Homeowners in Hispanic and Black communities nationwide are paying a disproportionate share of skyrocketing home insurance costs, according to a recent report. The disparities leave communities of color at greater risk as climate change increases the frequency of billion-dollar disasters.  The report, released in July by the Consumer Federation of...
A federal judge just told Trump there’s no ‘emergency’ to justify keeping a Michigan coal plant open
The Department of Energy overstepped when it ordered an aging coal-fired power plant in Michigan to stay open past its planned retirement date last year, a federal court ruled on Friday. The J.H Campbell plant is one of seven fossil fuel plants around the country that the Trump administration has...
America’s houseplants come at a steep price for greenhouse workers
On Tuesday, the day after Labor Day, a small band of activists marched past the gates of a sprawling plant nursery in Leicester, North Carolina, outside of Asheville. The sun beat down on rows of steamy greenhouses where workers moved through aisles of houseplants ready for sale. The activists were...
More than 70% of new solar is being built in states that voted for Trump
States that voted for Trump are leading the country in solar adoption. In recent years, Republican opposition to solar has mounted, with the Trump administration making it more difficult to build solar on federal land and Congress scaling back federal tax credits for the industry. But a new report from...
What the record-high cost of diesel means for you
Diesel prices hit an all-time high on Friday. Then another, and another. According to AAA, the average price of diesel as of September 10 stands at a staggering $5.98 — about $2.31 more than in late February, when the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran. The jump...
Wendell Berry’s life on Earth
Wendell Berry made his choices and stuck to them. He did not have a computer or a smartphone. He wrote more than 50 books of poetry, fiction, and essays, mostly with a pencil and paper, from his farmhouse in Henry County, Kentucky. By the time of his passing last week,...
Georgia bet big on EV manufacturing. Trump pulled the plug.
For years, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has been working to make the state a welcoming home for clean energy manufacturing — EVs, solar panels, batteries for storage. The state went all out with tax breaks and a worker training program to attract EV and battery makers — and for a...
Why it’s so hard to predict a tragedy like Nepal’s glacier collapse
On August 26, the side of a mountain near the border between Nepal and Tibet collapsed. Seven billion cubic feet of glacial ice and rock, enough to fill 100 football stadiums, crashed roughly a mile straight down into the river below. The impact created a muddy wall of water that...
America is losing its war against wildfire
Dan Dallas had defended these communities before. The little towns on the Karuk tribal land are nestled in a gorge along the Klamath River, amidst a million-acre wilderness of Northern California conifer and hardwood that makes up the Six Rivers National Forest. This time, August 2023, a fusillade of lightning...
The world is adapting to extreme heat — but not nearly fast enough
This summer was more than uncomfortably hot — it was record-breaking, with many countries reporting their highest average temperatures yet. Western Europe, for example, sweated through five grueling heat waves this year that sucked moisture from the soil, turned vegetation into wildfire fuel, and shrank rivers until the fish ran...