Coast Range Radio
At Coast Range Radio, we interview folks who work to build just communities that provide for people and the natural world. We are particularly interested in the connections between Pacific Northwest forests, social justice, and the climate crisis.
Coast Range Radio is an independent radio show and podcast hosted by Michael Gaskill. Michael is a lifelong rural Oregonian and climate justice organizer.
Episodes
133 episodes
Why is the Forest Service Trying to Log Walla Walla's Drinking Watershed??
Should we be logging our drinking watersheds to protect them? That’s the question for residents of Walla Walla Washington, whose pristine drinking water comes off of National Forest land.The Forest Service is planning to a major an...
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43:59
Newport Crushes ICE Facility! (at least for now), With Mayor Jan Kaplan
By now, many, if not most of you have heard that ICE has been secretly planning to build some kind of jail or detention facility in Newport here on the Oregon Coast.The community pushback has been immediate, fierce, inspiring, and seemin...
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29:00
Trump's EPA Sabotage, Is Oregon's Legislature Failing Us, and more, with Britney Van Citters of OLCV
My guest today is Britney Van Citters, Political and Organizing Director at the Oregon League of Conservation Voters.Britney joins to discuss how the Environmental Protection Agency is being refashioned into the Environmental Destructio...
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Episode 121
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39:30
Free To Grow - Aerial Herbicide Spraying in Industrial Timberlands, With Filmmaker Jesse Andrew Clark
I’m joined today by filmmaker Jesse Andrew Clark, to talk about his recent documentary, “Free to Grow”.Free to Grow uses deeply personal first person storytelling to highlight the harms of herbicide spraying on industrial timberlands in ...
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Episode 120
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33:04
Eco-Fascism, Public Lands Attacks, and the Power of Narratives, with Professor Sarah Wald
My guest today is University of Oregon professor and longtime activist, Sarah Wald. Sarah is the author of multiple books, and as you’ll hear today, a profound thinker on a wide variety of issues concerning the conservation and environmen...
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1:02:00
Heroes of the Forest, Part 1: Francis Eatherington
As I’ve talked about on this show before, the Trump administration is using every tool available to target public lands and our mature and old-growth forests (along with, of course, democracy, basic human rights, any shred of protection aga...
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Episode 118
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55:26
Maya Van Rossum's Green Amendment Movement
I don’t have to tell anyone how bleak things look at the federal level. Here in the Pacific Northwest, if we’re being honest, there is not a lot that we can do at the moment to influence federal policy.But when it comes to climate ...
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48:31
Defending Eastside Forests, with the Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project
We’re heading East today! Oregon’s Blue Mountains encompass some of the most beautiful landscapes and habitats anywhere. Within the Blue’s 15,000 square miles, you’ll find such Oregon gems as the John Day river, the Eagle Cap wilde...
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37:48
Greenwashing in the Evergreen State, with Journalist Paul Koberstein
My guest today is author and journalist, Paul Koberstein. I spoke with Paul in 2024 about a book he co-authored called “Canopy of Titans: The Life and Times of the Great North American Temperate Rainforest”.I recently read a great ...
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28:59
Action Alert! Defending the "Roadless Rule", with the Sierra Club and Representative Andrea Salinas
If you’re hearing this before September 19th, I need you to do me a favor: the Trump administration is attempting to eliminate a policy called the “Roadless Rule”, which would open tens of millions of acres of vibrant forests and public land to...
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46:25
Grieving In Nature, and Grieving For Nature, with Adam Sawyer
I just got back from a really amazing backpacking trip in the wilderness of Wyoming, and I’ve been reflecting on how nature, wilderness, sacred lands, whatever you want to call them, have always been a source of refuge, spiritual rejuvenation, ...
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28:59
How the Trump Administration is Sabotaging Environmental Regulations
Just keeping up with the Trump administration’s all out war against our environment is exhausting. Fortunately, we in the northwest are blessed with incredible activists, organizers, and more relevant to today, environmental attorneys to ...
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56:14
Flight Paths: Why Understanding the Mystery of Bird Migration Matters for Effective Conservation
I’m delighted to be joined today by Rebecca Heisman, freelance journalist and the author of “Flight Paths: how a passionate and quirky group of pioneering scientists solved the mystery of bird migration”.Flight Paths is a fascin...
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29:00
Best of (With Updates!): Forest Under Siege, with Author Rand Schenk - Part 2
I’m off this week, so you’re going to hear the second half of one of my favorite interviews, with author and activist Rand Schenk, which I first released in July of 2024. I loved this conversation, but I feel like it needs a little ...
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28:57
Best of: Forest Under Siege, with Author Rand Schenk - Part 1
(I’m off this week, so I’m featuring one of my favorite interviews, which I first released in July of 2024. I hope you like it!)Today’s episode is part one of a two part interview with Rand Schenk, author of a fascinating an...
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29:00
The New Federal Attacks On Our Forests, Explained - PNWFCA Presentation Series, Part 1
I’m recording this in the aftermath of what I consider a largely failed Legislative session in Oregon and the passage of what will likely be remembered as one of the most extreme and destructive pieces of legislation in modern history at the fe...
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Episode 109
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59:05
"Earth Law" and the Elwha Watershed Campaign, with Elizabeth Dunne of the Earth Law Center
Earlier this year, I did an episode on the Legacy Forest Defense Campaign in Washington. Since then, that campaign has only heated up, and in May, activists took to the forests in the Olympic peninsula to set up tree sits and road ...
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31:44
A Frank (and Fun!) Conversation with a Former Forest Service NEPA Planner
One of the things I try to do on this show is get away from the binary good vs bad framing that so many of us fall into, and explore the messy complexities and grey areas within the environmental and conservation movement here in the northwest....
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42:19
Why is Oregon's Treasury is Addicted to Fossil Fuels?! With the Divest Oregon Coalition
I’m willing to bet that most Oregonians don’t know who our State Treasurer is, much less what the State Treasury does.But we should. The office of State Treasurer, currently Elizabeth Steiner by the way, is a powerful position, and...
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Episode 106
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35:38
Born Of Fire And Rain: Journey Into A Pacific Coastal Forest, With Oregon Author Peg Herring!
An absolute gem of a conversation with Oregon author M.L. Herring about her new book, “Born of Fire and Rain: Journey Into a Pacific Coastal Forest”. Born of Fire and Rain is one of the best books I’ve ever read on our bioregion.&n...
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Episode 105
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29:00
What's Up With Sea Otter Reintroduction In Oregon?
Today’s episode is all about one of the most charismatic of all charismatic megafauna, the sea otter! Sea otters are a crucial part of nearshore marine ecosystems, but they were wiped out along the Oregon coast over 100 years ago.T...
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Episode 104
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29:00
Why Do Oregon Democrats Keep Killing Climate Legislation, With State Rep. Mark Gamba
As of this recording on May 6th, we are well into the 2025 Oregon Legislative session. And I, like many others, am still struggling to find a coherent throughline to the session.And many climate justice advocates are increasingly w...
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44:35
Protecting Eelgrass & Rocky Habitats with the Oregon Ocean Alliance
All of us in the northwest love our ocean, but we often don’t show it the love that it truly deserves.Ocean conservation is chronically underfunded and under prioritized, but the newly formed
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Episode 102
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29:00
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Radio Bonus - CRR #101.5: Lessons from Southern Activists on Fighting Biomass - Continued!
Note: This is the second part of the interview that didn't make it into the radio version. The podcast version includes the entire interview.-----Biomass energy, that is, burning pelletized wood for electricity gene...
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16:32
What Southern Environmental Justice Organizers Can Teach Us About Fighting Biomass in the PNW
Biomass energy, that is, burning pelletized wood for electricity generation, is a classic false climate solution. It has been devastating forests and communities in the Southeast for years, and the Biomass industry is dead set on expandin...
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Episode 101
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43:54
