EcoNews Report
A weekly environmental news roundup produced in Arcata, California by Tom Wheeler (Environmental Protection Information Center), Caroline Griffith (Northcoast Environmental Center), Alicia Hamann (Friends of the Eel River), Jen Kalt (Humboldt Waterkeeper) and Colin Fiske (Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities).
Episodes
272 episodes
The Supreme Court and the National Environmental Policy Act
This week: An all-star roundtable with our favorite law wonks, wherein we try to figure out where the Supreme Court is taking the National Environmental Policy Act — the most important federal law regulating the environmental costs of developme...
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Season 2025
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Episode 236
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29:07
Is Offshore Wind Still on Humboldt's Horizon?
On Donald Trump's first day in office, he signed an Executive Order directing all parts of the federal government to take steps to stop the development of offshore wind. This has left people wondering: what's the future for offshore wind? Spoil...
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Season 2025
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Episode 235
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29:11
Pope Francis’ Environmental Legacy
Pope Francis centered the climate crisis during his papacy, highlighting the moral obligations that we all share to our fellow humans (especially the poorest among us, as they will be disproportionately impacted by climate change) as well as ou...
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Season 2025
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Episode 234
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29:11
Earthquake-Driven Subsidence Around Humboldt Bay
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) warns that when we experience the next Cascadia subduction zone earthquake, land near the coast may rise or fall significantly over a short period of time—think...
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Season 2025
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Episode 233
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29:06
New Timber Harvest Plan for Jackson State Forest
Melodie Meyer of the Environmental Protection Information Center joins the show this week to talk about a new plan to log 500 acres of the Jackson State Forest by the method known as "group selection." This forest in Mendocino Count...
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Season 2025
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Episode 232
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28:22
Reviewing Trump's First 100-ish Days
President's often set a "first 100 days" agenda, when fresh from their inauguration, they have the most political power and influence in their term. The first 100 days is not only a benchmark to measure success but a preview for how they hope t...
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Season 2025
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Episode 231
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29:12
How Much of Measure O Should Go to Public Transit?
Thousands of Humboldt residents rely on the Humboldt Transit Authority to get around. And for a rural transit agency, they do a really good job. But there are gaps: both in locations (good luck getting to Ferndale) and times (sorry if you want ...
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Season 2025
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Episode 230
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28:08
Coastal Commission Under Attack
Do you like to go to the beach? Do you appreciate having a beach to go to? Are you happier when that beach has clean ocean water, thriving ocean life and isn’t covered by rocks, seawalls or houses intruding on the public sand?If the ans...
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Season 2025
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Episode 229
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29:20
Celebrating Klamath Dam Removal Through Art
The Klamath dams are out; let's celebrate! Goudi’ni Native American Arts Gallery presents Undammed, an exhibition that ...
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Season 2025
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Episode 228
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29:13
What is "Renewable Diesel?"
Maybe you've heard about biodiesel. Meet its cousin, "renewable diesel." Made from oils and fats, supporters claim that it can simply replace diesel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Humboldt County is banking on renewable diesel to meet its...
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Season 2025
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Episode 227
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29:15
Can Offshore Wind Retire Gas Plants?
Fossil fuels are bad for us, both to our climate and to our health. These impacts are felt most acutely in fenceline communities immediately adjacent to fossil fuel power plants, which also tend to be lower-income, communities of color. Folks f...
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Season 2025
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Episode 226
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29:18
Trump has gutted NEPA. What does that mean?
The Trump Administration has taken a large whack at the National Environmental Policy Act (often better known by its acronym, NEPA). NEPA is the federal environmental law that requires that the federal government understand and acknowledge the ...
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Season 2025
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Episode 225
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27:19
Where does my power come from?
The Redwood Coast Energy Authority has a sometimes conflicting mission: purchase as much renewable energy as possible, but ideally that power is local, and also it needs to be cheap enough to compete with PGE. And layer onto that state mandates...
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Season 2025
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Episode 224
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29:13
The Makers of the New Documentary on Baduwa’t Tell Us Why They Told the River’s Story
Filmmakers Dave Feral and Michelle Hernandez talk with The EcoNews Report about their new film about Baduwa’t — a.k.a., the Mad River.PREVIOUSLY:
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Season 2025
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Episode 223
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29:23
A Deal for the Eel?
This week on the EcoNews Report our host Alicia Hamann from Friends of the Eel River talks about the flurry of recent developments on Eel River dam removal. On January 31 PG&E released their final draft license surrender application, a docu...
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Season 2025
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Episode 222
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29:20
What Does it Mean to be a Dark Sky Place, and Should Humboldt Become One?
In Humboldt we are not new to protecting our environment, but have you ever thought about protecting the night sky from pollution? When nighttime light spills outside of areas we want to illuminate, it becomes light pollution. Bright lights lef...
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Season 2025
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Episode 221
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29:24
Dissecting Trump's First Week
President Trump has entered his second term with a wave of executive orders and other executive actions. These have pulled the U.S. from international climate accords, blamed Southern California fires on "radical environmentalism"—he means us!—...
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Season 2025
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Episode 220
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28:45
International Climate Action in a Trump Era
Every year, delegates from across the globe meet to discuss how we can muster an international response to climate change. On November 5th, 2024, voters elected Donald Trump to be President and one of his first actions was to, again, pull the U...
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Season 2025
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Episode 219
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28:55
President Carter's Environmental Legacy
Jimmy Carter: Peanut farmer. Humanitarian. President. Environmentalist? On this week's EcoNews Report, we catalogue the environmental legacy of President Carter with Rich McIntyre, friend and fishing partner of the President. Locally, President...
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Season 2025
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Episode 218
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28:42
Green Burial: Thinking Outside the Coffin
"All go to one place; all are of the dust, and to dust all return." Ecclesiastes 3:20. That was true, at least until the Civil War era. Then a desire to preserve bodies led to a new way of dealing with the dead: toxic embalming, water-tight cof...
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Season 2025
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Episode 217
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29:16
Poet Jerry Martien Helps Soothe Your Soul
Poet Jerry Martien joins the Green Gang in the studio to read poetry inspired by the natural landscapes of Humboldt County. If you have never heard Jerry read his poetry before, you are in f...
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Season 2024
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Episode 15
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29:25
The Continuing Problem of Black Market Cannabis Trespass Grows
Today's episode is about trespass cannabis production and its impact on the environment. We have two fantastic guests from the Integral Ecology Research Center based in Blue Lake, California -- Greta We...
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Season 2024
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Episode 216
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28:37
What Gives You Hope?
Environmentalists have a reputation for being a bit too doom-and-gloom. But what gives us hope? Jen Kalt of Humboldt Waterkeeper, Alicia Hamann of Friends of the Eel River, Colin Fiske of the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities,...
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Season 2024
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Episode 215
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28:45
A Geological Perspective on Last Week’s Quake
What’s the difference between a strike-slip fault and a subduction zone? Can a local 7.0-magnitude earthquake? And what on earth was going on with all that weird footage of Humboldt Bay last week, in the wake of the quake?Jay Patton, of ...
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Season 2024
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Episode 214
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27:30
Can We Clean Up Humboldt Bay Before the Sea Rises?
The industrial legacy of the 20th Century left many contaminated sites around Humboldt Bay. Our second special episode on communities at risk from sea level rise features local residents talking about several of the most vulnerable sites, inclu...
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Season 2024
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Episode 213
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27:21