Native Americans are increasingly responsible for emergency management systems when a natural disaster hits a tribal community. Tribes can issue emergency declarations requests to open up help from regional and federal partners, typically 24 hours after the event. When help is authorized to arrive, emergency management systems tend to move...
The guerrilla campaign to save a Texas prairie from ‘silent extinction’
One sunny sunny morning in May, four high school students stood on a flower-dappled prairie in southern Dallas holding shovels. Before them swayed a Texas blazing star, a tall and spindly stalk that erupts in a bottlebrush of purple florets. Max Yan, a senior, made two putts on either side...
How the world’s highest court bolstered the fight for climate reparations
As global inaction over the climate crisis has mounted and Pacific islands nations have watched in frustration as their calls for decisive action have gone unheeded, a growing number of them, led by Vanuatu, have turned to the courts. If policymakers won’t act, they hoped, perhaps the courts would. And...
This Indian rapper is spitting bars about climate justice, caste, and Indigenous rights
In her latest rap song, Madhura Ghane, known by her stage name Mahi G, walks on a barren, drought-stricken hill where a large, leafless tree has fallen to the ground. In the following frames, with the background music slowly rising, the video shows close-ups of Indian laborers — men, women,...
Why your energy bill is suddenly so much more expensive
Americans are paying more for electricity, and those prices are set to rise even further. In almost all parts of the country, the amount people pay for electricity on their power bills — the retail price — has risen faster than the rate of inflation since 2022, and that will...
Georgia sterilization plants using toxic gas among those exempt from new rules
President Donald Trump is temporarily exempting medical sterilization facilities that use the colorless gas ethylene oxide from tighter emissions standards, including plants in Georgia that have generated health concerns for residents living nearby. Last year, then President Joe Biden’s administration finalized new emissions limits for plants that use ethylene oxide,...
How musicians and concert venues are upping the tempo on climate action
It’s less than an hour before the Dave Matthews Band takes the stage on a sunny Thursday evening on the coast of Long Island — but the biggest crowds at the Northwell at Jones Beach Theater aren’t at the tequila bar. They’re in the “eco-village” operated by Reverb, a nonprofit...
Seaweed brought fishers, farmers, and scientists together. Trump tore them apart.
The motley crew of scientists, conservationists, and agricultural producers set out to begin in earnest. Spring was well underway in Hood Canal, Washington, when the team assembled on the shores of Baywater Shellfish Farm, armed with buckets. Before them, floating mats of seaweed were strewn about, bright green clumps suffocating...
The national fight for public power comes to Oakland
Zoe Jonick didn’t think she was asking for much when she went before the Oakland City Council with what she considered a simple request: Urge the California state Senate to vote yes on a bill requiring the state to study the feasibility of ditching Pacific Gas & Electric and embracing...
Will new Interior Department rules shackle wind and solar? Insiders are divided.
The massive budget bill that President Trump signed into law earlier this month took aim at a robust system of tax credits that have aided the explosion of U.S. wind and solar energy in recent years. While the move was primarily intended to help enable the law’s extension of tax...