Inside Climate News

Electric Vehicles Strain the Automaker-Big Oil Alliance

By Marianne Lavelle — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 09:05:00 +0000

In the clean car battle, the oil industry leans on friends—including Donald Trump—to keep gasoline transport alive, while carmakers steer toward an EV future.

By Marianne Lavelle

Politically Charged: Fourth is a series about how political polarization threatens the EV future.

North Carolina’s Iconic College Town Struggles to Redevelop a Toxic Coal Ash Mound

By Lisa Sorg — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Chapel Hill officials envision an office park, perhaps, with trails. But some community members and lawyers say a few feet of clean fill can’t protect against chemicals linked to serious illnesses.

By Lisa Sorg

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—No dog parks. No golf. No soccer or football.

In Idaho, Water Shortages Pit Farmers Against One Another

By Daniel Rothberg — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 09:15:00 +0000

This summer, a short-lived curtailment order brought a dispute to a head between farmers irrigating from the Snake River and those dependent on groundwater. Without a long-term plan to share water, the cuts could come back next year.

By Daniel Rothberg

TWIN FALLS, Idaho—Along the banks of the Snake River, below the Magic Valley’s fields of barley, wheat and corn, groundwater from a massive aquifer springs from steep, dark rock and crashes down the cliff to the river.

In New Mexico, a Walk Commemorates the Nuclear Disaster Few Outside the Navajo Nation Remember

By Noel Lyn Smith — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 09:10:00 +0000

The Church Rock spill released more radioactive material than the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island four months earlier. Last week’s walk highlights the continuing cleanup and the ongoing hazards uranium mining poses to tribal lands.

By Noel Lyn Smith

RED WATER POND ROAD, New Mexico—As Tony Hood walked along New Mexico Highway 566 last Saturday, he thought about where he was 45 years earlier, when an earthen dam broke at the site of a uranium mill operated by the United Nuclear Corp., releasing 94 million gallons of radioactive water and 1,100 tons of uranium waste across portions of New Mexico, Arizona and the Navajo Nation.

The Barely Recognizable J.D. Vance as Trump’s Vice Presidential Running Mate

Interview by Steve Curwood, Living on Earth — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 09:05:00 +0000

Inside Climate News staff writer Dan Gearino, who lives in Columbus, Ohio, wonders what happened to the “Hillbilly Elegy” author and “public intellectual” who once touted “a climate problem in our society.”

Interview by Steve Curwood, Living on Earth

From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with Dan Gearino, a staff writer at Inside Climate News based in Columbus, Ohio.

Louisiana’s ‘Business-Friendly’ Climate Response: Canceled Home Insurance Plans

By Terry L. Jones, Floodlight — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Under a new state law, residents will no longer be protected from homeowners’ policy cancellations, higher deductibles or big rate increases.

By Terry L. Jones, Floodlight

This story was originally published by Floodlight, a nonprofit investigative newsroom focused on climate accountability.

As States Recover from Climate-Related Disasters, They Also Must Prepare for Future Ones

By Kiley Price — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 20:20:01 +0000

New policies for flooding and wildfires could help people prepare for future damages.

By Kiley Price

This summer has brought a revolving door of climate-fueled disasters across the U.S.—from Hurricane Beryl in Houston to the wildfires tearing through California.

Plastics Pollution Has Become a ‘Crisis,’ Biden Administration Acknowledges

By Marianne Lavelle — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 18:37:58 +0000

The White House strategy aims to cut pollutants, not cap production, and use government purchasing power to discourage single-use plastic.

By Marianne Lavelle

Single-use plastic would be phased out of all U.S. government operations by 2035 under a new federal plastics pollution strategy unveiled Friday by President Joe Biden’s administration, which cited a “crisis” of littered oceans and poisoned air due to plastics.

When a Retired Scientist Suggested Virginia Weaken Wetlands Protections, the State Said, No Way

By Sarah Vogelsong — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 09:05:00 +0000

After the Supreme Court weakened federal protection of wetlands last year, a Trump transition team member from Fairfax County urged the state to follow suit. But Virginia’s top environmental regulator stood his ground.

By Sarah Vogelsong

A little over a year after the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the range of wetlands the federal government can protect, a Virginia board turned down a petition that would have similarly limited local officials from regulating certain wetlands within the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Funds to Help Low-Income Families With Summer Electric Bills Are Stretched Thin

By Martha Pskowski, Jenaye Johnson — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 09:00:00 +0000

A federal program helps people in poverty cover the costs of heat and cooling. But advocates say it disadvantages states like Texas and Arizona, even though extreme heat is a key cause of weather-related deaths.

By Martha Pskowski, Jenaye Johnson

In San Elizario, Texas, tucked between cotton fields and the U.S.-Mexico border fence, nearly 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.