How the Rail Industry Has Put Profits Over People for Decades
Co-published with Prism. Four months after the Norfolk Southern East Palestine train derailment, workers and citizens fight against the toxicity of an industry that has cut corners at every turn.
Ithaca Bets on Heat Pumps in Mobile Homes
Co-published with Grist. The upstate New York city would be one of the first in the country to tackle the energy woes of affordable housing.
Washed Away: How Disaster Relief Leaves Kentucky’s Landslide Victims Behind
Co-published with Grist. Landslides are one of Kentucky's costliest natural disasters. Climate change is increasing their danger.
Natural Beauty Products: What Does the Label Really Mean?
Co-published with Teen Vogue. Keywords is a column that decodes the lingo of American politics and media.
Disaster debris is pushing Puerto Rico’s landfills to the brink
Co-published with Grist. As more intense hurricanes strike the island, there is nowhere for the waste to go. Composting could be the solution.
Louisiana’s $2-Billion Gamble: Flood the Land to Save the Coast
Co-published with Scientific American. A new engineering project would bring much-needed land to eroding marshes but at a huge cost to the fishing industry.
Can This Tribe of ‘Salmon People’ Pull Off One More Win?
Co-published with The New York Times. The Lummi Nation has a long, proud history of contesting ecologically unfriendly projects. Will it succeed against yet another threat?
California’s Dirty Little Secret: Oil Wells in the Backyard
Co-published with Grist. Even Texas and Wyoming do a better job protecting communities from oil and gas drilling.
Can’t See the Forest for the Trees
Co-published with The American Prospect. A proposed wood pellet plant in North Carolina would increase air pollutants in a majority-minority community already hammered by climate change.
Black Families Passed Their Homes From One Generation to the Next. Now They May Be Lost.
Co-published with The Guardian. Unstable property rights mean Black southerners may survive a flood but lose their home, and it’s causing the racial wealth gap to grow larger.
A Mega-Dairy Is Transforming Arizona’s Aquifer and Farming Lifestyles
Co-published with High Country News. Minnesota’s Riverview Dairy has deep pockets and long straws.
On the Louisiana Coast, an Indigenous Community Loses Homes to Erosion
Co-published with Scientific American. For the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw, climate change has forced a permanent retreat inland.