Inside Climate News

This article was originally published by The Assembly. It is republished with permission. It’s an hour before Big Ivy’s food bank officially opens, but over a dozen families have congregated around the picnic tables outside the metal building. Children dart back and forth among the trees playing tag. Cars idle in the parking lot as […]

The rapid decline of Antarctic sea ice since 2016 has triggered a dramatic shift in a crucial part of Earth’s climate system, scientists say.  In a paper published Wednesday, researchers documented a sharp salinity increase in a vast layer of the Southern Ocean, extending from 2,300 to 4,000 feet deep and encircling Antarctica. The shift […]

Plans are advancing on the Gulf Coast of Texas for an enormous seawater desalination plant which, if built, would be part of one of the largest water infrastructure developments in the country.  Unlike other projects, this one wouldn’t belong to the public, but to a private, foreign water supplier.  IDE Technologies, an Israeli water treatment […]

In the final stretch of their midterm drive to gain control of Congress, Democratic candidates are talking mostly about the pain of high energy costs, not the risks of climate change. But advocates of climate action view the Nov. 3 elections as a crucial moment for the movement. U.S. voters will decide whether to upend […]

Over the course of two weeks in October, Maine’s incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins and her Democrat challenger, former state Senate President Troy Jackson, met for four debates. Each debate focused heavily on energy affordability, and each exchange followed roughly the same script: When Jackson brought up the high costs of heating a home with […]

A decade after world leaders signed the legally binding Paris Agreement to combat climate change, the crisis’ health harms are getting worse and progress is lagging, according to a new report from leading international scientists. The 10th annual Lancet Countdown report, published Tuesday, is authored by 146 researchers from more than 30 countries, led by […]

The right governor can put a state on a dramatically different energy and environmental path—and next week’s election could set the stage for major policy shifts across the country.   Democrats are favored to retain governorships in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, according to Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia. The party is also […]

When asked to choose, Florida’s likely voters have picked protecting the environment over economic growth by more than 2 to 1, a margin that surprised even the pollster who asked the question.  In a University of North Florida poll released last week, 61 percent of respondents said state and local officials should prioritize the environment […]

NY-17: Fourth in a series on the environmental stakes behind one of the nation’s most fiercely contested congressional races. After the Democratic primary election in New York’s hotly contested 17th Congressional District this June, William Knox, a veteran and self-described “anti-MAGA Republican,” said he was impressed by the winning candidate, a combat veteran who deployed […]

Florida’s gubernatorial race features two candidates with very different views on the environment and climate: One largely supports maintaining the status quo in state policy while the other advocates for renewing a climate change and clean energy strategy in the state. Both candidates spent time in the House of Representatives before running for the Sunshine […]

Environmentalists worldwide are celebrating the re-election of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as a win for the Amazon’s future and global climate policy.  The three-term incumbent narrowly defeated right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who climate activists warned would have stripped away environmental policies and institutions protecting the world’s largest rainforest if elected.   The victory […]

Welcome to Inside Climate, a podcast from the staff of Inside Climate News. This year’s midterm elections are quickly approaching and control of Congress and state houses across the nation is up for grabs. Environmental issues could play a role in the outcome—they could bring more voters to the polls or change voting patterns in […]

Intense rainfall delayed Iowa’s harvest by nearly three weeks this year, but the combines are finally out in full force. So are top Trump administration officials. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin and Vice President J.D. Vance have all traveled to Iowa in the last month, either in their […]

Commodity crops are continuing to eat up the vast, near-mythical sweep of North American grasslands, with nearly 2 million acres being plowed under every year, mostly for corn, soybeans and wheat, according to new research. A survey, published this month by researchers at the World Wildlife Fund, analyzes for the first time the breadth of […]

Feeding the Beast: Third in a series about lax regulation, corporate influence and the heavily polluting, yet nearly untouchable American meat industry. ESTHERVILLE, Iowa—By the time rainwater rolled down the hillside and reached the stream near the edge of Gordon Garrison’s property, it had turned a foul, murky red.  Gravity had acted predictably, Garrison knew. […]

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Tzeporah Berman, the founder of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. As the United Nations gears up for the COP31 climate session in mid-November, nearly three decades after the Kyoto Protocol, there’s a newer set of international […]

A few days before Christmas in 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency received a complaint through its National Response Center: “There has been a horrible smell in the air for almost a week,” the caller said, according to state records. “It’s so bad it’s making people throw up.” The caller thought the odor was emanating […]

Climate pollutant concentrations in the Beijing region of northern China have plateaued or begun to decline—except for the world’s most potent greenhouse gas, new research concludes. The findings, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, suggest a decades-long effort to clean Beijing’s air is beginning to pay off. But while it cites progress, the […]

CALERA, Ala.—Fenn Church knew what he had to do.  “I’m going to stand in front of that gate and say, ‘This is my home, and I’m not letting you drive through that gate,’” Church said on Thursday morning. “And then if they want to arrest me, they can handcuff me and take me to jail […]

Boeing has almost completed the demolition of five buildings at its infamous Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Southern California, even as concerns mount among nearby families about potential health harms. The buildings at the former Rocketdyne facility—where one of the worst nuclear meltdowns in U.S. history took place in 1959—were once used for Cold War-era […]