News items for September 22, 2017

We the People Democracy by Backbone Campaign used under CC BY 2.0

• 1. Effort afoot to bring ranked-choice voting to Seattle

  Ideally, the system takes away the threat of a minor candidates acting as a spoiler, empowering voters to cast their ballots for candidates they most agree with without worrying about electability.

  Seattle Weekly Democracy, Ranked Choice Voting

• 2. Geologists sound alarm over future landslides in Columbia Gorge

  Geologists for the state of Oregon are warning of the risk of major landslides in parts of the Columbia River Gorge that were hit by wildfires this year.

  KNKX Wildfires

• 3. The West’s wildfires are taking a toll on reservoirs

  New research predicts that an increase in the frequency and magnitude of wildfires will double the rates of sedimentation in one-third of the West’s large watersheds, reducing reservoir storage and affecting water supplies.

  Water Deeply Wildfires

• 4. Salmon get a place to rest and eat

  Juvenile salmon are getting a new tidal wetland where they can rest and feed as they head into the open ocean every spring.

  Vancouver Sun Salmon

• 5. Canada has too much clean electricity. Anybody want it?

  Canada, a country that runs on almost 60 percent hydropower, has a problem: It has more clean electricity than it can use, and a whole lot more of it is on the way.

  E&E News Clean Energy, Hydropower

• 6. New Seattle bike shares: successful so far

  Average trips per day is 2,231 compared to Pronto’s 309, and in two and a half months, the free-floating bike share trips totaled 118,240, fast approaching half of all the trips ever made on Pronto bikes. And efforts to make sure the bikes are equitable, meaning they wind up in all neighborhoods of the city, seem to be working out.

  Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bike Share

• 7. This is the hurricane season scientists expected … and feared

  There is evidence that we are emerging from an era of messy meteorological data, where we were blind to warming seas strengthening hurricanes because the really damaging ones were rare. If that’s true, weather historians may look to this year as the beginning of a frightening new phase of superstorms.

  Grist Ocean warming

• 8. The challenges of recycling at apartments

  A study finds lack of storage space, pickup service, makes it harder for multifamily tenants to be green.

  Portland Tribune Recycling

• 9. Big Brothers and Big Sisters take it outside

  The Columbia Northwest chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters has formed a new partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and Urban Nature Partners PDX to promote Outdoor Explorers Mentor program.

  Portland Tribune Youth

• 10. Why the last snow on earth may be red

  As the glaciers of the world thaw, one colorful group of microorganisms is thriving.

  New Yorker Arctic Melting, Glaciers

More News from September 22, 2017

• If not Site C dam, then what?

  Some of the biggest questions that need better answers in the B.C. Utilities Commission’s review of the $8.8-billion Site C dam are about power sources that could replace the mega-dam if it were cancelled

  Vancouver Sun Dams

• Buses: Going where no electric vehicles have gone before

  A 40-foot bus, dubbed the “Catalyst E2 Max,” has broken the world record for longest drive on a single charge.

  Planetizen Electric Vehicles

• Should the giant trash pile in the Pacific become a country?

  Activists want to turn the country-sized garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean into an official nation, and you can already apply for citizenship.

  Pacific Standard Ocean trash

• Climate report says MT must adapt to warmer, drier seasons

  Montana’s average temperatures are increasing, mountain snowpacks are declining, large wildfires are more frequent, and all that is expected to continue in the coming decades.

  Bozeman Daily Chronicle Climate impacts

• Climate solutions need cold, hard cash

  This group aims to make those investments easier. “If you just look at the energy sector, we need about a trillion a year,” Barbara Buchner says about the gap between our climate goals and the amount of investment in developing solutions.

  Grist Climate Action

• Seattle mayoral plans: Tiny homes and rental vouchers

  Radical problems call for radical thinking when it comes to housing.

  Q13 Fox Affordable housing