Most recent 10 articles: Sightline
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Aging Solutions Are Climate Solutions - Sightline (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Senior Couple Walking in London by Themeisle used under CC ZERO 1.0
When climate disasters like wildfires, flooding, heat waves, or polar vortexes grip communities, they hold a sharper threat for older adults, whose numbers in the US and Canada are growing. And even beyond these more headline-grabbing events are the everyday activities that may prove more challenging for older adults to perform independently in a warmer world. In Cascadia, that might look like being able to afford air conditioning to keep cool as the summers get hotter. Or so one can close the windows against wildfire smoke to keep indoor air safer for breathing, especially for those with respiratory ailments. Read more ...
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What’s Misunderstood about Indigenous Cultural Fire Is Sovereignty - Sightline (Apr 11) |
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Apr 11 · The Karuk Climate Adaptation Plan shows how cultural burning allows for species abundance. Figure by the Karuk Tribe and Kirsten Vinyeta. Used with permission.
“The piece that is misunderstood about Indigenous cultural fire is sovereignty.” That was one of the first things Bill Tripp, director of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy for the Karuk Tribe, said to me when I interviewed him for Sightline’s research series on wildfire solutions.??
Each year, wildfires cost the United States tens to hundreds of billions of dollars. Policymakers are finally acknowledging what Indigenous peoples have been saying for decades: most forests need more fire, not less. ... Read more ...
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Washingtonians Will Soon Enjoy Cleaner Heating and Cooling Options - Sightline (Mar 21) |
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Mar 21 · Workers connect a sewer line to the South Lake Union Energy District in 2023 in one of the United States’ first large commercial projects to use sewer-system-generated heat as a renewable energy source for buildings. Photo by King County Wastewater Treatment Division.
The possibility of connecting your home or business to a clean heating and cooling network could be coming to your neighborhood soon.
Washington lawmakers have opened up a new realm of climate-friendly business opportunities for the state’s energy utilities. With the unanimous passage of House Bill 2131, introduced by Representative Alex Ramel (D-40), electric and gas utilities may now sell thermal energy, ... Read more ...
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How Governor Inslee Can Rebalance Washington’s Utility Decarbonization Bill - Sightline (Mar 14) |
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Mar 14 · Protection by Bruce Evans used under CC BY-NC 2.0
Washington state leaders set out again this legislative session to move the state’s utilities forward on a path toward electrification and away from gas. House Bill 1589—a bill that passed in the 2024 session and is to be delivered to Governor Jay Inslee’s desk any day now—is a move in that direction.
This bill, initiated by Puget Sound Energy (PSE), Washington’s largest electric and gas utility, requires the utility to proactively plan for the transition from gas to clean energy. The coalition of climate and consumer advocates who helped usher it to passage knew that to get PSE to retire its existing gas ... Read more ...
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180 Sites Account for a Quarter of Cascadia’s Carbon Pollution - Sightline (Jan 4) |
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Jan 4 · Cascadia chalked up major climate wins in 2023, from Washington’s renewed commitment to eliminating gas appliances in new buildings to Montana youth’s historic court win for a clean and healthy climate. At the same time, many Northwest climate hawks are gearing up for new challenges in 2024, including a likely bitter fight to defend Washington’s landmark climate law, the Climate Commitment Act, from a rightwing repeal effort.
Still, as policy debates rage, it can be easy to forget that every day, scores of huge polluters continue to dirty Cascadia’s air, making the worst effects of climate change ever more difficult to stave off.
Cascadia counts 180 stationary facilities ... Read more ...
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Is the Permitting Process for Transmission Lines Really Broken? - Sightline (Nov 9) |
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Nov 9 · Editor’s note:?This is the third of three articles discussing the major challenges - planning, paying for it, and permitting - to building the transmission lines needed to transition to a cleaner energy future.
Permitting reform is the topic du jour in US climate circles. Renewable energy advocates and fossil fuel boosters alike are rallying to speed governmental approval of energy projects. At the same time, some progressives decry this effort as a misguided ruse to dismantle bedrock environmental and community protections.
How should climate leaders make sense of these debates? Just how big a barrier is permitting, really, to building the electric power grid Cascadia ... Read more ...
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Oregon’s Land Use Law Creates Wildfire-Adapted Communities - Sightline (Jul 25, 2023) |
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Jul 25, 2023 · William Kuhn, who lost his Bend, Oregon, home in the Awbrey Hall Fire, has a warning: “Anyone who decides to live on the edge of the forest risks losing their homes. We know that.”
Once considered rare, the “fire weather” that fueled the 1990 Awbrey Hall Fire is now a fixture of Cascadia’s climate. “It’s not a question of if, but when fires come through,” said Boone Zimmerlee, Deschutes County’s fire-adapted communities coordinator.
The 2013 Green Ridge Fire burns in the Deschutes National Forest (source: US Forest Service).
Building wildfire-resilient communities is key for climate adaptation. As I recently documented, the best tool for the job is guiding growth ... Read more ...
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Why Is It So Hard to Build New Transmission Lines? - Sightline (Jul 20, 2023) |
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Jul 20, 2023 · BPA transmission lines. Photo by Emily Moore.
Editor’s note: This is the first of three articles discussing the major challenges—planning, permitting, and paying for it—to building out the transmission lines needed to transition to a cleaner energy future.
Electric transmission lines—those giant high-voltage wires that zap electricity across long distances—recently graduated from a fringe topic to a core challenge in the quest to decarbonize Cascadia. More leaders and climate hawks now recognize the centrality of transmission capacity to meeting climate goals, but that recognition has yet to yield action. The Northwest grid is jammed, and hundreds ... Read more ...
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Transitioning Off Gas - Sightline (Jul 19, 2023) |
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Jul 19, 2023 · Cascadia boasts some of the most ambitious climate pollution-cutting goals in the nation. Meeting those targets requires millions of homes and businesses to transition off gas and onto clean electricity. But the state’s gas utilities are expanding, prolonging the lifespan of the polluting gas system and creating massive financial risks for gas customers. At the same time, gas utilities are obstructing decarbonization solutions while promoting dangerous, expensive, and unproven ideas like hydrogen for home heating.
Building and incentivizing clean appliances and infrastructure for individual homes - Cascadia’s approach to date - is necessary but not sufficient to meet today’s ... Read more ...
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Without Gas, What Business Models Could Gas Utilities Pursue? - Sightline (Jul 17, 2023) |
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Jul 17, 2023 · Carrier VRF/VRV Heat Pump by FanFan61618 used under CC BY-SA 2.0
Between 2003 and 2018, about 55 percent of adults in the United States abandoned their landline telephones in favor of wireless ones. Phone companies that rode the wave of innovation and diversification reaped financial rewards, while those that stuck with the outmoded landline strategy faced demise.
Like landline telephones, Cascadia’s gas utilities’ main business is quickly becoming obsolete. Gas companies are reckoning with disruption from all angles: consumers are buying electric heat pumps instead of gas furnaces, federal laws are boosting electric appliances, and new regulation is constraining gas ... Read more ...
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