Inside Climate News

Welcome to Inside Climate, a podcast from the staff of Inside Climate News. This week, Alabama-based reporters Dennis Pillion and Lee Hedgepeth join co-host Kiley Price to talk about energy demand, rising residential utility bills and why customers in their state are paying so much for power. Listen and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, […]

Feeding the Beast: Second in a series about lax regulation, corporate influence and the heavily polluting, yet nearly untouchable American meat industry. Thousands of dead and bloated pigs floated down country roads, buoyed by floodwaters. Tens of millions of gallons of feces and urine spilled over the brims of lagoons and contaminated everything in their […]

Data center developers and states see small modular nuclear reactors as one of the potential solutions for America’s increasing energy demand due to their smaller sizes and ability to provide steady energy generation. But nuclear energy experts say the main challenge is the timeline for their commercial deployment. The U.S. Energy Information Administration describes small […]

Wired for Profit: Fifth in a series about Alabama Power’s influence over electric rates, renewable energy, pollution and politics in the Yellowhammer State. BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Darrell Nance knows he’s being watched. We all are.  Nance, a longtime resident of the city and founder of DeFlock Birmingham, can easily point out the cameras to you if you’re […]

Both President Donald Trump and a clean energy super PAC that backed Darline Graham, sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, are celebrating her victory over Rep. Ralph Norman in Tuesday’s South Carolina Republican Senate primary. The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition (ITC), financed by solar entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley venture capitalists, spent $1 million on […]

KERMAN, Calif.—One hundred degrees on a steamy Thursday afternoon and not much can be seen along the dust-blown avenue in Kerman. A school bus cruises by. Cows lap up water or feed behind a fence. A tractor crosses the road.  What’s most evident in this span of the San Joaquin Valley is a seemingly misplaced […]

WINDBER, Pa.—Standing on the rocky banks of Paint Creek in western Pennsylvania, Jim Panaro pointed out the colors of contamination. The orange staining the boulders is from iron, he explained, and the milky-white pools stagnating at the surface are aluminum. Likely lurking beneath the surface are other metals—copper, cadmium, arsenic—toxic to both aquatic life and […]

Residents and rescue workers in flood-ravaged valleys of Nepal faced the threat of a new wave of inundation Friday, as scientists warned that debris had blocked rivers upstream, forming fragile dams ready to burst.  In the narrow upper valleys, Wednesday’s flood wave crested over the tops of buildings and homes. It destroyed everything in its […]

The Trump administration is expediting an environmental review of the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System that would reauthorize the project for another 30 years, including the pipeline, pump stations, access roads, bridges and a fuel gas line that lie within the right-of-way. The Bureau of Land Management is also shortening the public comment period for review […]

Farmers have relied on plastic since the 1960s, when the mass production of affordable agricultural tools derived from petrochemicals made them widely accessible. Plastic mulch quickly became a cornerstone of crop production, helping farmers boost yields of everything from corn to tomatoes by stabilizing soil temperature and controlling diseases and weeds with fewer pesticides. Now […]

When the Sand Creek Fire crested Montana’s Maverick Mountain 16 days ago, Cory Birkenbuel watched as firefighters and aircraft fought to keep the flames from taking a place that had been part of his life since before he was born.  Birkenbuel likes to tell the story of his mother, Peggy, skiing at Maverick while pregnant […]

In August 2024, excavation crews breached the last of four dams on the Klamath River in far northern California, marking the first time in over a century that salmon could swim above the dam sites.  Now, new research published on Thursday shows that in the two years since dam removal, over 20,000 chinook salmon have […]

Read this article in English. Esta historia cuenta con el apoyo del Centro Pulitzer. JALAPA, Guatemala—En una tarde calurosa y bochornosa, en el pequeño pueblo montañoso de El Duraznal, Soila Elizabeth Cruz recogía basura plástica atrapada en la tierra debajo de una cerca con alambre de púas, mientras los camiones pasaban zumbando. La comunidad se […]

When ocean temperatures soar, the consequences reverberate beyond the water. In coastal communities, marine heat waves threaten livelihoods, food security and human health—particularly the well-being of children.  New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that greater exposure to marine heat waves increases the odds of children dying, suffering stunted growth […]

Researchers analyzing modern and fossil corals from the Galápagos Islands concluded that global warming has intensified El Niño cycles over the last 40 years, making them more extreme than natural variations seen during the previous millennium. Their study, published Thursday in Science, revealed sharper swings in sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean […]

Rooftop solar installers feel like a dog that’s been repeatedly kicked. President Donald Trump has made solar more expensive—or at least slowed the long-term decline in costs—by imposing tariffs on imported photovoltaic panels and other parts. Trump also signed a measure last year that phased out the main federal tax credit for rooftop solar. The […]

Environmental regulators in Texas issued an emergency order on Tuesday evening suspending requirements for the drought-stricken city of Corpus Christi to release water from its reservoir system in support of coastal wetlands. On the same day, Corpus Christi lifted restrictions on watering lawns that had been in place since 2024, when its reservoirs remained below […]

As farmers balk at skyrocketing fertilizer costs and runoff threatens drinking water sources in Iowa, North American manufacturers are raking in cash. Illinois-based CF Industries and Canadian company Nutrien dominate the domestic market for nitrogen-based fertilizers. Together, the two corporations are responsible for 55 percent of U.S. fertilizer production. In recent years, they have seen […]

CHICAGO—Extreme heat is filling up emergency rooms, and not just with heat stroke victims.  Periods of extreme heat in Chicago in recent years were linked to more emergency department visits for a range of health harms, from kidney dysfunction and multiple sclerosis symptoms to injuries from some kinds of accidents and violence, according to a […]

Growing up with dirty air harms kids’ health. But reducing pollution can help reverse the damage.  In London, an effort to combat traffic emissions led to measured improvements in kids whose lung growth was previously stunted compared to their peers outside the city. In New York City, policies that lowered prenatal exposure to air pollution […]