When a package arrives at your door, it has likely traveled through a chain of ports, railyards and warehouses throughout the state. All those ships, trains and trucks leave behind a trail of diesel exhaust as they go, driving some of the highest asthma rates in communities. For decades, state...
Long overlooked as crucial to life, fungi start to get their due
Agarikon is one of two endangered species of fungi in the United States. So rare is the species that scientists have placed samples of it in a biobank facility for safekeeping at the San Diego Zoo, in the hopes that it can be propagated and one day reintroduced to the...
Ask a Climate Therapist: How can I balance my travel itch with guilt about emissions?
Dear Leslie, Almost all of the money I save goes toward travel — meeting friends abroad, visiting relatives, or checking national and international parks off my bucket list. I try to be as sustainable in my personal life as possible, but I love traveling, despite knowing that travel is where...
On Thin Ice
Upstairs, right outside my toddler’s room, hangs this striking, blue-blue print of an Icelandic glacier ice cave: the Crystal Ice Cave, circa 2015, long since vanished. My friend Þorri took the image and gifted it to me during one of my many stays over the last 20 years. My son...
The Great Lakes are ideal for wind energy. So where is it?
There are no wind turbines on the Great Lakes — and it isn’t for lack of wind. This titanic network of interconnected freshwater lakes with a surface area larger than New England, New York, and New Jersey combined is theoretically ideal for wind farms. Winds sweeping across the lakes are...
The AI boom has plunged a small Pennsylvania town into chaos
“I don’t like to see anyone upset,” said Nick Farris of Provident Real Estate Advisors. He was sitting in the front of a crowd of roughly 150 inside Valley View High School’s auditorium in Archbald, a town of about 7,500, huddled between two mountain ranges in Pennsylvania’s Lackawanna Valley. Farris...
Big Oil has moved on from ‘greenwashing.’ Here’s the new playbook.
Remember when the fossil fuel industry couldn’t stop talking about climate change? In 2020, when oil prices plunged in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Big Oil promoted efforts to cut carbon emissions and trumpeted various energy “innovations”: transforming algae into fuel (Exxon Mobil), capturing carbon (Chevron), and producing green hydrogen...
Is your state becoming uninsurable? We have the latest data.
In recent years, as the United States has suffered a series of damaging climate disasters, experts have warned that the nation is headed toward a homeowner’s insurance crisis. Insurance companies dropped hundreds of thousands of customers who live in areas vulnerable to hurricanes and wildfires, and numerous small insurers have...
Why $4 gasoline is the tipping point for EVs
Gasoline prices continue ticking higher as the United States and Israel’s war with Iran continues. The national average now stands at $3.84 per gallon, nearly a dollar higher than at the start of the conflict. It’s also just shy of a tipping point that could push consumers toward electric vehicles. ...
Georgia farmers’ long wait for Helene relief is ending
Last week, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins visited Georgia to announce the release of more than $500 million to help farmers rebuild from 2024’s Hurricane Helene. The widespread agricultural and forestry devastation from Helene cost the state’s economy about $5.5 billion, including job losses and impacts to related...