Environment

The Port of Grays Harbor has announced an agreement to lease property for a crude oil unloading and storage facility. The oil would arrive by train and then be loaded on to barges bound for refineries on the West Coast.

Two Seattle-based adventurers — one a scientist, the other an artist — are on an expedition to study and document narwhals in Arctic waters off the west coast of Greenland. 

Environmental groups have collected samples of black rock collected in water bodies along train tracks in the Northwest and found that some of that rock is coal. The Sierra Club, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, Columbia Riverkeeper and other environmental groups have sent a notice of intent to sue BNSF Railway and several coal companies for violations of the Clean Water Act.

Macaque monkeys are the distant relatives of an ancient species that roamed the lush rainforests of the Northwest during the early Paleocene – about 60 million years ago. Climate change models project a possible return to Paleocene conditions in the near future. One local scientist says it’s time to bring back the macaque – and the Cascade Mountains are the perfect place to do it.

On day one of our spring pledge drive, we bring you some of our conversation with Al Gore. In his new book, “The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change,” the former vice president and media mogul takes an in-depth look at major shifts in the world, from globalization to automation, digital connections, population growth and the biological breakthroughs that are bringing humans into greater control of their evolution.

How does the universe create itself out of nothing, then keep going for billions of remarkable, evolving millennia? Can you even have "nothing," or do you have to bring God into the equation? These are the kinds of questions that arise when you're trying to explain the origin of life in the universe. Questions that Howard Bloom — science prodigy, former PR man for Prince, friend of Buzz Aldrin — tackles in his new book, “The God Problem.”

There are several hundred derelict and abandoned vessels dotting the waterways of Washington and Oregon. They can block navigation and pollute the environment, and they can also be very expensive to remove.

Seattle city council members are scheduled to vote Monday on legislation that could change where the city's food and yard waste ends up. But the latest plan is raising a stink east of the Cascades.