Cody Two Bears attends the Stand With Standing Rock Benefit at ABC Home & Carpet on December 15th, 2016, in New York City. | Photo by Mark Sagliocco / WireImage A coalition of 14 tribes received $135,580,000 for solar energy, part of a Biden administration program to help more households run on renewable energy. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara (MHA) Nation, which is leading the coalition, says the funding will bring jobs to their communities and make electricity more affordable. The Environmental Protection Agency announced $7 billion in “Solar for All” grants yesterday for 60 awardees, in ..read more

Doris Ríos is a Cabécar leader who has fought to reclaim Indigenous territory in Costa Rica. | Collage by Israel Vargas | Photos by Justine Calma These women took back their land in Costa Rica, and now they plan to reforest it. Doris Ríos ducks gracefully under barbed wire fencing, wearing knee-high black rubber boots, a black dress, and the black horn of a beetle dangling from a beaded necklace. Until recently, this barrier would have kept her out of a ranch operating on Indigenous Cabécar territory. Now, the fencing protects rows of young guava trees that she and other Indigenous women ..read more

A recovery vehicle drives past burned structures and cars two months after a devastating wildfire on October 9th, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.  | Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images New details surfaced this week about cascading failures that led to wildfires ripping through Maui last August. While investigations confirming the cause of the blaze are ongoing, officials are recognizing how unprepared agencies were for the inferno. The wildfires killed at least 101 people and scorched some 2,200 structures — most of them residential. Downed power lines, blocked evacuation routes, and poor commu ..read more

Photo by Christian Charisius / picture alliance via Getty Images Apple’s latest sustainability report shows that its greenhouse gas emissions are falling as it pushes suppliers to clean up their operations. Dig into the data in the report, and you’ll find that Apple’s gross carbon dioxide emissions dropped from 20.6 million metric tons in 2022 to 16.1 million metric tons in 2023. That’s a 22 percent reduction over the year. The progress is mostly thanks to its suppliers using cleaner sources of electricity, the company says in a press release today. Looking back further, Apple says it has redu ..read more

A sign warns of elevated fire danger in the Oakland Hill area of Oakland, California, on Thursday, October 29th, 2020. | Photo by Philip Pacheco / Bloomberg via Getty Images Hate to break it to you, baby — but if you were born in the US this year, climate change could wind up costing you around $500,000 over the course of your lifetime. That’s according to a new study commissioned by Consumer Reports and conducted by consulting firm ICF. The study counts up higher bills for climate-related calamities that drive up housing, food, and healthcare costs, for example. On top of that, there’s the pr ..read more

A 20-foot chunk of Newport, Rhode Island’s beloved Cliff Walk broke off and dove into the depths of the ocean in a significant landslide and partial collapse, pictured on March 4th, 2022. | Photo by Jonathan Wiggs / The Boston Globe via Getty Images The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) is doling out nearly $830 million in grants to 80 different projects aimed at strengthening US infrastructure against climate change. The funding will fan out over 39 states and territories to projects ranging from refurbishing aging bridges to expanding emergency evacuation routes. The grants are “the fi ..read more

Executives hold shovels during a groundbreaking ceremony at the Occidental Petroleum and 1PointFive carbon removal plant in Ector County, Texas, on April 28th, 2023.  | Image: Jordan Vonderhaar / Bloomberg via Getty Images Attempting to filter enough carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to make a significant impact on climate change would require hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending, according to a new report. The suite of technologies emerging to attempt that task all fall under an umbrella called carbon dioxide removal, or CDR. It’s still risky and astronomically expen ..read more

Part of a filtration system designed to filter out PFAS forever chemicals from the drinking water supply at Well #2 of the Horsham Water and Sewer Authority facility in Horsham, Pennsylvania, on August 22nd, 2019. | Photo by Bastiaan Slabbers / NurPhoto via Getty Images The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized rules for the amount of certain “forever chemicals” allowed in drinking water. This is the first time the US has placed legally enforceable federal limits on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), chemicals so ubiquitous that they’ve likely already made their way into ..read more

A woman shows a placard reading “For feminist and social ecologic justice” in Toulouse, France, March 19th, 2021. | Photo by Alain Pitton / NurPhoto via Getty Images An international court has, for the first time, ruled that a country violated human rights by not protecting people from the effects of climate change. A Swiss association representing more than 2,000 older women (a third of whom are over the age of 75) filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights saying that their government put them at heightened risk during heatwaves. The court decided that the European Convention on ..read more

View of the solar eclipse from the Dudley Observatory on Monday, August 21st, 2017, in Schenectady, New York. | Photo by Lori Van Buren / Albany Times Union via Getty Images You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, and the total eclipse is a stark reminder of that adage when it comes to the key role solar energy currently plays in the US. More than 31 million people — nearly 10 percent of the population in the US — live in an area that will experience the total solar eclipse today. Millions more live near dirty power plants that could be tapped to make up for a loss of solar power. Grid ..read more