Two days before the sweltering July 4 weekend, Martina Meijer, a New York City elementary teacher who occasionally substitutes over the summer, covered a class. The city’s summer school programhad just begun and that day temperatures reached 100 degrees. “Even though the AC was on, it wasn’t working very well,”...
‘Climate hushing’ has swept the Democratic Party. New polling suggests it’s a mistake.
A hush has fallen over the Democratic Party — a “climate hush,” to be precise. The phrase captures the push within the party to focus more on the high cost of living and less on the planetary crisis, in hopes of addressing a popular diagnosis of why Democrats lost the...
Here’s how offshore wind helped New England beat record heat
America’s offshore wind farms have already shown their ability to keep electricity flowing during brutal winter storms. Now, the clean energy resource has proved it can also bolster the grid during major heat waves. Earlier this month, as dangerously hot and humid temperatures settled over the eastern United States, two wind projects near...
In Michigan, the price of energy is on the ballot and both parties know it
Christine Waugh-Fleischmann, an art teacher who said she spends up to $200 a week on gas driving to see her grandchildren, is a Democratic voter in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. One of the most competitive seats in the country, it is currently held by Republican Representative Tom Barrett and she believes...
Indigenous leaders give the UN a roadmap for protecting their peoples
This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance. Indigenous communities around the world face mounting, and colliding, impacts from climate change, violence, rising threats from artificial intelligence, and many other crises. Their leaders are demanding that the world take action, and they’ve given the United Nations a 12-point plan...
As climate lawsuits advance, the oil industry enters ‘panic mode’
Could the oil industry be held responsible for fueling the extreme heat that led to a woman’s death? That’s the question at the heart of a novel lawsuit in Washington state. Misti Leon’s mother died from overheating during the hottest day in state history in June 2021, when temperatures climbed...
The deadly experiment that could save the American elm
After more than a decade of nurturing, it had come time to infect this 28-acre grove of American elms with a disease that would almost certainly kill them. Dressed in hunter-green muck boots, grey pants, and a brown Nature Conservancy T-shirt, Gus Goodwin knelt down to give the first tree...
How war in Myanmar is driving a deadly rare earth mining boom
When Min left the hot, dusty plains of central Myanmar for its mountainous eastern border with China earlier this year, he had few options. A 2021 military coup had devastated the formal economy of the Southeast Asian country, and jobs were scarce. Min’s native Sagaing Region was at the epicenter...
The secret to a better grid? Electric vehicles.
You can’t tell when you’re passing one on the highway, but an electric vehicle may well have a superpower. It charges by plugging into the electric grid, of course, but it might also be able to send energy back into it. For a growing number of EVs, this vehicle-to-grid technology,...
Most Utahns want to protect their national monuments. Trump had other plans.
A majority of Utah’s residents opposed shrinking Bears Ears National Monument before President Donald Trump drastically slashed its size last week, according to multiple polls conducted over the past few years. Those findings contrast with statements from Utah’s political leaders who argued that the cuts reflected what Utahns want. President...