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Why this summer might bring the wildest weather yet
Summers keep getting hotter, and the consequences are impossible to miss: In the summer of 2023, the Northern Hemisphere experienced its hottest season in 2,000 years. Canada’s deadliest wildfires on record bathed skylines in smoke from Minnesota to New York. In Texas and Arizona, hundreds of people lost their lives to heat, and in Vermont, flash floods caused damages equivalent to a hurricane.
How an Aboriginal woman fought a coal company and won
In 2019, Australia was on the cusp of approving a new coal mine on traditional Wirdi land in Queensland that would have extracted approximately 40 million tons of coal each year for 35 years. The Waratah coal mine would have destroyed a nature refuge and emitted 1.58 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
Electric vehicles need cobalt. Congolese miners work in dangerous conditions to get it.
This story was originally published by CapitalB. The story of “John Doe 1” of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is tucked in a lawsuit filed five years ago against several U.S. tech companies, including Tesla, the world’s largest electric vehicle producer. In a country where the...
California sides with big utilities, trimming incentives for community solar projects
This story was originally published by CalMatters. California’s utilities regulator adopted new rules for community solar projects on Friday, despite warnings from clean energy advocates that the move will actually undercut efforts to expand solar power options for low-income customers. The state’s biggest utility companies advocated for the new...
Power to the People
Activists pushing San Diego to take over the city’s investor-owned utility aren’t letting last year’s defeat of a similar effort in Maine deter their goal of establishing a nonprofit power company. They recently submitted petitions bearing more than 30,000 signatures from residents who want the City Council to let voters decide the matter this fall.
Better late than never: Wealthy nations finally meet $100 billion climate aid goal
International climate negotiations have long been haunted by a broken promise. In the wake of collapsed negotiations at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009, wealthy nations, led by the United States, pledged to provide developing countries with $100 billion in climate-related aid annually by 2020. The money was meant in part to ease tensions between the rich countries that had contributed the most to climate change historically and the poorer nations that disproportionately suffer the effects of a warming planet. But rich countries fell short of the target in both 2020 and 2021, deepening mistrust and stymying progress during the annual United Nations climate conferences, which are known by the abbreviation COP.
Georgia governor calls for even more nuclear power despite budget woes
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WABE and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp called for more new nuclear energy at an event Wednesday celebrating the first new nuclear reactors built in the U.S. in decades, at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, Georgia. The construction of those reactors, known as Vogtle Units 3 and 4, cost more than twice its original budget and ended years behind schedule.
Expecting worse: Giving birth on a planet in crisis
International climate change panels often point out that women are more vulnerable to climate change than men. Hotter temperatures and more volatile weather inflame existing gender-based vulnerabilities, like domestic violence, inadequate access to health care, and financial insecurity. But there is another, largely invisible layer of climate impacts that falls along gendered lines: Research shows that climate change takes a profound physical toll on bodies that can bear children — from menstruation to conception to birth.
Four lost pregnancies. Five weeks of IVF injections. One storm.
This story is part of the series Expecting worse: Giving birth on a planet in crisis, a collaboration between Grist, Vox, and The 19th that investigates how climate change impacts reproductive health — from menstruation to conception to birth. On their very first date, Kirsti and Justin Mahon talked...
Pregnant in a warming climate: A lethal ‘double risk’ for malaria
This story is part of the series Expecting worse: Giving birth on a planet in crisis, a collaboration between Grist, Vox, and The 19th that investigates how climate change impacts reproductive health — from menstruation to conception to birth. Roger Casupang was working in a coastal clinic on the...
Salt in the womb: How rising seas erode reproductive health
This story is part of the series Expecting worse: Giving birth on a planet in crisis, a collaboration between Grist, Vox, and The 19th that investigates how climate change impacts reproductive health — from menstruation to conception to birth. Today, 30-year-old garment factory worker Khadiza Akhter lives in Savar,...
‘How did we miss this for so long?’: The link between extreme heat and preterm birth
This story is part of the series Expecting worse: Giving birth on a planet in crisis, a collaboration between Grist, Vox, and The 19th that investigates how climate change impacts reproductive health — from menstruation to conception to birth. When Rupa Basu was pregnant with her second child, her...
Photos help tell climate stories. This media library lets conservation orgs access them for free.
“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”. As a writer, I obviously have a fondness for words. I believe in their power — while also recognizing their limitations. Much as we try to “show, not tell” through the written word, an article can’t quite approximate letting someone see or experience something for themselves. Photos and videos, on the other hand, come pretty darn close.
Can carbon offsets actually work? The Biden administration thinks so.
On Tuesday, the Biden administration unveiled new guidelines on “responsible participation” in the voluntary carbon market, or VCM — the system that allows companies to say they’ve canceled out their greenhouse gas emissions through the purchase of carbon credits. Theoretically, every carbon credit a company buys represents one metric ton of CO2 that has been reduced or avoided through projects that wouldn’t have happened without the funding — like tree-planting or the installation of wind turbines.
Recycling isn’t easy. The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana is doing it anyway.
Allie “Nokko” Johnson is a member of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, and they love teaching young tribal members about recycling. Johnson helps them make Christmas ornaments out of things that were going to be thrown away, or melts down small crayons to make bigger ones. “In its...
Researchers explore mining seawater for critical metals
This story was originally published by Yale 360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Can metals that naturally occur in seawater be mined, and can they be mined sustainably? A company in Oakland, California, says yes. And not only is it extracting magnesium from ocean water — and from waste brine generated by industry — it is doing it in a carbon-neutral way. Magrathea Metals has produced small amounts of magnesium in pilot projects, and with financial support from the U.S. Defense Department, it is building a larger-scale facility to produce hundreds of tons of the metal over two to four years. By 2028, it says it plans to be operating a facility that will annually produce more than 10,000 tons.
Puerto Rico’s rooftop solar boom is at risk, advocates warn
This story was originally published by Canary Media. In Puerto Rico, residents are flocking to rooftop solar and backup batteries in search of more reliable, affordable — and cleaner — alternatives to the central power grid. Fire stations, hospitals, and schools continue adding solar-plus-battery systems every year. So do families with urgent medical needs and soaring utility bills. The technology has become nothing short of a lifeline for the U.S. territory, which remains plagued by prolonged power outages and extreme weather events.
As New York’s offshore wind work begins, an environmental justice community awaits the benefits
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On a pair of aging piers jutting into New York Harbor, contractors in hard hats and neon yellow safety vests have begun work on one of the region’s most anticipated industrial projects. Within a few years, this expanse of broken blacktop should be replaced by a smooth surface and covered with neat stacks of giant wind turbine blades and towers ready for assembly.
What’s the difference between Indigenous nations co-managing or co-stewarding their land? A lot.
For a decade, wind farm companies had been eyeing Molok Luyuk — a mountain ridge of religious importance to tribes in northern California, whose people have worked for years to protect it. It’s also widely biodiverse with elk, mountain lions, and black bears, as well as 40 rare plants such as the pink adobe lily.
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