The El Paso Manifesto: Where Racism and Eco-Facism Meet
Just look, as Dissent magazine did in May, at this spring’s European elections. Following the European Green Party’s historic gains, the far-right Alternative for Germany’s youth wing in Berlin urged party leaders to abandon the “difficult to understand statement that mankind does not influence the climate,” an issue that moves “more people than we thought.” In…
Burn. Build. Repeat: Why Our Wildfire Policy Is So Deadly
A multiple-exposure image of developer Jeb Allen at a construction site in Redding’s Salt Creek Heights Justin Maxon Standing on Shingletown Ridge and gazing west toward the setting sun, Bruce Miller eyes a rainbow of colors. He sees pink: the dusky sky blanketing a postcard-perfect valley 3,000 feet below. He sees gray: distant snow-capped mountains. He…
Americans Trust Scientists, Until Politics Gets in the Way
sanjeri/Getty This story was originally published by Wired. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Nothing’s more American than a science-hero—an indomitable, big-brained hasher-out of ideas that change the world, that make the impossible possible. At least since Ben Franklin sat with the founders, and certainly since Vannevar Bush explicitly connected the US’ future to federal funding…
There’s a ‘Toxic Fallout’ From the Notre-Dame Disaster: Lead Contamination
A kid looks at the Notre Dame cathedral two months after the massive fire which ravaged the roof of the famous monument.Chesnot/Getty This story was originally published by CityLab and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Three months after the devastating fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, reports of a new, previously unheeded threat to local residents have…
Communities in the American Southwest Were Exposed to Nuclear Fallout. Can They Get Compensated?
Universal History Archive/Getty This story was originally published by Undark. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The atomic bomb was born in the desert. In the early hours of July 16, 1945, after a spate of bad weather, a 20-kiloton plutonium-based nuke referred to as “the gadget” detonated near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Firsthand testimonies…
A Teen Scientist Figured out How to Suck Microplastics from the Ocean. There May Be Hope for Humanity.
Fionn Ferreira On Monday, Fionn Ferreira, an 18-year-old from Ireland, took home the top prize—which includes, in addition to a lifetime of bragging rights, a $50,000 educational scholarship—at the Google Science Fair for his project on microplastic pollution. Microplastics are plastic fragments less than 5 millimeters in size and they pose serious environmental and a public…