Coast Range Radio

I don’t have to tell anyone how bleak things look at the federal level.  Here in the Pacific Northwest, if we’re being honest, there is not a lot that we can do at the moment to influence federal policy.

But when it comes to climate and the environment, I’ve always been a little ambivalent about how much can be done at the state and local level.

I want to be clear, local activism and organizing are incredibly important, and that’s wh...

We’re heading East today!  

Oregon’s Blue Mountains encompass some of the most beautiful landscapes and habitats anywhere. Within the Blue’s 15,000 square miles, you’ll find such Oregon gems as the John Day river, the Eagle Cap wilderness, Hell’s Canyon, and a huge percentage of Oregon’s forests. 

But because they are geographically isolated from major population centers, they often don’t get the recognition they deserve.

That remoten...

My guest today is author and journalist, Paul Koberstein.  I spoke with Paul in 2024 about a book he co-authored called “Canopy of Titans: The Life and Times of the Great North American Temperate Rainforest”.

I recently read a great new article of his entitled “Greenwashing in the Evergreen State”, exploring how an industry funded quasi-academic entity got the Democratically controlled Washington State Legislature to endorse industr...

If you’re hearing this before September 19th, I need you to do me a favor: the Trump administration is attempting to eliminate a policy called the “Roadless Rule”, which would open tens of millions of acres of vibrant forests and public land to industrial logging and mining.

The Forest Service is accepting public comment on the plan to eliminate the Roadless Rule until September 19th, and it is important that we flood them with comm...

I just got back from a really amazing backpacking trip in the wilderness of Wyoming, and I’ve been reflecting on how nature, wilderness, sacred lands, whatever you want to call them, have always been a source of refuge, spiritual rejuvenation, and healing for humans.

But a question I and so many others are grappling with right now is, how do we continue to find inspiration and healing in a world that is being so deeply harmed.

My gue...

Just keeping up with the Trump administration’s all out war against our environment is exhausting.  Fortunately, we in the northwest are blessed with incredible activists, organizers, and more relevant to today, environmental attorneys to help us understand the attacks so we can fight back effectively.

One of the best of those attorneys is Brenna Bell, formerly of 350pdx and now with the Crag Law Center.  This episode features a rec...

I’m delighted to be joined today by Rebecca Heisman, freelance journalist and the author of “Flight Paths: how a passionate and quirky group of pioneering scientists solved the mystery of bird migration”.

Flight Paths is a fascinating and engaging deep dive into the history and science of bird migration research, and how understanding bird migration matters for effective conservation efforts.

My 'emailbox' is always open co...

I’m off this week, so you’re going to hear the second half of one of my favorite interviews, with author and activist Rand Schenk, which I first released in July of 2024. 

I loved this conversation, but I feel like it needs a little context at this point, since 2024 seems like a millenia ago, and the fierce arguments forest defenders and policy makers were having about forest management now seem like friendly disagreements.  

Obvious...

(I’m off this week, so I’m featuring one of my favorite interviews, which I first released in July of 2024. I hope you like it!)

Today’s episode is part one of a two part interview with Rand Schenk, author of a fascinating and timely new history of the Forest Service, its founder, Gifford Pinchot, and over 100 years of forest management and mismanagement in the Pacific Northwest.

The book, “Forest Under Siege: The Story of Old Growth...

I’m recording this in the aftermath of what I consider a largely failed Legislative session in Oregon and the passage of what will likely be remembered as one of the most extreme and destructive pieces of legislation in modern history at the federal level, aka the One Big Bill.

On the state level, Democrats failed to pass their major priority, a much needed transportation funding overhaul, despite having supermajorities in both cham...

Earlier this year, I did an episode on the Legacy Forest Defense Campaign in Washington.  

Since then, that campaign has only heated up, and in May, activists took to the forests in the Olympic peninsula to set up tree sits and road blockades in protest of State Land timber sales in the Elwha Watershed.

To learn more about protecting the Elwha watershed, Earth Law philosophy, and more, I’m delighted to be joined by Elizabeth Dunne, t...

One of the things I try to do on this show is get away from the binary good vs bad framing that so many of us fall into, and explore the messy complexities and grey areas within the environmental and conservation movement here in the northwest.  That’s why I enjoyed today’s conversation so much.

My guest today is Tabatha Rood.  Tabatha is a former Forest Service National Environmental Policy Act planner and currently leads the Wild ...

I’m willing to bet that most Oregonians don’t know who our State Treasurer is, much less what the State Treasury does.

But we should.  The office of State Treasurer, currently Elizabeth Steiner by the way, is a powerful position, and invests a huge amount of public money.

How that money is invested matters, and it really matters that our public dollars and pension funds are deeply invested in the fossil fuel industry.

The statewide co...

An absolute gem of a conversation with Oregon author M.L. Herring about her new book, “Born of Fire and Rain: Journey Into a Pacific Coastal Forest”.  

Born of Fire and Rain is one of the best books I’ve ever read on our bioregion.  It is a masterfully guided hike through virtually every aspect of the Pacific Coastal rainforests, seamlessly weaving in geology, ecology, timber politics, personal narrative, and more into a beautiful t...

Today’s episode is all about one of the most charismatic of all charismatic megafauna, the sea otter!  Sea otters are a crucial part of nearshore marine ecosystems, but they were wiped out along the Oregon coast over 100 years ago.

The Elakha Alliance has been working tirelessly for years to bring them back, and I’m so excited to be joined by Jane Bacchieri and Chanel Hason to learn more.

As a note, we did an episode with Elakha co-f...

As of this recording on May 6th, we are well into the 2025 Oregon Legislative session.  And I, like many others, am still struggling to find a coherent throughline to the session.

And many climate justice advocates are increasingly wondering whether Oregon’s Democratic led government has given up on meaningful climate action.  But there is still a lot that can happen in the next two months of the legislative session, and your voice ...

All of us in the northwest love our ocean, but we often don’t show it the love that it truly deserves.

Ocean conservation is chronically underfunded and under prioritized, but the newly formed Oregon Ocean Alliance is aiming to change that and bring much needed attention and resources to our ocean and coastal ecosystems.

To talk about all of that and more, I’m joined by two great guests, Annie Merrill of Oregon Shores, and Joe Liebez...

Biomass energy, that is, burning pelletized wood for electricity generation, is a classic false climate solution.  It has been devastating forests and communities in the Southeast for years, and the Biomass industry is dead set on expanding into the Pacific Northwest. 

We did a deep dive into Biomass a couple of years ago, which you can find in the Coast Range Radio podcast feed.

But with the Trump administration and Congressional Re...

Note: This is the second part of the interview that didn't make it into the radio version.  The podcast version includes the entire interview.

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Biomass energy, that is, burning pelletized wood for electricity generation, is a classic false climate solution.  It has been devastating forests and communities in the Southeast for years, and the Biomass industry is dead set on expanding into the Pacific Northwest. 

We did a deep ...