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Photo: Montana’s Colstrip power plant in 2015 From about 2009 to 2016, I expended an exorbitant amount of energy in grassroots movements to challenge the coal industry. This was when efforts like the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign were getting off the ground–and from retiring existing coal plants, to stopping coal export projects on the…
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The Salish Sea’s Southern Resident orcas, one of whom is shown above, are among the creatures impacted by tanker traffic from fossil fuel export projects in Washington. Photo credit: Kevin Nichols I well remember back in 2021, when Washington’s Whatcom County made history by enacting one of the country’s strongest policy’s restricting new fossil fuel…
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Photo: the Elwha River flows free after the removal of two dams last decade. The Trump administration’s gutting of the federal government has affected so many facets of life in the U.S., from weather you can get help with health care to food assistance programs. However, some of the most worrying long-term impacts of mass…
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The recent historic floods in western Washington and Oregon–just a few years after similar flooding events hit the region in 2021–are a reminder that climate change is no longer a distant threat. It is here now, and it’s altering our relationship with the natural world in unprecedented ways. For my most recent piece published by…
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There’s no denying it: the election of Donald Trump to another term in the White House has been a blow for social movements in the U.S. Prior to Trump’s election, we were moving forward–if haltingly–on building a clean energy future, making healthcare more accessible, securing greater representation for marginalized groups in the media, and other…
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For several years now, Washington’s state forestlands–specifically, the regenerated ecosystems known as legacy forests–have been a subject of heated controversy. Legacy forests are lands that were lightly logged sometime in the early 20th century, then allowed to regrow naturally rather than being transformed into an industrial monocrop of even-aged trees. Today, these forests are not…
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Federal climate action in the US is in a nosedive, with most policies and programs related to reducing carbon emissions being rolled back by the Trump administration. Indeed, there are times when it seems like administration is bent on emitting as many planet-warming gases into the atmosphere as possible–but at the state level, the story…
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It’s a hardly a secret that plastic recycling in the US is broken. From a breakdown in basic recycling infrastructure, to low-quality materials that are increasingly difficult to make into new products, the recycling industry faces a plethora of challenges. It’s gotten to the point where, every time I throw a plastic container into curbside,…
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Look out at the seemingly endless mountain peaks from Rocky Seas Pass in High Uintas Wilderness, and it’s easy to sense that you’re in one of the most extensive, relatively pristine wild landscapes left in the contiguous United States. That’s what I found myself thinking during a recent visit to this special spot, at any…
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When the sun begins to set over Utah’s Great Salt Lake, the sagebrush steppe on Antelope Island seems to come alive with wildlife. Jackrabbits and desert cottontails emerge from hiding to feed in the cool of evening, while pronghorns and deer graze on shrubs. Crickets chirp and moths and lacewings take to the air. Then…
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Nick Engelfried 