News items for November 30, 2021

UW HUB stop by Oran Viriyincy used under CC BY-SA 2.0

• 1. What if riding the bus was free?

  Saying ‘no fares’ could make public transit better and streets safer, while speeding up climate and justice progress. Who’s on board?

  The Tyee Buses, Transit

• 2. Electric interstate bus route from Seattle to Eugene planned

  European transit company FlixMobility and Northwest bus service MTRWestern have teamed up to launch a new electric bus line in the Pacific Northwest. The plan is that a “FlixBus” interstate electric bus route will stop at Seattle, Portland, Corvallis and Eugene, starting some time in 2022.

  Portland Tribune Electric Buses

• 3. Bike mentorship program empowers Vancouver newcomers

  HUB Cycling’s Newcomer Bike Mentorship Program matches recent immigrants and refugees with local volunteer mentors for companionship and cultural orientation to Vancouver’s active transportation lifestyle.

  The Tyee Bicycling

• 4. British Columbians drenched with climate anxiety

  Eco-anxiety is increasing among British Columbians as a result of this year’s forest fires, heat dome and recent floods, whether people are witnessing or directly impacted by the environmental disasters, experts say.

  CBC British Columbia Climate Change, Flooding

• 5. Portland’s changing Black population

  The Black population in North and Northeast Portland declined by 13.5% during the last 10 years as more than 3,000 Black residents moved away, new numbers from the 2020 census show.

  The Skanner Diversity, Population

• 6. King County won’t count homeless population this year

  The new King County Regional Homelessness Authority announced that it will forego next year’s annual count of King County’s unsheltered homeless population, leaving the region without one major source of information about how many people are living unsheltered, and in what circumstances, for two consecutive years, after last year’s count was scuttled by the COVID pandemic.

  PubliCola Homelessness

• 7. Returning salmon to the Eklutna River

  This fall, for the first time in nearly a century, water in Eklutna Lake in Alaska was allowed to flow its historic path down the Eklutna River and into Cook Inlet.

  Anchorage Daily News Salmon

• 8. Views: LNG exports will doom BC’s emissions reduction goals

  Meeting the Roadmap’s targets with the LNG Canada project would mean even more drastic cuts to the non-oil and gas sector, along with controversial, costly and energy-intensive carbon capture and storage technologies.

  The Province Emissions, LNG

• 9. The influence of the PR industry on climate politics

  The fossil fuel industry spends millions of dollars on shaping its image in an effort to block climate action. A new analysis shows a relatively small number of PR firms have aided this campaign from behind the scenes over the last three decades.

  DeSmogBlog Climate Policy, Greenwashing

• 10. A guide to climate reparations

  Reparations, debt cancellation, and climate justice are all regular features in climate solutions, but what do they mean in practice?

  Yes! Magazine Climate Reparations

More News from November 30, 2021

• Lummi Nation declares Whatcom green crab invasion a disaster

  The Lummi Indian Business Council has passed a resolution declaring a disaster after more than 70,000 European green crab, an invasive species, were captured and removed from the Lummi Sea Pond in recent months.

  The Bellingham Herald Invasive Species, Lummi Nation

• After the floods, British Columbia picks up the pieces

  Washed-out roads and destroyed bridges are just some of the devastation afflicting residents of the western province and could signal what climate change will bring in the future.

  The New York Times Floods

• The cost of waiting on climate

  Seven rules to guide our best chance of withstanding furies of climate change.

  The Tyee Climate Change

• Coal provinces co-ordinated fight against federal water pollution rules

  Four provincial governments in Canada strategized on a “co-ordinated approach” to overhaul proposed federal regulations aimed at reducing water pollution from coal mines, according to an internal briefing note from Alberta’s environment ministry.

  The Narwhal Coal

• The US government is wasting billions on ineffective wildfire policy.

  Critics say that the current practice of trying to suppress every big wildfire is foolhardy, especially given the huge, climate-driven fires more and more common in the West.

  Slate Wildfires

• Diesel trucks are driving environmental injustice in parts of the US

  Low-income people of color in the US are exposed to 28 percent more nitrogen dioxide in the air they breathe compared to their wealthier white counterparts, a new study using satellite measurements reports. The researchers find this is largely caused by the distribution of diesel truck routes, long implicated as a source of environmental inequality.

  GreenBiz Air pollution, Vehicle Emissions