This story is made possible through a partnership between Grist and The Flatwater Free Press, Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories. Rick Wheatley owns a property with about 80 acres in Nebraska’s Otoe County — an area east of Lincoln known for its farmland, apple...
This $400B Biden climate program is surviving the Trump administration
In January, the Trump administration announced that it had completed its dismantling of yet another Biden-era climate program. This time, the target was the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, which Democrats had injected with almost $400 billion to support ambitious new clean energy projects. The Biden administration pursued climate...
Can replacing Illinois’ toxic lead pipes lead to a workforce boon?
Illinois is in the midst of a public health crisis. Nearly 1.5 million service lines — the pipes that carry drinking water to homes and businesses — contain or are suspected to contain lead, a neurotoxin linked to cognitive, reproductive, and cardiovascular problems. Now, public health and workforce advocates want...
California bets on an obscure tool to replace clean air authority Trump revoked
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...