Inside Climate News

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 […]

NEW YORK—When nearly 10,000 people in Southeast Queens lost power during a July heatwave, Mayor Zohran Mamdani called on residents to keep their air conditioners at 78 degrees to reduce the pressure on the grid. The New York Independent System Operator, which manages the state’s electricity grid, issued an energy watch the same month, but […]

TAMPA, Fla.—Ross Fabian’s low-slung apartment building sits beside a pond that sometimes smells of dead fish. He has seen dead dogs in the pond. For many years the pond has served an important purpose, as a repository of sorts for the pollutants and contaminants that flow with Florida’s heavy rains from the industrial sites, brownfields […]

ELMORE, Ala.—Tiffany Montellano can’t sleep.  Instead, she lies awake, worried about her husband Andrew, 31, who is incarcerated at Elmore Correctional Facility just north of Montgomery, Alabama’s state capital.  She worries because a few days ago, she received a call during her lunch break from Andrew, who had missed their usual call the night before.  […]

One of the world’s most-used shortcuts is at risk as a severe drought plagues Central America.  Starting in early September, the Panama Canal will reduce the number of ships allowed to pass through each day due to low water levels in the artificial lakes that feed the lock system. Experts say the reason for the […]

Some of the largest fossil fuel companies on Earth are disproportionately responsible for the water crisis in the American West, according to a first-of-its-kind study published Tuesday. From 2014 to 2024, climate change sapped over a third of the region’s typical annual snowpack and decreased streamflows by about 13 percent, the authors found in the […]

The 12 largest gas power projects planned in Texas are all specifically intended to run data centers, according to data released Tuesday by Global Energy Monitor, a global nonprofit that maps and tracks energy infrastructure.  The volume of gas power generation planned in Texas has continued to surge, growing by 50 percent in the last […]

Pennsylvania was a pioneer on renewable energy before the fracking boom upended that trajectory, and environmental advocates think it’s past time for state leaders to once again prioritize clean forms of power. The nonprofit PennFuture outlined ways for Pennsylvania to do so in a new report, accusing the state’s legislature of “policy inertia” for failing […]

Three days was all it took for the Trump administration’s Colorado River plan to see a legal challenge from, somewhat ironically, Nevada.  Of the seven states that rely on the river, Nevada gets the smallest amount by law. Nevada water managers said the long-term impacts from the proposed cuts could be devastating—with Las Vegas bearing […]

The first group of large data centers in line to get connected to Texas’ grid won’t move forward until mid-December, grid officials say.  Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) staff needs to vet the first 300 projects, 90 percent of which are data centers, in “Batch Zero,” and put together a community impact review as […]

A monumental figure in Pennsylvania’s environmental movement passed away last week. Former state legislator Franklin Kury, who was 89, led Pennsylvania to become one of the first governments in the world to adopt a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a healthy environment as a basic right. “He is a true icon, and a historic leader,” said Delaware […]

For companies looking to export natural gas, the last few years have brought both feast and famine. The growth has been so fast that some efforts have struggled to secure financial backing. There are simply more proposed projects than there is demand to buy their gas. The Trump administration has been working to tilt the […]

Wildfires in New England rarely make national news. The spotlight is more often on the catastrophic fires of Western states, but the Northeast’s fire season has been quietly heating up. In 2025, severe drought quadrupled Maine’s late-summer fire activity. In 2024, another drought quintupled Connecticut’s fall wildfires, and one firefighter died while controlling a blaze. […]

Local and state governments across the United States have turned to state courts over the past nine years, filing lawsuits reminiscent of those against the tobacco industry in the 1990s against major fossil fuel companies, aiming to hold them accountable for climate change damages and alleged deception.  The cases are still in preliminary stages and […]

In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, policy makers, scientists and global negotiators are gathering to convey an urgent message: The world’s rangelands, which make up about half of Earth’s land surface, are in trouble. But these same lands offer an opportunity. If, collectively, farmers and land users restore rangelands and soils, they can combat drought and preserve a […]

Zach Lentsch was leading a climbing trip on Devils Tower in Wyoming’s northeast corner on Aug. 18 when he got a text from a friend saying voter turnout in the state primary, held that day, was strong. The chairman of Protect Wyoming, the first and only political action committee in the Cowboy State focused on […]

In a matter of days, a dirt pit the size of five football fields appeared next to the weathered headstones of Center Cemetery in Castana, Iowa. The excavation site sits on the edge of the Loess Hills, a 200-mile corridor of craggy bluffs and ridges bordering the Missouri River valley in western Iowa. The hills, […]

The three elected officials who regulate the oil and gas industry in Texas hold an open meeting each month in Austin to vote on matters from pipeline violations to permit renewals. Members of the public can register to speak for up to three minutes at the end of each meeting. People often travel hundreds of […]

One of the nation’s largest environmental groups is challenging the Trump administration’s closure of a leading climate institute, filing a lawsuit Thursday in federal court saying the closure is unlawful. The administration had announced in December that it would dismantle the Colorado-based National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR, which conducts advanced climate and weather […]