Coast Range Radio

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 ...

This show has been pretty Oregon-centric, but I’m told there is a large landmass just north of us that also has a lot of amazing people doing environmental and climate justice work.  

So I’m putting my Oregon bias aside for today to learn more about one of the most exciting and effective climate forest campaigns in the Pacific Northwest - Washington Legacy Forest Defense Campaign!

To find out what a legacy forest is, and how folks ar...

Today, to celebrate the first independent episode of Coast Range Radio, we are going to try something new! 

Sometimes its important to step back and place our work, and ourselves, in a larger context.  And even amidst the relentless assaults we are currently facing, I think this is one of those times.

So I am thrilled to be joined by bestselling Oregon author, John Larison, to talk about his transcendent new book, The Ancients.  It i...

On March first, the president issued two executive orders designed to dramatically increase commercial logging on our public lands.  These executive orders are bad news on their own, but the situation is actually even more dire.

These orders are part of a decades-long effort by industry, the ultra wealthy, and radical right wing anti-government legislators to privatize our public lands and extract maximum profit for the wealthy few....

The Forest Service is using the threat of wildfires to justify a drastic expansion of commercial logging on our public lands. 

That is the contention in an investigative reporting series from Nathan Gilles at Columbia Insight.  Many of us in the environmental world have long thought this to be the case, and this series brings the receipts, including internal Forest Service documents, emails, and more.

The Forest Service has received ...

This episode is part three of our deep dive into the Forest Service’s proposal to amend the Northwest Forest Plan, which covers 24 million acres over 17 nation forests spread across Oregon, Washington, and Northern California. 

As I've said before, it is one of the primary reasons we have any intact or recovering forests left in the Pacific Northwest. So, kind of a big deal…

What we haven’t gone in depth with yet is the conserva...

We are going to have a couple banger episodes on the Northwest Forest Plan in the coming weeks, but I’m recording this on February 24th, just over one month since Trump’s second term began, and I think we need to step back and take stock for a minute.   

Don’t worry, this episode is not going to be all about the dark lord, but the administration’s actions have already had huge consequences here in the Pacific Northwest, so we need t...

This is part two of our series on the Forest Service’s major proposed changes to the Northwest Forest Plan.  

As most of our listeners know, the 30 year old Northwest Forest Plan provides critical protections to over 24 million acres of public land in Oregon, Washington, and California.

The Forest Service has proposed sweeping changes to the Plan through their recently released Draft Environmental Impact Statement, or DEIS, and publi...

The Northwest Forest Plan is one of the primary reasons that we have any forest left in the Northwest.  Without it, and other protections that are now also at risk because of the Trump administration, our public lands would look no different than the industrial clearcuts and monocrop tree plantations that surround me in the Coast Range.

In December, the Forest Service released its planned amendment to the Northwest Forest Plan in wh...

Historic LA wildfires are still smoldering, the Oregon legislature is back in session, a massively controversial plan to drastically amend the northwest forest plan governing management policies on over 20 million acres of our most precious forests barrels forward, and that little matter of he who shall not be named returning to power and confirming that, like most sequels, this one will be worse, and yes, we are in the darkest and...

This is our first episode of 2025, and while we brace for the tidal wave of insanity coming our way on the federal level, we are also preparing for Oregon’s biennial legislative session.

If you don’t know, Oregon only has full legislative sessions in odd years, meaning that 2025 will be a big year for Oregon politics and policy.  Oregon’s session runs from late January through late June, but most of the important opportuni...

Today’s show is the second part of a recent talk by conservationist and author, George Wuerthner, on the failures and fallacies of some of the ingrained beliefs around wildfires and wildfire suppression.

George Wuerthner is a well-known ecologist and author who has dedicated his career to studying and advocating for wilderness and wildlife conservation. He is the author of nearly 40 books on environmental issues and natura...