Barbara Bernstein

Portland

Producer of Locus Focus at KBOO-FM

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Articles

Fumes in Focus: Visualizing Air Pollution from Gas Stoves

Jan 13, 2024 | kboo.fm | Barbara Bernstein

Lawmakers and advocates have called upon Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum to launch an investigation into NW Natural for misleading consumers about the health impacts from gas. In their letter to Rosenblum they detail how NW Natural has taken a leaf from the tobacco industry in misleading consumers about the dangerous toxins emitted from their gas cookstoves.
The Northwest’s Looming Biomass Threat

Jan 8, 2024 | kboo.fm | Barbara Bernstein

Woody biomass has become the fossil-fuel industry’s renewable, green savior but this source of energy is fraught with problems. British energy giant Drax has proposed building a wood biomass processing and export facility in Longview, Washington, that would use one million tons of wood each year, to grind into pellets and ship to east Asia for burn in industrial power plants.
Salmonlands

Jan 2, 2024 | kboo.fm | Barbara Bernstein

This program aired originally on September 4, 2023Without the Salmon there would be no Pacific Northwest as we know it. Yet since 1991, most of the salmon runs in the Northwest have been listed as threatened or endangered. In 2005, I produced a documentary called Salmonlands, that takes us on a journey into the land of salmon. Now 18 years later much has changed yet much stays the same.
Forests Over Profits

Dec 19, 2023 | kboo.fm | Barbara Bernstein

This past September the World Forestry Center sponsored an annual conference called “Who Will Own the Forests,” attended by the most notorious representatives in the Wall Street timber industry. There they schemed on perfecting the financialization of forest ecosystems, expanding greenwashing, carbon trading, biomass, and land grabs in Cascadia and around the globe.
2023 Year in Review with Eric de Place

Dec 12, 2023 | kboo.fm | Barbara Bernstein

It’s been a wild year in many respects and this week is the time of year when we reconnect with Eric de Place with Salish Strategies in Seattle, to puzzle out all that’s happened. Today we talk about the positives – of which there have actually been a few – as well as the more obvious difficulties and horrors that the world has experienced in 2023.
Rumble on the River

Dec 7, 2023 | kboo.fm | Barbara Bernstein

For the past year a coalition of climate and social justice activists have been presenting a series of monthly Rumble On The River community forums that bring together expert voices to explain the risks of having 90% of Oregon’s fuel stored within city limits at the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub along the Willamette River. This month the Rumble broadens its focus to examine a wide array of false climate solutions.
A Fair Farm Bill for All

Nov 22, 2023 | kboo.fm | Barbara Bernstein

The United States’ food system has become a corporate-dominated marketplace, strangled by an elite few, that holds farmers and consumers hostage to greed. Currently Congress is negotiating the 19th Farm Bill which is an opportunity to pass a fair Farm Bill for all, after decades of government-sponsored corporate consolidation of the companies that control our food system.
Clatskanie Food Hub

Nov 11, 2023 | kboo.fm | Barbara Bernstein

The Port of Columbia County, along the Columbia River northwest of Portland, has been trying to expand industrial development by rezoning valuable agricultural land for industrial use. But many farmers in the area have a different vision for the future of their community. On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with two young farmers in Clatskanie, Jasmine Lillich and Brandon Schilling, who leading the way to make their vision a reality.
The Brave New World of Renewable Diesel

Nov 2, 2023 | kboo.fm | Barbara Bernstein

There is no question that we need to cut our carbon emissions substantially and quickly in order to prevent our planet from becoming uninhabitable. While the move to electrify transportation is an obvious step toward decarbonization, the fossil fuel industry has other ideas. In particular the promotion of renewable diesel and biofuels.
The Latest Campaign to Stop Zenith Energy

Oct 25, 2023 | kboo.fm | Barbara Bernstein

Last spring Zenith Energy, the Houston-based fossil fuel company who has been operating a massive oil-by-rail operation in Portland Harbor, met secretly with staff from city commissioner Dan Ryan's and Carmen Rubio's offices, to hammer out a backroom deal that granted the company a necessary permit to continue its operation. Now the ball is in the court of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, who has the authority to deny Zentih's Air Contaminant Discharge Permit application.