In December 2022, Matthew Boyer hopped on an Argentine military plane to one of the more remote habitations on Earth: Marambio Station at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the icy continent stretches toward South America. Months before that, Boyer had to ship expensive, delicate instruments that might get...
Moderate Republicans defended Biden’s climate law — then voted to repeal it
After days of intense political infighting between ultra-conservative and moderate Republicans, the House of Representatives voted along party lines on Thursday morning to approve a sweeping tax bill that seeks to eviscerate the heart of landmark climate legislation passed by Democrats just three years ago. The 2022 climate law on...
The Senate just voted to block California’s gas car ban
For nearly 60 years, California has enjoyed the ability to set its own standards governing air pollution from automobiles, as long as they’re more stringent than the federal government’s. This rule, written into the Clean Air Act, was meant to recognize the state’s longstanding leadership in regulating air emissions. The...
The US government stole the Black Hills. Now it’s clear-cutting them.
Driving into the Black Hills National Forest, as the road gains elevation, raindrops hitting the windshield slow down and start swirling in the air. It’s snowing in late April, a welcome sight in an area that’s been in a climate change-linked drought. Today, most visitors to the Black Hills will...
Who will benefit from melting glaciers?
The Tulsequah Glacier meanders down a broad valley in northwest British Columbia, 7 miles from the Alaska border. At the foot of the glacier sits a silty, gray lake, a reservoir of glacial runoff. The lake is vast, deeper than Seattle’s Space Needle is tall. But it didn’t exist a...
How the Washoe Tribe built a business to sustain a firewood bank that helps elders heat their homes
It’s a sun-splashed morning at the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California’s wood yard, a patch of land about the size of a football field, tucked in a valley about 20 miles east of Lake Tahoe’s south shore. Magpies, black-and-white birds with blue-tinted wings, land on stacks of lumber and...
A new podcast asks: Are ‘radical’ climate activists really that radical?
In October 2022, two protesters with the group Just Stop Oil shocked the world by tossing tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s iconic “Sunflowers” in London’s National Gallery. “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” said one of them,...
The EPA is rolling back drinking water limits for 4 PFAS. Thousands more remain unregulated.
Last week, environmental groups decried plans from the Environmental Protection Agency to rescind and “reconsider” drinking water limits for four per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, compounds linked to cancer and damage to the immune and endocrine systems, among other health effects. The limits had been finalized by the Biden...
Despite backlash, more states are considering laws to make Big Oil pay for climate change
As climate disasters strain state budgets, a growing number of lawmakers want fossil fuel companies to pay for damages caused by their greenhouse gas emissions. Last May, Vermont became the first state to pass a climate Superfund law. The concept is modeled after the 1980 federal Superfund law, which holds...
Solar grants held hostage in Pennsylvania legislature — as demand soars
Charles Suppon has big plans for the Tunkhannock Area School District. At any given time, the northeastern Pennsylvania district’s chief operating officer can rattle off statistics about fields in which its schools excel: arts, AP classes, and softball, as well as on-the-job training programs for future farmers, welders, and more. Goats and...