Portland Urban Naturalist Mike Houck proclaimed the last time he was on Locus
Focus: "We are living in a climate emergencty. It's time for Portland to act
like it!"
On this episode of Locus Focus Mike is joined by Dawn Uchiyama, former
director of Portland's Bureau of E...
Read more
Concentrated Animal Feed Operations have been around for a few decades.
Basically concentration camps for cattle, pigs and chickens, these factory
farms not only torture animals but also are major polluters and a principal
emitter of greenhouse gases. But in recent years...
Read more
Northwest Natural Gas's Smart Energy program advertises itself as a way for
customers to “offset” their natural gas emissions by funding projects
that the company says “reduce, or prevent the release of, greenhouse
gases.” But in fact, as customers found out, Smart Energ...
Read more
More than three decades ago Urban Naturalist Mike Houck coined the term
Greenfrastructure to describe the important role that urban green spaces play
in providing climate resilience. Green infrastructure emphasizes the
importance of viewing our parks, forests, wetlands a...
Read more
When voters overwhelmingly passed a new city charter in 2022, optimism
abounded that the new form of government would more truly represent all of
Portland, not just the business elite who had been running things pretty much
for over 150 years. The city was supposed to be...
Read more
An unholy marriage between big tech and nukes threatens to upend the Pacific
Northwest as we know it. 45 years ago, soon after a serious accident at one
of the nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island caused the core to partially
melt down, Oregonians overwhelmingly passed ...
Read more
Every year around this time environmental lawyers, organizers and activists
converge on Eugene, Oregon for the Public Interest Environmental Law
Conference, held at the University of Oregon Law School. Three days of panel
discussions run the gamut from Indigenous Rights...
Read more
Baltimore Woods is a green fringe of oak and maple trees towering over the
neighborhood north of Cathedral Park. It anchors the Willamette bluff,
standing as a buffer between riverside industry and downtown St. Johns
residents. and providing shelter to native plants and ...
Read more
Portland has a new form of city government and one manifestation of this is
the most progressive city council the city has seen in years. But beneath the
veneer of a new governing structure an old entrenched bureaucracy appears to
remain. This came into focus on February...
Read more
On the morning of February 3, right in the middle of Locus Focus, we learned
that Portland's new mayor and acting city administrator approved the much
contested Land Use Compatibility Statement for Zenith Energy's expansion
along the banks of the Willamette River. This w...
Read more
