Category: In The Media

Opinion: Electrify Your Home to Benefit the Climate, Your Health and Your Wallet

by Bethany Cotton, Conservation Director for Cascadia Wildlands
Originally published in The Register-Guard, October 2, 2022.

If you are feeling helplessness about the state of the world, it’s understandable. In the past few weeks alone we have witnessed large swaths of Oregon blanketed by toxic air pollution yet again, hurricane Fiona leaving Puerto Rico without electricity and the Dominican Republic without drinkable water, one third of Pakistan still submerged by flood waters, four million people in Japan under evacuation and Alaska experiencing unprecedented flooding because of typhoons.

Opinion: Rewilding the West with wolves and beavers will curb climate change

by Bethany Cotton, Conservation Director for Cascadia Wildlands
Originally published in The Register-Guard, August 28, 2022.

As the Western U.S. again endures record-breaking summer heat and enters our third decade of drought, it’s time for us to adopt bold, regionwide solutions that will support climate-resilient communities, safeguard drinking water sources, reduce wildfire risk, protect remaining mature and old-growth forests and enhance wildlife habitat.  

In the Media: Oregon lawmakers, groups demand investigation over NW Natural’s gas claims

by Monica Samayoa (OPB). Originally published on OPB.org, Aug. 17, 2022 7:19 p.m.

More than two dozen organizations along with Oregon lawmakers are calling on the state’s Department of Justice to investigate Oregon’s largest natural gas utility over what they claim is false advertising to the public and in schools.

Opinion: SCOTUS is turning up the heat on climate change

by Bethany Cotton, Conservation Director for Cascadia Wildlands
Originally published in The Register-Guard, July 31, 2022.

Adequately describing just how destructive the last 10 days of the Supreme Court’s term was for our democracy, constitutional rights and the work to address and adapt to climate change is a murky task. The court’s disastrous spring term makes several things clear, not least of which is that we cannot rely on a group of nine people in robes to save our democracy or our climate. Indeed, the court has morphed into one of the greatest threats to civil rights and a livable future.  

Opinion: Enhancing Oregon’s River Safeguards Would Be a Lasting Legacy

by Bethany Cotton, Conservation Director for Cascadia Wildlands
Originally published in The Register-Guard, June 26, 2022.

During a time of profound partisanship, Oregon’s federal elected leaders are working diligently to protect more of the state’s key arteries loved by Oregonians of every political persuasion: our rivers. Key to clean drinking water, recreation economies, sustainable rural development, imperiled species’ recovery, and wildfire and climate resilience, Oregon’s rivers are our state’s lifeblood.

Opinion: NW Natural’s campaign reeks of desperation

by Bethany Cotton, Conservation Director for Cascadia Wildlands
Originally published in The Register-Guard, May 27, 2022.

NW Natural is running full page ads in this paper co-opting the word “choice” while half of our country’s population is facing the impending loss of a fundamental constitutional right. The company, like others wedded to climate-destroying fossil fuels, knows that the future is bleak for its dangerous product, so it is behaving like the dying industry it is by employing increasingly desperate rhetoric. 

Opinion: Biden’s old-growth forest executive order has giant hole

by Bethany Cotton, Conservation Director for Cascadia Wildlands
Originally published in The Register-Guard, May 1, 2022.

Last month, in honor of Earth Day, President Biden signed an executive order on Strengthening the Nation’s Forests, Communities, and Local Economies. While the EO represents progress in its acknowledgement that old-growth and mature forests are essential bulwarks against the worst impacts of climate change, its stated commitment to science-based management, and its inclusion of indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge as key to sustainable forest management, it does not — yet — actually safeguard the last of these forests here at home.  

Opinion: Eugene must act now to address climate change

by Bethany Cotton, Conservation Director for Cascadia Wildlands
Originally published in The Register-Guard, March 26, 2022.

The city of Eugene is suffering from the same chronic inaction on climate change as the global community, referred to by the United Nations Environment Program as an adaptation gap: “the difference between actually implemented adaptation and a societally set goal.”  

Guest Opinion: QMS logging project will undermine Willamette National Forest recreation

by Nadene LeCheminant | Guest Opinion in The Statesman Journal
Originally published at 11:00am on December 24, 2021.

I moved to Oregon 16 years ago, drawn by its physical beauty. The Cascade Mountains are the primary reason I chose to live in Salem.

I was dismayed to learn about the proposed Quartzville-Middle Santiam logging project being planned in the Willamette National Forest. This massive project covers a staggering 89,000 acres between Detroit and Sweet Home.

In the Media: Environmental groups file lawsuit against BLM over Archie Creek hazard trees

The News-Review | By CARISA CEGAVSKE Senior Staff Writer
Originally Published on nrtoday.com February 9, 2022.

A group of environmental organizations filed a lawsuit Tuesday that challenges the Bureau of Land Management’s post-Archie Creek Fire logging plans.