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To the casual observer, the sage brush country of the American West looks like the Big Empty—undisturbed land stretching to the horizon. So vast is this landscape that early travelers dubbed it "the sagebrush sea." The reality, however, is that the rich native biological integrity of this Inland Northwest ecosystems has been substantially diminished. And no single creature is better proof of this than the sage-grouse. The sage-grouse is a...

An excellent article on wolf reintroduction in Orion magazine. The main focus is on the evolution of our psychology and values around wolves. Here’s a sneak preview: …the culture of the west continues to be transformed gradually by an influx of people holding different, perhaps more modern, values. The old-timers are fading away and, like it or not, the new west is taking hold. Surveys show that if you’re about...

A concerned reader is in the market for a used car, and wants to know what we’d recommend: a fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle (like a Prius), or one that can run on veggie-oil-based biodiesel (like a Volkswagen Jetta)? A while back I posted on a similar question—whether to buy a new Prius or an old Accord.  There, the price differences were so wide that the Accord seemed the better buy—provided that...

Apropos of nothing:  blogger Kevin Drum at The Washington Monthly has a well-written, informative, and balanced setofposts of the so-called "Peak Oil" theory—the idea that, while the world may not be running out of oil, exactly, we may be fairly close to the practical limit of how much oil can be squeezed out of the ground in any given year.  After the peak, goes the theory, oil production gradually declines,...

The first time I celebrated Bike to Work Day, I didn’t have a job (I was a recent college graduate in search of one) so I experienced the event as more of a Bike-to-Free-Food-Booths Day. Luckily, the sponsors only asked for proof of biking, not working, and since my ancient 10-speed was my main form of transportation at the time, I fit right in. That was in 1988. Since that...

Today marks precisely 25 years since the big eruption of Mount St. Helens. The once-symmetrical peak lost 1,300 feet of elevation when the north face of the mountain collapsed and many tons of ash were blown into the sky. The eruption killed 57 people and at least 16 housecats, while it laid waste to 230 square miles and pretty much all of the local wildlife. (There’s a tiny bit of...

(This post is part of a series.) I haven’t had much new to say about Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct saga, despite the fact that there have been a bunch of significant developments of late: Late last month, Governor Gregoire signed off on a 9.5 cents per gallon gas tax increase, which would provide (among other things) $2 billion to replace the Viaduct.  But the Viaduct only gets that money if...

A recently published study of Puget Sound fish found that concentrations of flame retardants known as PBDEs are now higher than those of the pesticide DDT. Quoting from the Vancouver Sun: "That’s pretty staggering," said marine mammal toxicologist Peter Ross. "For the first time, a new chemical has emerged to challenge the dominance of PCBs and DDT." Now, in some ways, this shouldn’t be too surprising—DDT levels in the environment...

It’s a rare treat to read a dry, technical report and—almost by accident—learn something surprising, counterintuitive, useful and (at least to me) genuinely new.  Which is exactly what happened when I read this paper (beware, pdf) by Todd Litman at the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute.  The upshot:  raising vehicle fuel-economy standards, which always seemed to me like a good idea, may actually be counterproductive, even if they’re truly successful at...

Vancouver, BC’s Price Tags newsletter takes on a nifty subject in Issue 67: the role that lanes have played in the city’s past ("generally housing the messy bits of life") and how they might evolve in the future. Among other things, lanes—which Americans might think of as "alleys"–might "allow a more gradual form of densification, providing access for the granny cottages and secondary suites that accommodate growth without changing the...