Hundreds of delegates are arriving at the United Nations this week for the world’s largest gathering of Indigenous peoples. But they arrive against an increasingly hostile global backdrop, facing an artificial intelligence boom driving new extraction on ancestral lands, a U.S. administration that has made it increasingly difficult for Global...
The Trump administration wants to take an ax to the East’s last great forests
When most people think about national forests, they imagine vast Western landscapes: Alaska, the Rockies, the Pacific Northwest. But millions of acres of federal woodlands dot the eastern half of the country, too. These great swaths of vibrant ecosystems have long been free of roads, protected by a policy called,...
We asked climate leaders what’s keeping them inspired. Here’s what they said.
Climate action may be facing headwinds right now. But the passion, courage, and creativity that defined the climate movement for decades have not gone anywhere. Doctors continue to care for the health of their patients on a changing planet. Grantmakers continue to reach for new pots of funding to enable...
At the UN, Indigenous leaders tackle how to enforce global climate court rulings
Indigenous communities in the Pacific are facing increasingly devastating storms worsened by warming oceans. Mining operations continue expanding on Indigenous lands in the Amazon. Oil wells in Ecuador keep pumping despite court orders. And at the United Nations this week, Indigenous leaders and advocates are asking: What will it take...
The Green New Deal has evolved. Now it’s all about ‘affordability.’
Eight years ago, three little words took hold of the environmental movement: Green New Deal. Part popular slogan, part political philosophy, the phrase described a sweeping agenda to create jobs, advance social justice, and combat climate change through major public investment inspired by the New Deal of the 1930s. The...
How deep-red Utah helped launch a portable plug-in solar movement
Utah state Representative Raymond Ward was reading a story in The New York Times about a growing trend in Europe, and it sparked an idea to make energy more affordable and portable at home. Plug-in solar panels — sometimes called “balcony solar” — allow people to generate electricity by plugging...
The world desperately needs to decarbonize shipping. Can nations find a consensus?
The shipping industry has been facing an acute crisis. For the first time in modern history, both of the Middle East’s critical waterways — the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea — were effectively closed for the past several weeks. Since early March, as Iran and Houthi rebels threatened...
Maine presses pause on large data centers. Will other states follow its lead?
Maine is now the first state to pass a moratorium on the development of large data centers, and others may follow. The Maine House and Senate this week passed LD 307, which prohibits state and local governments from approving data centers with at least 20 megawatts of electricity demand until at...
The state of solar: Despite partisan rhetoric, the industry is still booming
The future looked dire for renewable energy in the United States last spring. Republicans in Congress started gutting the Inflation Reduction Act, forcing its generous tax credits for wind and solar into an early retirement. The Interior Department then rolled out a series of byzantine regulations aimed at restricting clean...
American farmers bet on solar. Then Trump changed the rules.
Over the past few years, Kentucky sheep farmer Daniel Bell has been expanding his flock. Eventually, that meant he needed to build a new barn. His land is far from the power lines he’d need to heat it, so he figured rooftop solar would be ideal. To help pay for...