For decades, toxic lead cables lay like giant sea monsters snaking across the bottom of Lake Tahoe. Installed as early telecommunications lines and owned by AT&T, the abandoned cables contained over 100,000 pounds of lead and were slowly deteriorating, leaching contaminants into one of the most iconic lakes in the...
New research traces how ‘forever chemicals’ move through the Great Lakes and into people
In the United States, PFAS chemicals are so ubiquitous — found in everything from frying pans to skincare — that nearly all of the country’s population likely has measurable levels of the so-called “forever chemicals” in their blood. It’s only in the last few decades that the public and scientists...
Los Angeles turns ‘most polluting’ World Cup into Olympic rehearsal in bid for climate legacy
A pungent smell clouds the stadium where the U.S. men’s football team is set to play its first World Cup match. With 30 days to go before kick-off, the venue’s operations team is busy transforming the playing field into a world-class soccer stadium, the freshly laid soil covered in fertilizer...
A New Mexico town is running dry. An immigration detention center is its biggest water customer.
Following years of drought, the wells in Estancia, New Mexico, are running dry. After declaring a water emergency last week, the small town in Torrance County is hauling in water to fill its pipes. Estancia has also reduced water sales to the Torrance County Detention Facility, or TCDF, a federal...
People are willing to pay more for climate-proof wine, study shows
What’s a winemaker to do on a warming planet? Much has been written about how climate change threatens viticulture around the globe — or at least, threatens to fundamentally change the practice. A long-lasting drought in Chile is forcing winemakers to rethink irrigation systems. Vintners in California must not only endure...
Banks are financing the fossil fuel industry’s next growth strategy
For the past two years, more than a dozen major banks have been not only reneging on their climate commitments, they’ve been actively making the crisis worse. In 2024 and 2025, during the leadup to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, all six of the nation’s largest banks abandoned the Net-Zero...
One year after the Texas floods, home feels further away than ever
When rain falls on the RVs that line Big Sandy Creek, it sounds like gunfire. The harder it pours, the louder it gets. But what bothers Ashlee Willis most is how the wind makes them sway. It is so unsettling that she cowers in her camper’s narrow hallway with her...
Urban trees aren’t just nice, scientists say — they’re mandatory
They tower overhead and sway in the wind and often teem with squawking birds, yet trees are easy to ignore. Urbanites rush by them without noticing, and without appreciating all the work they do: Trees reduce temperatures, mitigate flooding, and provide habitat for animals. City leaders are no exception to...
Why is it so unusually expensive to replace lead pipes in Chicago?
No city dealing with a lot of lead pipes spends as much as Chicago does to replace them. With more than 400,000 lead water service lines, Chicago has the largest known inventory of lead pipes of any city in the country. Officials say replacing each one costs about $31,000 on...
For Puerto Rico’s fishers, climate change isn’t the only challenge — being left to adapt alone is another
Tomás Ayala leaps off the side of a small dinghy and into the dark swell of water. His arms slice through the waves like a cutlass as he dives deep into the bay off the southeastern coast of the Puerto Rican island of Culebra. Armed with a spear gun, Ayala...