In the wake of a historic agreement at this month’s Paris Climate Change Conference, the United States is expected to take the significantly regressive step of lifting a 40-year ban on crude oil exports, and the Northwest will find itself directly in the path of the oil industry’s plans to dramatically increase crude oil production … Read more
‘Tis the giving season! This week, we at Sightline share our favorite charities in Cascadia and beyond. We hope this helps inspire your end-of-year giving. Enjoy! Alan To me, perhaps the single most egregious failing of the United States (among several) is that ten times as many people with schizophrenia and other forms of severe mental illness are … Read more
Right now, leaders from around the world are meeting in Paris to discuss the future of the earth’s climate. Other writers have covered what is at stake in Paris, including: An explainer by Brad Plumer at Vox A Q&A by Nell Greenfieldboyce at NPR An excellent four-minute video from Grist about the 22 years of … Read more
Author’s note: Unless otherwise indicated, all dollar amounts are in Canadian dollars. Back in May, voters in Canada’s most conservative province got fed up with 44 consecutive years of conservative rule and elected the New Democratic Party (NDP) (NDP is to the left of the Liberal Party that won the federal election in October). The new leadership wasted no … Read more
In Alan Durning’s keynote address at the 2015 Build Small, Live Large conference at Portland State University last month, Sightline Institute director Alan Durning discussed how living small has not only been normal until very recently but is still normal for the vast majority of the globe. [button link='{“url”:”https://www.sightline.org/2015/12/23/video-the-power-of-small/”,”title”:”Click here to watch Alan Durning|apos;s keynote: The … Read more
We’ve all probably heard an idyllic story or two about the milkman who used to deliver farm fresh milk to household doorsteps at sunrise and cart away the empty bottles to wash and reuse. Why doesn’t he or she come around anymore? Refillable beverage containers were a common phenomenon until the mid-20th century—in 1947, 100 … Read more
There’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about the struggles of the US coal industry. Since last spring, US coal companies have declared bankruptcy right and left, with others, such as Arch Coal, now teetering on the brink of insolvency. But even though 2015 has been a particularly bad year for Big Coal, the industry’s … Read more
For Immediate Release: November 12, 2015 Contact: Eric de Place, eric@sightline.org, 206-447-1880 x105 Last week, President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline, a strong stand for climate protection. Yet a new report shows that the oil industry still intends to use massive oil-by-rail terminals proposed in the Pacific Northwest to move their product to market. … Read more
President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline was without doubt a victory for climate protection. It also left many wondering about the significance other oil infrastructure proposals, such as the 15 rail facilities in the Northwest that could handle a million barrels of crude per day. Would new oil depots on Northwest shorelines really … Read more
A few weeks back, a reporter caught an unnamed coal industry executive in a stunning admission: environmental opposition to coal terminals has been a huge boon for the coal industry. “I believe these agencies and environmental groups are doing the coal producers a favor by not approving or supporting the approval of these terminals…If the terminals were already built and … Read more