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A Legal Pot Problem That’s Now Plaguing the Streets of America: Plastic Litter

“We’re going to have this entire new universe of plastic waste of the worst kind,” says one environmental activist.

By James Bruggers

Today’s Climate: Hurricane Fiona Caught Communities Off Guard. Will Ian Follow Suit?

Our twice-a-week dive into the most pressing news related to our rapidly warming world.

By Kristoffer Tigue

$Outside Pittsburgh, host city last week to the Global Clean Energy Action Forum, a hydro-fracking drilling pad in Robinson Township, Washington County, extracts natural gas from the Marcellus shale formation. During the forum, attended by science and energy ministers from over 30 countries, activists denounced fracking and said they were still awaiting results from the state on what caused an apparent cancer among children in Washington County that coincided with the fracking boom. Credit: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images.$

At a Global Conference on Clean Energy, Granholm Announces Billions in Federal Aid for Carbon Capture and Emerging Technology

Outside the meeting in Pittsburgh, environmental activists denounced the technique for capturing carbon emissions from smokestacks, calling it an expensive diversion that would promote the continued extraction of oil and gas.

By Katie Surma

Latest Stories

Western Forests, Snowpack and Wildfires Appear Trapped in a Vicious Climate Cycle

By Bob Berwyn

Exxon’s Long-Shot Embrace of Carbon Capture in the Houston Area Just Got Massive Support from Congress

By Nicholas Kusnetz

Marty Plaskett, a hay farmer in Diamond Valley, Nevada, stands near one of his irrigation pivots that’s watering his alfalfa field on Sept. 2, 2022. Credit: Kaleb Roedel

A Plan To Share the Pain of Water Scarcity Divides Farmers in This Rural Nevada Community

By Kaleb Roedel, Mountain West News Bureau

Calculating Your Vacation’s Carbon Footprint, One Travel Mode at a Time

By Katelyn Weisbrod

Projects

EPA On-Scene Coordinator Chuck Berry fixes a sign on a yard his team cleaned on English Avenue on May 12, 2022. Since 2019, the agency has been testing soil in the study area, which spans more than 600 acres, for lead. Credit: Aydali Campa

The Superfund Next Door: Toxins & Mistrust in Atlanta

Villager Caroline is seen in a withered maize crops field in Kidemu in Kilifi County, Kenya, March 23, 2022. Scattered on the five-acre farm in Bandari village, Kidemu sub-location in Kenya's coastal Kilifi County, were withered maize crops. Adam Ndamunga, an officer with Kenya National Drought Management Authority NDMA in Kilifi, said the drought situation in the region started in August 2021 and has been progressing due to inadequate rains. The United Nations relief agency said the Horn of Africa is experiencing one of its worst droughts in recent history, with more than 13 million people severely food insecure in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. Credit: Dong Jianghui/Xinhua via Getty Images

Food Shocks: Climate Change and the Coming Famines

The Fifth Crime: The Campaign to Make “Ecocide” an International Crime

Something in the Water: Regulators Say Growing Crops With Oil Wastewater Is Safe, But Evidence Is Scant

A detail of the pilot carbon dioxide capture plant is pictured at Amager Bakke waste incinerator in Copenhagen on June 24, 2021. Credit: Ida Guldbaek Arentsen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images

Pipe Dreams: Is Carbon Capture a Climate Solution or a Dangerous Distraction?

Gaslit: The Costs of Flaring and Venting Natural Gas by Fossil Fuel Companies

Noxious Neighbors: The Hidden Dangers of Heated Tanks Storing Asphalt and Other Heavy Fuels

A soy plantation in the Amazon rainforest near Santarém in the state of Pará, Brazil, on May 13, 2006. Credit: Ricardo Beliel/Brazil Photos/LightRocket via Getty Images

Sowing Risk: How Big Banks’ Investment in Agriculture Fuels the Climate Crisis.

Holger Kenda, on the far right, on his last day working in the mines, Dec. 21, 2018. It was a media event, with the ceremonial extraction of the last piece of hard coal from an underground mine in Germany. The end of subsidies for mining hard coal meant t

Power Switch: Lessons From Germany’s Energy Revolution

Hot Molecules: Low Hanging Super Greenhouse Gases

Warning signs are posted at the French Limited Superfund site. Credit: Spike Johnson

Superfund Super Threats: Toxic Sites at Climate Risk Near You

Anti-Scientists: A Contrarian Minority’s Suspect Work

California's deadliest wildfire on record swept through the down of Paradise in November. Credit: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

American Climate: The Future is Already Here

Fumes in South Portland: The Oil Storage Tanks Next Door

Dangers Without Borders: Is the Military Ready for Warming?

Harvesting Peril: Extreme Weather on the American Farm

Finding Middle Ground: Climate Conversations Across America

Choke Hold: How the Fossil Fuel Industry Guards Its Interests

Exxon: The Road Not Taken (aka #ExxonKnew)

Meltdown: Terror at the Top of the World

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Science

In California, a Race to Save the World’s Largest Trees From Megafires

Wildfires killed up to a fifth of the world’s giant sequoias in just two years, but stopping the devastation requires lighting even more fires in their groves.

By Twilight Greenaway

Toxic Metals Entered Soil From Pittsburgh Steel-Industry Emissions, Study Says

Duke Energy Is Leaking a Potent Climate-Warming Gas at More Than Five Times the Rate of Other Utilities

The Windy Fire blazes through the Long Meadow Grove of giant sequoia trees near The Trail of 100 Giants overnight in Sequoia National Forest on Sept. 21, 2021 near California Hot Springs, California. Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

Politics & Policy

Senate Votes to Ratify the Kigali Amendment, Joining 137 Nations in an Effort to Curb Global Warming

The binding agreement will reduce the use of HFCs used in refrigeration and air conditioning, which will almost immediately slow global warming and create domestic manufacturing jobs.

By Phil McKenna

Maryland Gets $144 Million in Federal Funds to Rehabilitate Aging Water Infrastructure

New Federal Anti-SLAPP Legislation Would Protect Activists and Whistleblowers From Abusive Lawsuits

A person walks among refrigerators on display at a Lowe's Home Improvement store on June 27, 2022 in Miami, Florida. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Justice

In Pakistan, 33 Million People Have Been Displaced by Climate-Intensified Floods

Some of the worst floods in history have devastated the country’s healthcare, education and agricultural infrastructure—and many are calling for reparations from energy-hungry countries in the Global North.

By Zoha Tunio

Cuando tu vecino es un pozo de petróleo

‘We’re Losing Our People’

Residents use a raft to move along a waterlogged street in a residential area after a heavy monsoon rainfall in Hyderabad City on Aug. 19, 2022. Credit: Akram Shahid/AFP via Getty Images

Fossil Fuels

Drought-Wracked California Allows Oil Companies to Use High-Quality Water. But Regulators’ Error-Strewn Records Make Accurate Accounting Nearly Impossible

California’s oil industry uses hundreds of millions of gallons of freshwater a year in a state with none to spare. Most of that water is used in Kern County, where communities have long lacked affordable, safe drinking water.

By Liza Gross, Peter Aldhous

New Documents Unveiled in Congressional Hearings Show Oil Companies Are Slow-Rolling and Overselling Climate Initiatives, Democrats Say

A New Website Aims to Penetrate the Fog of Pollution Permitting in Houston

Wastewater from oil operations is often dumped into unlined pits, a practice that has contaminated protected groundwater in Kern County and other oil-producing areas in California. Credit: Liza Gross

Clean Energy

The Pathway to 90% Clean Electricity Is Mostly Clear. The Last 10%, Not So Much

A new paper suggests six different approaches for the difficult final steps necessary to get to a 100% carbon-free grid—and each has its pros and cons.

By Dan Gearino

An EV With 600 Miles of Range Is Tantalizingly Close

Remember That Coal Surge Last Year? Yeah, It’s Over

An array of electricity producing wind turbines are viewed along Interstate 10 on May 11, 2022 near Palm Springs, California. Credit: George Rose/Getty Images

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More Stories

Today’s Climate: Big Oil ‘Exaggerates’ Jobs to Stall Climate Action, New Report Alleges

By Kristoffer Tigue

Expansion of a Lucrative Dairy Digester Market is Sowing Environmental Worries in the U.S.

By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Grace van Deelen

How a Successful EPA Effort to Reduce Climate-Warming ‘Immortal’ Chemicals Stalled

By Phil McKenna

Today’s Climate: ‘We’re Fine’: How Solar Kept the Lights On After Fiona Left Puerto Rico in the Dark

By Kristoffer Tigue

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