Barbara Bernstein

  THIS PROGRAM WAS ORIGINALLY BROADCAST ON MAY 23, 2016 In what may be a first in the nation, the Portland, Oregon school board passed a sweeping “climate justice” resolution that commits the school district to “abandon the use of any adopted text material that is found to... Read more

Four months after an oil train derailed and caught fire in the Columbia Gorge town of Mosier, the Wasco County Planning Commission has approved a proposal by Union Pacific to expand its rail facilities through Mosier, at the very site of the derailment in June. According to... Read more

Originally Broadcast on August 1, 2016 For twelve years residents of Clatsop County (in the NW corner of Oregon) battled proposals to build massive Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminals near the mouth of the Columbia River. On April 15, 2016, the last of these proposals wa... Read more

The end of a stable climate, along with the end of cheap energy and the possible end of economic “normalcy,” could spell the end of political normalcy. If the U.S. election season is any guide, we may already be witnessing the early stages of a political sea change, as nati... Read more

What will society look like when we rely solely on renewable energy? What will it take to realize this transformation? On this episode of Locus Focus we continue last month's discussion with Richard Heinberg, author of Our Renewable Future, about the challenges facing us as... Read more

THIS PROGRAM WAS ORIGINALLY BROADCAST ON JULY 18, 2016 With its uncanny night howls, unrivaled ingenuity, and amazing resilience, the coyote is the stuff of legends. In Indian folktales it often appears as a deceptive trickster or a sly genius. But legends don't come close ... Read more

Northwest Innovation Works, a company controlled by the Chinese government, seeks to take advantage of Washington State’s cheap natural gas, water, and electricity to manufacture methanol for export to China. The proposal would include a 90-acre methanol refinery at the Por... Read more

The next few decades will see a profound energy transformation throughout the world. By the end of the century (and perhaps sooner), we will shift from fossil fuel dependence to rely primarily on renewable sources like solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal power. Driven by t... Read more

More than half of the world's population now lives in cities. By 2050 that number is expected to nearly double. According to Can a City Be Sustainable?, the latest edition of the the Worldwatch Institute's State of the World series, there is no question that cities will con... Read more

In the struggle to prevent the Pacific Northwest from becoming an export hub for fossil fuels, Native American tribes have played a vanguard role in taking on the fossil fuel industry. On this episode of Locus Focus we'll look at how the tribes are an inspiration to everyon... Read more