Climate, clean energy, and the technology and policy reshaping the planet's future.

PUYO, Ecuador—People fighting oil wells, mines and other threats to their homelands did not come to this Amazonian city to lobby politicians at an environmental conference hosted by governments. They built the conference themselves.  The 12th Pan-Amazonian Social Forum, known as

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 Va

Tech billionaires say they want to make life better on Earth. Here's what they're not talking about.

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 Fl

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

A collaborative project about Chicago’s handling of its massive number of lead water pipes—a public health hazard—has won a reporting award from the National Association of Black Journalists. The “Salute to Excellence” award is the latest in a list of honors for “Lead City,” a se

STONE HARBOR, N.J.—Against a lush carpet of marsh grasses, the five-and-a-half acre island of muddy sediment, shallow pools and tufts of straggly vegetation stood out like a sore thumb.  It wasn’t enough to catch the eye of young visitors to The Wetlands Institute, who were far m

Sales of used EV sales continued their surge in July, according to the latest data.

For thousands of years, Mexican howler monkeys have inhabited the lush rainforest canopy of what is now Los Tuxtlas—a 155,000-acre UNESCO biosphere reserve in the eastern state of Veracruz, 325 miles southeast of Mexico City. Every morning at around 4:30 a.m., these dark-haired p

Reservoirs have rebounded, but the fight over water isn’t over in Corpus Christi. The City Council has ordered a public referendum on a citizen-led petition that would sharply increase the price of water for industrial facilities during drought.  The proposal is expected to face

With Virginia’s Aug. 4 primaries in the rearview mirror, the ballot is set in one of the nation’s most competitive congressional districts.  In the state’s second congressional district, Republican incumbent Jen Kiggans will fight to hold her seat against former U.S. Rep. Elaine

As Riverview LLP aggressively expands its mega-dairies across the Upper Midwest, advocacy groups and worried residents are mounting legal challenges and orchestrating local efforts to push back. The Minnesota-based dairy giant, the second-largest producer of milk and milk product

Tech billionaires say they want to make life better on Earth. Here's what they're not talking about.

A federal judge has struck down New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, ruling that it “conflicts with” federal authority.   The legislation would have required fossil fuel companies to help cover the costs of adapting to climate change, but it operates in an area of the law “in

An intense downpour at Grand Canyon National Park transformed hiking trails and shallow creeks into deadly rapids over the weekend, killing at least two people. Following scattered showers Saturday morning, around an inch of rain pummeled parts of the storied Arizona park in just

About a month ago, two wildfires ignited a day apart in southwest Montana. The Bobcat Lakes Fire started July 31 near Wise River, followed by the Sand Creek Fire on Aug. 1 near Wisdom.  Now, crews working to contain them are intentionally setting fire to vegetation in areas where

PUYO, Ecuador—People fighting oil wells, mines and other threats to their homelands did not come to this Amazonian city to lobby politicians at an environmental conference hosted by governments. They built the conference themselves.  The 12th Pan-Amazonian Social Forum, known as

By its own account, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is doing a fantastic job. In a March report on its performance in the last fiscal year, the agency boasted that it had concluded 2,127 civil enforcement cases, “the highest in nine years.” That number wasn’t wrong, but

Maryland’s ratepayer protection agency is fighting on two fronts simultaneously to shield households from paying hundreds of millions more in costs related to projected power demand—much of it linked to data centers that may never get built.  In recent weeks, the Office of People

The plastics industry is offering schools curricula that cast plastics as safe, recyclable, and a source of good jobs. Critics say it’s propaganda.

Most people decide if it’s safe to eat an old tub of yogurt in the fridge or canned tuna in the back of the cupboard by checking its sell-by date. But no label indicates that pesticides, phthalates, PFAS or other hazardous chemicals could be seeping from those containers into you

Over the weekend, Iceland voted against resuming talks to join the European Union. At the heart of the referendum question: fish. More than a decade since talks previously collapsed, Euroskeptics won 52.8 percent of the vote, according to the National Electoral Commission.  Just

PHILADELPHIA—A simmering debate over the future of Philadelphia’s Bellwether District has been reenergized by a Planning Commission presentation last month that identified the industrial zone as one of only two sites in the city capable of hosting a large data center. Neither the

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 mu