Not long ago, Guillermina ran into a coworker at her doctor’s office. The two women work together at a McDonald’s near San Jose, California. When Guillermina asked what her coworker was doing at the doctor, she responded that she’d been feeling ill, adding, “You know how hot it gets in...
Disasters destroyed their homes. Then the real estate ‘vultures’ swooped in.
When a mile-wide tornado hit St. Louis on May 16, DeAmon White hopped in his car and rushed home. As he navigated downed trees and power lines, turning his 10-minute commute into a three-hour slog, he worried whether his family, neighbors, and home made it through unscathed. When he turned...
We now know just how much climate change supercharged Hurricane Katrina
Two decades ago, Hurricane Katrina spun up like a massive atmospheric engine, using warm ocean water as fuel. Making landfall as a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph, it devastated New Orleans — surging seawater over levees, killing nearly 1,400 people, and causing more than $150...
How a Koch-funded campaign is trying to reverse climate action in Vermont
For about two decades, Americans for Prosperity, the conservative political network, has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into stalling climate action nationwide. Founded by Charles and David Koch, the libertarian oil billionaires behind Koch Industries, the group has local chapters that block renewables standards, clean car rules, and carbon...
Lead pipes are everywhere in Chicago. Here’s how to protect yourself.
Chicago residents risk daily lead exposure from toxic lead service lines, the underground pipes that connect buildings to the city’s water supply. The city has the most lead service lines in the country — around 412,000 — and officials don’t plan to finish replacing them all until 2076. With complete...
Chicago has the most lead pipes in the nation. We mapped them all.
As Gina Ramirez buckled her 11-year-old son into her car last month for their daily drive to school, she handed him a plastic water bottle. “I would love to be able to have him put a cup under the tap if he was thirsty,” Ramirez said. She can’t. Ramirez lives...
How we mapped Chicago’s lead pipe problem and what we learned
Chicago has a lead pipe problem. The city estimates that about 412,000 out of roughly 491,000 water service lines require replacement because they are known or suspected to contain lead. That’s the most of any city in the country. Service lines are the underground pipes that connect the city’s water...
Why the US government is trying to revive the climate change ‘debate’
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...