At the Department of Agriculture’s research division, everyone knows there’s one word they should never say, according to Ethan Roberts. “The forbidden C-word” — climate. Roberts, union president at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois, has worked for the federal government for nearly a decade. In...
In Texas, Corpus Christi’s water crisis may be a glimpse into the future
When Thiago Campos bought the Mr. Fancy Pants Carwash business in Corpus Christi, Texas, three years ago, he wasn’t thinking about drought. He was familiar with varnishes and waxes and enjoyed figuring out which kind of soap would best remove local dirt. “I’m a chemical engineer,” Campos said. “I felt...
Iran was already running out of water. Then came the ‘war on infrastructure.’
Last week, following escalating attacks on critical energy and water facilities, the Israeli-U.S. war in Iran entered a new stage. “Now the war on infrastructure has started,” said Kaveh Madani, a water researcher at the United Nations University and former deputy vice president of Iran. On March 18, Israel struck...
Fiber optic cables reveal a serious problem at the heart of modern farming
Thousands of years ago, beasts of burden helped make humanity what it is today. When farmers first started putting down roots, they’d plant and tend their crops by hand. With the power of oxen, they could drag plows across their fields before sowing, which boosted soil fertility and eliminated weeds....
The frantic, high-tech fight to stop climate-fueled dengue fever
The first patient arrived just over two years ago. January was supposed to be a slow month at Santa Rosa, a hospital nestled in the middle-class Pueblo Libre district of Lima, Peru. The sprawling metropolis of 10 million can feel eerily empty at the height of summer, when some families...
Modern agriculture is collapsing under climate change. Indigenous farming has answers.
In the last five years, Indigenous agriculture has received attention in academia as an alternative model, though on a smaller scale, to modern farming systems. Research has shown that some traditional farming systems, such as growing maize, beans and squash together, protect soil health, reduce biodiversity loss and support Indigenous...
Utah Republicans see storing nuclear waste as a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’
The Republicans who dominate Utah’s politics — from the legislature to the governor’s mansion — are aggressively pursuing nuclear power, but a problem that had confounded fission supporters over the last century lingers: what to do with all the dangerous waste. Now the state is exploring whether to become a...
Trump’s $1B payoff to stop offshore wind is even stranger than it sounds
On Monday, President Trump’s Department of the Interior announced that it will refund almost $1 billion to a French multinational oil company. The company, TotalEnergies, had spent that amount during the Biden administration to secure two leases allowing it to build offshore wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean. The Trump...
A look behind the scenes of what could be Google’s biggest test of carbon capture
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...