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5 votes
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Boeing machinists' union approves new contract, ending costly US strike
16 votes -
E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders
45 votes -
Mount Eerie - Non-Metaphorical Decolonization (2024)
3 votes -
Boeing to lay off 10% of employees as strike stalls airplane production
26 votes -
The Microphones - Microphones in 2020 (2020)
4 votes -
Washington state woman calls 911 after being hounded by up to 100 raccoons
52 votes -
Boeing workers vote to strike after rejecting pay deal
39 votes -
Boeing Seattle workers reach tentative pay deal, avert strike
9 votes -
Inside Boeing’s factory lapses that led to the Alaska Air blowout
16 votes -
Oxygen Destroyer - Guardians of the Universe (2024)
7 votes -
Buy burned land
Tis fire season again here in North America and Europe. From my house in coastal California I grieve every year as more of my favorite forests burn, from British Columbia to California. There is...
Tis fire season again here in North America and Europe. From my house in coastal California I grieve every year as more of my favorite forests burn, from British Columbia to California.
There is no end in sight for this transition. So what can we do to at least mitigate the worst of its effects? I think the time to play defense over pure "wilderness" is long gone. The forests that haven't burned are still beautiful, but they're riddled with disease and so overgrown the ecosystems are permanently distorted.
Every year there is less pristine forest and more burned land. I'm a fourth generation Californian and the Portuguese side of the family still owns a ranch in the foothills from 1893. But I own nothing and the prospect of being able to afford land in California has forever been beyond my reach. Burned land needs to be rehabilitated in a thoughtful manner. I'm hoping once my daughter finishes college and our life starts a new chapter, that I can find a few acres where I can make the best environmental impact, such as a headwaters, then invite experts onto the land to teach me how to best heal it.
Every year I have this idea, and every year more areas become available (in the worst sense). I don't need to live on this land. I don't expect it to be much more than grasses and saplings for 20 years. I'd get out to it one or two weekends a month, rent some equipment and hire some folks as I could. I also understand that my original thought that this would be immune from future fire seasons is wrong. But at least the land can be designed to be as fire resistant as possible, with a clear understory and single large trees. And that is another part of the allure. This acreage would come with its own challenges for sure, but in some sense it is a blank slate. The permaculture people could show us how to remediate and reconstruct the land from the bones up.
I know this project would be an aggravating money sink, and even perhaps an unrealistic and irresponsible fantasy by someone untrained in forestry management. But there is so much burned land now. Every year another giant 4% stripe of California goes up in smoke. Yet this idea just doesn't catch on. It entails a lot of patience and work. I know it's not what most people want to hear. They want their idyllic cabin in Tahoe or nothing. But that time is quickly coming to an end and learning how to revive the forests that have been devastated is our only real choice.
Whenever I've tried to get serious about this, though, I learn that there is no market in burned land because there is hardly any profit to be made. No real estate agent that I can find is specializing in this because their clients are having to sell ruined land and burned buildings for pennies on the dollar. I've been advised that the best way is to find a specific spot, do my research, and approach the owner directly. But, again, there is so much burned land now I hardly know where to start. The Santa Cruz Mountains? The Sierra adjacent to Yosemite? Crater Lake in Oregon?
Any thoughts or ideas or resources would be appreciated.
25 votes -
A tax break for Washington State data centers promised jobs. Now there are questions about whether the costs are worth it.
7 votes -
Why Mount Rainier is the US volcano keeping scientists up at night
35 votes -
Seattle's Scarecrow Video says it needs to raise $1.8M or face possible closure
12 votes -
Economists report on an intervention that helps low-income families beat the poverty trap
17 votes -
Seattle’s law mandating higher pay for food delivery workers is a case study in backfire economics
18 votes -
Grizzly bears will be returning to the Cascade mountain range
8 votes -
Digital books are costing local libraries a ton
22 votes -
Bellevue, WA police responded to a call from a US Air Force museum that said a man had offered to donate a Cold War-era missile stored in his late neighbor’s garage
12 votes -
The man in room 117 – Andrey Shevelyov would rather live on the street than take antipsychotic medication. Should it be his decision to make?
21 votes -
2024 is poised to be Puget Sound’s biggest transit year in decades
27 votes -
US court rules automakers can record and intercept owner text messages (potentially misleading, see comments)
64 votes -
A Washington state based startup called Aquagga has successfully deployed a PFAS destruction unit nicknamed “Eleanor”
31 votes -
Joe Biden administration grants Seattle Children's Hospital $240K for LGBT sex education tool
11 votes -
Investigation launched into tape of Seattle police guild leaders downplaying death of woman struck by officer
24 votes -
King County to surpass record fentanyl death toll — with four months left in 2023
15 votes -
bash explode - exfiltrate hash (2023)
3 votes -
ArtSEA: Seattle’s waterfront makeover brings new art to Alaskan Way
7 votes -
US federal aid is supercharging local Washington state police surveillance tech
11 votes -
CityLine, zero emissions rapid bus transit, launches in Spokane
11 votes -
How geoducks, one of the largest and most expensive clams, are farmed | Vendors
10 votes -
The robots are coming ― to pick Northwest apples
10 votes -
The history of the Seattle Mariners
15 votes -
Highly radioactive spill near Columbia River in E. Washington worse than expected
50 votes -
Seattle plans to extend and upgrade Third Avenue transit mall in 2024
16 votes -
Kelly Joe Phelps - Down To The Praying Ground (2012)
5 votes -
Three more glaciers gone from Mount Rainier, scientist reports
35 votes -
Allegations of sexism, bullying, and burnout: Inside the Microsoft studio behind State Of Decay 3
4 votes -
The battle for Bungie's soul: Inside the studio's struggle for a better work culture
11 votes -
Quarter shortage creates a two-bit black market in coin-operated Seattle
11 votes -
The Sky Thief - How did Beebo Russell — a goofy, God-fearing baggage handler — steal a passenger plane from the Seattle-Tacoma airport and end up alone in a cockpit, with no plan to come down?
6 votes -
J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s most powerful food influencer — and its most reluctant one
10 votes -
King County, WA is first in the country to ban government use of facial recognition software
15 votes -
Washington state capital gains tax already faces a lawsuit
7 votes -
Washington State launches investigation into 200,000 missing cows
11 votes -
Seattle approves minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers
9 votes -
Washington emergency responders first to use SpaceX’s Starlink internet in the field
8 votes -
What the photos of wildfires and smoke don’t show you
12 votes -
Fleet Foxes - Wading In Waist-High Water (2020)
7 votes