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Climate/Environment

Mother Jones •

Why Trump can't stop Biden's climate legacy

Since taking office, President Donald Trump hasn’t wasted time unraveling Joe Biden’s climate legacy. He’s signed executive orders directing his administration to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, end offshore wind leases, root out environmental justice programs, and declared a “National Energy Emergency” to encourage more fossil fuel production.

But many of Biden’s climate policies won’t be unglued easily. Some regulations, like the Biden administration’s fuel efficiency standards, may...
OSU Extension Service •

Bilingual education has an impact on Southern Oregon wine grape growers

CENTRAL POINT, Ore. — Nationally, 83% of farmworkers identify as Hispanic or Latino. In Oregon, that number is suspected to be higher.

To Artemio Gutierrez, the foreman at Dark Hallow Farm in Medford, it’s critical that farmworkers know about pests and diseases that harm crops.

“We are the first ones to see the problems,” said Gutierrez, who attended a bilingual field day in September at the Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center, also known as SOREC.

But historically, educational reso...
Mother Jones •

Meet the Mayor of GreenSky

Ketan Joshi did not mean to become the manager of all things climate on Bluesky, the fast-growing social media platform that’s trying to compete directly with Twitter.

The 39-year-old Australian expat who now lives in Oslo, Norway has spent his career writing about green energy as a communications specialist for renewable energy companies and author of Windfall: Unlocking a Fossil-Free Future, but found it especially hard to share climate information on platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Tho...
Mother Jones •

One week in, the Los Angeles fires are still spreading

It has been a week since Los Angeles’ devastating wildfires began, driven by powerful winds that have made the blazes highly difficult to fight.

More than 40,000 acres have already burned, with at least 24 deaths; by comparison, the entirety of Washington, DC, is 43,000 acres. More than 12,300 structures have been destroyed, and at least 90,000 people are without power. Disinformation is skyrocketing as influencers peddle questionable products, right-wing commentators blame the devastation on ‘...
Mother Jones •

New wildfires are breaking out in Los Angeles

It’s been two weeks since the outbreak of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires that have burned more than 40,000 acres and killed at least 28 people.

While significant progress has been made in containing the Palisades and Eaton fires, the two most destructive wildfires to ever hit LA—72 and 95 percent contained, respectively, compared to 17 and 35 percent a week ago, with far less damage since—there has been little time to celebrate the win. On January 22, two other fires around Los Angeles t...
Mother Jones •

For scientists studying environmental health, Trump's diktats are a slow-moving disaster

Gabriel Filippelli opened up his email inbox on Monday to encounter some unexpected news: a notice that his $300,000 grant from the State Department was no more.

Filippelli is the Chancellor’s Professor of Earth Sciences and executive director of the Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University. Previously a senior science advisor to the State Department, he has dedicated his career to understanding and improving environmental health. “I work on issues related to pollution and air q...
Mother Jones •

Can the rule of law save the IRA?

In 2022, President Biden and Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, securing over $370 billion for climate infrastructure. According to an oversight report from June 2024, only 12 percent—or $4.4 billion—of the funding had been spent. Biden rushed to “Trump-proof” another $96.7 billion in his last days of office by signing between the government and recipients.

But that preparation may have not been successful.

On day one, Trump countered with an executive order that includes halting fed...
Mother Jones •

Wildfires have engulfed Los Angeles

At least 10 people have been confirmed dead as wildfires continue to torch through Los Angeles County in the region’s most destructive fires in history. Officials warn that strong winds will persist into Thursday, further hampering ongoing firefighting efforts.

As of this writing, 180,000 people are under mandatory evacuation orders. Thousands of structures and entire neighborhoods have been destroyed. While fire officials are still investigating the causes, the fires have undeniably been fuele...
OSU Extension Service •

OSU researcher demonstrates bee pesticide monitoring is due for an upgrade

CORVALLIS, Ore. — By the time she was studying the mechanics of stag beetle pinchers as an undergraduate student, Emily Carlson knew she had been bit by the research bug.

Literally.

“Basically, I just got them really angry, saw how hard they could pinch, and then dissected their heads,” Carlson said.

Disclaimer: Beetles aren’t “true” bugs, but in the United States they are referred to colloquially as bugs.

Carlson went on to work in natural resources nonprofits and local governance as she fi...
OSU Extension Service •

Dormant-season grazing is a win for all, Extension researcher shows

ONTARIO, Ore. — In 2015, the Soda Fire burned 280,000 acres in southwest Idaho and southeast Oregon, including large swathes of Malheur County.

One of the biggest contributors to the fire — and others like it — are invasive grasses, otherwise known as “fine fuels.” Not only do fine fuels worsen wildfires, they can also out-compete native plants that make up the unique biodiversity of the Northern Great Basin, where Malheur County is located.

Sergio Arispe, who’s been with the Oregon State Uni...
OSU Extension Service •

New detections of emerald ash borer signal plan is working

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Even as lead of the Oregon Forest Pest Detector Program, Dan Stark missed the moment emerald ash borer breached Oregon’s borders.

“I went up to a concert for the first time since COVID,” he said, “I was out in the Sierra Nevada.”

He returned to the news: The dreaded invasive beetle — which had been making its way across America, leaving a path of damaged, dying and dead ash trees in its wake — had been found in Oregon. The Oregon Departments of Agriculture and Forestry and ot...
OSU Extension Service •

Extension pollinator specialist shines the light on hidden vineyard wonders

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Did you know that bees in Oregon could be emerald green and cobalt blue? Did you know that some don’t sting or bumble? And some are so small they appear as just specks in the sky?

Andony Melathopoulos, Oregon State’s pollinator health Extension specialist and an associate professor in the College of Agricultural Sciences, is dedicated to making sure each of Oregon’s unique 800-plus species of bees thrive.

“Oregonians want to ensure that the bees of the state are doing well,”...
OSU Extension Service •

Engineering students help Extension faculty improve cover crop technology

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Nick Andrews, Oregon State University Extension Service’s organic vegetable specialist, is one of the university’s resident experts on cover crops and a founding board member of the Western Cover Crops Council.

Cover crops are not grown to be eaten or sold — rather they are grown to improve farm conditions. “Cover crops can protect soil from erosion, improve soil tilth, supply nitrogen, reduce weeds, provide nectar and pollen for beneficial insects, increase the winter surviva...
OSU Extension Service •

Extension helps land nearly $6 million for wildfire resilience in Wasco County

THE DALLES, Ore – Wasco County has been designated as “very high risk” for wildfire, making it a higher risk than 95-100% of other communities in the United States.

Because of this, Kayla Bordelon, the Oregon State University Extension Service regional fire specialist for the Willamette Valley and north Cascades, made Wasco a top priority.

And that is not just talk: Bordelon and other local and regional collaborators have been awarded a nearly $6 million grant for the county through the federa
Mother Jones •

An epic battle over 1 mile of land in Wisconsin is tearing environmentalists apart

Judge William M. Conley watched as the Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission Line inched toward the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge—a 240,000-acre bird sanctuary through which the fully funded power project lacked the permits to pass. By January 2022, he’d seen enough. It “amounts to little more than an orchestrated trainwreck,” Conley, an Obama-appointed federal judge from the Western District of Wisconsin, wrote in a scathing 23-page opinion that delayed construction.

More than
Mother Jones •

New York City is underwater, with big trouble in the pipes

New York City is underwater. As heavy rainfall hits the northeast, making the city’s roads impassable and halting train and subway service, social media videos show flooding through holes in subway walls and water rushing into buses and cars—as well as sewage pushing up into homes. Twenty-three million people in the area are on flood watch, with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy all issuing states of emergency and deploying rescue teams.

New York’s ba
Mother Jones •

How to picture a greener future: Inside the first climate museum

“Are museums shrines to the past, hubs of engagement for the present, or shapers of the future?” asks Beka Economopoulos in her review of the 2019 collection Museum Activism. Economopoulos co-founded and directs the Natural History Museum, a traveling pop-up museum that reimagines “natural history,” but it’s a question any visitor can ponder in any exhibition: relics, fossils, science experiments, crafts, or art ranging from Monet to a blank canvas or pile of trash.

“No one would dispute that m
Mother Jones •

16 young people in Montana just won a historic climate lawsuit

A healthy climate is included in your constitutional rights, at least if you live in Montana. On Monday, District Court Judge Kathy Seeley sided with the 16 young plaintiffs who sued Montana three years ago, arguing that its pro–fossil fuels legislation violated their right to a safe environment. Seeley ruled in the case, Held v. Montana, that “plaintiffs have a fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes climate as part of the environmental life support
Mother Jones •

Florida insurers dodged a bullet with Idalia. Their luck may not last.

Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall Wednesday as a Category Three storm, left 450,000 Floridians without power and caused record-breaking storm surges and widespread flooding that locals documented on social media. Although early estimates of insured damages and economic losses are wildly preliminary, the costs in Florida alone will likely run into the billions. (AccuWeather initially estimated up to $20 billion for the wider region.)

In any case, intense storms like these are gonna cost, and
Mother Jones •

How does the American Climate Corps compare to its predecessor?

On Wednesday, the Biden administration launched the American Climate Corps, a climate-focused youth job training program. The plan will put some 20,000 people to work doing clean energy, wildfire prevention, and coastal resilience jobs and has already cost $150 million in investment. It’s far from the original vision, which Biden announced in 2021 and which would have invested $30 billion for more than 300,000 workers. Despite this, activists, including those in New York City for the Climate Wee
Mother Jones •

A bunch of new research puts this winter's wild weather in frightening context

The earth is already breaking all sorts of records this year, and they’re not good ones. As I type, California’s historic rainfall pours down the coast and residents face over 300 mudslides, on top of widespread flash flooding. At the peak of the storm, over 800,000 lost power. Just weeks before, snowfall across the US shattered expectations. In Nashville, residents got their yearly average of snow in less than a day.

And that’s just the tip of the (quickly melting) iceberg.

Since the start of
Mother Jones •

Climate change caused the storms—but failed infrastructure made them deadly

When snow hit Nashville this January, residents were almost cheerful as they noted the rare occurrence. A local musician posted a video, singing in the snow, with the caption “I thought when we moved South we did not have to worry about snow…too hot to be cold!” But the upbeat demeanor in Music City dissipated as conditions became treacherous and accidents started to be reported. Then the power went out as equipment failed in the cold. Nashville residents weren’t alone in their troubles. The mul
Mother Jones •

Colonialism's link to the Maui wildfires

Fires have been raging across Hawaii’s Maui Island since Tuesday night. It is already the second deadliest wildfire in United States history, with 270 structures and 2,000 acres burned, 55 people dead, and 11,000 people without power. More than 11,000 people were evacuated on Wednesday, says Hawaii Department of Transportation director Ed Sniffen. The population of Maui is 164,000.

The fires are especially horrifying because Hawaii is not a natural fire ecosystem and has not evolved to rebound
Mother Jones •

Are these $2,000 water bills racist?

When Tyrone Pettway saw his water bill in October 2021, he thought it was a typo. The bill was for $2,384.51, some $2,300 more than what he usually owed the Prichard, Alabama, water board every month.

The document claimed Pettway, his wife, and their five kids had used 167,000 gallons of water over the course of the 34-day billing period, amounting to nearly 5,000 gallons a day. But Pettway was sure they had used no more water that month than they normally did: 3,700 gallons total, or about 18
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