Inside Climate News

A rush of proposals to mine the state’s famed “sky islands” with water drawn from overtaxed aquifers is drawing opposition from people who know the industry’s boom and bust cycles.

By Wyatt Myskow, Yana Kunichoff

This story is co-published withArizona Luminaria, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to community-centered reporting.

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In a lawsuit filed Wednesday with a coalition of 17 attorneys general, California said the administration is illegally withholding the $5 billion Congress allocated to states for EV-charging infrastructure.

By Liza Gross

California filed its latest lawsuit against the Trump administration Wednesday, this time for withholding billions of dollars allocated by Congress for electric charging infrastructure.

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An anonymous donor gives the Soybean Innovation Lab in Illinois a lifeline to continue its work.

By Susan Cosier

A lab focused on developing soybean farming in Africa was scheduled to shutter in April, a casualty of the Trump administration’s USAID cuts. Then a donor stepped in.

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The agency’s acting head faced questioning by lawmakers over canceled grants, plans to limit relief and a projected $8 billion disaster fund deficit.

By Nicholas Kusnetz

With the Atlantic hurricane season only weeks away, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is facing an unprecedented level of turmoil and uncertainty. President Donald Trump has suggested he might eliminate the agency. Its staff has been cut and programs canceled, while its disaster relief fund faces a likely $8 billion deficit.

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Cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are now degrading the datasets used to monitor the most rapidly warming parts of the planet. More such moves are coming, NOAA has warned.

By Peter Aldhous

Key datasets used to monitor the impacts of climate change in the Arctic have emerged as the latest victim of cost-cutting by the Trump administration at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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Global warming is making high-altitude winds more volatile. Scientists say there are ways to help prevent serious incidents.

By Bob Berwyn

VIENNA—Scientists at the European Geosciences Union conference last week said there is growing scientific evidence that global warming is driving a big increase in dangerous clear-air turbulence, which is invisible from the cockpit and can surprise pilots and damage aircraft.

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The benefits of adding seaweed to the diets of cows confined to barns is well studied, but feeding it to cattle scattered on farm pastures and public lands poses more logistical challenges.

By Miranda Lipton

New research from the University of California, Davis on feeding seaweed to grazing cattle shows that the practice could significantly reduce the greenhouse gases released by livestock, which produce roughly 14.5 percent of the climate-warming emissions.

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A Trump effort to streamline the project would benefit the overseas steelmaking industry while putting Alabamians and the environment at risk.

By Lee Hedgepeth

BROOKWOOD, Ala.—The Trump administration has announced it will aim to fast track the permitting and environmental review of a major coal mine expansion in central Alabama as part of a larger effort to accelerate the construction of what the government has labeled “critical mineral” infrastructure.

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The National Climate Assessment and National Nature Assessment were set to offer a status check for the environment in the U.S. Then they were axed.

By Kiley Price

The first few months of the Trump administration have been marked by deep cuts to funding and staffing for scientific research. Among them: two major government reports that would have offered a pulse check for nature and climate in the country, and how changes could impact people and the economy.

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More than 800 American scientists attended the European Geophysical Union’s conference in Austria to present new research on climate change, pollution and other urgent environmental topics.

By Bob Berwyn

VIENNA, Austria—The global science community promised late last Friday that it would rally around American researchers and rise to meet a well-documented wave of anti-science propaganda and disinformation that’s swamping global media and misguiding decision-making around topics like global warming, plastic pollution, agriculture and pandemics.

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A doctoral candidate examining air pollution effects in mostly Black and Latino neighborhoods in Detroit was among the wave of researchers who have had federal funds halted.

By Siri Chilukuri

For two years, Ember McCoy has been researching air quality and the gaps in data collection in neighborhoods in Southwest Detroit where mostly Black and Latino residents live. The project, part of McCoy’s doctorate work at University of Michigan, is suddenly at risk.

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Climate change deaths are largely underreported as the crisis impacts millions and strains an already overburdened healthcare system, according to a new Amnesty International report.

By Keerti Gopal

When torrential rain in 2022 flooded Abdul Latif’s village in Badin, Pakistan, his roof caved in and he and his six children were forced to live on a road for a month without shelter, clean water or other basic necessities.

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President Trump presented billions of dollars in cuts to programs that, among other things, would fund renewable energy research and cover heating costs for low-income Americans.

By Dan Gearino

Environmental and renewable energy advocates are not surprised to see their priorities skewered in President Donald Trump’s budget request. Their question now is whether enough Congressional Republicans will be willing to defend against deep cuts to energy and infrastructure spending.

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While GOP lawmakers shut down the environmental justice program established by Democrats under a 2016 civil rights agreement, they appropriated funds and added staff for the Republican-controlled Environmental Management Commission.

By Lisa Sorg

Conservative North Carolina lawmakers appear to be taking a cue from the Trump administration, proposing to slash more than 25 jobs and to eliminate key programs for environmental justice, environmental education and clean energy, state budget documents show.

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Renewable energy supporters see massive untapped potential for solar technology at former industrial locations.

By Douglas J. Guth

Michigan has 24,000 known contaminated sites, a legacy of heavy manufacturing where industries carelessly discarded hazardous materials with minimal regulatory oversight. Taxpayers are often left to clean up these abandoned locations, known as brownfields, while the sheer volume of toxic sites has overwhelmed state regulators.

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Shrinking, fragmented rainforests and spreading plantations are pushing wild cats and humans closer together, leading to more fatal encounters. Can Indigenous anti-poaching efforts reduce the carnage?

Story and photos by James Whitlow Delano

Logging and palm oil plantations are expanding in Malaysia.

Credit: James Whitlow Delano/Inside Climate News<div class="icn-parallax-slide__content font-tiem

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A new study from the U.S. Geological Survey finds that groundwater in Appalachia, the Gulf Coast and California is susceptible to contamination from orphaned oil and gas wells.

By Martha Pskowski

For the first time, scientists have mapped groundwater variables nationally to understand which aquifers are most vulnerable to contamination from orphan wells.

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U.S. disaster declarations totaled 108 last year, touching 137 million people. “Climate change is here, it’s impacting people, and it’s going to get more severe,” says one activist.

By Gabe Castro-Root

The flames took Erica Solove by surprise.

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In western Argentina, five lakes within a national park continue to shrink. Scientific findings are now paving the way for restoration efforts—but ongoing federal funding cuts now pose another threat.

By Andrés Muedano

Hidden between volcanic cones in the Patagonian Steppe lies Laguna Blanca, an oasis-like lake in an otherwise arid region. Home to black-neck swans, red-eyed silvery grebes and dark-spotted endemic frogs, the serene body of water is the main attraction of the Laguna Blanca National Park, a natural reserve in the Argentine Province of Neuquén.

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A leaked memo shows the NOAA’s primary science division staring down 74 percent in budget cuts—and some foresee dire impacts across society.

Interview by Jenni Doering, Living on Earth

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Jenni Doering with journalist Abrahm Lustgarten, an editor covering climate at ProPublica.

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Jonathan Jarvis ran the U.S. National Park Service under former President Barack Obama. He has serious concerns about the future of public lands under Trump.

By Kiley Price

In 1976, Jonathan Jarvis began his career in the National Park Service beside a statue of Thomas Jefferson, working as a seasonal interpreter in Washington, D.C., to help visitors understand the historical and natural significance of parks in the nation’s capital.

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Environmentalists call the draft text for the energy, tax and national security bill a handout to oil companies and warn of impacts to wildlife and protected landscapes.

By Jake Bolster

Sacred Native American sites, public lands and undeveloped landscapes on and off shore are once again under threat from President Trump and congressional Republicans after the House Natural Resources Committee released draft legislation Friday that would make substantial changes to how fossil fuel companies doing, or hoping to do, business on public lands are regulated.

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The state joins over three dozen cities, counties and states that have sued the oil industry for selling products it allegedly knew would warm the planet and amplify sea level rise, hurricanes and wildfires. Legal experts called the Trump administration’s efforts to block those lawsuits unprecedented and lacking “any jurisdictional basis.” 

By Dana Drugmand

The state of Hawaii has joined an intensifying legal battle by states and communities across the country to try to hold large fossil fuel firms accountable for the damaging climate impacts of their products.

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Wildlife rescuers are struggling to keep up with the demand to help stranded and sick marine life along the West Coast.

By Teresa Tomassoni

Inside the Marine Mammal Care Center in Los Angeles, more than 80 sea lions and seals lounge lethargically in outdoor fenced-in pens or paddle in small pools. Some bark and moan. Many of the sea lions noticeably stare into space or crane their necks so that their whiskers point to the sky. “Stargazing” is what animal rescuers at the nonprofit call the strange behavior.

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“Cashing Out” investigated a system that lets companies win multimillion or even billion-dollar penalties against countries trying to protect the environment and public.

By ICN Editors

An Inside Climate News investigation into the wide-ranging environmental and human rights consequences of a little-known international arbitration system is a finalist in the Scripps Howard Journalism Awards.

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