Despite being in office for less than a month, the Trump administration has already made the United States more exposed to catastrophic wildfires in ways that will be difficult to reverse, current and former federal employees say. On Thursday, the administration fired 3,400 employees from the U.S. Forest Service, which manages 193 million acres of … Read more
(Editors note: This is the second edition of The Climate Fix, a twice-a-month look at some of the biggest and most promising solutions to climate change. Read the last version here. Got comments? Email us at Climateforward@nytimes.com.) Thanks in large part to booming data center construction and the surge in artificial intelligence, electricity demand in … Read more
A Texas county is taking steps to declare a state of emergency and seek federal assistance over farmland contaminated with harmful “forever chemicals,” as concerns grow over the safety of fertilizer made from sewage. Johnson County, south of Fort Worth, has been roiled since county investigators found high levels of chemicals called PFAS, or per- … Read more
As the Trump administration continues to withhold billions of dollars for climate and clean energy spending — despite two federal judges ordering the money released — concerns are growing that the United States government could skip out on its legal commitments. Typically, when the federal government spends money through a grant or a loan program … Read more
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has decided to stop enforcing rules designed to prevent flood damage to schools, libraries, fire stations and other public buildings. Experts say the move, which has not been publicly announced, could endanger public safety and may be in violation of federal law. The change in policy was laid out in … Read more
A large swath of California was bracing Thursday for an intense bout of rain that could lead to flooding and cause debris flows in areas recently burned by wildfires. The Southern California regions scorched by flames last month were of particular concern because the soil in those areas can repel water and allow sheets … Read more
The acting chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mark Uyeda, took the first step on Tuesday to rolling back a rule that would require thousands of publicly traded companies to provide investors with detailed information about the impact of their businesses on climate and the environment. Mr. Uyeda said in a statement that … Read more
Helen Hays, an intrepid ornithologist who for nearly 50 years led scores of volunteers to Great Gull Island, a postage-stamp islet in Long Island Sound, where they endured dive-bombing birds and fierce ocean storms to help revitalize it as one of the world’s largest nesting sites for common and roseate terns, died on Feb. 5 … Read more
It may be more heartbreaking than hearing your Thanksgiving dinner is wasteful or your Halloween chocolate is problematic. But yes: Those Valentine’s roses do have an environmental cost. The majority of cut flowers this time of year are flown in from Colombia and Ecuador on refrigerated airplanes, burning through fossil fuels. Commercial flower farming has … Read more
Federal electricity regulators on Tuesday approved a proposal from the nation’s largest electric grid operator that could effectively give new natural gas power plants priority in connecting to the grid over renewable energy sources like solar and wind. The decision, by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, comes as the United States faces the prospect of … Read more