When Native Hawaiian combat veteran Joseph Guzman-Simpliciano got back home to Hawaiʻi from Afghanistan and Iraq, he was shocked at how the burnt-out, abandoned cars lying by the side of the road on the west side of Oʻahu reminded him of the war zone he had just left. Joseph and...
100 days in, does Trump still ‘dig’ coal?
Jeffrey Willig doesn’t mine coal anymore. For nine years he worked underground, most recently for a company called Blackjewel, which laid off around 1,700 workers in June of 2019 without paying them. Robbed of their final paycheck, Willig and the others set up camp and blocked the company’s last trainload...
How California’s farmers can recharge the aquifers they’ve drained
In parts of California’s Central Valley, so much groundwater has been pumped out of the ground to deal with the region’s persistent drought that the land is starting to sink in. Underground aquifers — layers of sand, gravel, clay, and water — are vital resources that communities can turn to...
30 years of environmental justice, dismantled in 100 days
Tucked inside the Altgeld Gardens public housing project on Chicago’s far South Side, there’s a yellow brick wall filled with hundreds of names. It stands as a memorial to the friends and family members in this community who died, often due to disease or other health complications. The Gardens, as...
‘Build, baby, build:’ Canada’s new prime minister wants to make the country into an ‘energy superpower’
Canada’s newly elected prime minister wants to turn the country into an “energy superpower,” while promising to respect Indigenous rights, prompting both cautious optimism and skepticism from Indigenous leaders and advocates in Canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney won Canada’s election this week in what many observers are calling an embrace...
Who will finance global climate solutions? Not the West.
International climate action has long rested on the consequential distinction between the Global North and the Global South. Wealthier, earlier-to-industrialize nations contributed the most to a warming planet while developing countries bear the brunt of the climate crisis. As a result, developed countries have been called on to help developing...
Project 2025 was extreme. Trump’s first 100 days have been even more radical.
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” President Donald Trump said in a social media post last summer, four months before he defeated former vice president Kamala Harris and made a triumphant return to power. He was referring to a 900-page document written by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that...
Farmers are making bank harvesting a new crop: Solar energy
Around the world, farmers are retooling their land to harvest the hottest new commodity: sunlight. As the price of renewable energy technology has plummeted and water has gotten more scarce, growers are fallowing acreage and installing solar panels. Some are even growing crops beneath them, which is great for plants...
Trump is bypassing community input to fast-track energy projects that risk pollution
This story is part of a Grist package examining how President Trump’s first 100 days in office have reshaped climate and environmental policy in the U.S., and is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan. When President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency...
The New Jersey fire signals a new era for the Northeast
The Jones Road Wildfire, which started last Tuesday in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, is on track to become the worst in state history. Fueled by gusty winds, low humidity, and dry undergrowth — conditions increasingly common in the region — the blaze has scorched more than 23 square...