Should you be worried about climate change? The answer used to be debatable — literally. Way back in 2007, NPR aired a debate over the proposition that “Global Warming Is Not a Crisis.” The panel had six commentators, divided equally into two sides. Those on the “not a crisis” side...
20 years after Katrina, New Orleans’ levees are sinking and short on money
It has been 20 years since New Orleans’ faulty levee system failed during Hurricane Katrina, causing a flood that claimed almost 2,000 lives and inflicted more than $150 billion in economic damage. The catastrophe was so bad that some doubted the city could continue to exist at all — the...
Trump administration halts construction of nearly finished offshore wind farm
It happened again. For the second time this year, the Trump administration has halted the construction of a massive offshore wind farm being built to power blue states. On Friday, the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Matthew Giacona, ordered the Danish wind developer Ørsted to stop all construction on...
As the Trump administration shrinks the USDA, rural farming communities are left to pay the price
Like many government agencies, the Department of Agriculture has a fraught history with discrimination and disenfranchisement. Farmers of color and young and beginning producers have long struggled to access capital, in the form of loans and grants, from the agency. So in 2022, former President Joe Biden’s USDA created the...
‘Alligator Alcatraz’ must close, but the fight isn’t over
The Miccosukee Tribe makes its home in the Florida Everglades, where a tribal village sits only a few miles from the federal immigration detention center called “Alligator Alcatraz.” Residents for weeks have lived with vehicles coming and going around the clock, stadium lights illuminating the once dark nighttime sky, and...
FEMA now requires disaster victims to have an email address
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will now require disaster survivors to register for federal aid using an email address — a departure from previous policy where email addresses were optional. The move, FEMA employees tell Wired, puts people across the U.S. with little to no access to internet services at risk...
A coal-fired plant in Michigan was supposed to close. But Trump forced it to keep running at $1M a day.
Donald Trump has made several unusual moves to elongate the era of coal, such as giving the industry exemptions from pollution rules. But the gambit to keep one Michigan coal-fired power station running has been extraordinary — by forcing it to remain open even against the wishes of its operator. The hulking JH Campbell power...
Antarctica is in extreme peril
Seen from space, Antarctica looks so much simpler than the other continents — a great sheet of ice set in contrast to the dark waters of the encircling Southern Ocean. Get closer, though, and you’ll find not a simple cap of frozen water, but an extraordinarily complex interplay between the...
How Texas flood relief got caught in a high-stakes political battle
In early July, flash floods along the Guadalupe River killed 138 people and caused an estimated $1.1 billion in damage, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in Texas history. But just a week later, Texas found itself whiplashed into another crisis altogether: a high-stakes battle over voting districts. ...
In the wake of destructive floods, Wisconsin youth sue state utility regulator over failure to consider climate change
On August 9 and 10, a massive storm over southeastern Wisconsin dropped up to 13 inches of rain in just a few hours, sending floodwater gushing downriver and destroying more than 1,800 homes in Milwaukee. The disaster was the second-worst two-day rain event in the United States since 1871. “For...