Editor's Take: August 20, 2008
chris & lara pawluk, flickr
Making Space for Car-Sharing
Car-sharing gets a boost in Seattle today as the city adds more dedicated parking spaces and lets police crack down on violators. Meanwhile, Oregon Governor Kulongoski has called for stronger affirmative action within state agencies. Also, could the tiny pika be the next polar bear in the fight against global warming?
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Seattle Car-Sharing in Gets a Boost
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
08/19/2008
Members of a Seattle City Council committee on Tuesday approved a measure that could increase street parking dedicated to "car sharing" in which group members drive vehicles on an hourly basis.
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Oregon Beefs Up Affirmative Action
Portland Oregonian
08/20/2008
Gov. Ted Kulongoski has issued two new executive orders to add muscle to state equal opportunity programs, one aimed at companies owned by women and minorities, and the other at affirmative action within state agencies.
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Glacier Park: The Next Century
Missoula Missoulian
08/20/2008
One hundred years ago, when Glacier National Park first became a park, grizzly bears roamed along the spine of the Rocky Mountains, north into Canada, south into Sun River country, west to the Cabinets and east onto lowland plains. Wolves wandered, too, and wolverines and big bull elk. They had no idea someone had drawn a new political boundary onto their landscape. They still don't.
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Tiny Mammal in West at Center of Global Warming
Bellingham Herald
08/19/2008
Environmentalists filed a lawsuit Tuesday, Aug. 19, in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Calif., to force the Bush administration to decide whether to list the pika for protection under the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit claims the animal is threatened by rising temperatures and says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has dragged its feet for months on whether to list it.
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Geologists Fly Over Hood to Study Unstable Slopes
Portland Oregonian
08/20/2008
State geologists teamed with the Civil Air Patrol over the weekend on reconnaissance flights around Mount Hood, a dual mission to study landslides on the volcano's unstable slopes and train for possible future volcanic activity.
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Study: BC's Mental Health System Fares Poorly
Vancouver Sun
08/20/2008
When mental health patients are released from hospital in B.C., they're more likely to be back in a hospital bed within 30 days than patients in all but one Canadian province. Experts connect the readmission rates with another glaring statistic in the study, showing that mental health patients are being discharged from hospital faster than ever.
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Court Rejects EPA Limits on Emissions Rules
New York Times
08/19/2008
A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out an Environmental Protection Agency rule limiting the ability of states to require monitoring of industrial emissions. The 2-to-1 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the most recent in a series of judicial setbacks to the Bush administration's efforts to reshape federal policies under the Clean Air Act.
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Around Resorts, Boomlet Towns Thrive, Too
NPR
08/20/2008
Around the country, more Americans are living where they want to, not where they have to. They're making new lives for themselves by the beach, in the mountains, in college towns. Inevitably, these new residents are changing their new hometowns, making them more expensive places to live. And it can be hard for the original residents to keep up.
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Views: Gender Equity Requires Valuing Families
Everett Herald
08/20/2008
Today, women make up about half of Washington's workforce. There have been some positive changes in employment patterns. For instance, the number of women in construction has tripled since 1990. We know there are vestiges of old attitudes, and occasional acts of active discrimination. But we generally assume the job market is pretty open these days, with both women and men able to follow non-traditional careers.
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Views: Is T. Boone Pickens right?
Los Angeles Times
08/19/2008
V. John White says the oil giant has done us a service by sparking a conversation on renewable energy. Jerry Taylor says Pickens is only trying to rig the energy market in his favor.
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Editor's Take: August 19, 2008
Credit: wabberjocky, Flickr.
Greener Cities Every Day
Cities across Cascadia keep working toward a sustainable
future. Portland, already
considered a green haven, launched its "Grey
to Green" program this summer. The goal is to plant more than 80,000 trees
in the city to offset carbon dioxide emissions. California
wants a greener future too, with the intention of creating a renewable
energy economy that could provide new jobs.
Editor's Top Picks
Your editor today is Christina Claassen | View All Today's News
Portland Goes from 'Grey to Green'
Portland Oregonian
08/19/2008
This summer, Portland, known nationally for its well-treed image, launches "Grey to Green," a five-year, $50 million, green-up-the-city initiative that includes planting 83,000 trees -- 50,000 of them along streets, increasing the city's street-tree inventory by about one-fourth.
Suburban areas are also going green, striking out with simultaneous efforts to save trees and reduce costs.
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More Women Choose a Childless Life
New York Times
08/19/2008
Women are waiting longer to have children, and more women than ever are choosing not to have children at all, according to a new Census Bureau report.
Twenty percent of women ages 40 to 44 have no children, double the level of 30 years ago, the report said; and women in that age bracket who do have children have fewer than ever, an average of 1.9 children, compared with the median of 3.1 children in 1976.
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Views: Working Below the Poverty Line in BC
The Tyee
08/19/2008
The recent steep pay hikes for B.C.'s senior bureaucrats triggered quite a controversy. Handing out raises in the 20 to 43 per cent range at the top end does seem a bit rich coming from a government that refuses to increase the minimum wage even by a few cents.
The stark contrast between the huge pay raises of top government bureaucrats and B.C.'s minimum wage illustrates the growing polarization of income in Canada.
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Renewable Energy Could Electrify California Economy
Los Angeles Times
08/19/2008
If California requires its utilities to get one-third of their energy from solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources rather than coal or gas, will that help or hurt the state economically?
A struggle is underway to influence public opinion, with business interests saying it would cost consumers in higher electric bills, and environmental groups touting the jobs that clean-tech industry would bring to the state.
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Stumbling Over Seattle's Sidewalks
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
08/19/2008
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has asked people to "give your car the summer off" by using alternative means of travel, with walking being a top alternative. But across Seattle, many say that with current neighborhood conditions the mayor's "walk more" plan is not a feasible, or safe, option.
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More Kids Will Walk to School
Seattle Times
08/19/2008
Faced with soaring diesel-fuel costs, school districts are forcing students to use the old-fashioned way to get to class: on their own two feet.
Many schools are eliminating or reducing bus service because fuel had jumped to $4.50 per gallon, 36 percent more than a year ago, and is busting budgets.
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Pine Beetles Create Job Crisis for Coldwater Indian Band
Toronto Globe and Mail
08/19/2008
The Coldwater Indian Band is throwing its support behind a proposed $2-billion ski resort, and two other developments near Merritt, as it tries to deal with the impact of a pine beetle infestation that is devastating forest-sector jobs in the area.
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Ospreys the River Sentinels of Healthy Waterways
Vancouver Columbian
08/18/2008
A trio of scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey collect blood samples from young ospreys in the lower Columbia, Willamette and Boise rivers to measure their health.
Worldwide, scientists use ospreys as "canaries in the coal mine" for pollution entering rivers.
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Improving Idaho's Treasure Valley Air
Boise Idaho Statesman
08/19/2008
The Treasure Valley is poised to take its first major bite out of the region's air quality problem.
New rules could require all underground fuel tanks be retrofitted to recover the fumes that spill when the tanks are filled, a move that could reduce the ozone-forming gases released at refilling by 97 percent.
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Seattle in Violation of Clean Air Act
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
08/18/2008
Seattle is in violation of the Clean Air Act for the first time since the 1990s.
Going over the legal limit for smog over the weekend means officials here will have to start hammering out a plan to improve air quality. That could feature a number of measures to put the brakes on pollution, including requiring reformulated, more expensive gasoline for the region.
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Editor's Take: August 18, 2008
Credit: jslander, Flickr
Pricing Out the Peppers
In Seattle, a
group of consumers participated in an informal survey of grocery
prices. They discovered that people pay more depending on where
they live in the city. Additional food for thought: the suburbs
are unlikely to disappear, driving 55
could become more than just that 70's thing, and Glacier
National Park inches closer to losing its namesake.
Editor's Top Picks
Your editor today is Christina Claassen | View All Today's News
Seattle Grocery Prices: Location, Location, Location
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
08/18/2008
A community survey -- based on a list of items to healthfully feed a family of four for a week -- uncovered a wide price range among supermarkets in West Seattle, White Center and Burien.
It found a $112 difference between organic food pioneer PCC and the cheapest grocer. A $35 spread separated other supermarkets -- enough to matter to anyone watching food bills reach new heights.
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Views: The Future of a Suburban 'Nowhere'
Crosscut
08/18/2008
Urban planners love to hate the suburbs, but what's going to become of them? Will Bellevue eventually become a post-carbon ghost town or a new urban hybrid? Some reflections on the urban/suburban debate.
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Washington Farmers Increasingly Central Americans
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
08/16/2008
A new farmworker survey suggests that nearly a quarter of such laborers in Western Washington are indigenous Mexicans or other Central Americans.
With their distinct culture and history, the relatively new migration of indigenous peoples from Latin America means cultural adjustments for their host towns.
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Views: Kids' Health Should Be Top Concern
Anchorage Daily News
08/18/2008
A report just out says that children with chronic conditions like asthma who are covered by government-funded health insurance programs are just about as likely to get the care they need as children with private health insurance.
Whereas kids with no insurance are far more likely not to get to see a doctor at all.
Go to article.