Climate breakdown coverage — tipping points, crop failure, extreme heat, insurance withdrawal, water scarcity — as provenanced claim-state bundles.
A new paper found that the remnants of “foundation species” strongly influenced the fate of survivors. By Nicholas Kusnetz Death casts a shadow over life, not only for people but also other animals, plants and entire ecosystems.
The Railroad Commission of Texas shut down injection wells to control a leak in a church parking lot. But 1.5 million gallons of toxic wastewater still spilled to the surface. By Martha Pskowski GRANDFALLS, Texas—An old oil well sprang back to life under the parking lot of the First Baptist Church of Grandfalls in April.
<p><strong>Exclusive </strong>A vast area of the Bellingshausen Sea should be covered by sea ice by now, with one expert calling the loss of ice ‘depressing’</p><p>Antarctica’s west coast is missing an area of winter sea ice the size of France, sparking concerns for threatened penguins other marine life and global sea levels.</p><p>One expert said the loss of ice in the Bellingshausen Sea was “depressing” and the failure of ice to form could have intensified <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/10/record-winter-temperatures-in-antarctic-raise-fears-over-speed-of-climate-breakdown">a heatwave over the continent’s peninsula last week</a> that saw daytime temperatures peak at 15.4C which is more than 20C above average.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/13/antarcticas-west-coast-missing-an-area-of-sea-ice-the-size-of-france-as-temperatures-peak-20c-above-average">Continue reading...</a>
<p>Climate minister Chris Bowen says country must prepare for changing world and can play bigger role in reducing emissions</p><p>Australia will find exporting fossil fuels increasingly difficult but can switch to exporting clean energy products, the president of the next UN climate negotiations has declared.</p><p>Speaking at a climate conference in Bonn, Germany, Chris Bowen, Australia’s minister for climate change and energy, argued his country had led the global push to “transition away from fossil fuels” – based on the rapid growth of renewable energy and batteries in its domestic power grids – and that its economy could manage the switch.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/13/australia-fossil-fuel-exports-renewables-cop-chris-bowen">Continue reading...</a>
As the U.S. faces an aging farmer population, communities are looking for ways to shore up the next generation of growers. But high upfront costs, access to land, and a shifting climate can make entry into the field feel out of reach for many people looking to get into the business. Tucked on farmland at the southern edge of Traverse City, Michigan, one program wants to solve some of these problems by letting aspiring farmers learn by doing. The Great Lakes Incubator Farm attracts students from all over the country. Over the course of seven months, a three-student cohort learns about topics like pest management, how to drive a tractor, and what to include in a farm business plan. “Nobody gets into farming for sane reasons, other than the sanity of knowing where your food comes from and just general health,” said Rachel Greenberg, a 33-year-old student farmer from Indianapolis. “The challenges are pretty never-ending.” Read Next While Zach Galifianakis finds peace in gardening, I’m at war with raccoons Matt Simon Farm bankruptcies were up 46 percent last year, according to a National Farm Bureau report. As land prices have risen due to demand from developers, more than 50,000 acres of farmland have been lost in the last two decades, research has found. Despite the headwinds, the student farmers said they’re driven by wanting to know where their food comes from, to contribute to local communities, and to teach others to do the same. The farm training program — a project of the Grand Traverse Conservation District — has fewer economic pressures than running a farm business, Greenberg said. The fruits and vegetables that students grow will go to local residents who have already committed to buying the season’s produce, and leftovers will be donated to food-rescue operations. Unlike a traditional business, the goal isn’t to make a profit. “The whole incubator idea is something you see a lot in the world of entrepreneurship, and it’s beautiful that somebody saw that and was like, ‘Why don’t we just do that with farming?’” Greenberg said. Troy Saruna, 28, said at a time when climate change is driving more severe weather, he wants to better understand his impact on the natural world. Saruna worked in conservation around the country prior to the program and has no farming experience. The training program focuses on teaching regenerative agriculture , a method of farming that focuses on soil health and reduces the amount of heat-trapping gases released into the atmosphere. Student farmer Shanaya Holmes of Alabama poses by a row of spinach at the Great Lakes Incubator Farm in northern Michigan. Vivian La / IPR News “Our food systems are just so inextricably tied to the health of the planet,” Saruna said. “I’m just really interested in striking up a new balance where I can understand, interpret, and just develop some new instincts in terms of feeding myself and having thriving communities that also support wildlife.” Farmers with some experience also find the program helpful to more deeply develop their skills. Shanaya Holmes, 49, runs a small 4-acre farm in Alabama. She’s looking to learn how to grow food in a different climate than the South and to improve her record-keeping — tracking what’s been planted, what soil was used, or how much money was spent on equipment. “It’s a challenge to switch that button off to come inside and do bookwork, bookwork, bookwork when you’re so used to outside, outside, outside,” she said. Read Next The USDA canceled $300M in farm grants, citing fraud. Did it make up the evidence? Ayurella Horn-Muller Adam Brown, the farm’s manager and instructor, said the farmer training program is meant to be a stepping stone. “It’s really built for anybody who can then filter out and work anywhere in the food system, either manage a farm, start their own business, or any rung of that ladder where people can just help out in the food system,” Brown said. Brown, whose background is in ecology, wouldn’t have pursued farming himself if it wasn’t for a similar training program he did 15 years ago on the West Coast. “I can pay it forward, my lessons, and all the wisdom that I learned throughout my years of farming, and be a mentor to these other people, and I feel like it’s super important,” he said. The training program, now in its second year, is one of the only of its kind in northern Michigan, according to data from Michigan State University. Around the country, there are roughly 100 similar programs, according to a group at Tufts University that coordinates a national network of training farms, though no comprehensive list exists. The Great Lakes Incubator Farm relies mostly on a nearly $700,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture aimed at supporting beginner farmers. That grant ends after the harvest season in October. Brown plans to reapply for USDA funding again this year but said he’s looking for backup options because of how competitive the grant program is. In 2025, the USDA canceled $148 million in grants — including some in the beginner farmer program — to comply with President Donald Trump’s early executive orders targeting climate action, environmental justice, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Adam Brown sits on a tractor at the Great Lakes Incubator Farm. Vivian La / IPR News Brown said that besides the USDA grant, there aren’t many large pools of money available that support efforts to train the next generation of farmers. (The Great Lakes Incubator Farm is also supported by some state grants.) Lack of consistent funding is a big reason there aren’t more of these training programs, said Jon LaPorte, a farm business management educator for Michigan State University Extension, which put together a beginner farmer’s guide in partnership with the USDA last year. “It’s almost like a double-edged sword that they’re trying to help people get started, but then they’ve got the same struggles of staying sustainable themselves,” he said. That means even as the share of young people in farming grows, programs to support them might be harder to come by, LaPorte said. In Michigan, farmers under the age of 45 increased by about 20 percent between 2017 and 2022, according to the USDA’s census. Sustaining that growth will be a challenge, he said. “Because of those hurdles, they don’t all stay in, and what we want to see is more of those people being able to stay in, having more farms, more diversity of farms,” LaPorte said. “More people involved in agriculture at that level is really, really important.” Brown, the farm manager, said students in his training program learn that the growing season doesn’t always go smoothly — and challenges, like frost damage on plants, are just part of the job. “This is a great space for failure too, right? Because there’s not a whole lot of risk here,” he said. “It’s a perfect, experimental type of atmosphere.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Becoming a farmer is hard. This Michigan program wants to help. on Jun 8, 2026.
A 20-year record reveals an estuary tipping toward a saltier, more acidic state. These conditions threaten its hammerhead shark nursery and the aquifer that supplies Miami’s drinking water. By Kate Waxman In the shadow of Miami’s skyline, in water churned daily by boats and jet skis, juvenile great hammerhead sharks—a critically endangered species—spend the first two years of their lives. A few miles from downtown, researchers recently pulled a 12-foot critically endangered sawfish from the same shallows. The species has been dying off in alarming numbers across South Florida’s waters since 2024, in an event scientists suspect was set in motion by record ocean heat.
China’s power-sector emissions fell in 2025 for the first time in a decade, but a rebound in coal-fired generation raises doubts about whether the decline will last. By Andrew Liu China’s coal power output rose in early 2026, fueling concerns that last year’s drop in power-sector emissions may be temporary despite record growth in renewable energy.
<p>As the US shuts its doors to most refugees, there’s little hope of a new system to help those forced from home by climate impacts</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/10/trump-administration-immigrants-climate-crisis">Trump targets migrants from countries hit most by climate shocks</a></p></li></ul><p>Millions of people around the world are having their lives upended by floods, storms and heatwaves worsened by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a>. Those forced to flee their home countries, however, are finding that the door to the US is more firmly shut than ever.</p><p>Neither US nor international law recognizes environmental hazards, such as climate-related displacement, as a valid cause to claim asylum or gain entry through other migration pathways, despite the mounting toll of disasters caused by an overheating planet.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/10/climate-change-crisis-refugees">Continue reading...</a>
Solar energy just provided more electricity in the United States than coal for the first time on record — marking a milestone for the rise of renewables in America. While gas and nuclear plants still lead the country’s energy mix, solar contributed 12.8 percent of the nation’s electrons in May, according to an analysis of government data by Ember , an energy think tank. Coal, meanwhile, provided just 12.2 percent. Just five years ago, solar was less than half of its current levels and coal was at 20 percent. “Overtaking coal for the first month on record shows just how far solar has come, from a niche contributor to the third-largest and fastest-growing source of power in the U.S. electricity system,” said Nicolas Fulghum, senior data analyst at Ember, in a press release. “From Texas to California, markets across the U.S. are betting on solar to meet rising power needs.” The turnaround comes even as political headwinds have shifted against renewable energy. Last summer, Congress passed the “ One Big Beautiful Bill Act ,” which rolled back enormous swaths of former President Joe Biden’s landmark climate change legislation, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act . And President Donald Trump has actively sought to hinder renewable energy development, even offering to pay at least one oil company $1 billion to stop building its offshore wind projects. The latest electricity data comes the same month that the Trump administration announced $700 million in funding for investments in the coal industry. It included money for what would be the country’s first new coal-fired power plants in 13 years — sourced from funds previously dedicated to reducing the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, not deepening it. “Today we’re taking historic action to bring down the price of energy and the cost of living for all Americans with the power of clean, beautiful coal,” said Trump , who campaigned on the coal-friendly slogan ‘dig, baby, dig.” Ember’s analysis found that coal generation in May was actually up slightly from April, when it hit an all-time low. Its share of the grid will also likely tick up in the summer, as cooling needs peak. But the steady downward trend over the last several years suggests that even all the president’s men might not be able to put the coal industry back together again. “Spending $700 million to bail out the coal industry is like throwing a lifeline to a ship that has already sunk,” Lena Moffitt, executive director of the environmental group Evergreen Action, told the Associated Press . Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association disagreed, telling the AP that coal generation helps shield consumers from the impacts of volatile energy prices and supply challenges exacerbated by AI. Regardless of what coal does, experts believe the solar market will continue its upward march. While installations dropped in 2025 compared to 2024, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association , it still accounted for more than half of all newly installed electricity capacity. Even MAGA influencers are promoting it. “We’re going to just keep seeing more and more renewables brought onto the grid,” said Patrick Drupp, director of climate policy at the Sierra Club. “That’s good for people’s wallets, it’s good for their health, it’s good for the planet.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline For first time, Americans are getting more of their electricity from solar than coal on Jun 10, 2026.
<p>The climate phenomenon is intensifying an already unequal global economy</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/09/super-el-nino-global-economy">Continue reading...</a>
Big cuts in generating capacity are coming as the Colorado River struggles to meet demand. Brett Walton, Circle of Blue Some day in the next 12 months—maybe in late August, maybe not until next spring— Lake Mead will drop below the critical threshold of 1,035 feet above sea level.
<p>Today we show our love and gratitude to the brave boffins at the coal face of existential dread</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/16/-sp-first-dog-on-the-moon-subscribe-by-email">Sign up here to get an email</a> whenever First Dog cartoons are published</p></li><li><p><a href="http://firstshoponthemoon.com/">Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop</a> if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints</p></li></ul> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/jun/12/hug-a-climate-scientist-today-just-dont-make-it-weird-they-are-already-dealing-with-enough">Continue reading...</a>
<p>The arid Barind region was transformed by aquifer wells but now the water system is collapsing under the pressure of the climate crisis and decades of extraction</p><p>In the parched fields of north-west Bangladesh, where the earth hardens into cracked red clay beneath an unforgiving sun, farmers in the Barind region say they are watching the foundations of rural life disappear underground.</p><p>For decades, groundwater <a href="https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/888071579802640956">transformed Barind</a> – one of Bangladesh’s driest regions – into a productive agricultural belt. <a href="https://www.ctc-n.org/technologies/boreholes-and-tubewells">Deep tube wells</a> allowed farmers to grow rice, wheat, maize and vegetables year-round across land once defined by drought.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jun/09/i-fear-people-will-go-to-war-over-water-as-wells-run-dry-farmers-struggle-to-survive-in-bangladesh">Continue reading...</a>
A bill aimed at increasing the number of wood pellet mills in Louisiana has sailed through the state’s Legislature — despite some lawmakers, including the bill’s sponsor, acknowledging they know little about the controversial industry . State Representative Chuck Owen, a Republican from Vernon Parish in west Louisiana, said he proposed House Bill 670 in February shortly after learning about the industry, which exports about $1 billion worth of pellets from Louisiana each year. Nearly all the production comes from two British-owned mills in central and north Louisiana that emit large — and sometimes illegal — quantities of air pollutants linked to cancers and other serious illnesses. Owen, whose district spans one of the state’s most timber-rich regions, said the goal of his bill is to make Louisiana a “premier location for wood pellet manufacturing.” The legislation gives a state agency, Louisiana Economic Development, broad direction to develop new incentives for pellet manufacturers, potentially including new tax breaks, state-funded workforce training programs, and port upgrades tailored to the industry’s needs. It also instructs state regulators to streamline permitting for pellet mills and review environmental and public safety rules that “impose unnecessary burdens on this emerging industry.” For Owen, talking during a meeting ahead of the vote, the rationale behind expanding pellet manufacturing is simple: “We have a lot of trees in Louisiana, and north of Bunkie, that’s about all we have,” he said, referring to a town in central Louisiana. “There’s a market craving wood pellets, and I think we should get further into it.” But when a fellow legislator asked him to describe one of the mills and “what exactly it produces,” Owen admitted he was only vaguely familiar with it. “I do not know a lot about it,” he said. “No, sir, I do not. I know they’ve had some struggle in recent years, but I know that they’re there.” Despite that uncertainty, Louisiana’s House and Senate passed Owen’s measure unanimously. The bill is expected to be signed into law by Governor Jeff Landry, a Republican who has backed similar measures aimed at boosting industrial growth in the state. Louisiana State Representative Chuck Owen wants to expand the wood pellet industry throughout the state. Allison Allsop / Louisiana Illuminator The British energy company Drax operates the two large pellet mills in Louisiana: one in Urania, a small town in the central part of the state, and another near Bastrop in the northeast corner. Together with a nearly identical Drax facility in Gloster, Mississippi, the mills churn out billions of wood pellets to meet demand in the United Kingdom for electricity generated by wood, what the industry markets as “sustainable biomass.” In the U.K. and several other European countries, wood pellets are classified as a renewable energy source, making the industry eligible for large subsidies typically given to solar and wind projects. While Drax promotes itself as a purveyor of green energy, communities in the Deep South that host the pellet mills pay a high cost from air pollution, dust and noise, said Kadin Love, a community organizer with the Dogwood Alliance, an environmental group in North Carolina opposed to wood pellet manufacturing. “This is an industry that doesn’t have a clean history,” Love said. “This bill opens doors to the industry that we might not be able to close.” Drax has paid nearly $6 million in fines and settlements for hundreds of pollution violations in Louisiana and Mississippi over the past six years. Despite some facility upgrades aimed at reducing pollution, the company has continued to rack up violations. In Gloster, where Drax has operated the longest, several residents are suing the company over what they say is a decade of exposure to toxic chemicals, including formaldehyde, acrolein, and methanol. In the mostly Black, low-income town, about 40 miles north of the state Legislature in Baton Rouge, many people blame widespread health problems, including cancer and respiratory illnesses, on the mill’s pollutants. In a motion to dismiss the case, Drax’s lawyers argued that the lawsuit fails to show “particularized injury that is traceable to [the mill’s] conduct.” When asked about Owen’s bill, Drax expressed gratitude to Louisiana lawmakers for supporting the industry but declined to address pollution concerns raised by Love and other critics. “We appreciate the engagement of lawmakers and our community partners in Louisiana,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “We remain focused on operating responsibly and transparently, working constructively with regulators, and continuing to support jobs and economic activity in the communities where we operate across Louisiana.” Tommy Barbo, manager of Drax’s wood pellet mill in Urania, Louisiana, tosses a few pellets while inspecting machinery. Eric J. Shelton / Mississippi Today During the recent deliberations over Owen’s bill in the state House, none of the representatives mentioned concerns about pollution. Like Owen, most legislators were unfamiliar with the industry and asked only basic questions. “Are we talking about the wood pellets you put in the smoker, or do you build stuff with these wood pellets?” asked Representative Candace Newell, a Democrat from New Orleans. “What do they look like?” The only expert testimony came from Scott Roe, a consultant who produced a feasibility study on pellet mills in Louisiana. Roe described pellet burning as “cleaner” than other fossil fuels and said the industry could eventually use technology that “releases nothing at all.” “So, it’s clean-burning,” said Newell, who voted in favor of the bill. “You can’t build anything with it — just clean-burning clean energy.” But several scientists say that’s far from the truth. Drax’s wood-fueled power station in rural England emitted more than 14 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2024, making it the largest single source of CO2 in the U.K., according to a report last year from the climate research group Ember. That amount is more than the combined emissions from the country’s six largest gas plants and more than four times the level of the U.K.’s last coal plant, which shut down in 2024 . The most contentious discussions about the bill concerned the industry’s potential use of carbon capture and storage technology, or CCS, which allows emitters to inject carbon dioxide underground rather than release it into the atmosphere. Tax credits and other incentives are available to industries that integrate CCS into their operations, but a growing number of Louisiana legislators oppose the technology; several pending bills would restrict CCS projects amid concerns about health and safety risks at storage sites and along pipelines that transport the gas. During the discussion over his bill in the state House, Owen sought to distance his bill from CCS, or the “C-word,” as he called it. Drax, however, has pledged heavy investment in CCS technology. In 2023, the company established a new office in Houston focused on pairing biomass with CCS projects across North America. “The U.S. Gulf Coast has emerged as a major hub for carbon capture and sequestration investment and technology, a key component of the company’s plans to expand clean electric generation from renewable resources,” Drax CEO Will Gardiner said at the time. Some members of the Louisiana Legislature wanted assurances that the bill wouldn’t help Drax reach its CCS goals. Owen promised to kill his own bill if the Senate tried to insert language supporting the technology. “If, on the [Senate] side, they try to make it pro-carbon capture, will you pull it?” asked Representative Robby Carter, a Democrat from St. Helena Parish. “Pull it,” Owen responded. The Senate steered clear of the CCS debate and passed the bill with only a few minor wording changes on May 27. The bill gained support largely because of its promises to boost the state’s struggling forest products sector. Several pulp and paper mills have shut down in Louisiana, leaving many small communities with few jobs and empty downtowns. Backers argued that the pellet industry could help fill that void. Low-grade pine once used for paper production can instead be made into pellets, creating a new market for Louisiana trees and potentially revitalizing the state’s forestry economy. “What this bill is about is employing people,” Owen said during deliberations. But the three Drax mills each employ about 70 people, which is far fewer than the hundreds employed by many of the older mills. Louisiana has granted Drax generous tax breaks aimed at boosting employment. Through the state’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program, Drax has avoided paying about $75 million in property taxes that would otherwise support local school districts and local government operations, Verite News and Grist found in a review of estimates from Louisiana Economic Development. The industry’s growth looks uncertain as European countries are increasingly skeptical of the claim that burning wood is better for the environment than relying on other energy sources. The U.K. government recently decided the current subsidies for Drax would be cut in half next year. There have been other signs of trouble for the industry. Enviva, once the world’s largest wood pellet producer, filed for bankruptcy in 2024. Drax has also scaled back some of its North American expansion plans and recently shuttered its two Arkansas mills after only a few years in operation. Love, from the Dogwood Alliance, said he was stunned that Louisiana’s legislators rushed to pass Owen’s bill unanimously despite having only a superficial understanding of the industry and without much, if any, consideration of the environmental and economic risks. “If you’re making a state law that exclusively benefits one industry, I’d hope they’d do some homework on it,” Love said. “The fact that they’re not doing the due diligence of researching this industry is incredibly concerning.” toolTips('.classtoolTips0','A technology that catches carbon dioxide at the point of release, preventing it from escaping into Earth’s atmosphere. CSS systems typically are installed on industrial or energy facilities, like coal-burning power plants, where the greenhouse gas is captured, compressed, and then buried deep underground. '); This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Louisiana lawmakers rush to support an industry they ‘do not know a lot about’ on Jun 9, 2026.
<p>Long-awaited course to examine human effects on natural world and explore everyday ways to aid biodiversity</p><p>School pupils will learn how to plant a wildflower-friendly garden, according to long-awaited plans announced on Thursday for a natural history GCSE in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.</p><p>Campaigners have for more than a decade called for the study of biodiversity loss and global heating to be introduced as a dedicated subject in classrooms across the country, but despite a curriculum being previously drawn up, its launch has faced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/02/natural-history-gcse-on-hold-as-qualification-seen-as-tory-initiative-claims-campaigner">repeated delays</a>.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jun/11/natural-history-gcse-to-teach-teenagers-to-plant-wildflower-friendly-gardens">Continue reading...</a>
This story is made possible through a partnership between Grist and The Flatwater Free Press , Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories. Applause echoed through the halls of the Gage County courthouse. The county board had just approved new, more stringent wind energy regulations, and the overflow crowd of residents couldn’t contain themselves. Few in the crowded courthouse that day in September 2020 beamed brighter than Larry Allder. The Cortland-area resident helped lead the yearslong charge against wind energy’s looming expansion into the county. “It’s been a long road,” he told The Voice News after the vote . Now six years later, another historically controversial energy source — nuclear power — could be coming. Last month , the Nebraska Public Power District, or NPPD, announced a list of four potential sites for a new nuclear power plant. Gage County, south of Lincoln on the border with Kansas, is on it. This time, though, Allder has no plans to mount an opposition. “I think that’s a great idea. I like nuclear energy,” Allder said. “I think it’s the way of the future.” Despite a legacy that often invokes fear, there are signs nuclear development won’t face the backlash that other energy sources, especially renewables, have generated for Nebraskans in recent years. “They were just trying to stick the wind turbines really close to my property, and I do not like wind energy,” Allder said. He considers the turbines to be “ugly.” More substantively, Allder thinks that wind and solar projects produce “very inefficient and very costly and very intermittent power.” Nuclear, however, he said, is “clean and it doesn’t take up much land space.” Grist spoke with leaders in the four communities identified by NPPD — Beatrice, Sutherland, Norfolk, and Brownville— and most said their communities are open to a new nuclear project. “I think the general consensus is still that we’re supportive of nuclear energy,” Madison County Commissioner Troy Uhlir said. “There’s definitely more people speaking up and saying, ‘No, not here,’ (but) it’s not overwhelming.” Beatrice Mayor Bob Morgan said his community is excited to be in the top four site options. In Sutherland, a few residents have voiced questions on safety, said Scott Meyer, chairman of the village board. Both Uhlir and Meyer believe those concerns can be calmed by education. “What I find pleasing and reinforcing is that there is a lot of support out there,” NPPD CEO Tom Kent told Grist. “Those communities are really interested in hosting and being a location for this kind of development, and Nebraska has always been a state that’s been very supportive of nuclear power.” Read Next For first time, Americans are getting more of their electricity from solar than coal Tik Root Nationally, lawmakers in both parties have begun embracing nuclear power, as have everyday people like Allder. It also is being eyed by utilities, lured — amid growing demand for electricity — by its ability to generate large amounts of power without spewing climate-warming greenhouse gases . Technological advancements offer another selling point. The next generation of nuclear power plants aims to solve problems the industry has historically grappled with, including their high costs, lengthy constructions, and safety concerns. Proponents of nuclear say that advanced reactor plants like small modular reactors, or SMRs, could solve those problems that have long beset the industry. These reactors are also expected to be flexible, generating more or less power as needed, which can work well with renewables, said Joseph Giitter, a former senior executive at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And the latest innovation wave has generated a massive amount of support from private tech companies and investors who are betting on nuclear as a solution for the spike in electricity demand from data centers. While projects involving new nuclear designs have started in Tennessee , Wyoming, and Washington, Nebraska is probably a decade away from seeing a new nuclear plant, which is why it’s important to start research now, Kent said. “When nuclear takes off, it’s going to take off quick. So we want to be ready to be in that first set of fast follower orders, right? Or we’ll miss the middle of the next decade,” he said. NPPD was recently awarded over $27 million in cost-shared funding by the Department of Energy to apply for a federal permit needed to site a new nuclear plant. According to Kent, the funding will cover less than half of the application costs. In terms of designs, Kent says NPPD is considering designs similar to the small reactors being tested in Wyoming and Tennessee. But it remains to be seen whether this next generation of nuclear reactors can deliver what its proponents promise. The utility is also open to large-scale reactors, like the ones installed at Plant Vogtle in Georgia — a cautionary tale for Nebraska. Georgia’s two new nuclear reactors started producing power in 2023 and 2024, 15 years after the utility applied for a license, according to the Associated Press . These reactors are more advanced than most operating in the U.S.. The project wrapped up years behind schedule and, at more than $30 billion , was over budget. In the end, the new reactors led to rate hikes for power customers, which fueled public backlash. Southern Company’s CEO, Chris Womack noted its subsidiary Georgia Power faced unique obstacles , including a nearly nonexistent workforce and supply chain, complications posed by the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in 2011 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and the bankruptcy of the design contractor. But nuclear projects have historically run into significant delays and gone way over budget, said Edward Kee, CEO of Nuclear Economics Consulting Group. Large or small, these projects in the U.S. can be a gamble for utilities and their rate payers. For context, NPPD’s Cooper Nuclear Station, which opened in 1974 and is the state’s only commercial nuclear plant in operation, cost about $313 million to build. Adjusted for inflation, that price tag translates to roughly $2.1 billion in today’s dollars. Omaha Public Power District’s now-retired Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station, which started operating in 1973, cost about $165 million to build. That would be roughly $1.2 billion today. Sometimes, that gamble pays off, as happened in south Texas where, 20 years later, customers are experiencing lower power rates, Kee said. But in other cases, the projects never made it to completion. Since 2010 , there have been at least 11 canceled commercial nuclear power reactor plans, according to the NRC. While new advanced reactors may minimize issues seen in Georgia, they too carry financial risks because they haven’t been tested, Giitter said. “The promise of the technology is there, but it hasn’t been proven yet,” Giitter said. toolTips('.classtoolTips3','Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other gases that prevent heat from escaping Earth’s atmosphere. Together, they act as a blanket to keep the planet at a liveable temperature in what is known as the “greenhouse effect.” Too many of these gases, however, can cause excessive warming, disrupting fragile climates and ecosystems.'); This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Nuclear in my backyard: A Nebraska utility is skirting the public backlash that plagues wind and solar on Jun 12, 2026.
In this rural Alabama community, some residents can’t flush their toilets. Developers want to build a state-of-the-art data center next door. By Lee Hedgepeth HAYNEVILLE, Ala.—When Alabamians marched from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 to demand voting rights for African Americans, Highway 80 became their path toward freedom.
Despite skyrocketing demand driven by data center development, the industry says it is not the cause of increasing costs for consumers. By Jon Hurdle Advocates for lower electricity prices in Pennsylvania said Wednesday their goals can be achieved by requiring large-load users like data centers to supply their own power rather than taking it from the grid, by reducing utility profits and by speeding up the interconnection of new clean-energy projects.
<p>Experts say climate pattern could supercharge extreme weather events and push temperatures to record highs</p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/elnino">EL Niño</a> has officially arrived, US officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said on Thursday, and scientists predict it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/11/el-nino-forms-historic-strength">could be the strongest</a> of the century.</p><p>Forecasters had previously anticipated that a phenomenon known as a super “El Niño” would emerge this summer – supercharging extreme weather events and pushing global temperatures to record heights.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/13/el-nino-explainer">Continue reading...</a>
A new paper suggests that 15 percent of global warming comes from overlooked pollutants. By Nina Sablan Record-high global temperatures aren’t driven only by well-known greenhouse gas culprits.
<p>The Global Justice Report offers a hopeful bargain: tax extreme wealth and replace consumer excess with social and economic security for all</p><p>Humanity can raise living standards, reduce inequality and keep global heating within a 2C rise, according to a sweeping vision for planetary survival, the Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/04/world-inequality-lab-equality-academics-planetary-survival">reported</a> last week. In an age of ecological dread, that is a bracingly hopeful claim. The optimism came courtesy of the Global Justice Report, produced by Thomas Piketty’s World Inequality Lab.</p><p>It arrives against the grain of the times. Anti‑migrant demagoguery, fossil-fuel revivalism, attacks on multilateralism and billionaire capture all militate against the redistributive state capacity that the report requires. Yet Prof Piketty’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/04/a-good-life-for-the-99-isnt-a-pipe-dream-it-can-be-done-heres-how">team</a> insists that decarbonisation, “sufficiency” and equality can mean a good life for most people.</p><p><em><strong>Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tone/letters"> letters</a> section, please <a href="mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city/town/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.">click here</a>.</strong></em></p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/08/the-guardian-view-on-climate-equality-a-richer-life-and-real-public-abundance-not-just-more-stuff">Continue reading...</a>
In April 2026, California farmer Terri McCall stood on the steps of the Supreme Court at a rally protesting pesticide use, telling the story of how her husband and dog both died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma , a disease she believes was caused by pesticides. Her husband, Jack, had used Roundup for more than three decades on their 20-acre ranch before dying of cancer in 2016. Over 57,000 pesticide products are currently registered for use in the United States, ranging from powerful chemicals used in conventional agriculture, to common insect repellents approved for use on children. Scientific evidence is accumulating that some of them are linked to illnesses ranging from cancer to Parkinson’s disease . But beginning in 2024, a powerful coalition of chemical manufacturers and industry groups launched a coordinated national effort to pass “immunity laws,” bills designed to shield companies from potential legal claims tied to harms from their pesticide products. Over the past three years alone, industry lobbyists attempted to pass pesticide immunity legislation in 15 different states. The battle over ‘failure to warn’ At the center of the industry’s lobbying effort is a key legal question: What responsibility do pesticide companies have to warn users and consumers about potential health risks from their products? In many states, individuals can currently bring “failure to warn” claims if they believe a company withheld information about harms associated with a pesticide. The chemical makers advocating for pesticide immunity laws argue that companies should be protected from those lawsuits as long as they use labels approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But opponents say that standard is dangerously inadequate. There are longstanding concerns about the EPA’s pesticide review process. For example, the official EPA labels for glyphosate still do not carry a cancer warning, despite mounting evidence that it may cause cancer and other groups like the World Health Organization calling it “probably carcinogenic.” “The science is pretty clear,” said Daniel Hinkle, the senior counsel for policy and state affairs at the American Association for Justice . “The evidence continues to accumulate, and the pesticide makers continue to lose in the courtroom.” Meanwhile, a growing body of research links a broad range of health harms to commonly used pesticides, including neurodevelopmental impacts, respiratory problems and reduced IQ in children, health problems like liver and metabolic diseases , and cancer . The pesticide lobbyist’s playbook Several landmark court cases have found chemical makers responsible for illnesses like cancers and neurological diseases, resulting in billions of dollars in payments from pesticide makers. Bayer alone has paid over $11 billion in cancer settlements linked to its products. In response, the chemical industry has poured millions of dollars into lobbying for pesticide immunity laws at the state and federal levels, and in the courts. “It’s very clear that this is a coordinated campaign by the industry to absolve themselves of legal liability for health harms from these chemicals,” said Hinkle. In the last three years, advocates fought against proposed immunity bills in 15 different states. While defeated in a dozen states, the bills passed in Georgia, North Dakota and Kentucky. “The states where these bills are passing have some of the highest cancer rates in the nation,” said Joy Reeves, the director of policy and strategic development at the Rachel Carson Council. “The reality now is, if you’re a farmer and get sick, you have fewer options to hold the pesticide companies accountable.” Environmental and legal advocates say the campaign behind the pesticide immunity laws is both sophisticated and well-funded. Hinkle says a central driver of the effort is the Modern Ag Alliance (MAA), a lobbying and public relations group founded by Bayer , the maker of Roundup, in 2024. While many states do not make lobbying expenditures easy to track, those that do show huge sums are being spent on pesticide immunity legislation. According to public filings, MAA spent roughly $1.6M lobbying in Tennessee in 2025 . Reporting by the Idaho Sun found that MAA was the top outside spender in Idaho politics that same year. What pesticide immunity could mean for families As industry groups push for legal protections around pesticide injury, there are growing concerns about what these bills could mean for public health, accountability, and local input. In 2012, on a warm July afternoon in Iowa, organic farmer Rob Faux was working in his poultry yard. He heard an airplane roar overhead, and then droplets began raining over him and his chickens and turkeys. A crop duster kept the sprayer on as it passed over Faux’s farm twice, covering them with fungicides and insecticides . Subsequently, Faux was diagnosed with cancer. Recent data shows that Iowa, which has one of the highest rates of pesticide use in the country — in 2025, 53 million pounds of pesticides were used in the state — also has the second-highest cancer rate in the nation . Faux is now the communications manager and resident farm expert for the Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network (PAN) . He says that many products that people use every day, from ant bait to mosquito repellent, will similarly fall under the scope of the new immunity laws. “If these laws pass, and someone sells a mosquito repellent for children that makes them sick, for example, these pesticide immunity bills will eliminate pathways for families to hold the makers accountable,” he said. He also points to the loss of local control as a key concern. “If I live in a town where the drinking water comes from a local lake, but pesticide applicators are using chemicals that are getting into the water, the community should be able to protect people,” he said. Many of the proposed immunity bills would prevent that, because local or state governments wouldn’t be allowed to set pesticide rules that are stricter than federal standards. A pivotal moment in the pesticide immunity fight These concerns brought together a broad coalition spanning left-leaning environmental advocates and members of the Make America Healthy Again network. Protestors gathered outside the Supreme Court for a rally the last week of April as the justices inside heard opening arguments in Monsanto v. Durnell. The closely-watched case could reshape the future of pesticide litigation nationwide. The case centers on whether federal pesticide labeling laws and EPA labels override state-level failure-to-warn lawsuits. A ruling in Monsanto’s favor could dramatically weaken legal pathways for people alleging harm from pesticide exposure. “This is a case that is largely about states’ rights,” said Reeves. “It will affect states’ ability to regulate pesticides.” Just a few days later, federal lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected an effort to insert pesticide immunity language into the Farm Bill. Seventy-three Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the pesticide immunity provision. “It was a pretty astounding defeat,” said Max Sano, a senior policy and coalitions associate with Beyond Pesticides who helps organize a national coalition of farmers, farmworkers, scientists, and advocacy groups. “But these bills are still popping up everywhere [on a state level], so we can’t afford to slow down.” His organization is currently monitoring newly proposed pesticide immunity legislation in 10 states. The rise of a new pesticide reform movement As momentum grows against pesticide immunity laws, Reeves described the current moment as “today’s Silent Spring movement,” referencing Rachel Carson’s landmark 1962 book that helped ignite the modern environmental movement. “Today, the pesticide reform movement is diverse,” Reeves said. “It’s cross-partisan. It’s far-reaching.” Advocates like Reeves, Sano, and Hinkle are taking a multi-pronged approach to fighting pesticide immunity laws: organizing national coalition calls, educating lawmakers, tracking bills across states, mobilizing grassroots campaigns, and coordinating legal and public awareness efforts. And individuals can have a deep impact on the fight, too, Hinkle said. “It is incredibly important to be in communication with your lawmaker,” he said. “Every single call or email matters. Concerned constituents and grassroots organizing have really been the decisive forces in holding off this onslaught.” Reeves echoes him, saying, “If you care about your family and your community, you should engage on this issue. It affects us all.” The Rachel Carson Council (RCC), founded in 1965, is the national environmental organization envisioned by Rachel Carson to carry on her work after her death. We promote Carson’s ecological ethic that combines scientific concern for the environment and human health with a sense of wonder and reverence for all forms of life in order to build a more sustainable, just, and peaceful future. The Rachel Carson Council is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. LEARN MORE This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The quiet push to shield pesticide makers from lawsuits on Jun 9, 2026.
<p>US energy secretary Chris Wright featured in seminars to judges when he was a fracking executive</p><p>As cities and states sue big <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/oil">oil</a> for billions in damages over allegations that it covered up the dangers of its products, rightwing organizations are attempting to discredit the wave of litigation. They claim the lawyers behind it are teaming up with an environmentally focused legal education non-profit to bias federal judges against oil companies.</p><p>But it is actually fossil fuel-backed organizations that are attempting to sway the judiciary in their favor, one of those law firms is countering. Evidence of this includes judicial seminars hosted by one such group featuring pro-industry speakers such as the current energy secretary, Chris Wright, in his former occupation as a fracking executive.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/10/judges-climate-crisis-energy-secretary">Continue reading...</a>
Last month, nearly a dozen wildfires erupted across southern California, sending plumes of smoke and particulate matter into the air. Public health officials in Los Angeles issued a multiday air quality advisory for the county, warning of “potential direct smoke impact” and advising everyone who could see or smell smoke to “avoid unnecessary outdoor exposure and to limit physical exertion.” The red zone on the map included Los Angeles Stadium — also known as SoFi Stadium — one of the venues for the World Cup, soccer’s marquee event, which begins on Thursday. Between June 12 and July 10, Los Angeles will host eight games and is expected to draw tens of thousands of fans and scores of players. As dry, hot, conditions persist, more fires are possible and smoke could once again loom over the stadium. The same risk exists for a number of the 15 other World Cup host cities. But, despite the documented health impacts of smoke exposure, FIFA, the international governing body for soccer, doesn’t appear to have a plan if the air quality deteriorates. “FIFA has basically almost done nothing,” said Nicholas Watanabe, a professor of sport and entertainment management at the University of South Carolina. “They are lagging behind even minor leagues in North America.” The National Women’s Soccer League , or NWSL; the Canadian Football League ; and the NCAA , which oversees college sports, all have at least some guidelines outlining what to do if the Air Quality Index reaches certain thresholds. Other leagues — from Major League Baseball to the Women’s National Basketball Association — have postponed games because of wildfire smoke , notably when plumes spread across Canada and North America in June 2023. The Sandy Fire burned through heavy brush and sent smoke into the air as it moved through California’s Simi Valley in May 2026. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images The Air Quality Index , or AQI, a measure of common pollutants in the air, ranges from 0 to 300+, with “unhealthy” levels starting at 101 and “very unhealthy” and “hazardous” warnings after that. Experts say that wildfire smoke often causes spikes that could be harmful to both players and fans. “They might get a burning throat, a cough, and a headache,” said Mary Johnson, who researches environmental health at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Some groups can be particularly sensitive, including children, older individuals, and people with respiratory conditions such as asthma. “Climate-related risks are assessed as part of overall tournament planning and managed in close coordination with host cities, stadium authorities, and national agencies,” FIFA wrote in a statement to Grist. It detailed extensive protocols related to extreme heat, including mandatory water breaks for players (fans, meanwhile, will not be permitted to bring refillable water bottles into stadiums ) but didn’t mention air quality. It did mention a “tournament-wide preparedness exercise” for severe weather, without providing further details. The organization did not respond to follow-up questions and declined multiple interview requests. For now, FIFA seems to be betting the air will stay clear. While that gamble could very well pay off, wildfire smoke has become an increasingly common feature of North American summers, raising questions about whether organizers are prepared for conditions that are no longer unusual. “It’s sort of ridiculous that the biggest sporting event in the world doesn’t have anything,” said Watanabe, about even a minimum AQI threshold for canceling matches. “We’re one bad Pacific Northwest wildfire away from some very big concerns.” All indicators point to a dangerous 2026 fire season. The National Interagency Fire Center projects that , after a warm winter and with a potentially record-breaking El Niño incoming, large swaths of the West will be at an elevated risk of wildfire this summer. Canadian officials have made similar predictions . Because smoke can blow thousands of miles, it puts virtually all of FIFA’s sites at potential risk. “There are very few places in North America that are immune to these effects,” said Dominik Kulakowski, a geographer who studies wildfires at Clark University. He noted that the warning time for smoke events can sometimes be as short as a matter of hours. “It would make sense for FIFA to think ahead and implement some air quality standards that would trigger some decisions about whether or not to play.” John Quindry, a professor of physiology at the University of Montana, said that, although a lack of a plan likely doesn’t mean “putting people in early graves,” he does think organizers should be prepared. There are things FIFA could do to help mitigate risk from wildfire smoke, he said, ranging from playing at times of days when the air quality tends to be better to postponing or relocating matches. “You should have a decision tree and algorithm that’s baked into the process,” he said, comparing air quality events to thunder storms. “People certainly call games for lightning and nobody argues with it.” When the AQI hits 101, the air is considered “unhealthy for sensitive groups” and the NWSL starts to add hydration breaks for players. At 180, which falls into the “unhealthy” range for everyone, the league starts to consider rescheduling games. Cancellation or postponement is mandatory above 200, when AQI is “very unhealthy.” The league did not respond to a request to confirm whether this policy, which The New York Times reported in 2023 , remains current. But it aligns with guidelines from USA Soccer . The NFL’s 2022-2023 game operations manual also says the league “will be prepared to relocate a game if there is definitive evidence that the AQI will remain consistently above 200 for a significant period of time, including the day of the game being played in the affected stadium.” Once AQI passes 300, the NCAA requires that organizers move events indoors or cancel them. Watanabe said that some of the World Cup venues are enclosed, with modern filtration systems that could help mitigate poor air quality. That includes Mercedes Benz stadium in Atlanta, a city that already experienced bad air quality due to wildfire smoke this year . But many others can’t be closed, including those in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Vancouver — all places historically prone to wildfire smoke. Grist reached out to local organizing committees and public health officials in host cities, the U.S. National Soccer Team Players Association, and the White House Task Force for the World Cup. Of the handful of responses, most redirected questions to FIFA. “There are no specific AQI levels that would automatically trigger suspension of FIFA events,” said James Garrow, a spokesperson for the public health department in Philadelphia, which is a 2026 World Cup site. Instead, he said, the city would monitor air quality and “consider possible recommendations.” For FIFA, though, the issue is not simply whether wildfire smoke can affect health, but how to balance those risks against the logistical and financial demands of a multiweek global tournament. As Quindry put it: “There is a lot of money at stake.” Whatever happens at this year’s World Cup, Kulakowski said it’s only a matter of time before FIFA and other sports leagues are going to have to reckon with a smoky future. “Having to think about smoke from wildfires and how that affects athletes, athletic ability, and sporting events is a new thing,” he said, but it’s becoming an increasingly common issue across North America, Europe, and elsewhere. “We’re seeing wildfires become a larger part of life.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The World Cup is one wildfire away from an air quality disaster on Jun 9, 2026.
Even if you don’t like eating mushrooms, you’re in debt to fungi. One group of them, known as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, form vast subterranean networks of tubes called hyphae, hooking up with the roots of plants to exchange nutrients. Earth is so verdant in large part thanks to these partnerships , as this expansive infrastructure is associated with nearly three-quarters of all plant species. But because the network sprawls underground, it’s been difficult for scientists to determine just how much arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi is out there. (Good luck digging everywhere on the planet and taking samples.) Scientists have developed a workaround, which has produced some astonishing numbers. Using machine learning models, they’ve estimated that worldwide, the arbuscular mycorrhizal network stretches for 110 quadrillion kilometers, almost a billion times the distance from Earth to the sun. (Scoop up just a teaspoon of soil and you might find 10 meters of fungal strands.) Every year, these fungi shuttle around 4 billion metric tons of carbon, equal to 11 percent of humanity’s CO2 emissions. Because scientists have already taken thousands upon thousands of samples around the world, the researchers could train the models to build maps (you can play with them here ) that predict where these fungi are more or less concentrated, even in the most remote environments. “We have started to have a clear picture of the full extent of these hidden living infrastructures that circulate carbon and nutrients in the soils beneath our feet,” said Toby Kiers, executive director of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks and coauthor of the new paper , which published today in the journal Science . In this map, brighter yellow spots indicate higher densities of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Courtesy of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks There are two major classes of mycorrhizal species. The ectomycorrhizal fungi grow as sheaths around a plant’s roots, especially conifer trees, whereas the arbuscular ones in this new paper penetrate them. Either way, these fungi act as an extension of the roots, helping them absorb more water and nutrients. “Just as a circulatory system moves resources through a body, these sort of microscopic fungal pipes are connected to plants,” Kiers said. In exchange, mycorrhizal species get energy in the form of carbon that the plants have drawn from the atmosphere. They help the plants grow to sequester still more carbon, a mutually beneficial partnership that benefits humans, too, as it keeps the planet from warming even further. However, the density of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi isn’t uniform across the planet’s biomes. You might assume that it would be highest in tropical rainforests, but in fact grasslands account for 40 percent of the predicted global arbuscular biomass, the study found. That might be because herbaceous plants like grasses tend to allocate more carbon to their symbiotic fungi than trees do. You can’t see it, but grasslands have vast root systems, meaning there’s loads of hidden biomass. “Even if grasslands get burned above ground, that carbon tends to remain underground, and they can come back again, which is different than forests,” Kiers said. Yet, Kiers added, just 5 percent of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal biodiversity hot spots lie in environmentally protected areas. The idea with these new maps is for scientists and policymakers to identify where fungi might be thriving, and protect them. That will simultaneously support plant life and biodiversity overall — all kinds of birds, insects, and herbivores depend on this vegetation, too — and capture still more carbon in the soil. (Some savannas, like Brazil’s cerrado, also store enormous amounts of carbon underground in peat , or dead plant material that resists decay and accumulates over centuries.) Toby Kiers and Merlin Sheldrake take soil samples in the mountains of Bhutan. Courtesy Tomás Munita At the other end of the spectrum, the study found that in areas with large-scale agriculture, fungal network densities are about 50 percent lower on average. That may be because synthetic fertilizers provide crops all the nutrients they need, easing their reliance on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Tillage also tears fungal networks apart at the end of a growing season. (Other research has found that tilling also disrupts soil’s ability to retain water.) “Maybe we can do better to have more fungal biomass in our agricultural systems, and in our terrestrial ecosystem as a whole, and capture more carbon dioxide,” said ecologist Smriti Pehim Limbu, who studies mycorrhizal fungi at Dartmouth College but wasn’t involved in the new paper. Humanity has to feed itself, of course. But with this new data in hand, it can also take steps to protect these critical species hidden underground. “This map is for mycorrhizal fungi what the first detailed maps were for, I don’t know, ocean currents or river systems,” Kiers said. “Where you go from knowing a system exists to knowing where it is, how dense it is, and where it’s threatened.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline This unfathomably huge fungal network keeps Earth cool and green on Jun 11, 2026.
For the first time ever, researchers have quantified the length and mass of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks globally and mapped the ecosystems where they are densest. By Wyatt Myskow Hidden underground around the world lie 110 quadrillion kilometers of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks—webs of ultra-thin threads that, if connected in a single line, would stretch almost a billion times thge distance between the Earth and the sun, according to new research published in Science on Thursday.
<p>Photosynthesis does not always result in wood growth, a key factor in carbon dioxide sequestration</p><p>Trees may not be able to store as much planet-heating carbon as hoped, a study suggests, with researchers finding photosynthesis does not always lead to wood growth.</p><p>Scientists studied 137 sites across the US and found trees stopped growing months before the point in the year at which photosynthesis stopped.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/13/trees-store-less-carbon-than-thought-study">Continue reading...</a>
The decision voided the EPA guidance to terminate the $2.8 billion grant program. But it stopped short of requiring the agency to resume administering it. By Lauren Dalban A federal judge in South Carolina ruled this week that the Trump administration’s termination of environmental justice grants was “illegal.” The decision dealt a setback to efforts to dismantle a Biden-era program that funded projects addressing environmental and public health challenges in underserved communities across the country.
Ten U.N. officials are calling on Russia to immediately release Daria Egereva, an Indigenous international climate advocate, and her colleague Natalia Leongardt, both of whom have been jailed for six months on terrorism charges, ahead of a key court hearing this week. Egereva, who is Indigenous Selkup from Russia, is co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change , which represents Indigenous peoples’ perspectives at United Nations gatherings. Russian authorities arrested her and Leongardt on December 17, just weeks after Egereva returned from the COP30 climate conference. Leongardt, a former intern at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva, has spent her career working on educational programs for Indigenous peoples in Russia. The two face accusations of participating in a terrorist group due to their past involvement in the Aborigen Forum, an informal network of Indigenous advocates that the Russian government shut down two years ago. But U.N. experts say they’re concerned the arrests are reprisals for participating in U.N. meetings and are part of a broader shift in Russia to crack down on civil society freedoms including Indigenous activism. “We urge your Excellency’s Government to immediately and unconditionally release Ms. Egereva and Ms. Leongardt from detention, to drop all charges against them as stemming from their peaceful human rights activities, and to ensure that they are able to continue their legitimate human rights work and their cooperation with the United Nations’ bodies and mechanisms without fear of intimidation or reprisals,” read the letter from the U.N. officials, who included the U.N. special rapporteurs for the environment, Indigenous peoples, and human rights in the context of climate change. Their letter, sent in April, was made public last week by the U.N. Russian officials do not appear to have responded. Egereva and Leongardt are expected to appear in court on Thursday in Moscow, where they could be sentenced to as long as two decades in prison. Their imprisonment has brought international condemnation, with more than 100 organizations calling for their release at April’s U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City. Egereva in particular has been a fixture in international climate discussions and was arrested in December shortly after returning from COP where she spoke publicly on the importance of having more Indigenous women participate in climate talks. “Women are one of the most vulnerable groups within Indigenous peoples, so we are working to ensure that Indigenous women are included in all climate negotiations affecting their rights, and their interests, and their priorities,” she said at COP on November 21. Read Next The uncertain future of the UN’s leading voice on Indigenous rights Anita Hofschneider Egereva was expected to be in Germany this week for the Bonn Climate Change Conference, where officials are preparing for another COP climate gathering this fall. Her incarceration prompted the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change to vote Tuesday to extend Egereva’s term, making her a third co-chair until her release. That unprecedented move was made in solidarity with her detainment, as typically there are only two co-chairs. The U.N. officials wrote that since her arrest in December, Egereva has been denied regular phone calls and visits with her husband and children. “Over recent months, she has only been able to see her husband at three court hearings, during which Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia (FSIN) officers prohibited any personal communication or contact,” their letter said. The same officials are worried not only about the conditions that Egereva and Leongardt are enduring, but also the impact their detainment could have on U.N. participation. “We are concerned about the chilling effect on Indigenous advocacy, international cooperation and engagement with the United Nations, and human rights defenders’ work that their prosecution is prone to generate,” the letter states. Friends and colleagues of Egereva and Leongardt say that their work exemplified routine advocacy on behalf of Indigenous peoples and was not extremist or reflective of the “terrorism” allegations. “We want everyone to see that they are part of a huge network and that the work they’ve been doing is completely legitimate, completely within regular diplomatic channels,” said Kate Finn, a citizen of the Osage Nation and executive director of the Tallgrass Institute who has worked with Egereva at the U.N. “It’s being framed by the Russian government as terrorist activity, but it’s activity that Indigenous women do every day for the U.N. system these days.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline UN officials urge Russia to free Indigenous climate advocate on Jun 10, 2026.
Some groups that do research and collect data on the Great Lakes are facing existential threats as the annual budgeting process for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gets underway. A proposed budget request from President Donald Trump would zero out programs that scientists say are the foundation of weather observations, water quality, maritime safety, and recreation on the Great Lakes. The president wants to cut NOAA’s budget by $1.3 billion, or one-third of current funding levels, to better match priorities related to halting climate research. “The investment that we make pays off in terms of safer water, public safety, public health, as well as economic activity,” said Gregory Dick, director of the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, or CIGLR, a partnership between the University of Michigan and NOAA. Researchers at CIGLR work closely with NOAA to conduct work on lake water levels, ice dynamics , and harmful algal blooms on Lake Erie. Data is used by state managers, fishers, boaters, and the regional shipping industry. “That’s the kind of data that you want at your fingertips,” Dick said. “That’s what’s at risk with cuts like the ones we’re talking about.” Beyond the potential loss of this data, Dick is worried about long-term research on how climate change is affecting the Great Lakes. Water levels are fluctuating and Dick said understanding those dynamics is important for future planning geared toward development projects and the economy. Another at-risk program is the Great Lakes Observing System, or GLOS, a regional network that coordinates data collection on wave heights, water temperatures, ice , wind, and more. The network makes real-time data available to the public, and it’s often used by boaters, fishers, and other people who spend time in and on the lakes. “If you want to visit a beach, if you want to take your dog and let it run in the lake, it’s really important to know beforehand if there’s a bloom there or dangerous surf conditions,” said Jennifer Boehme, CEO of GLOS. The system is one of 11 NOAA-funded observation networks across the country that maintain data from oceans and coasts. In a memo released with the budget proposal, the White House said that “President Trump is committed to eliminating funding for the globalist climate agenda while unleashing American energy production.” The proposed NOAA budget will cut climate research and save taxpayer money, according to the memo. NOAA programs focused on the Great Lakes are already adapting to cuts from the previous year. The Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (which houses CIGLR), for example, lost about 40 percent of its staff last year after rounds of layoffs and early retirements, according to Dick. GLOS is also in a more vulnerable position this year, Boehme said. The program is up for a contract renewal with NOAA, which happens every five years, and it still has yet to receive all of its appropriated funds from last year. “Each lapse makes the next one worse, and rebuilding isn’t just a matter of writing another check. The relationships and the seasonal schedules that make the network function can take years to reconstruct,” she said. Still, the president’s budget is more a signal of priorities than a binding mandate, said Alex Eastman, the Great Lakes program manager at the Northeast-Midwest Institute, a nonprofit policy research group. Appropriations are ultimately decided by Congress, which is currently in the middle of that process. This year, the House Appropriations Committee passed a bill that would fund most NOAA programs at $1.3 billion more than the president’s budget proposal, ignoring his calls for steep cuts. The regional observation networks, including GLOS, would see an 18 percent increase in funding. Still, the bill is $300 million short of last year’s funding. The Senate hasn’t passed its version of the appropriations bill yet. Congress ultimately funded these Great Lakes research programs last year after Trump proposed similar cuts, likely because lawmakers know the value they provide for the region and country, Eastman said. “I do think that the more that Congress pushes back, the more the executive branch and the president will see that they’re not gaining anything by continuing to try to impose draconian cuts,” he said. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What federal cuts to science funding could mean for the Great Lakes on Jun 11, 2026.
Travis Terry lives in Forest Hills, a neighborhood in Queens about 5 minutes from an abandoned rail line. He describes the tracks, last used in 1962, as a “blight” plagued by illegal dumping. “It’s been sitting there for 65 years now,” he said, “and those of us in the community, we got tired of what it had become.” Terry has long seen great potential for a green space that would allow people to easily bike to Forest Park, the borough’s third largest park. He’s pursued this vision since 2011, advocating for a proposal, called QueensWay , to convert the 3.5 miles of idle railway into a 47-acre park. But some would rather the tracks, once the Rockaway Beach Branch of the Long Island Rail Road, become a subway line running north-south through New York’s largest borough. Andrew Lynch doesn’t see why it can’t be both. “When I saw this debate, I was like, ‘Man, none of you guys want to work together. Let me show you what’s up,’” Lynch told Grist. He wrote a blog post in 2016 outlining a project with rail service and green space. That led to the formation of QueensLink , a proposal to extend the subway’s M Train line and create 33 acres of parkland. All these years later, the two ideas remain at odds, a dispute that mirrors debates in other cities over how to repurpose such infrastructure — whether as transit, green space or some combination of the two. Nationwide, more than 25,000 miles of rail have been converted to recreational trails. The Atlanta Beltline is among the most prominent examples with its 22-mile loop of trails and parks, though plans to include light rail have stalled . The debate in New York is happening even as the city continues expanding its subway system. It is spending $5.5 billion on the Interborough Express to connect Queens and Brooklyn , and $7.7 billion on phase two of Manhattan’s Second Avenue Subway . Queens, meanwhile, has shown steady growth since the pandemic, and residents make more commutes by car than those in any other borough. New York also has a history of ambitious rail-to-trail projects, including The High Line , and officials have spent more than a decade investing in equitable park access . This long-running question now confronts Mayor Zohran Mamdani. While QueensWay’s first phase is expected to begin construction later this year, supporters of QueensLink are urging city and state officials not to foreclose the possibility of restoring rail service. As an assemblyman representing parts of Queens, Mamdani expressed support for QueensLink in 2023. As mayor, however, he included $43 million for the QueensWay park project in his $124.7 billion annual budget . “The City remains committed to expanding green and open space across the boroughs and is actively exploring all available funding options to make that a reality,” a mayoral spokesperson told Grist. Lynch said QueensLink supporters were “miffed” and “shocked” by that decision. A City Hall official told Grist the decision to finance the park does not preclude building the rail line as well. Phase one of QueensWay, which would create a 5-acre linear park, is set to begin later this year. Phase Two, which would have added a 1.3 mile extension, was to be paid for with a $117 million grant from the federal Reconnecting Communities initiative, but Congress rescinded funding for that program when it passed the Big Beautiful Bill. Read Next Your local park is bringing in the green (and by that, we mean money) Matt Simon Mamdani’s staff recently told QueensLink supporters that the park project’s first phase is too far along to stop, according to Lynch, and said the administration will not rezone the land as park space. That preserves the possibility of also building the subway line, a point former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration made when it said one does not preclude the other . However, Lynch thinks the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or MTA, which operates much of the region’s transit network, would balk at building a line on park land. Lynch said QueensLink is looking for Governor Kathy Hochul, who appoints the MTA’s board and plays a major role in drafting its budget, to support the project. Her office directed Grist to the MTA and New York City Hall for comment. The nonprofit Trust for Public Land has supported the park project since 2011. Tamar Renaud, its New York State director, said QueensWay will boost equity by eventually serving four of the 20 neighborhoods with the least amount of accessible park acreage . With 28 schools around the rail line, it would improve recreation for kids, while making the area more bikeable and walkable. “It was really about reconnecting communities that had been separated through these big infrastructure projects,” she said. QueensWay supporters see their project as more practical. A 2019 MTA report found that the QueensLink rail line would cost $8.1 billion , but the agency has since revised that to $5.9 billion and estimated it would serve 39,000 daily riders. “Reactivating the Rockaway Beach Branch with NYCT service has a high cost and serves a relatively modest number of riders,” the agency concluded. “This project would reduce auto usage and provide additional rail connections, but compared to other projects, the benefits are average for sustainability and resiliency.” Advocates for the park project, on the other hand, put its cost at around $350 million. “I think we all recognize that after all these studies there wasn’t going to be a train,” Terry said. Railway supporters argue the MTA’s cost estimate is high and its ridership estimate low. They hired the consulting firm Transportation Economics & Management Systems to evaluate the report; it placed the cost closer to $3.5 billion. A New York University report estimated it would serve around 75,000 daily riders; another found it would take 14,800 cars off the road each day. Eric Goldwyn, an expert on public transit project costs at the NYU Marron Institute, said QueensLink might not hugely boost ridership but that it would benefit operations by allowing busy trains on Queens Boulevard to run at a higher capacity. In Goldwyn’s view, QueensLink is the project that harmonizes rail and park. Like Lynch, he thinks the advancement of QueensWay would not be a good sign for QueensLink. “Once that first spade of dirt is turned over, the odds become… longer,” he said. “It’ll be harder and harder to envision QueensLink in the way that it’s been proposed.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What is the best use for old railroad tracks? New Yorkers have opinions. on Jun 12, 2026.
For decades, American politicians have been slow to take on climate change and curb carbon dioxide emissions, under the assumption that doing so might pass along costs to their voters. Ironically, their failure to rein in fossil fuel emissions has yielded the same result: Expenses for everyday Americans have soared as a result of more extreme flooding, fires, and heat. “What’s striking is that already, households are bearing serious costs,” said Kimberly Clausing, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. She co-authored a paper from earlier this year finding that families were paying between $400 and $900 more each year because of the effects of climate change, with the costs above $1,300 in the 10 percent hardest-hit counties, many of them found in Florida, Louisiana, Nebraska, Colorado, and California. On Wednesday, the Commerce Department reported that the annual inflation rate reached 4.2 percent in May, the highest rate in three years. Though the war in Iran is mostly responsible for this recent increase, a surprising number of Americans are attributing the general economic pinch they’re feeling to the changing climate. Two-thirds of U.S. voters agree that global warming is affecting the cost of living to some degree, according to new survey data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, including most Democrats and moderate Republicans. Of those two-thirds, a majority of them said that climate change was driving up what they pay for groceries, utility bills, and home insurance. Rising energy prices were at the top of people’s lists, a concern that some climate advocates are tapping into ahead of the midterm elections this November. On Monday, the LCV Victory Fund, a political action committee, announced that it will target “energy bill voters” with messages about how clean, affordable energy can trim their monthly expenses, and how Republicans have held back renewable power. That follows successes for Democrats in the off-year elections in 2025, where energy prices played a role in state races in Georgia, New Jersey, and Virginia. There are many factors pushing up electricity prices , but in some parts of the country, efforts to revamp the electric grid to handle more extreme weather is the primary reason. In California, utilities are upgrading their infrastructure to reduce wildfire risk; in the Southeast, they are rebuilding after hurricanes and flooding and billing their customers for it. In Arizona, residents are cranking up the air conditioning during scorching heat and paying more for power simply because they’re using more AC. Technicians conduct maintenance at electric facilities among the ruins of beachfront structures after the January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles. Qian Weizhong / VCG via Getty Images Even Republican-leaning voters — 42 percent of conservative Republicans, and 57 percent of moderate ones — are linking their rising costs to global warming, according to the Yale survey. “It makes perfect sense that they would do so, given the results from our study, which show that the geographically rural areas are actually facing some of the highest costs,” Clausing said. From wildfires to hurricanes, rural areas are often facing the brunt of the damage. Her study found that the largest household costs occurred in parts of the West, the Gulf Coast, and Florida. Utility bills, despite being a top political issue, are actually one of the smaller price-point impacts of climate change, according to Clausing’s research: Households are spending an average of about $35 more on electricity per year, compared with an extra $356 on homeowners’ insurance premiums, the biggest cost. Clausing, who owns a house in Portland, Oregon, said the insurance premium on her home skyrocketed from around $1,000 five years ago to about $2,200 today — an increase that her insurance company said was to help recoup the costs of wildfire damage in Oregon. Another major category of costs in Clausing’s study was the health effects of climate change. As wildfire smoke grows more common, exposing people to harmful particulate matter, it’s leading to early deaths. The estimated economic damage of these premature deaths works out to $103 for every household in the United States each year. That’s not to mention the other ways climate change damages the public’s health, from lengthening allergy seasons to expanding the geographic spread of infectious diseases as temperatures warm, allowing ticks and mosquitoes to explore new territories. But it seems like many Americans haven’t made the connection: Only 35 percent of those in the Yale survey who agreed that climate change was driving up prices saw a link to higher health care costs. That’s because these health risks haven’t been adequately communicated to the public, said Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. “Health is one of the most powerful ways we have of saying, ‘Actually, this affects our lives right here, right now. It’s already affecting the people and places and things that we love,’” he said. Read Next What’s behind your eye-popping power bill? We broke it down, region by region. Naveena Sadasivam & Clayton Aldern Though most of the respondents thought climate change made groceries more expensive, it’s hard to measure the effect of extreme weather on food costs, according to Catherine Wolfram, a co-author of the study and a professor of applied economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. That’s mainly because the United States’ food supply comes from all over the world, mitigating the impact of, say, a drought in Brazil or a heat wave in the Great Plains. Still, other research has found that hot summers can lead to higher food prices , with more increases projected as the world warms. As the effects of global warming grow more extreme, it’s becoming clear that they’re posing a problem for the budgets of lower-income Americans. Clausing is studying ways to design policies that tackle climate change without burdening poor families, through rebates or other mechanisms that can offset costs. “I’m glad people are connecting the dots,” Clausing said. “I think, at the moment, if you pursue better climate policy, the benefits to households, for the country as a whole, would exceed the costs.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What’s driving up your expenses? Many Americans say climate change. on Jun 12, 2026.
<p>The worst-case scenario for a high-emissions scenario has been revised downward – but the best-case option is now implausible</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2026/jun/11/australia-news-live-labor-coalition-one-nation-anthony-albanese-pauline-hanson-capital-gains-housing-peptides-arthritis-ntwnfb">Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates</a></p></li><li><p>Get our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl">breaking news email</a>, <a href="https://app.adjust.com/w4u7jx3">free app</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl">daily news podcast</a></p></li></ul><p>In a world where people accept global heating is bad, news that we had avoided a boiling-in-our-own-juices version of the planet’s future might have been welcomed.</p><p>Instead, the news that a group of climate scientists had officially retired their very worst scenario for the future of the planet was proof – <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260519-lost-in-trump-s-climate-boast-best-case-scenario-abandoned#:~:text=WRONG!%20WRONG!%20WRONG!">according to Donald Trump</a> – that the scientists had been (in all caps) WRONG! WRONG! WRONG.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/11/climate-crisis-science-emissions-good-news-corp-misrepresentation">Continue reading...</a>
As the midterm elections approach, something strange has happened: Democratic politicians who once talked about climate change as the defining crisis of our time now barely mention it at all. The phrase has begun disappearing from their speeches, social media posts, and podcast appearances. The main exception is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who has given some version of his “Time to Wake Up” speech on the dangers of climate change more than 300 times over the past decade and a half. He’s accused “ climate hushers ” of pushing the party to stop talking about the overheating planet. If you had to pinpoint the moment that “climate hushing” began, the 2024 presidential election would be the obvious contender. After President Donald Trump beat former Vice President Kamala Harris in all seven swing states, Democrats were left scrambling to figure out where they went wrong. One popular theory was that they were too busy harping on social justice and planetary problems at the expense of everyday concerns voters cared more about, like the rising cost of living. Whitehouse, however, sees global warming as a piece of that conversation, rather than a distraction from it. “Climate change is right now raising costs for families across the country through higher property insurance premiums, grocery and electric bills, and health care expenses,” Whitehouse said in a statement to Grist. The idea that talking about climate change is a liability for Democrats has become conventional wisdom. Last year, the Democrat-aligned think tank Searchlight Institute issued the advice “ Don’t say climate change .” A recent op-ed in The New York Times concluded, “When it comes to climate change, for now, it might be better to say nothing at all.” An early draft of the Democratic National Committee’s autopsy report of the 2024 election, released under pressure in May, posited that messages about climate change and shifting to green energy “created anxiety among workers in traditional industries worried about job losses.” “It’s very zeitgeisty to assume right now that it’s really important not to talk about climate, or that Democrats have paid a political cost for talking about climate,” said Matto Mildenberger, a professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But there’s no hard evidence that discussing climate change hurts Democrats in elections, Mildenberger and other experts told Grist. If anything, it rewards candidates with a modest boost among voters, studies and surveys show. The basis for thinking that Democrats should avoid the subject comes from polls asking voters about their top priorities: Climate change ranks number 24 out of 25 when Americans are asked which issues will be very important to their vote, according to data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication last year. That’s mainly because other concerns have risen in importance, with liberal Democrats more concerned about things like protecting democracy, government corruption, and the treatment of immigrants than before the 2024 election. It’s a logical leap, however, to assume that talking about climate change is a political liability simply because voters don’t name it as one of their top issues. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse speaks during a Senate Committee on Finance confirmation hearing in 2025. Andrew Harnik / Getty Images Some commentators argue that you can achieve climate action just by getting Democrats elected, regardless of whether they’re bringing it up. But deemphasizing climate change as part of their political platform could have long-term consequences: Without real discussion of it, you lose momentum for action and send a signal that it’s not important. “You actually need to have conversation and attention to an issue to slowly build the coalition and policy work necessary to address it,” Mildenberger said. In effect, Democrats are ceding rhetorical ground to their opponents, he argues, even as polling shows that Trump’s agenda — blocking the construction of wind farms, scrubbing public information about global warming from government websites, and pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement — is broadly unpopular . “All of this is, frankly, doing the service of the fossil fuel industry, ultimately, because it’s helping climate delay,” Mildenberger said. Whitehouse has argued that Democrats are “poll-chasing,” parroting what voters say they want to hear with bland, backward-looking messages. “Many Americans don’t believe Democrats are fighters,” Whitehouse said. “The best way to shed that label is to actually step into the arena and fight. Our climate messaging has long been terrible, but it would be malpractice to shy away from a fight with Central Casting villains (the fossil fuel industry climate denial fraud and dark money corruption operations) with such high stakes for the economic well-being of American families.” As people in the U.S. struggle with rising costs and surging gas prices, oil giants are raking in billions from the Iran war, a dissonance that Democrats could tap into. Matt Burgess, an economist at the University of Wyoming who studies how to find common ground on the environment, agrees with the broader sentiment that Democrats alienated voters on cultural issues and lost sight of concerns around affordability, and that progressive messaging about climate change was a piece of that. But he said it’s wrong to assume that climate change is a losing issue. “There are lots of different lines of evidence that suggest that climate change as an issue overall helps the Democrats and hurts Republicans,” Burgess said. A study he co-authored in 2024 found that in a hypothetical world in which climate change hadn’t been an issue in the 2020 election, Republicans could have gained somewhere around a 3-percent swing in the popular vote, enough to hand the White House to Trump instead of Joe Biden. “If you have any issue that moves the needle a little bit in your favor in a super-close election, it can make the difference between winning and losing,” Burgess said. Exit polling suggests there’s little reason to believe that climate change was a problem for Democrats in 2024, as opposed to other issues playing a larger role. Swing voters considered “U.S. efforts to fight climate change” a reason to support Harris over Trump by 21 points, according to a survey of 5,000 voters from Navigator Research just before and after the election. Trump won by large margins on inflation, the economy, and immigration — concerns that were top-of-mind for voters. “The very simple version is, Trump winning those voters won the election,” said Bryan Bennett, who runs the independent consulting practice Loft Beck Strategies, advising Democrats and progressives, and who directed the post-election survey in his previous role at Navigator. Harris, in other words, didn’t lose because she mentioned climate change a few times, or even because Democrats passed climate policies under the Biden administration. Federal investments in infrastructure and manufacturing projects were, on a county level, linked to a very small improvement in the vote share for Harris, an analysis from the Center for American Progress found. If anything, the problem was that voters didn’t know enough about the federal government’s involvement to give the administration credit . Read Next The planet is overheating. Why is the news looking away? Kate Yoder Even if climate change is not an electoral problem for Democrats, they might have other reasons for staying quiet about it. The media ecosystem now is fractured, with many people getting their news from TikTok, YouTube, and podcasts as opposed to traditional news sources, meaning that it’s harder than ever for politicians to make their preferred narrative heard, Bennett said. In recent years, the Democratic Party has gotten more serious about “message discipline,” the practice of sticking with a central message, to try to cut through the noise. “So much of the oxygen in the room is taken up by, ‘How do Democrats deal with, and how do progressives deal with, talking about the economy in a way that really meets voters where they are?’” Bennett said. “And I think that inherently detracts from basically every other issue, regardless of whether it’s a good thing to talk about or not.” The Democratic politicians who are still mentioning climate change have tended to do so indirectly, arguing that clean energy is “cheap energy” and tying it to rising electricity bills . Polling suggests that voters have an appetite for more: Last fall, 41 percent of those surveyed by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication said they wanted political candidates to talk about efforts to reduce global warming more often, almost double the number who wanted to hear about it less. The trend of climate-hushing could stem from a misperception: Studies show that politicians and the public at large tend to vastly underestimate Americans’ appetite for taking action on climate change, from carbon taxes to expanding renewable energy. “We have this tension where, I think, empirically, talking about climate change provides a net benefit. It’s a very small net benefit, but it is a net benefit,” Mildenberger said. “But we have a discourse that somehow says that it’s this massive cost.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why are so many Democrats going quiet on climate change? on Jun 8, 2026.