Nearly a year after the 2024 election, Democrats are still trying to figure out what went wrong. In the midst of this soul-searching, a new piece of advice has appeared: “Don’t say climate change.” That’s the takeaway from a recent poll by the Searchlight Institute, a new Democratic think tank....
Racing against time, Illinois clears a major hurdle in containing an invasive fish
The silver carp is big, unwieldy, and requires Joe Greendyk to use both his hands to measure it before tossing the fish overboard into the Illinois River. The nearly 2-foot-long invasive fish, which now overruns the river, has become the centerpiece of a state-run monitoring program to rein in its...
FEMA has denied or not advanced most Kerr County aid applications after deadly July 4 flood
Only about one-fifth of applicants for federal disaster assistance from Texas’ Kerr County have been deemed eligible to get financial help so far, leaving hundreds without governmental aid more than three months after deadly floods ravaged the county on July 4. As of October 11, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials...
America’s biggest offshore wind farm will be online in 6 months
About 30 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia, workers have been building America’s largest offshore wind farm at a breakneck pace. The project will start feeding power to the grid by March — the most definitive start date provided by its developer yet. “First power will occur in Q1 of next year,” Dominion...
From genocide to ecocide: After years of war, Gaza faces an environmental crisis ‘above imagination’
Over two years of nearly incessant bombardment, Israeli forces have killed over 60,000 Palestinians, at least a third of whom are children. The human toll has been called genocide by human rights organizations around the world and a United Nations commission, but a new report from an Israeli research center...
How EVs can fix the grid and lower your electric bill
Depending on whom you’re asking, renewable energy and electric vehicles will either destroy the grid or save it. The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow, true enough, while a gas-fired power plant can generate electricity any time. That supposed precarity of renewables will get even shakier,...
Global conservation body backs genetically modified wildlife over Indigenous opposition
This week, members of the International Union of Conservation of Nature, one of the world’s largest conservation groups, voted against a moratorium on the release of genetically engineered species into the wild in order to assist in conservation efforts – as well in favor of the use of synthetic biology...
The strategy behind Trump’s climate catchphrase, the ‘Green New Scam’
The phrase that has come to define the Trump administration’s message on climate change was born in Durham, New Hampshire, on December 16, 2023. Flanked by flannel-clad supporters holding “Live free or die” signs, then-candidate Donald Trump wished the crowd a Merry Christmas before launching into what he saw as...
As data centers upend electric grids, the largest operator in the US is facing down a revolt from state officials
On a quiet road in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, not far from the field where George Washington’s starving soldiers waited out the winter in 1778, sits the headquarters for PJM Interconnection, the largest electrical grid operator in the United States. Inside, operators wage war against inclement weather and power surges, ensuring...
How Vermont lost track of millions in FEMA flood recovery funds
On the afternoon of August 21, Jason Gosselin raised the alarm: The flood recovery project he managed was running out of money faster than he had anticipated. One email he sent his colleagues ended with an anxious parenthetical: (calm down, Jason, calm down). In July 2024, Vermont was hit by...