Ecologue

It seemed like progress was made when Keystone XL was shut down by the current administration. But opponents in Minnesota are still fighting to stop Line 3, which would violate the treaty rights of Anishinaabe peoples and nations in its path.

In May 2018, the Spring Creek Project co-organized the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal Session on Human Rights, Fracking, and Climate Change.  For the first time in the almost 40 year history of the Tribunal, they had an international focus on the rights of Nature as well as the rights of humans. As the Tribunal was underway, […]

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a proposal called the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule in order to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and fulfill the Trump administration’s goals concerning climate policy and the coal industry. The Clean Power Plan was a moderate attempt at slowing anthropogenic climate change, that climate scientists, policy makers, […]

Plastic Pollution Plastic pollution is one of the greatest anthropogenic threats to wildlife; this is because plastic takes far longer to decompose than other materials like aluminum or paper. Most plastics take about 450 years to decompose, while polystyrene (commonly known as Styrofoam) never fully decomposes! Thus, these plastics remain in the ecosystem, where wildlife […]

Communities, Food, Resilience is a seminar hosted by OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences, the OSU Extension Service, and OSU150 to converse about and reflect on local food systems, community food resilience, and the role of land grant universities. The event will consist of keynote presentations, followed by examples and discussion of systems-level work on community […]

What is the IPCC? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), created by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 1988, is the “international body for assessing the science related to climate change.” Its purpose is to provide policymakers with assessments of the scientific literature on climate change, the impacts […]

A simplified diagram of one specific ecosystem. Since Oregon State University is often associated with both natural resource management and engineering, it should be no surprise that we have a very active Ecological Engineering program. To understand what ecological engineering is, it helps to be acquainted with the concept of an ecosystem, and the study […]

The second annual Washington & Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference is February 25th through February 27th at the University of Washington! Last year was the first year that the Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference and the Washington Higher Education Sustainability Conference merged, forming WOHESC. The first WOHESC (2018) was a huge success, with over 600 […]

Water is a prerequisite for life, but currently over 1.2 billion people lack access to clean drinking water. Water crises affect 2.8 billion people around the world at least one month out of each year. Scarcity is usually caused by climate change, increased pollution, and increased human demand for fresh water. Water scarcity is a […]

On Wednesday, New York City became the first city in the world to report its progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2015, 193 countries agreed to 17 Sustainable Development Goals created by the UN; the SDGs are broad sustainability goals that encompass topics like environmental justice, poverty, and inequality and successful […]