier.
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Views: There's real power in energy conservation
Oregonian
10/18/2009
Right now, all most people want to talk about is the next great renewable energy source - wind farms, solar arrays, small-scale nuclear plants, even wave energy. Yet a proposed 20-year energy plan wisely doubles down on the Northwest's long history of conservation to meet 85 percent of the region's new demand for electricity.
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Views: Environmental problems need a holistic approach
The Christian Science Monitor
10/18/2009
What if the major problems now facing humanity - poverty, emerging diseases, and global warming, to name a few - were so intertwined that we couldn’t hope to address one without addressing the others? And what if we really couldn’t expect to address many at once without changing our approach entirely?
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