This year’s Fourth of July was the first time that the town of Comfort, Texas, used the sirens intended to warn its roughly 2,000 residents of imminent flooding. Founded by German abolitionists in 1854, Comfort sits along the Guadalupe River in an area known as “Flash Flood Alley.” It installed...
A tribe in Florida joins the fight against the ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ immigrant detention center
The Miccosukee Tribe in Florida joined environmental groups on Tuesday to sue the federal and state agencies that constructed an immigrant detention center known as the “Alligator Alcatraz” and located in the Everglades National Park. In a motion to join a lawsuit, as one of the first tribes to potentially...
Why the federal government is making climate data disappear
For 25 years, a group of the country’s top experts has been fastidiously tracking the ways that climate change threatens every part of the United States. Their findings informed the National Climate Assessments, a series of congressionally mandated reports released every four years that translated the science into accessible warnings...
Chicago was supposed to warn residents about toxic lead pipes last year. Most still have no idea.
Beatriz Salazar was sifting through her usual pile of mail this spring when an envelope from the city of Chicago caught her eye. Inside, she found a letter warning her — in 10 different languages — that her drinking water was delivered to her tap through a toxic lead pipe....
Texas food banks are rationing meals for flood survivors because of Trump’s cuts
Early in the morning on July 4th, as torrential rains battered Central Texas, the dangers of flash floods became imminent. In Kerr County, the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet within 45 minutes, leading to the deaths of 106 people. As the catastrophic deluge swept throughout the region, the death toll...
A heat wave hit New England’s grid. Clean energy saved the day.
As temperatures across New England soared above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in recent weeks, solar panels and batteries helped keep air conditioners running while reducing fossil-fuel generation and likely saving consumers more than $20 million. “Local solar, energy efficiency, and other clean energy resources helped make the power grid more reliable and more affordable...
‘Disasters are a human choice’: Texas counties have little power to stop building in flood-prone areas
Camp Mystic, the private summer camp that now symbolizes the deadly Central Texas floods, sat on a tract of land known to be at high risk for a devastating flood. Nearly 1.3 million Texas homes are similarly situated in parts of the state susceptible to dangerous floodwaters, according to a state estimate. A...
The oceans may contain much, much more plastic than previously thought
In the oceans, the most widespread type of plastic pollution may be the kind you can’t see. A new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature estimates that the North Atlantic Ocean alone contains 27 million metric tons of nanoplastic — plastic particles 100 times smaller than the width of...
Seeing fewer fireflies this year? Here’s why, and how you can help.
It’s firefly season in the Blue Ridge. As the sun goes down, they begin to blink and glow along the water, in the trees, and across open fields. Some species twinkle in unison, others off and on. One of nature’s loveliest light shows enchants onlookers of all ages, especially in...
Inside New Orleans’ plan to fix its energy-hogging buildings
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and Verite News, a nonprofit news organization with a mission to produce in-depth journalism in underserved communities in the New Orleans area. As thousands of architects and planners flocked to New Orleans in 2014 for the world’s largest sustainable design conference,...