Environment

It’s been two years since Portland City Council adopted a three-year Climate Emergency Workplan to guide the city’s actions on climate change in accordance with a 2020 climate emergency declaration. The plan lays out 47 action items to reduce emissions from multiple sectors, including transportation, industry, and building construction, and involves 10 city bureaus. So […]

Energy efficiency upgrades in low-income housing complexes, an urban forestry internship program, and a plan to get more kids to walk to school: These are just three of the 71 projects that will receive support from the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) in its latest round of community grants, intended to reduce local […]

When a record-breaking heat dome hit the Pacific Northwest in 2021, sending Portland temperatures soaring to an average high of 116 degrees, Vivek Shandas set out to do some research.  Shandas, a professor at Portland State University who specializes in urban climate change adaptation, suspected the heat—already scorching in Portland’s wealthiest neighborhoods—would be even worse […]

How should Portlanders stay cool during increasingly common summer heat waves? Some advocates say to look no further than the Willamette River, Portland’s natural backyard swimming pool and a resource more city residents should be taking advantage of. And while some Portlanders maintain a prejudice against the river that—literally and figuratively—divides the city, more and […]

It’s a big year for forest conservationists in Oregon, who are using a variety of tactics— deploying different levels of civil disobedience—to fight against continued old growth logging around the state.  Old growth forest advocates say the trees–which define the Pacific Northwest’s iconic landscape–are not only beautiful, they’re necessary for mitigating the worsening impacts of […]

When the city of Portland dissolved the former Planning and Sustainability Commission more than a year ago, leaders promised to create two separate commissions tasked with guiding city policy on planning and sustainability, respectively. But while the current planning commission was up and running immediately, development of the sustainability commission is still underway.  Last month, […]

Portland’s trees are an integral part of the city’s character, shrouding neighborhood streets in distinctive, charming Pacific Northwest greenery. Portland’s Urban Forestry leaders want to make sure it stays that way, despite new threats to the city’s tree canopy. A lot has changed since Portland last updated its Urban Forest Management Plan 20 years ago. […]

Oil transport company Zenith Energy spent time courting Portland elected officials in 2022, hoping they would approve a Land Use Compatibility Statement (LUCS) allowing the company to continue its operations in the city. While Zenith’s efforts were successful—the Portland Bureau of Development Services (BDS) approved the LUCS in 2022 after an initial denial the year […]

UPDATED: March 13, 3 pm— City Council voted unanimously to phase out gas-powered leaf blowers at this morning’s meeting. The city will create incentives for small landscaping businesses to purchase electric leaf blowers so they can more easily comply with the ban, which will begin on a partial basis in 2026. By 2028, gas-powered leaf […]