Inside Climate News

Coral-fringed tropical atolls are among the landforms most threatened by global warming, but many have a potential superpower: Healthy ecosystems may help them keep pace with rising seas. Atoll islands with native vegetation and thriving seabird populations are “naturally active systems that can change and adapt to their environmental conditions if they are allowed to […]

More than 1 billion people per year were exposed to heat waves and fire pollution at the same time from 2010-2019, a sharp jump from the decade before it, according to a new study that highlights the growing public health crisis caused by global warming.  The research, published in Science Advances on Wednesday, is the […]

A new study in the journal Seismica presents the first comprehensive seismic analysis of what happened during the disastrous flood in Nepal on Aug. 26. But exactly what triggered the mountainside to give way remains unclear.  A massive section of a Himalayan mountainside collapsed near the Nepal-China border, sending millions of cubic meters of rock […]

This story is part of an investigation conducted by an international team of journalists based at The Outlaw Ocean Project. Read the other stories here. In January 1966, a South African ship caught fire at sea. In port in Bristol, England, after firefighters pried open the smoking container, the conflagration spread and burned for five […]

Wyoming has shelved a state-funded project to measure water use in the Green River and Little Snake River basins after it could not get enough data to create a basin-wide estimate of water lost during irrigation. At a meeting in the Cowboy State capitol of Cheyenne last month, members of the Wyoming Water Development Commission […]

COLUMBUS, Ohio—A four-hour legislative committee hearing in June, punctuated by applause and anger, offered a window into the growing backlash against data centers. The prospect of unchecked development has galvanized a cross-section of Ohioans, urban and rural, Democrat and Republican, alarmed about the spread of the giant computing facilities. Residents are demanding that local governments […]

Three years ago, hydrogen seemed poised for a long-awaited breakthrough. The Biden administration announced $7 billion in federal funding for seven hubs to produce the fuel across the country, and Pennsylvania was set to be a major player in the emerging industry.  Hydrogen has long been heralded as a potential skeleton key to emission reductions: […]

Welcome to Inside Climate, a podcast from the staff of Inside Climate News. Things get a little fishy in this episode as we discuss fish farming—aquaculture, an industry that now brings in $300 billion a year. Inside Climate News partnered with the Outlaw Ocean Project, a journalism nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., to investigate aquaculture’s […]

This story is a partnership between Dylan Baddour of Inside Climate News and Neena Satija of The Texas Newsroom. Eight years ago, at the height of the shale-oil boom, a committee of industry giants and public officials unveiled a bold plan to make Corpus Christi “drought proof.” With this plan, a consultant explained to city […]

This story is part of an investigation conducted by an international team of journalists based at The Outlaw Ocean Project. Read the other stories here. Inside a sprawling warehouse in northern France, millions of brown, inch-long mealworm larvae writhed in purple trays stacked 60 feet high. Grown by a company called Ynsect, these larvae were […]

This story is part of an investigation conducted by an international team of journalists based at The Outlaw Ocean Project. Read the other stories here. For two thousand years, the Ambracian Gulf in western Greece provided life to its Mediterranean neighbors. Today, it’s an industrial graveyard.  Trace the Gulf’s northern coast, and you’ll uncover beaches […]

This investigation was reported in a collaboration between Inside Climate News and Columbia Journalism Investigations. CALIPATRIA, Calif.—On a border-town road surrounded by alfalfa and grain fields, William Cooper stopped before a dusty, vacant lot. Its owner, he said, is one of many investors drawn to the arid Imperial Valley by a critical mineral propelling the […]

Queen conch larvae drift for two to three weeks before settling into seagrass, where their first food grows on the thin green blades. This is where they spend most of their first year, buried in the sand.  In the Exumas region of the Bahamas, just south of East Sampson Cay, Shedd Aquarium researchers recorded the […]

This story is part of an investigation conducted by an international team of journalists based at The Outlaw Ocean Project. Read the other stories here. In May, the Hellenic Aquaculture Producers Organization gathered in Athens to promote the industry as the future of sustainable food security. Flanked by industry titans, the European commissioner for fisheries […]

WHITTED, Fla.—When Ann Jones runs her kitchen faucet, the water flows clear only some of the time. Sometimes the water is brown. Fill a pitcher, and the water is the color of iced tea. Jones, 81, is a gentle woman who has lived most of her life in this unincorporated historically Black community of 52 […]

From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with veteran Maine journalist Kevin Miller. The closely watched race for U.S. Senate in Maine is pitting two environmentally concerned candidates against each other. Not only do they both have fairly similar green and climate views, they […]

MARTINEZ, Calif.—Scores of people tired of living near accident-prone refineries packed an elementary school auditorium to hear what their government officials were doing to protect them. Two local refineries, Marathon Martinez Renewables and Martinez Refining Co., have racked up hundreds of air quality violations over the past five years. MRC agreed in February to pay […]

Oil companies will no longer be required to conduct environmental reviews before exploring for fossil fuel reservoirs in the Western Arctic, the largest tract of federally managed public land in the United States. The Bureau of Land Management announced a categorical exclusion under the National Environmental Policy Act for winter oil and gas exploration in […]

A crude oil pipeline spill last month in the Detroit suburbs has prompted federal authorities to open an investigation into the safety of all 20,000 miles of hazardous liquids pipelines operated by Energy Transfer. The 600-gallon spill at a commercial intersection in Sterling Heights, Michigan, has received little media coverage. Local news reports at the […]

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued an unusual warning this week to the country’s largest asset managers and a climate-focused investor group over their roles in a 2021 campaign that replaced board directors at ExxonMobil. The commission published a letter saying it had concluded a probe into the entities, and while it found no […]