Miguel Guimaraes Vásquez fought for years to protect his homeland in the Peruvian Amazon from deforestation related to the cocaine trade, even laboring under death threats from drug traffickers. A leader in an Indigenous rights group, Vasquez said such efforts were long supported by financial assistance from the U.S. Agency...
A world built on fossil fuels is loud. Here’s how advocates are defending peace and quiet.
Having grown up in the Southeast, I’ve always loved a good summer thunderstorm. Sure, thunder can be loud and sometimes scary, but I associate storms with a feeling of coziness. We would seek shelter in the safety of our home, me and my brother hoping the power would go out...
The smoke from Canada’s wildfires may be even more toxic than usual
More than 200 wildfires are blazing across central and western Canada, half of which are out of control because they’re so hard for crews to access, forcing 27,000 people to evacuate. Even those nowhere near the wildfires are suffering as smoke swirls around Canada and wafts south, creating hazardous air...
Uber’s new shuttles look suspiciously familiar to anyone who’s taken a bus
Every few years, a Silicon Valley gig-economy company announces a “disruptive” innovation that looks a whole lot like a bus. Uber rolled out Smart Routes a decade ago, followed a short time later by the Lyft Shuttle of its biggest competitor. Even Elon Musk gave it a try in 2018...
The Supreme Court just blew up a major environmental law
The U.S. Supreme Court last week ruled in favor of a controversial Utah railway project that critics say erodes the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, a bedrock of environmental law for the past half century. The case centered on a proposed 88-mile railway that would connect the oil fields of northeastern...
Trump officials open up millions of acres in Alaska to drilling and mining
Millions of acres of Alaska wilderness will lose federal protections and be exposed to drilling and mining in the Trump administration’s latest move to prioritize energy production over the shielding of the U.S.’s open spaces. Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, said on Monday that the government would reverse an order issued...
Indigenous land defenders face rising threats amid global push for critical minerals
Miguel Guimaraes, a Shipibo-Konibo leader, has spent his life protesting palm oil plantations and other agribusiness ventures exploiting the Amazon rainforest in his homeland of Peru. Last spring, as he attended a United Nations conference on protecting human rights defenders in Chile, masked men broke into his home, stole his...
Trump cuts hundreds of EPA grants, leaving cities on the hook for climate resiliency
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and WABE, Atlanta’s NPR station. Thomasville, Georgia, has a water problem. Its treatment system is far out of date, posing serious health and environmental risks. “We have wastewater infrastructure that is old,” said Sheryl Sealy, the assistant city manager for...
As Trump comes after research, Forest Service scientists keep working
The research and development team at the U.S. Forest Service employs about 1,500 people full-time, a small but mighty faction inside an agency that, until recently, was 35,000 strong. The research it conducts spans everything from managing visitors at recreation hotspots to understanding the pulse of life and land on the 193 million...
Hawaiʻi makes history as first state to charge tourists to save environment
Hawaiʻi has officially become the first U.S. state to enact a so-called “green fee” — a charge added onto hotel room stays and other short-term visits to help protect the local environment and address the growing impacts of climate change. Governor Josh Green signed the fee into law Tuesday after...