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Get first bite at Oregon’s new shark-infested license plate

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Monday, March 3, 2025

Feeling a little down lately?Maybe it’s time for a new license plate that shouts fearlessness, tenacity and resilience.The “Vibrant Ocean” specialty plate features three shark species commonly found in Oregon. Proceeds from sales of the plates will benefit Oregon State University’s Big Fish Lab, which focuses on shark research. The lab, established in 2019, is based at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. Proceeds will be used to better understand the role sharks play in Oregon’s coastal marine ecosystem, to conduct outreach and education efforts and hold trainings for students and staff. Oregon State hopes anyone interested will sink their teeth into the $40 pre-sale vouchers for the plate. They’re available from the university, with $35 going directly to the research lab. The lab must sell 3,000 vouchers before the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles starts making the plates. Sharks aren’t the mindless killers of Hollywood, said Taylor Chapple, an assistant professor and founder of the Big Fish Lab. They’re apex predators responsible for regulating the abundance, distribution and diversity of other species, he said. Sharks also are threatened due to overfishing, habitat loss, climate change and pollution.Fifteen species of sharks live off the Oregon coast.“Sharks are not delicious or cuddly but they’re critically important,” Chapple said. The license plate was designed by Natalie Donato, a third-year undergraduate student from Folsom, California who is studying marine biology and ecology at OSU’s College of Science. Donato’s design features a salmon shark in the center, with two blue sharks on the left and a common thresher shark on the right. The shark plate is the most recent in a series of specialty license plates benefiting Oregon State . They include the bee plate, which launched in 2023, and the gray whale plate, which launched in 2019. The DMV will also issue a new Beaver plate, which supports the university’s athletics and marketing initiatives, starting April 7. — Gosia Wozniacka covers environmental justice, climate change, the clean energy transition and other environmental issues. Reach her at gwozniacka@oregonian.com or 971-421-3154.Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.

The “Vibrant Ocean” specialty plate, available soon, features three shark species commonly found in Oregon.

Feeling a little down lately?

Maybe it’s time for a new license plate that shouts fearlessness, tenacity and resilience.

The “Vibrant Ocean” specialty plate features three shark species commonly found in Oregon.

Proceeds from sales of the plates will benefit Oregon State University’s Big Fish Lab, which focuses on shark research. The lab, established in 2019, is based at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.

Proceeds will be used to better understand the role sharks play in Oregon’s coastal marine ecosystem, to conduct outreach and education efforts and hold trainings for students and staff.

Oregon State hopes anyone interested will sink their teeth into the $40 pre-sale vouchers for the plate. They’re available from the university, with $35 going directly to the research lab. The lab must sell 3,000 vouchers before the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles starts making the plates.

Sharks aren’t the mindless killers of Hollywood, said Taylor Chapple, an assistant professor and founder of the Big Fish Lab. They’re apex predators responsible for regulating the abundance, distribution and diversity of other species, he said. Sharks also are threatened due to overfishing, habitat loss, climate change and pollution.

Fifteen species of sharks live off the Oregon coast.

“Sharks are not delicious or cuddly but they’re critically important,” Chapple said.

The license plate was designed by Natalie Donato, a third-year undergraduate student from Folsom, California who is studying marine biology and ecology at OSU’s College of Science. Donato’s design features a salmon shark in the center, with two blue sharks on the left and a common thresher shark on the right.

The shark plate is the most recent in a series of specialty license plates benefiting Oregon State . They include the bee plate, which launched in 2023, and the gray whale plate, which launched in 2019.

The DMV will also issue a new Beaver plate, which supports the university’s athletics and marketing initiatives, starting April 7.

— Gosia Wozniacka covers environmental justice, climate change, the clean energy transition and other environmental issues. Reach her at gwozniacka@oregonian.com or 971-421-3154.

Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.

Read the full story here.

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Climate Change Has a Joe Rogan Problem

If you’re reading this, chances are good that you read other stories about climate change too. Looking around at the news yesterday, you may well have stumbled onto any number of Earth Day–inspired cases for optimism: “tiny climate actions” like adjusting the thermostat and propagating your plants, profiles of environmental do-gooders, steps to becoming the “best planetary citizen possible.” Those kinds of cheery spreads are standard fare for Earth Day. But they feel more than a little discordant with the drumbeat of decidedly awful climate news coming from both the planet itself and a White House attempting to dismantle clean air regulations, defund scientific research, claw back climate funds approved by Congress, and potentially even strip environmental groups of their nonprofit status.Many people, though, are hearing less about all of the above. Media Matters recently found that corporate broadcast news coverage of climate change fell by 25 percent last year compared to 2023. While climate coverage at national outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post has surged by as much as 300 percent since 2012, according to one recent academic study, smaller outlets around the country haven’t kept pace; smaller, predominantly state and local outlets expanded their climate coverage by about half as much over the same time period. The growing numbers of people who tend to get their news from other sources, meanwhile—including social media platforms—are hearing a lot of nonsense. An analysis published this week by Yale Climate Connections found that eight of the 10 most popular online shows—including those hosted by Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson—have “spread false or misleading information about climate change.” A report from the British news site Tortoise Media—analyzing the climate-related output of more than 300 influencers—likewise shows that climate-skeptic posts on YouTube grew by 43 percent between 2021 and 2024. On X (formerly Twitter), such content ballooned by 82 percent over the same time period. As much as 40 percent of it posits that climate change is merely an excuse for some shadowy network of conspirators to control the population and/or bring about “communism.”Given that one in five people in the United States regularly get their news from social media, that means a lot of people are getting bad information about the climate crisis. That’s especially true of young people. A Pew poll released late last year found that 37 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds here regularly get news from “news influencers,” who tend to lean right if they have any obvious political affiliations. Survey results released in early 2024 by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that nearly a third of U.S. teens aged 13 to 17 view climate change as “harmless,” including 39 percent of teen boys. The same poll found 33 percent of teenagers—and 40 percent of teen boys—said climate change policies “do more harm than good.”Academics and philanthropists have spent more than a decade theorizing about the best ways to convey information about climate change to the general public: the merits of projecting hope instead of “doomerism” and of showcasing actually existing climate solutions. Nobody seems to have cracked the code, though. Growing awareness of the climate crisis—and consistently positive polling about how many people want their governments to do more about it—still hasn’t translated into many governments actually taking said action, at least not at anywhere near the scale the crisis requires. Big national outlets have invested in telling more good-news stories to readers who already care about climate change, while right-wing YouTubers broadcast lies and conspiracy theories to huge audiences. If you’ve made it this far, you can count yourself among the relatively small number of people who regularly read climate coverage beyond the headlines. Thank you! Accordingly, you probably don’t need me to sugarcoat the conclusion with a half-baked case for optimism: This isn’t good.

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Crisis

Government

Portland Youth Climate Strike rally at Portland City Hall

A little over 100 high school students rallied at Portland City Hall, calling attention more aggressive climate policy on federal, state and local level

High school students representing a handful of Portland schools formed a modest presence in front of Portland City Hall Tuesday morning, where they marked Earth Day by demanding more aggressive federal, state and local policy to halt climate change.The Portland Youth Climate Strike attracted more than 100 students, who carried signs and gave speeches before marching to Pioneer Courthouse Square, where more speeches were briefly given before the event reached its close. Rally organizer Jorge Sanchez Bautista, 18, said he first got involved in climate activism when he noticed freight trains that sometimes carried fuel come through his neighborhood. The Franklin High School senior, who is running for the Portland school board to represent Zone 5, lives in Cully.“As youth, over time we are the ones who are going to have to deal with all the issues that go with the planet, our animals and the environment,” he said. “We’re inheriting a planet that will be based on how we care for it,” he said. Portland Youth Climate Strikers gather on Earth Day at Portland City Hall. From there, the group marched to Pioneer Courthouse Square. April 22, 2025.Beth NakamuraJacob Apenes, 26, was among the speakers at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Apenes, who is an organizer with youth climate group Sunrise PDX, said he’s been afraid about environmental changes for a long time. “When I was 11, I learned about this world-ending crisis in my 6th-grade science class,” he told the crowd.“I learned that ... climate change is a huge threat, but people are working hard to stop it,” he said. “Fifteen years later, and have we stopped anything?” he asked.--Beth NakamuraInstagram: @bethnakamura

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Activism

Crisis

Progressive Christianity’s Bleak Future

Pope Francis leaves behind a Church that is moving away from the faith he championed.

In his final Easter address, Pope Francis touched on one of the major themes of his 12-year papacy, that love, hope, and peace are possible amid a rising tide of violence and extremism: “What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of our world!” Archbishop Diego Ravelli read the prepared text aloud to crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square, because Francis was by then too ill to deliver his remarks himself: “How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants!” The hallmark of a truly Christian sentiment is its radicalism, how deeply it subverts systems of worldly power and domination. Francis understood that.Accordingly, his observations about the revolutionary truth of Christianity with respect to global political affairs were often rejected, sometimes bitterly, by the world leaders he meant to exhort. His opponents were mainly conservatives of various stripes—some traditionalists upset by his relative coldness toward older liturgies, some members of the political right frustrated with his unwillingness to spiritually cooperate in their sociopolitical projects. Thus some conservatives were positively delighted by Francis’s death. The risible Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, “Today there were major shifts in global leaderships. Evil is being defeated by the hand of God.” Greene’s own Christianity was evidently insufficient to discourage such profound judgment, and hers may unfortunately be the way of the future.[Read: The papacy is forever changed]To what evil might Greene refer? Perhaps Francis’s embrace of philosophical concerns associated with politically progressive causes—such as climate change, as addressed in his landmark encyclical Laudato Si’ (“Praised Be”). Francis wrote that “the earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth,” an epiphenomenon of what he called “throwaway culture,” which encourages not only waste and environmental degradation but also a cavalier disinterest in the lives of the poor in favor of wanton consumption. “We fail to see that some are mired in desperate and degrading poverty,” he wrote, “with no way out, while others have not the faintest idea what to do with their possessions, vainly showing off their supposed superiority and leaving behind them so much waste which, if it were the case everywhere, would destroy the planet.” The pope had a keen sense of class consciousness, which he pointedly expressed in a speech last year to leaders of global popular movements: “It is often precisely the wealthiest who oppose the realization of social justice or integral ecology out of sheer greed,” he said, adding that humanity’s future may well depend “on the community action of the poor of the Earth.” The marginalized people of the world were always Francis’s beloved, a Christian principle that led him to intervene on behalf of migrants, documented and undocumented, whenever he could.In fact, it was the pope’s efforts to quell growing Western hostility toward migrants that recently put him directly at odds with the Trump administration. After Vice President J. D. Vance had a public spat with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops over the rollback of a Biden-era law preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from apprehending undocumented migrants in schools and churches, Francis wrote a letter that seemed to chastise Vance directly. “The true ordo amoris,” Francis wrote, citing a Catholic term Vance had invoked to defend the proposition that love of kin and countryman should reign supreme, “is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘good Samaritan.’” That is, he continued, “by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”Admirers of Francis’s papacy have reason to worry for the Christianity that lies ahead. I had presumed with some sorrow, tracking long trends of vanishing American religion, that Christianity’s days here were numbered, and perhaps they still are. The country has long been headed in a secular direction. But that seems to be changing now—the decline is on pause, and another shift is under way, from a politically varied multitude to a more decidedly right-wing bloc.A recent study from Pew Research Center documented the pause. “For the last five years, between 2019 and 2024, the Christian share of the adult population has been relatively stable,” the study’s authors wrote—hovering just below two-thirds of the population. The reasons for this stabilization are undoubtedly complex, and I was heartened by these numbers—but they may well spell doom for the kind of progressive Christianity that Francis evidently hoped to shore up. In particular, it’s possible that the much-discussed departure of young, progressive people from the faith is almost complete: Virtually everyone who was going to leave has left. And now that the young progressives are nearly all gone, the overall decline has ceased, leaving behind a more solid—and conservative—core of believers. Meanwhile, it also seems that new conservative converts are joining the faith, and bringing their politics with them. The result will be a much more conservative American Christianity.[Read: What border-hawk catholics don’t get]Which isn’t to say that American Christianity has generally been associated with progressivism; it hasn’t, but the two weren’t always as opposed as they seem now. Over the past decade, most Christian traditions in America have shifted rightward politically: Ryan P. Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University who studies religion, found that from 2008 to 2018, 27 out of 34 Christian traditions surveyed became more conservative, judging by changes in congregants’ party affiliations. Burge alluded to the reason in a social-media post earlier this month, noting that although 42 percent of very liberal survey respondents identified as nonreligious in 2008, by 2024 the number had skyrocketed to 62 percent, meaning that progressives have left religion in droves. Accordingly, the Gallup senior scientist Frank Newport wrote in 2023, “everything else being equal, the more religious the individual in the U.S. today, the higher the probability that the individual identifies with or leans toward the Republican party.”Today’s American Christianity, therefore, is a good fit for young men of the right. “As pastor of a parish in South Carolina, I am witnessing a remarkable trend,” Father Dwight Longenecker, a conservative priest, wrote in a 2024 article for National Catholic Register: “Almost every week I receive a call, email or visit from at least one young man interested in learning more about the Catholic religion.” These new converts are undoubtedly somewhat diverse in their interests and beliefs, but a common theme in their conversion stories is disillusionment with modernity, and attraction to Catholicism as a source of stability, tradition, and ethics that transcend time and place. “I felt like the modern world was constantly in flux,” Vance, one such young convert, said of his own recent entry into Catholicism at a 2021 conference. “The things that you believed 10 years ago were no longer even acceptable to believe 10 years later.” This is conservatism in the classical sense, and like Vance, young men journeying into Christianity for conservative reasons typically have conservative politics. Conservative Christian politics are not everywhere and always destructive, but today’s right is more extreme than its recent predecessors. I fear that the next era of American Christianity will be about conquest and triumph rather than peace and humility, and will profligately lend its imprimatur to nationalist agendas that are hostile to the weak and the marginalized. (Vance’s invocation of the ordo amoris to justify the Trump administration’s extreme anti-immigrant politics is perhaps a preview of things to come.) And that would be a devastating development, not just because of the predictable political consequences of such an alignment, but also because the Christianity Francis represented really is loyal to the Gospels in its devotion to the people Jesus loved so much, whose fortunes are rarely of interest to people in power: the poor, the sick, the oppressed and exploited, the displaced and rejected. It was for those that Francis prayed, wrote, and spoke, and to them that he dedicated his time on the chair of St. Peter. And theirs will be the kingdom of heaven.

Climate

Culture

Social Justice

Trump Celebrates Earth Day by Gutting Key EPA Office

Several employees in the Environmental Protection Agency spent their Earth Day learning that they needed to find new jobs. Hundreds of staffers in the department’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights were laid off as part of a reduction in force Tuesday, as were employees working on environmental justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in regional offices.In February, environmental justice staffers were placed on administrative leave and some of the agency’s probationary workers were fired. Now, 280 workers involved with environmental justice and diversity, equity and inclusion will be terminated, with 175 other EPA workers being assigned to new jobs. It’s all part of EPA chief Lee Zedlin’s pledge to drive “a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.” According to an EPA memo obtained by NBC News, the reduction in force will take effect on July 31. The EPA under Trump is ditching its mission of actually protecting the environment. The department rolled back environmental regulations last month along with parts of the Clean Air Act. In addition to the rollbacks and cuts, the agency also tried to cut grants to nonprofit organizations in an attack on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction fund, set up by President Biden with the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. A federal judge temporarily nixed those plans last month. The regulatory changes that Zedlin is pushing with Trump’s blessing will harm countless Americans, including Trump’s supporters. “It’s practically inevitable” that more people will get sick from reduced regulation and the loss of funding, one EPA staffer anonymously told TNR earlier this month.It’s fitting that Tuesday’s layoff announcement fell on Earth Day, because the Trump administration has shown that it cares little, if anything, about the earth. The new energy secretary, fracking executive Chris Wright, last month described climate change as the “side effect of building the modern world.” The FBI has moved to criminalize groups like Habitat for Humanity for receiving grants from the EPA under the Biden administration, and Trump himself has claimed that climate change will provide more seafront property and is therefore better for real estate. The White House is celebrating Earth Day by making the planet worse.

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Remembering Pope Francis on Earth Day: How He Linked Capitalism, Climate & Catholicism

As the Vatican prepares the funeral for Pope Francis and church leaders begin to consider his replacement, we look at the late pontiff’s environmental legacy. Pope Francis frequently called for action on the climate crisis and urged his followers to be good stewards of the Earth. He also openly criticized the role of wealthy nations and capitalism in causing the climate crisis. “He brought together the riches of Christian and Catholic tradition to bear with the prophetic work of social movements around the world in confronting a global crisis,” says Nathan Schneider, professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Schneider is also a contributing writer at America, a national Catholic weekly magazine published by the Jesuits, where he has been covering Catholic engagement with climate change and the economy. Pope Francis argued that “our relationship with the Earth depends on justice among people, and that in order to address this environmental crisis, we need to also address the crisis of disposability, of treating not only the planet, but each other, as disposable,” says Schneider.

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Saving Jaguars and Ourselves

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A Low Carbon Future for China’s Furnace Cities

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Talking Trees

Yes, trees can talk. They communicate through their roots. Please listen to what they have to say in this short film.

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THE WATER WILL TAKE US

This film tells the story of the victims of the flood of 2019 in Iran, which happened in the three provinces of North, Central and South of the country and left a lot of damages. The main narrators are three women who reveal the causes of this incident and mismanagements and tell the story of the people who were left to fend for themselves during the flood and after.

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Can Hydroponic Farming Help Reduce the Effects of Climate Change?

"Can Hydroponic Farming Help Reduce the Effects of Climate Change?" is an entertaining and educational short film. Rachel and her remarkable robot companion, Rex, witness the dire consequences of climate change through news reports of devastating natural disasters. When Rex encounters an alien emissary, he embarks on a journey to a ruined world where pollution and climate change led to the collapse of an entire civilization. Returning to Earth the three main causes of global warming are reveal—electricity production, transportation, and wasteful agriculture—and stress the importance of transitioning to clean energy sources, electric transport, and hydroponic farming. Rex takes on the mission of educating robots and humans alike about combating climate change. The film ends with a global commitment to address the crisis and a poignant celebration of Rex's role in this vital endeavor, reminding us of the urgency to protect our planet from climate catastrophe.

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Get first bite at Oregon’s new shark-infested license plate

Related News

Climate Change Has a Joe Rogan Problem

Portland Youth Climate Strike rally at Portland City Hall

Progressive Christianity’s Bleak Future

Trump Celebrates Earth Day by Gutting Key EPA Office

Remembering Pope Francis on Earth Day: How He Linked Capitalism, Climate & Catholicism

Suggested Viewing

Saving Jaguars and Ourselves

A Low Carbon Future for China’s Furnace Cities

Talking Trees

THE WATER WILL TAKE US

Can Hydroponic Farming Help Reduce the Effects of Climate Change?

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Get first bite at Oregon’s new shark-infested license plate

Related News

Climate Change Has a Joe Rogan Problem

Portland Youth Climate Strike rally at Portland City Hall

Progressive Christianity’s Bleak Future

Trump Celebrates Earth Day by Gutting Key EPA Office

Remembering Pope Francis on Earth Day: How He Linked Capitalism, Climate &amp; Catholicism

Suggested Viewing

Saving Jaguars and Ourselves

A Low Carbon Future for China’s Furnace Cities

Talking Trees

THE WATER WILL TAKE US

Can Hydroponic Farming Help Reduce the Effects of Climate Change?

Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Remembering Pope Francis on Earth Day: How He Linked Capitalism, Climate & Catholicism

Join us to forge
a sustainable future