Coast Range Radio

I’m joined today by filmmaker Jesse Andrew Clark, to talk about his recent documentary, “Free to Grow”. Free to Grow uses deeply personal first person storytelling to highlight the harms of herbicide spraying on industrial timberlands in the Northwest. Show Notes: https://www.oldgrovefilms.com/forest-stories https://www.opb.org/news/article/blm-investigates-after-company-sprays-pesticide-on-public...

My guest today is University of Oregon professor and longtime activist, Sarah Wald.  Sarah is the author of multiple books, and as you’ll hear today, a profound thinker on a wide variety of issues concerning the conservation and environmental justice communities. This is one of my favorite conversations I’ve ever had on this show, in part because Sarah was so game to explore some really complicate...

As I’ve talked about on this show before, the Trump administration is using every tool available to target public lands and our mature and old-growth forests ( along with, of course, democracy, basic human rights, any shred of protection against corporate oligarchy, etc etc. But this is primarily a show about northwest conservation and climate, so as much as I want to rant about all the things, I’...

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 ar...

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...

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...

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 im...

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 t...

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...

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...

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 l...

(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...

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...

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 delight...

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 p...

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...

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 na...

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 not...

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...

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 Mer...

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 Trum...

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. ----- 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...

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...

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 trans...

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...