Offering asides, recommended links, blogworthy quotations, and more, In Brief is the Northwest Progressive Institute's microblog of world, national, and local politics.
“On the heels of the release of a draft environmental impact statement earlier this week, the Shell Puget Sound Refinery announced Thursday it is no longer pursuing the rail unloading facility addressed in the document,” the Skagit Valley Herald reports.
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Following decades of prodding, local leaders representing communities in the greater Victoria area have approved a plan to build a modern state of the art sewage treatment plant at McLoughlin Point in Esquimalt. When the plant is complete, Victoria will subject its sewage to a tertiary treatment process (the highest and best level available) instead of dumping raw sewage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca as it does today. The plant and related infrastructure is slated to be built by 2020.
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“The fight at Standing Rock is a big damned thing,” writes Bill McKibben. “It’s a Flint-in-the-making, and it’s also a chance to for once do right by the continent’s oldest inhabitants. Surely Hillary Clinton can rise to the occasion. Can’t she?”
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“For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline. Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical: The inundation of the coast has begun. The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes,” the New York Times reports.
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“Tribes from across Washington and the Northwest have journeyed to remote Cannon Ball, N.D., to join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in a peaceful occupation of ancestral lands where the tribe seeks an injunction to stop construction of an oil pipeline until its waters and cultural resources are protected,” Lynda Mapes reports.
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We can’t do any work right now… The phones work, but the computers don’t. And attorneys are pretty much helpless without their computers. — Barbara
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“The number of climate records broken in the last few years is stunning. But here’s a new measure of misery: Not only did we just experience the hottest April in 137 years of record keeping, but it was the 12th consecutive month to set a new record,” Bloomberg reports.
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The National Park Service is asking Americans and visitors to the United States to do their part to keep themselves and wildlife safe. In a
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“We don’t often question the typical world map that hangs on the walls of classrooms — a patchwork of yellow, pink and green that separates the world into more than 200 nations. But Parag Khanna, a global strategist, says that this map is, essentially, obsolete,” writes Ana Swanson.
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We don’t have the technology to fix the problem… We don’t have the process to develop the technology to fix the problem, and we don’t
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“Less than six months after the FDA approved the first genetically altered animal, it has its first legal challenge,” KING 5 reports.
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Bloomberg’s Tom Randall documents and discusses the recent clean energy investment boom, which is outpacing oil and gas two to one.
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“In the aftermath of the winter occupation, spring birds are arriving and Malheur National Wildlife Refuge staff are making an uneasy return to their jobs and homes in Eastern Oregon’s Harney County,” reports Hal Bernton for The Seattle Times.
Launch“The South Coast Air Quality Management District board fired Barry Wallerstein, center, the agency’s longtime leader, despite pleas from environmentalists and public health experts,” reports Steve Lopez.
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“A shift is under way that will lead to widespread adoption of electric vehicles in the next decade,” writes Bloomberg’s Tom Randall.
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While Republicans deny the science of the climate crisis, the consequences continue to felt. This just in from the New York Times: “The oceans are rising faster than at any point in the last 28 centuries, and human emissions of greenhouse gases are primarily responsible, scientists reported Monday.”
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In a special report for The Seattle Times, reporter Lynda V. Mapes tells the story of the resurgence of the Elwha River ecosystem, which is benefiting hugely from the largest dam removal project in human history, completed two years ago.
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“Opposition against a proposed natural gas-to-methanol plant in Tacoma grew Thursday night with a unanimous vote against the project by the Federal Way City Council.” KING5 reports.
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The idiotic, dangerous right wing insurrection against the people and government of the United States in rural Oregon appears to be almost over. The Oregonian
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The Detroit Free Press reports: “The FBI is now investigating the contamination of Flint’s drinking water, a man-made public health catastrophe, which has left an unknown number of Flint children and other residents poisoned by lead and resulted in state and federal emergency declarations.”
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The City of Seattle is suing megacorporation Monsanto for damages over the contamination of the Duwamish River, which became polluted with toxic chemicals due to the company’s manufacture of PCBs. Monsanto’s predictable response to the lawsuit has been to deny that it is responsible. In Monstanto’s world, accountability simply doesn’t exist.
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