On July 6, lightning sparked a fast-spreading wildfire in southern Oregon that’s now the largest in the country and the state’s third-largest on record. The Bootleg Fire, only recently getting contained after a period of cooler weather, has led more than 2,400 people to evacuate, destroyed at least 161 homes, and sent toxic smoke traveling […]
Tag: Politics
A Florida city wanted to move away from fossil fuels. The state just made sure it couldn’t.
This reporting by Grist and ADAPT is a collaboration in partnership with Floodlight. In January, Tampa was set to become the 12th city in Florida to set a climate goal to transition to 100 percent clean energy. But that was before the natural gas industry and Republican state lawmakers got involved. Tampa City Councilman Joseph […]
The Chamber of Commerce says it cares about people of color. The receipts say otherwise.
In an attempt to respond to a volcanic eruption of discourse around systemic racism and police brutality, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce masqueraded in a modern version of blackface. Roughly a month after the murder of George Floyd last year, the nation’s leading business lobby held a national town hall on inequality with marquee names […]
The next test for environmental justice policy? Defining ‘disadvantaged communities.’
One of President Joe Biden’s first executive orders promised that “disadvantaged communities” would receive at least 40 percent of the overall benefits of government spending on infrastructure, clean energy, and other climate-related programs. It’s a historic commitment to reducing pollution and bringing new investment to the areas most in need. But who the “Justice40” program […]
What Tesla has to do with the Solyndra loan scandal
A little over a decade ago, Solyndra was the hottest thing in solar power. Solyndra was so exciting that then-President Barack Obama, who was trying to create green jobs while pulling the country out of the financial crisis, decided to give the company a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. Within two […]
Not dead yet: How Senate Democrats aim to pass climate policy without Republicans
President Joe Biden came into office brandishing an ambitious agenda. Then he ran headfirst into the impenetrable political wall that is the U.S. Senate. Biden’s $2 trillion climate and infrastructure plan, the crown jewel of his first-term agenda, endured months of negotiations before a bipartisan group of centrist senators whittled it into a version that […]
A $100 billion promise holds the Paris Agreement together. Now, it’s coming apart.
For decades, rich and poor countries were trapped in a stalemate over how to deal with the carbon-dioxide coated, rapidly overheating planet. The United States and other developed countries — responsible for more than half of the world’s CO2 emissions to date — refused to cut emissions unless poorer countries chipped in. For their part, […]
America’s schools are crumbling. Fixing them could save lives — and the planet.
This story about school buildings was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter. Before the COVID-19 pandemic made airflow a life-or-death issue, ventilation experts rarely tested the air inside U.S. schools. That was probably a mistake, said Kevin Thomas, the business representative for […]
How to sabotage climate legislation? An Exxon lobbyist explains.
All the billions ExxonMobil spent on PR went up in flames this week after a sting operation by Greenpeace recorded one of the oil giant’s lobbyists talking about what goes on behind the scenes — sabotaging climate legislation, secretly manufacturing cancer-causing chemicals, and using trade groups as “whipping boys” to evade public scrutiny. “It’s pretty […]
Here’s how Biden is spending his first big environmental justice investment
In the months leading up to the 2020 election, President Joe Biden’s campaign pledged to make environmental justice a cornerstone of his administration. On Friday, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael Regan announced that Biden’s team is beginning to put its money where its mouth is. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, detailed its plans to […]