covering climate now

Why America Needs Environmental Justice

Why America Needs Environmental Justice

By Jeff Berardelli In recent weeks, our nation has been forced to come to grips with the variety of ways in which inequality harms minority communities, from the death of George Floyd at the hands of police to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19. A recent Harvard study concluded that air pollution — which is typically […]

Join our newsletter

The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!

    As Protests Rage Over George Floyd’s Death, Climate Activists Embrace Racial Justice

    As Protests Rage Over George Floyd’s Death, Climate Activists Embrace Racial Justice

    By Ilana Cohen, Evelyn Nieves, Judy Fahys, Marianne Lavelle, James Bruggers When New York Communities for Change helped lead a demonstration of 500 on Monday in Brooklyn to protest George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, the grassroots group’s activism spoke to a long-standing link between police violence against African Americans and environmental justice. Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive […]

    Zombie Fires Could Be Awakening in the Arctic

    Zombie Fires Could Be Awakening in the Arctic

    By Mark Kaufman Some fires won’t die. They survive underground during the winter and then reemerge the following spring, as documented in places like Alaska. They’re called “overwintering,” “holdover,” or “zombie” fires, and they may have now awoken in the Arctic Circle — a fast-warming region that experienced unprecedented fires in 2019. The European Union’s […]

    10 Things You Can Do to Help Save the Earth

    10 Things You Can Do to Help Save the Earth

    By Katie Lambert and Sarah Gleim The United Nations suggests that climate change is not just the defining issue of our time, but we are also at a defining moment in history. Weather patterns are changing and will threaten food production, and sea levels are rising and could cause catastrophic flooding across the globe. Countries […]

    Bluer Skies, Less Greenhouse Gas. What Happens After the Pandemic?

    Bluer Skies, Less Greenhouse Gas. What Happens After the Pandemic?

    By Stephanie Hanes Earlier this month, health care experts from across the United States gathered to address hundreds of journalists and policymakers by webinar. But their focus was not testing, nor vaccines, nor “herd immunity.” It was not even COVID-19, really. Instead, their focus was climate change. “While many see issues like climate change and […]

    Trump Dismantles Environmental Protections Under Cover of Coronavirus

    Trump Dismantles Environmental Protections Under Cover of Coronavirus

    By Emily Holden The Trump administration is diligently weakening US environment protections even amid a global pandemic, continuing its rollback as the November election approaches. During the Covid-19 lockdown, US federal agencies have eased fuel-efficiency standards for new cars; frozen rules for soot air pollution; proposed to drop review requirements for liquefied natural gas terminals; […]

    Sheltering Near Fracking

    Sheltering Near Fracking

    By Emily Pontecorvo and Naveena Sadasivam On a spring weekend morning a few weeks ago, Judy Kelly stepped outside of her house in Broomfield, Colorado, to grab the newspaper when her nose perked up. It smelled like something was burning. Kelly, who’s 73, lives in an upscale, 55-and-up retirement community called Anthem Ranch, which sits […]

    The 10 Best Books On Climate Change, According to Climate Activists

    The 10 Best Books On Climate Change, According to Climate Activists

    By Julia Fine A record number of Americans are concerned about climate change, a recent study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication found. If you’re among them, you may be interested in learning more about the climate crisis and what you can do about […]