Sightline Daily | Northwest News That Matters
Top Picks of the Day
1. Oregonians Want Largest Utility to Clean Up, Soon
Oregon’s Environmental Quality Commission got an earful this week from those who want the state’s largest utility to install modern pollution controls sooner rather than later at its coal-fired power plant 150 miles east of Portland. Oregonian 01/08/2009
2. Blame WA’s Recurring Floods On a Triple Whammy
What’s to blame for Washington’s crazy weather and flooding? Development? Logging? Climate change? The answer is all three, to some degree, in different places around the region, and at different times. Seattle Post-Intelligencer 01/08/2009
3. Jump in Alaska Teen Birth Rate Tops US
Alaska saw the nation’s biggest increase in teenage pregnancy rate from 2005 to 2006, according to a new federal report looking at U.S. birth rates. Anchorage Daily News 01/09/2009
4. Cash Crunch Slows California’s High-Speed Rail
Just months after Californians voted to invest nearly $10 billion in a statewide high-speed rail system, the agency charged with getting it built is running out of money. San Francisco Chronicle 01/09/2009
5. Global Warming Will Affect Farms, UW Scientists Say
When searing heat waves blasted Western Europe in 2003, more than 50,000 people perished and harvests of corn, wheat and fruit fell by up to a third. Imagine those temperatures being the norm over much of the world, and you’ll have an idea of what the future is likely to hold for agriculture – and humanity, says a new report from scientists at the University of Washington and Stanford University. Seattle Times 01/09/2009
6. Canadian Mayors Push for Transit, Housing Funds
Canada’s big-city mayors will converge on Ottawa next week to publicly press for money for housing, transit, roads, bridges, sewers and other infrastructure in the planned federal government stimulus package. Toronto Globe and Mail 01/09/2009
7. Views: A Hole In Portland’s Satellite Urban Renewal
That’s exactly what’s wrong with the whole notion of satellite districts. If you can draw lines on a map any way you please, and pretend projects in one part of town will spark redevelopment in another, 10 miles away, the rationale for urban renewal begins to implode. Oregonian 01/08/2009
8. Layoffs Hit Oregon Manufacturing Sector
Oregon is continuing to lose jobs. Freightliner is laying off 190 workers in Portland. And Cessna workers in Bend are bracing for more layoffs there. Oregon Public Broadcasting 01/09/2009
9. Incentives May Help Green Projects
President-elect Barack Obama said yesterday that he wanted to double the production of alternative energy over the next three years, a goal that will probably require a new set of government incentives for the capital-intensive solar and wind industries. Washington Post 01/09/2009
10. Building New Homes Smaller
The American dream is shrinking. For the first time in at least a decade, builders are substantially reducing the size of new houses. USA Today 01/09/2009
Filed under: Community News, National and World News | Tagged: Alaska teen birth rate, alternativ transportation, climate change, economics, employment, environment, global warming and agriculture, green building, green incentives, light-rail, Oregon Environmental Quality Commission, politics, Seattle, seattleDIRT, Sightline Daily, Sightline Institute, sustainability, transit, washginton floods
