A white-headed woodpecker stirs the dawn quiet, hammering at a patch of charred bark stretching 15 feet up the trunk of a ponderosa pine. The first streaks of sun light the tree’s green crown, sending beams across this grove of healthy conifers. The marks of the 2021 Dixie Fire are...
Breast cancer, dizziness, headaches: El Paso residents ask if a warehouse’s toxic emissions are to blame
When Cardinal Health, one of the largest medical device manufacturers in the country, hired Maria as an accountant in 2014, she was thrilled. It was her first job out of school, and she was excited about landing a coveted position at a multinational company. For the next year, she worked...
The ocean is a carbon toilet. Marine heat waves are clogging it.
The planet would be a whole lot hotter if it weren’t for fecal pellets. Across the world’s oceans, tiny organisms known as phytoplankton harvest the sun’s energy, gobbling up carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. They’re eaten by little animals called zooplankton, which poop out pellets that sink to the seafloor....
The EPA is ending greenhouse gas data collection. Who will step up to fill the gap?
The Environmental Protection Agency announced earlier this month that it would stop making polluting companies report their greenhouse gas emissions to it, eliminating a crucial tool the U.S. uses to track emissions and form climate policy. Climate NGOs say their work could help plug some of the data gap, but they...
At least 170 US hospitals face major flood risk. Experts say Trump is making it worse.
When a big storm hits, Peninsula Hospital could be underwater. At this decades-old psychiatric hospital on the edge of the Tennessee River, an intense storm could submerge the building in 11 feet of water, cutting off all roads around the facility, according to a sophisticated computer simulation of flood risk....
Small farmers are more squeezed than ever. A California grant program offers a lifeline.
When Javier Zamora started his organic berry farm more than a decade ago, he was working with just an acre and a half of land in Monterey County, near California’s central coast. Today, he and his crew grow strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, as well as vegetables and flowers, on more...
How disasters change our love lives — for better and for worse
Kyle and Ashley Johnson are one of those “opposites attract” kind of couples. She’s a Tennessee mountain girl with a penchant for “screamo” music, raised to buckle down for winter with extra canned goods and a rifle on hand. Kyle, on the other hand, is a polite South Carolina guy...
Why Trump’s purge of ‘negative’ national park signs includes climate change
This summer, national park employees and visitors were asked to do something highly unusual: report any signs that failed to make America look great. The effort, stemming from an executive order from President Donald Trump, has already resulted in the removal of signs about the horrors of slavery, massacres of...
5 things to know about the fungal infection valley fever
What is valley fever and how does it spread? Valley fever is an infection spread by a fungus that grows in the top few inches of soil in parts of the American West. It is transmitted when soil is disturbed and the fungal spores become airborne. People and animals —...
The kids who sued America over climate change aren’t done yet
In 2015, nearly two dozen American youth sued the federal government, alleging that the United States violated their constitutional rights by facilitating the burning of fossil fuels and allowing greenhouse gas emissions to rise to dangerous levels. Their case, known as Juliana v. U.S., was dismissed in federal courts, but...