Environment

The American marten is a small elusive member of the weasel family. People trap them and sell their pelts on the fur market where they’re known as “sable.” Their numbers are healthy across places like Canada and northern parts of the US, but scientists worry that marten populations have severely declined in coastal mountain ranges -- like the Olympic National Forest -- but they don’t know for sure. A group of volunteers is working with scientists to help monitor the martens and gather data to help determine their future.

This year we could be voting on an initiative requiring labeling of all food that contains genetically modified food, what critics call Frankenfood. Backers have turned in what they say are the necessary signatures to get it on the ballot.

Environmental activist Mark Lynas was an adamant opponent of genetically modified foods. He wrote in 2008, "The technology moves entirely in the wrong direction intensifying human technological manipulation of nature when we should be aiming at a more holistic ecological approach instead."

Mark Lynas was one of the first people to break into fields that scientists had planted with genetically modified test crops — and then rip them out of the ground. Ross Reynolds talks with Mark Lynas about what changed his mind about GMOs.

Think you’ve seen a healthy ocean in your lifetime? You probably haven’t. National Geographic's explorer-in-residence Dr. Enric Sala studies marine ecosystems to understand the past and present ocean, and to plan for the future. He also works to protect pristine seas that still exist. How are the world's oceans doing? And what can be done to reverse the damage? We’ll find out what’s missing from the ocean landscape.

City officials predict that by 2050 parts of Seattle will be under water at high tide as global sea levels rise. At a press conference held Monday on the edge of Elliott Bay near downtown Seattle, the City Council announced a new plan to take action on climate change.

A shipwrecked oil rig that was bound for Seattle has been floated off the rocks and towed to a safe harbor in the Gulf of Alaska. A fleet of nine ships accompanied Shell Oil’s Kulluk drill rig on the 45-mile tow. Shortly before noon Pacific Time, the rig reached its anchorage in sheltered Kiliuda Bay on Kodiak Island.  

Keeping up with transportation infrastructure isn’t cheap. The Washington State Transportation Commission estimates that in the next 20 years around 200 billion dollars needs to be put towards the maintenance of roads, ferries and more. But how to pay for that? Some are putting forward the idea of a tax on carbon emissions.

Read the whole story on KUOW’s Earthfix