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Western Wildfires Destroyed 246% More Homes and Buildings Over the Past Decade – Fire Scientists Explain What’s Changing

Western Wildfires Destroyed 246% More Homes and Buildings Over the Past Decade – Fire Scientists Explain What’s Changing

It can be tempting to think that the recent wildfire disasters in communities across the West were unlucky, one-off events, but evidence is accumulating that points to a trend.

In a new study, we found a 246% increase in the number of homes and structures destroyed by wildfires in the contiguous Western U.S. between the past two decades, 1999-2009 and 2010-2020.

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    Fracking in 2018: Another Year of Pretending to Make Money

    Fracking in 2018: Another Year of Pretending to Make Money

    By Justin Mikulka 2018 was the year the oil and gas industry promised that its darling, the shale fracking revolution, would stop focusing on endless production and instead turn a profit for its investors. But as the year winds to a close, it’s clear that hasn’t happened. Instead, the fracking industry has helped set new […]

    An Aquifer From the Ice Age Becomes a Battleground in New Mexico

    An Aquifer From the Ice Age Becomes a Battleground in New Mexico

    By Eleanor Bravo Imagine: a deep, pristine aquifer persists without incident for more than 11,700 years in the Valley of San Augustin. It is revered and left unmarred by the community members who know of its existence, utilizing it respectfully and sustainably, leaving it intact—from the Ice Age until 2008. That is when a New […]

    ‘Short-Term Folly’: U.S. Adds 38 Percent More Oil and Gas Rigs

    ‘Short-Term Folly’: U.S. Adds 38 Percent More Oil and Gas Rigs

    By John R. Platt The number of oil and gas rigs in the U.S. has increased an astonishing 38 percent over the past year. That’s according to S&P Global Platts Analytics, which reported this week that the country had 1,070 rigs at the end of January, up from just 773 a year earlier. Experts expressed […]

    New Mexico’s Largest Utility Will Stop Burning Coal, Despite Trump’s Clean Power Plan Rollback

    New Mexico’s Largest Utility Will Stop Burning Coal, Despite Trump’s Clean Power Plan Rollback

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt announced Monday that the Trump administration is rolling back the Clean Power Plan to end the previous administration’s “war on coal” but there’s a big problem: Obama didn’t kill the coal industry—the market for cheap natural gas and increasingly affordable renewable energy did. Case in point, The Santa […]

    Santa Fe Aiming for 100% Renewable Energy by 2025

    Santa Fe Aiming for 100% Renewable Energy by 2025

    New Mexico’s capital has joined the growing movement of U.S. cities committing to 100 percent renewable energy. On Wednesday, Santa Fe’s City Council unanimously adopted Mayor Javier Gonzales’ resolution directing City Manager Brian Snyde to develop a feasibility study on how the city can transition to renewables by 2025. Snyde will report the findings in […]

    Fracking Caused 6,648 Spills in Four States Alone, Duke Study Finds

    Fracking Caused 6,648 Spills in Four States Alone, Duke Study Finds

    Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has long been tied to environmental risks such as spills. The frequency of spills, however, has long been murky since states do not release standardized data. Estimates from the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) vary wildly. “The number of spills nationally could range from approximately 100 to 3,700 spills annually, assuming […]