AS THE SKY CLEARED over rain-swept Southeast Alaska one August afternoon in 2019, we flew over Prince of Wales Island to take in its lush forests. Numerous fresh clearcuts interrupted the deep green cover on the United States’ fourth largest island located at the southern end of Alaska’s massive Tongass National Forest. In some spots, stands of younger trees stretched their canopies across older, logged areas. On the whole, though, the forest here looked rich and vast.
“Drill, baby, drill” By Paul Koberstein Stressed out Arctic wildlife face massive oil development All the easy places on Earth to find oil have been explored. The most fragile environments have been left for last. There’s no place more challenging for oil exploration than the Arctic Ocean’s continental shelf. Companies have drilled virtually every other …
2010: The Year Global Warming Turned a Monstrous Corner By PAUL KOBERSTEIN When Dr. James Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration arrived in Houston to speak in December 2009, he was greeted by an angry mob, a police escort, and death threats. This was odd. Houston, the home of Mission Control, normally treats …
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A sneak peek at the Islands of Portland By PAUL KOBERSTEIN His Portland map shows an inland sea sloshing over the low-lying downtown and most of its neighborhoods, with up to 262 feet of probably very polluted water. City Hall and the Moda Center, literally, would become fish bowls. In this future Portland, almost every …
Global Warming and freeways By PAUL KOBERSTEIN One of the most important questions connected to the Columbia River Crossing is how it will impact climate change. Traffic is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions that are forcing global temperatures to rise. Nevertheless, the CRC’s supporters say their project will be good for the planet. …
Global warming: Science vs. politics By PAUL KOBERSTEIN On a frigid late-February day in the nation’s capital, U.S. Senator James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, brought a snowball to the Senate floor to lend credence to his claim that global warming is a hoax. Inhofe’s strategy has been to discredit the work of climate scientists who have found …
Reinventing what it means to be Inuit: Indigenous peoples adapt to climate change nuit leader Jose A. Kusugak said that to address the impacts of climate change, it makes sense to consult with those most affected: the indigenous peoples who live in the Arctic. “Our millennia-old traditions are already being altered because of the warming …
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Russian Oil Ambitions Collide with Ancient Reindeer Traditions Russia possesses nine of the top 15 oil fields in the Arctic and enormous gas reserves, according to the USGS. The largest deposits sit in the Yenisey-Khatanga basin, the West Siberian Basin and the Laptev Sea Shelf. But drilling interests could collide with the subsistence activities in …
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Say g’bye to summer hummers once global climate warms By PAUL KOBERSTEIN For a good part of the year, the colorful rufous hummingbird can be spotted all over Portland. After nesting and breeding here in the summer and fall, these feisty hummers migrate some 2,000 miles southward to winter in Mexico. But over the next …
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Sierra Club turns up heat on PacifiCorp (Originally published in the Portland Tribune Nov. 13, 2014) By PAUL KOBERSTEIN After all-time monthly records in average global temperatures were set in May, June, August and September, 2014 is looking like it will be the warmest year on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. …