Articles by Eric de Place

Wolves are returning to their home in Oregon

It seems that wolves are returning home to Oregon.

A little more than a decade ago, Oregon was wolf-less, along with the rest of the American West, a legacy of government-sanctioned poisoning, trapping, and shooting to make the land safe for cows and sheep. (Here's a cool animated map depicting our shrunken wolf range.)

But then in the mid-1990s, federal biologists reintroduced a few dozen wolves back into their native habitat of Yellowstone National Park and the wilderness of central Idaho. And the wolf population grew faster and healthier than anyone had been expecting.

Ginormous earthworm discovered, may get federal protection

Here's the deal: there's a three-foot-long pink earthworm living in the Palouse region of Idaho and Washington and nowhere else on the planet. It can burrow 15 feet underground and it was re-discovered last year after scientists believed it had gone extinct. Also, it smells like a lily.

At the risk of sounding unserious: awesome!

Efficiency vs. biomass smackdown

This post was written by Clark Williams-Derry, who's on vacation.

An interesting contrast.

The NW Current is reporting that, even with rising prices for fossil fuels, biomass electricity projects -- using, say, wood waste or sewage solids -- are having trouble penciling out. Between capital and fuel costs, it's still cheaper to generate electricity from fossil fuels than from biomass.

Meanwhile, energy-efficiency programs are wildly successful, oversubscribed -- and in Oregon, cost about 1.3 cents per kilowatt hour saved, which is a massive bargain. Says Energy Trust's executive director, Margie Harris:

Energy efficiency is the most cost-effective resource -- half the cost of new generation ... There's more to be acquired if it were the wish of the Oregon Legislature for us to go after it.

True 'nuff.

This book was made for walking

It makes intuitive sense that living in a community that encourages walking -- with sidewalks, good street connections, and homes that are close to shops and services -- would make you active and healthier.

As Sightline Institute's new book -- Cascadia Scorecard 2006: Focus on Sprawl and Health -- points out, such communities are also safer. (Full disclosure: I work at Sightline.) Residents who live in a compact community have significantly less chance of dying in a car crash -- not because they're better drivers, but because they drive less. (And car crashes, of course, are the leading killer of young people.) And they also tend to weigh less and have less risk of chronic diseases associated with obesity.

Check out the press page for pdfs and fact sheets about the new research. And check out media coverage: front page of the Vancouver Sun and in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as well.

But for a quick take, here are my top ten facts from the new Scorecard: