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 (This post is part of a series.) A while back, the Seattle city government decided that it wanted to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct—the seismically vulnerable aerial highway that cuts off the city’s downtown from its waterfront—with a tunnel. But what neither the city, nor anyone else, has decided is how to pay for the tunnel, which the state estimates could cost more than $4 billion. So far, the city...

(This post is part of a series.) Two headlines today, on replacing the crumbling Alaskan Way Viaduct, the aerial highway through downtown Seattle that cuts off the city from its waterfront: Seattle P-I: Viaduct Funding ‘Impossible’:  Sen. Murray says U.S. won’t put up $1 billion Seattle Times: Murray Says Viaduct Request is DOA Now, I’m not one to say “I told you so.”  No, wait.  Actually, I am. But, more...

Roger Lowenstein’s article in this week’s New York Times Magazine effectively debunks the pervasive notion that the US Social Security system is headed for insolvency. (If I’m not mistaken, it’s the Medicare system that’s got problems ahead, not Social Security.) The article makes a couple of points worth comment: 1. The argument that we need more babies in order to prop up Social Security is hooey. As Lowenstein writes, "though...

There’s end-of-the-year good news for almost everyone who breathes in Cascadia: particulate pollution is mostly declining, as is ground-level ozone pollution. EPA released its Particle Pollution Reportlast week, which summarizes trends in concentrations of particulates: tiny specks of airborne pollution. Don’t think of happy little flecks like in Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who. Think of nasty little killers. Aside from cigarette smoke (a form of pollution that roughly a...

Industries that are based on extracting natural resources—mining, forestry, fishing, and farming—are particularly vulnerable to booms and busts. Commodity prices, you see, are especially volatile: small oversupplies can lead to huge price drops, while tight supplies can send prices soaring. (See, e.g., petroleum.) British Columbia’s timber industry is a case in point. The price of BC timber—much of which is exported to the U.S. or overseas—gyrates not only with the...

Plan B, the emergency contraceptive rejected for over-the-counter sales by the FDA in May, has reapplied after limiting sales to those 16 years of age and older. Concern about sales of the contraceptive to young teens was the FDA’s putative reason for rejecting Plan B, despite the overwhelming support for the medicine from FDA’s scientific panel. Many observers believe that the FDA’s director bowed to pressure from the anti-abortion movement...

So measured by income, the typical adult between the ages of 22 and 54 really is better off today than four years ago. But that improvement is largely due to the effects of aging—which, in the aggregate, have far more influence over your earning power than do typical fluctuations in the economy. But the fact that I’m better off today (at 36) than I was four years ago (at 32)...

This piece by John Tierney in the New York Times Magazine is wrong in many ways, so it’s probably important to point out what’s right about it. To summarize the article (we read, so you don’t have to!): Cars are great, high-tech roads are cool, people who don’t like new roads are condescending nanny-statists who oppose consumer choice, public transit is too expensive, and the only real solutions to traffic...

The mothers in the Sightline study tell why they were tested for PBDEs and what they think should be done about the problem of toxics in humans.

The federal minimum wage in the U.S. is $5.15 an hour. But based on the cost of housing and other necessities, the living wage in Montana is calculated at $8.61 per hour for a single adult, $17.07 per hour for a single adult with two children. For positions that pay a living wage, there are far more applicants than there are jobs: “On average, 12 people apply for jobs that...