Electric vehicle sales have cratered. Across the country, dealers sold about 20 percent fewer used electric cars in October than in September and saw a staggering 50 percent drop for new ones, according to the latest data. No one was surprised. Congress voted in July to end the federal tax...
How one Seattle organization is turning food waste into plant food
Lea esta nota en español. For Maria Perez, joining a project to reduce food waste in Washington wasn’t just a job. Her journey with the Duwamish Valley Sustainability Association (DVSA) began when she was 14 and enrolled in a youth program that sparked her interest in fighting climate change. Six...
Pennsylvania bailed on a carbon market to appease Republicans
Last month, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro withdrew from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI (pronounced “Reggie”), a cap-and-trade program that establishes a regional limit on carbon emissions from power plants located in the Northeast. Here’s how RGGI works: Each year, credits allowing the power plants to emit a certain...
A drying Great Salt Lake is spewing toxic dust. It could cost Utah billions.
The dust blowing from the dry bed of the Great Salt Lake is creating a serious public health threat that policymakers and the scientific community are not taking seriously enough, two environmental nonprofits warn in a recent report. The Great Salt Lake hit a record-low elevation in 2022 and teetered...
Hurricane season is over. Here’s why the US never got hit.
Back in April, scientists read the tea leaves — or, more accurately, heaps of data — and predicted an above-average hurricane season over the summer and autumn, with nine or 10 named storms, four of which could grow to major strength. Yet hurricane season ended Sunday without even one of...
Hawaiʻi’s green fee is the latest climate effort challenged by Trump
Hawaiʻi’s new green fee aimed at offsetting tourism’s impact on the environment has caught the eye of the Trump administration, which has grown increasingly hostile to efforts to fight climate change. A U.S. Department of Justice motion to intervene in Cruise Lines International’s lawsuit against the state and county landed earlier this...
New England kicks off $450M plan to supercharge heat pump adoption
New England winters can get wicked cold. This week, five of the region’s states launched a $450 million effort to warm more homes in the often-frigid region with energy-efficient, low-emission heat pumps instead of by burning fossil fuels. “It’s a big deal,” said Katie Dykes, commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and...
Everyone hates gas-powered leaf blowers. So why is it so hard to ban them?
The push to ban gas-powered leaf blowers has gained an unlikely figurehead: Cate Blanchett, the Australian actress. “Leaf blowers need to be eradicated from the face of the Earth,” she said in an interview in March. Her complaints have gone viral on TikTok and other social media platforms. “It’s a...
FEMA’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year
As 2025 draws to a close, the departure of the beleaguered acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, David Richardson, caps a tumultuous year for FEMA. In January, President Donald Trump took office and vowed to abolish the department. Though the administration subsequently slow-walked that proposal, its government-wide staffing...
Dismantling the Endangered Species Act will hurt a lot more than just wildlife
For more than 50 years, the Endangered Species Act has saved thousands of animals and plants from threats like poaching, habitat loss, and pollution. It brought bald eagles back from the brink of extinction, reestablished grizzly bear populations on public lands, and safeguarded the redwood forests that play host to...