Environmental justice efforts at the 10 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional offices have stopped and employees have been placed on administrative leave, per an announcement from EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin last month. Former EPA employees involved with environmental justice work across the country say rural communities will suffer as a result. Before...
The deep-sea mining industry got tired of waiting for international approval. Enter Trump.
When Solomon Kahoʻohalahala arrived in Jamaica in mid-March to attend a meeting of the International Seabed Authority, he felt the weight of the moment on his shoulders. The United Nations agency is in the midst of crafting regulations to govern a new industry for deep-sea mining that involves scraping mineral...
Did climate change supercharge the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ storm pummeling the central US?
A major storm took hold across swaths of the central and southern United States on Wednesday unleashing extreme flooding and huge tornadoes from Arkansas up to Michigan. And conditions are expected to worsen on Friday as soils become saturated and water piles up: The National Weather Service is warning of...
The USDA is unfreezing clean energy money — but ‘inviting’ grant recipients to remove DEI and climate language
Jim Lively wants to install rooftop solar panels on his family’s local food market, just minutes from the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northern Michigan. Those panels could help power the RV campground they want to open next to the market and offset other electricity bills. But even though...
FEMA moves to end one of its biggest disaster adaptation programs
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is known for responding to extreme weather like hurricanes and wildfires — the kinds of disasters that are becoming more intense and common as climate change gets worse. But the agency also has a program that sends billions of dollars to communities, municipalities,...
A deadly mosquito-borne illness rises as the US cuts all climate-health funding
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, issued an urgent alert about dengue fever, a painful and sometimes deadly mosquito-borne illness common in tropical and subtropical parts of the world. Some 3,500 travelers from the United States contracted dengue abroad in 2024, according to the CDC,...
The quest to fix the irony at the heart of every heat pump
Heat pumps are essential for ditching fossil fuels. The appliances are many times more efficient than even the best gas furnaces, and they run on electricity, so they can draw power from renewables like wind and solar. But the very thing that makes them such an amazing climate solution is...
A federal judge just hit the brakes on Trump’s plan to fast track industrial fish farming in the Gulf
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. President Donald Trump’s first-term push to open the Gulf of Mexico and other federal waters to fish farming...
How the Trump administration is targeting green transportation in blue states
Major crime is down 29 percent compared to last year on New York City’s subways and buses — a seemingly positive trend. But that’s not how the U.S. Department of Transportation sees it. The Department of Transportation, or DOT, sent a letter to New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority on March...
Companies used to tout their climate plans. Under Trump, they’ve gone quiet.
Just a few years ago, pledges to tackle climate change were a staple of corporate PR. Amazon trumpeted its climate pledge and stamped it on the name of Seattle’s biggest arena. Walmart promised to slash a gigaton of carbon emissions from its supply chain, and the world’s largest money manager,...