Oceans
These TWO nonprofits clean up tons of microplastics from the south jetty at Fort Stevens each year.
What are the Eco-School Network and Sea Turtles Forever?
This West Linn school took on a big planting project that involved a high school permaculture class, the district, and all students.
What is Willamette Primary?
By what year is PPS required to meet zero emissions, according to the new PPS Climate Policy?
What is 2040?
According to ESN's 2022 impact report, ESN supports this many active green teams.
What is 33? (Answers between 30-35 are accepted)
In the most recent ESN newsletter, this Beaverton school was highlighted for integrating Indigenous knowledge in their native gardening.
What is Jacob Wismer?
A technique used at the mouth of a river to prevent ocean plastics from entering the ocean.
What is a floating barrier (or Interceptor, or Interceptor Barrier)?
The name of this Southern Oregon river that just had one dam removed and will see two more removed next year. When complete, the project will be the biggest dam removal in U.S. history, reopening 400 miles of fish habitat that had been cut off for more than a century.
Microbiologists in Australia have uncovered a "natural battery" enzyme that could provide the holy grail for clean energy: electricity from thin air. This enzyme, called Huc, was harvested from the bacteria of what organic matter?
The Oregon Legislature this past session approved a ban of what type of restaurant food containers?
What is styrofoam?
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/04/26/oregon-legislature-passes-ban-foam-food-containers/
It also bans businesses from using or selling foam packing peanuts or single-use foam coolers. Nine cities had already had a ban in place but this ban applies statewide.
Since 2014, Oregon State University has been trialing growing tomatoes, melons, beans, potatoes, and winter squash without using any of this key resource.
What is water?
[https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/catalog/files/project/pdf/em9229.pdf: In response to water scarcity concerns, OSU has been trialing growing certain types of vegetables without any irrigation using a method known as Dry Farming]
A handful of this critical species rescued near Miami spawned in a hatchery lab this past summer.
These three species of wildlife (name one) bounced back from endangered status in 2022, proving that extinction is not inevitable.
What are beavers, bison or pelicans?
Other successes include rhinos, tigers and fin whales.
Researchers at Oregon State University are working with this trace mineral (#30 on the periodic table) in their quest to develop a renewable battery that is safer than lithium-ion and cheaper for the grid. The battery is able to charge and recharge with virtually no loss of energy.
In a landmark judgement for the climate action group Our Children's Trust, a judge ruled this past summer that this state's failure to consider climate change when approving fossil fuel projects was unconstitutional. The case is now headed to the Supreme Court.
Researchers in California have developed a new variety of this kind of fruit that is more resistant to extreme climates. Hint: it goes with toast.
What is avocados? (It's called the Luna Avocado.)
https://kjzz.org/content/1856071/move-over-hass-theres-new-more-sustainable-avocado-town
A new treatment to help the critically endangered Sunflower Sea Star will help keep this population in check - thereby benefiting sea kelp and otters.
What is the sea urchin?
Fewer sea urchins allow for bigger kelp forests, which are a critical food source for otters.
Oregon forestry officials have collected over 900,000 seeds from this native tree species, in an effort to protect against an invasive insect.
What is Oregon ash?
(It is under threat from the emerald ash borer.)
This East Coast state just passed a landmark climate bill that requires the state’s public power provider to generate all its electricity from renewables by 2030.
What is New York? (The Build Public Renewables Act)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/03/new-york-renewable-energy-public-utilities
Emissions from residential and commercial buildings ranks what number when it comes to greenhouse gas emitters in the state, according to the Oregon DEQ?
What is #2?
And good news: The Oregon Legislature in 2023 approved the $90 million Climate Resilience Package, a compilation of more than a dozen bills with a focus on community resiliency, adaptation and reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector.
Researchers at WSU just cooked up this type of meat that was the first-ever gene-edited meat to be FDA-approved.
What are pork sausages?
Using a genome editing tool called CRISPR, this bioengineering takes years off traditional selective breeding, can help tackle world hunger and preserve species as the climate continues to change.
If all goes as planned, gene-edited meats could be mass produced for human consumption in 10 years.
It absorbs carbon emissions, creates biofuel and renewable plastics, and generates protein.
Researchers at WSU have found a more successful and efficient way to manage this special pollinator species. By keeping them indoors and applying a little refrigeration, they recorded survival rates more than 15% higher than the current method, which may be useful as conditions grow hotter.
What are honeybees?
Specifically, bee banks are cages to maintain and store excess queen bees over the summer so they’re available to replenish hives that fail.
According to DEQ, Oregon’s transportation sector accounts for what percentage of total greenhouse gas emissions – the largest single source in the state?
What is 40%?
And great news: New cars sold in Oregon and Washington will have to be emissions-free starting in 2035. That means an end to the sale of new gas- and diesel-powered trucks, passenger cars and SUVs up and down the West Coast, with California's similar rule.
The Oregon DEQ is working with a Portland nonprofit called Seeding Justice to lead the agency’s Community Climate Investment program.
The program estimates it will generate $150 million per year for climate action across Oregon through this sustainability initiative.
What are carbon offsets?
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/08/31/seeding-justice-climate-change-oregon/
Portland's Native American Youth and Family Center was recently awarded a $3.7 million grant to convert this type of field into a food garden and ceremonial site through the Native Food Sovereignty Project.
What is a baseball field?
https://www.underscore.news/reporting/ancient-village-site-is-reborn-again
Thanks to the Portland Clean Energy Fund award, this project will integrate Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge with spiritual practices to fulfill a vision for holistic health for Portland’s urban Native community.
The grant funding will be used to convert the baseball fields into a farm that includes a traditional plant medicine garden, a hedgerow of native trees, and a Camas swale and restoration area focused on native perennial species. The space will also provide a First Foods preparation and cooking area, a children’s playscape, community gathering areas, ceremonial spaces and a field for Native games.