The September 4 ruling came even after Jackson, Mississippi, residents alleged officials knew the water was contaminated and assured the public it was safe. To this point, the appellate court also ruled that the Constitution does not offer citizens the “right to truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.”

The ruling signals that Black residents may face the most serious consequences of unsafe or failing water systems while having limited ability to seek a remedy through the Constitution. At the same time, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has already determined that the city could not receive support through the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

What is happening in Jackson matters because federal data shows Black communities are more likely than white communities to be served by water systems with health-based Safe Drinking Water Act violations. Research has also found that systems in communities with larger Black populations take much longer to be fixed or improved. 

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“Jackson residents did everything this country tells poor people to do. They organized, they testified, they boiled their water, they filed suit, they trusted the courts. And at every step the answer has been no,” said Danyelle Holmes, a senior national organizer with Mississippi’s Poor People’s Campaign.

Jackson is more than 80 percent Black and has a poverty rate that is more than double the national average.

“What it signals is that the law has told a majority-Black capital city that its suffering is real but its remedy does not exist,” Holmes added.

How did the court come to this decision? 

The lawsuit that spurred the federal appeals court ruling was first brought by Jackson residents who alleged that city officials knowingly allowed lead-contaminated water to reach their homes and then misled the public about whether it was safe to drink. The suit also alleged that state authorities violated civil rights law by repeatedly sending federal money earmarked for drinking water safety to white communities rather than Jackson.

The plaintiffs sued Jackson and former Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba in 2022, arguing that the city’s actions violated their constitutional right to bodily integrity under the 14th Amendment. They sought damages and changes to how the city manages and communicates about its water system.

“Nearly all of the residents of Jackson have watched brackish, dirty, impure, and undrinkable water trickle from their taps. At times, some have had no water at all,” Jackson residents said in 2022. 

In the September 4 ruling, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of the case. Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote that while access to safe water is “important,” it is not a right “deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition,” the standard the court used to decide whether it is protected by the Constitution.

Jackson residents also argued that the alleged false assurances by officials about the water violated their right to make informed decisions about their health. Engelhardt rejected that claim, writing that “lying about the presence of lead in the water is a far cry from the state’s physically extracting evidence from a criminal suspect or conducting an invasive medical procedure without consent.” 

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Engelhardt acknowledged the alleged harm, but wrote: “The Constitution does not provide redress for every governmental wrongdoing.” 

Judge Catharina Haynes dissented in part, arguing that the residents had plausibly alleged that Jackson violated their right to bodily integrity by knowingly placing them in danger.

“They did not say the water was safe. They said even if everything the residents alleged is true, the Constitution owes them nothing,” Holmes said about the ruling.

In response to the ruling, John Horhn, Jackson’s mayor, said in a statement: “We are pleased that the Fifth Circuit upheld the dismissal of these claims. The City remains committed to the health, safety, and well-being of every Jackson resident.”

What exactly is wrong with Jackson’s water? 

As Capital B has documented, Jackson’s water crisis has plagued the city long before it made national headlines in 2021. Residents like Brooke Floyd, who as a child watched her grandmother complain about the water decades ago, have said that the water contamination has impacted their families for generations. 

“I do think the ruling would’ve been different if the majority of our city looked different, was in a different tax bracket, and had a different ZIP code, but alas, we probably wouldn’t have had the problems to begin with,” Floyd told Capital B after the ruling. “The problem the rest of America needs to worry about is, while they were making sure not to guarantee me my rights, they were quietly taking yours, too.”

Others, like Gwendolyn Reed-Davis, have spent years driving long distances to family members’ homes to wash clothes and bathe. 

Reed-Davis attributes her school-age children’s learning problems and her kidney infection to decades of exposure to the city’s contaminated water. Dozens of studies have shown that lead exposure leads to cognitive impairment for life, even decades after initial exposure. And the biggest factor for lead poisoning in America is race, namely being Black, even more so than poverty.

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Time and time again, Floyd said, Jackson has been left to fend for itself and had its issues downplayed by government bodies. 

“Isn’t that how it goes? The oppressor telling the oppressed that they haven’t been discriminated against,” she told Capital B in 2024.

The failures are the result of decades of deferred maintenance, aging treatment equipment, leaking and breaking water mains, staffing shortages, and a shrinking revenue base that left the city unable to keep pace with needed repairs. 

The EPA warned in a March 2020 emergency order that conditions in Jackson’s system presented an “imminent and substantial endangerment” to residents, citing problems with treatment and distribution infrastructure. Then, in February 2021, severe winter weather froze equipment and ruptured lines, leaving tens of thousands of residents without running water for weeks. A year later, flooding and failures at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant triggered another citywide emergency, prompting federal intervention and the appointment of a third-party manager to rebuild the system.

As the city attempts to strengthen its water system, residents are increasingly being asked to finance the improvements. JXN Water, the federally appointed manager overseeing the city’s water and sewer system, says it has improved operations and brought in more revenue, but the utility remains under federal oversight. 

In March, a court-approved rate increase of about 12 percent raised the average residential water-and-sewer bill by roughly $8.88 a month, to about $88. JXN Water’s financial plan now proposes an added 10 percent increase in spring 2027, followed by proposed hikes of 9 percent in 2028 and 8 percent in 2029. That adds up for a city with so many residents living in poverty. 

“We are organizing, we are marching to the polls, and we are not waiting on a court to tell us our lives are worth clean water,” Holmes said in response to the cascading rulings and water issues. “As the Poor People’s Campaign teaches us, this is not about left and right. It is about right and wrong, and everybody knows which one Jackson has received.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Federal court rules there is no constitutional right to safe drinking water on Sep 19, 2026.

The nonprofit organization, which serves those with disabilities, receives $100,000 annually from the state through a federal appropriation. The money finances cards riders use to pay for transportation, but Maxand described the region’s transit as a “bare-minimum lifeline service” and “piecemeal.” 

And yet, even that could soon worsen. 

The surface transportation programs authorized by the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by President Joe Biden in 2021, expire by the end of the year. Lawmakers are hammering out the details of the bipartisan BUILD America 250 Act, which would reauthorize those programs. Transportation advocates say the Biden-era legislation failed to broaden Americans’ mobility options beyond cars, but they see the proposed BUILD Act as a significant step backward.

That’s because the bill would authorize $16.5 billion less for public transit than its predecessor, with $103.3 billion over five years compared with the baseline of $119.9 billion in the Jobs Act, according to the American Public Transportation Association. When adjusted for inflation, the BUILD Act would need an additional $24 billion to match that level, according to the Urban Institute. Every state would receive at least $10 million less in formula funding over the five years the law would be in effect.

“There would be a large decline in funding for public transit, and that would especially be true for projects that require what’s called capital investment funding — projects that require major investments for new lines,” said Yonah Freemark, a researcher with the organization.

Freemark said the effects would extend well beyond major cities. “Public transit is often portrayed as something that is subways in New York City,” he said. “The reality is that millions of people rely on public transit in a lot of smaller communities, including a lot of rural communities and tribal communities around the country. … Those rural transit systems are much more reliant on federal support to provide the service that they offer than are the urban transit agencies.”

Many public transit agencies have been struggling financially since ridership plummeted during the pandemic, exacerbating years of underinvestment. Further cuts could have severe effects, particularly in rural areas, transit advocates and experts said.

The cuts could be particularly painful in Idaho, which the Urban Institute estimates would see the nation’s biggest percentage drop in federal formula transit funding, at 18 percent. Maxand noted that local governments have limited ability to raise money for public transportation. 

“When the federal funding goes away, everything goes away,” he said. That could leave those with disabilities socially isolated, only able to leave their homes for medical needs. 

Maine faces a similar problem. The Urban Institute estimates its federal formula funding would fall 16 percent. Josh Caldwell, a co-facilitator of Transportation for Maine who also works for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, said the state’s transit system already needs improvement.

“Nowhere in the state do we have service that is at the standard that we’d like to see, which is a regularity of every 15 minutes,” he said. 

The state receives about 38 percent of its funding from the federal government. The Maine Department of Transportation already faces a $400 million transportation funding shortfall because gas tax revenues have decreased thanks, in part, to the state’s decision to freeze the tax relative to inflation in 2011.

Though less rural than Maine, Indiana would see a comparable decline in federal formula transit funding under the BUILD Act. Austin Gibble, a transit planner in Indianapolis, said the cuts could lead the region’s transit agency IndyGo to delay bus purchases, forcing it to rely on older, less reliable vehicles.

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Gibble is more concerned about what the cuts might mean for less populated areas. “Rural agencies in Indiana are already horrifically oversubscribed,” he said. In Hamilton County, the largest county in Indiana without fixed route transit service, Gibble said the waitlist for rides on Hamilton County Express, which requires a reservation, can be weeks long. 

The impacts aren’t limited to rural America. The Urban Institute estimates that New York City would lose $2.3 billion over five years. Representative Jerry Nadler, who represents parts of the city, was the lone Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to oppose the bill. 

“It continues a familiar pattern: Highways are treated as the default national priority, while rail and transit are left fighting for insufficient resources, despite carrying millions of people, supporting regional economies, and reducing congestion,” Nadler said in a statement. 

Danny Pearlstein, the policy and communications director at Riders Alliance, said Democrats should think bigger when it comes to transportation legislation. 

“The Biden infrastructure bill was not the high water mark,” he said. “We could do much better than that in a variety of different ways, and we shouldn’t hold up bipartisanship as a core value of how we fund transportation when we have such sharply diverted views of the role of government to invest in people and communities.”

LeeAnn Hall, the campaign manager of the Alliance for a Just Society’s National Campaign for Transit Justice, said the debate is also about affordability. Transportation is the second-highest cost in Americans’ household budgets.

Reduced transit service could push some households toward another car, Hall said. “They have to pay more for gasoline. They’re going to be paying more for insurance. They have to think about parking. They have to think about maintenance and repair,” she said. “It’s expanding their household budget.”

Hall argued that investing in transit benefits people whether they use it or not. “Every dollar that we invest in public transit reduces congestion numbers, makes driving safer, and creates opportunities for families to have options,” she said. 

As for residents of southern Idaho, Maxand hopes to provide them with as many transit options as possible, but they’re all getting more expensive to run, especially as fuel prices continue rising. He expects federal cuts to hit seniors and people with disabilities the hardest. 

“It’s like saying you’re not going to pay for electricity to power the ventilator, but you’re going to leave the ventilator,” he said. “What are we doing here? This is not sustainable.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Federal transit cuts could hit rural America hardest on Sep 18, 2026.

Since the spring, commissioner Alicia Johnson, one of two recently-elected Democrats, has been pressing the commission to meet in a different part of the state as a way to open the floor to different commenters. On Tuesday, the PSC finally did that.

“For over 100 years, the Public Service Commission has met in Atlanta and rarely, if at all, has meetings across the state,” Johnson, whose PSC district includes Chatham and Effingham counties, said. “This was an opportunity for me to have our commissioners come out and actually speak with their constituents outside of Atlanta to move away just from hearing the voices of interveners or advocates.”

The commissioners traveled to Savannah to hear from coastal residents. Following a brief administrative meeting and a presentation on the PSC’s recent actions on data centers, including approval of Georgia Power’s contract with OpenAI and new protections for regular customers, the floor opened for public comments. 

Many of those who spoke voiced concerns over the OpenAI data center that is planned for Effingham County, just outside of Savannah, and called for more transparency around the company’s contract with Georgia Power — the largest for a single customer since the utility started reporting its contracts in 2024.

“There’s a reason you’re named the Public Service Commission and not the Georgia Power service commission or the OpenAI service commission,” said Bill Wright of Pooler, a city northwest of Savannah. “Your name tells you where your loyalty should lie.”

The commissioners clarified the limited scope of their involvement with data centers: They oversee the making and selling of electricity only if a data center chooses Georgia Power as its utility. They encouraged attendees to take up their concerns with local elected officials.

Commenters also criticized the commission over power bills. 

Michael Hawthorne, an organizing strategist with the Sierra Club, argued the commission is supposed to set reasonable rates for electricity. Then he posed a question to the room at large.

“Does anybody feel like everything’s reasonably priced?” he asked.

The audience replied with a resounding “No.”

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The frustration and anger from the Savannah crowd wasn’t surprising, Johnson said.

“It’s what I’ve heard since running for office, and so I’m just glad that our other commissioners got to hear some of it, too,” she said.

Jason Shaw, a Republican from a south Georgia district and the PSC chair, said the meeting reinforced what he’s heard from constituents as well. In an interview after the meeting, Shaw said transparency has been a core issue with the OpenAI data center in particular, starting at the local level. But he said Georgia Power needs to share more information about its data center contracts, too.

“We’ve got to do a better job of forcing the company to be able to present more to us that’s not redacted,” he said. “And I think that’s something that we’re working really closely on.”

Some commenters accused the commissioners of failing to represent the interests of the public that elected them — and reminded them another election is coming up in November.

“If you truly want to be on this board, it’s time to step up and protect the people,” said Corey Foreman, a candidate running for the state senate from a coastal district. “If you can’t do that, I will be more than happy to help remove you.”

All five members of the PSC were Republicans from 2006 until the start of this year, when Peter Hubbard and Johnson took office after unseating two Republican incumbents in an election that focused largely on power bills and the commission’s recent history of rate increases. The two Democrats have cast dissenting votes several times and closely questioned Georgia Power officials. But both have also been candid that their ability to shift policy on emissions, rates, data centers, and other issues is limited while they are in the minority on the PSC.

The District 3 seat currently held by Hubbard and the District 5 seat recently vacated by Republican Tricia Pridemore are both on the ballot in November. If the Democratic candidates win both seats, the party would hold a majority on the commission for the first time in decades.

Hubbard was elected to a one-year term last year and is now facing former Republican commissioner Fitz Johnson in a rematch election for a six-year term. In District 5, Democrat Shelia Edwards is running against Republican Josh Tolbert. While the candidates have to live in their districts, both races are statewide.

Early voting begins October 13.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In Savannah, Georgia’s utility regulators faced public wrath over data centers on Sep 18, 2026.

But now, the Trump administration has taken its boldest step yet in an effort to strip legal protections for endangered species. Starting this week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that it now considers it legal to kill a federally protected animal, as long as it wasn’t on purpose.

The directive comes after another recent revision to these legal protections went into effect this week, saying that damaging an animal’s habitat is no longer considered “harming” it. The two changes in combination take the teeth out of the Endangered Species Act and pave the way for industries to log, mine, pollute, or travel through areas without regard for what lives there.

The fate of the country’s rarest creatures could come down to the meaning of two seemingly simple words: “harm” and “take.” In this case, “take” refers to killing an animal. 

“A vessel that inadvertently strikes a whale has not taken it, because the vessel’s course was not set against the whale,” said the memo, signed by Brian Nesvik, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service. “Felling a tree is not a take of the bats roosting in it unless the tree was felled for the purpose of killing or capturing them.”

Legal experts say this is an unprecedentedly narrow view of what these words mean in the Endangered Species Act, and that the moves are sure to be challenged in court. Almost two dozen states recently sued the Trump administration over changes to the law, and more lawsuits from environmental groups are expected to come. And if history is any indicator, the agency could soon find itself on the losing side of an old argument — one that’s been heard in courts before. 

“They are trying to disregard 50 years of the act, and how the agency — and everybody — has always interpreted this word,” said Ryan Shannon, an attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation nonprofit that has long spearheaded endangered species recovery efforts. “This is not a bunt — they are really swinging for the fences with this.”

That’s because the words “harm” and “take” are at the core of what makes the Endangered Species Act so effective. 

Efforts to protect the northern spotted owl are one such example. Decades of logging in the Pacific Northwest had eliminated much of its forest habitat. But after the species was listed under the act in 1990, cutting down those trees was considered to be harming the owl, and therefore illegally “taking” it.

The law has been a thorn in the side of industries for decades. Environmentalists have often sued companies that want to log, mine, or build in a particular area, using the Endangered Species Act to make their case.

Now, “the administration is telling every industry in America that killing endangered wildlife is fine as long as it wasn’t their primary goal,” said Andrew Wetzler, an executive at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a statement. “But unintentional harm is exactly what is driving many species towards extinction.”

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The Supreme Court has considered these words and their meanings before. In a 1995 case, Babbitt v. Sweet Home, it ruled that modifying a creature’s habitat — such as logging the forest where spotted owls live — counts as harming it. In a dissenting opinion, the late Justice Antonin Scalia argued that “take” means to directly kill or injure wildlife. The Trump administration’s new memo uses Scalia’s interpretation — even though the majority of the court disagreed with Scalia back then. 

Earlier this summer, in a revision that changed which actions it considers to be “harming” an animal, the Trump administration argued that there’s a “traditional meaning” of the word “take,” meaning “to kill or capture a wild animal.” But the verb “take” is so notoriously difficult to define that it’s been tormenting dictionary editors for more than a century. In 2001, the lexicographer Kory Stamper spent weeks trying to capture all the senses of the word, and she reflected that the ordeal “unspooled” her sanity, leading to panic and despair.

In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that courts — not agencies — have the power to interpret the law. That decision was generally seen as a blow to environmental efforts, but in this case, it might mean the Trump administration doesn’t have final say in how it interprets the Endangered Species Act.

All these factors make the Fish and Wildlife Service’s memo legally flimsy, if not illegal, according to Brett Hartl, director of government affairs at the Center of Biological Diversity, an environmental nonprofit. 

The memo is “essentially performative cruelty for the sake of it” and “barely worth the paper it’s printed on,” Hartl said. “They’re trying to turn it into an anti-poaching statute, but it’s actually supposed to be the strongest conservation law in the world.”

Ironically enough, the administration’s rewrite may leave companies in a tougher spot than before, Shannon said, because it blows up the settled rules they’d been following for decades. Corporate attorneys now have to choose between telling clients to take advantage of the agency’s new approach, or holding off in case a court or new administration puts the old protections back into place.

For companies that actually want long‑term regulatory certainty, like timber corporations and real estate developers, Shannon said that this deregulatory swing may be “more than they ever really would have asked for.”

If the courts do end up siding with the Trump administration, some species will suffer more than others. Those listed as endangered in more recent decades were given “critical habitat protections,” which provided an extra layer of scrutiny to activities that could harm animals and were made mandatory for all newly listed animals.

But many of the species listed during the Endangered Species Act’s early years — including the Florida panther and the California sea otter — never received those protections. Instead, they depend on broader language in the law, like “harm” and “take.” That means the animals America once wanted to protect the most could now be the most exposed.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The fate of the Endangered Species Act rests on 2 simple words on Sep 18, 2026.

Water crashed through his bay windows, drowning the family’s piano and heirloom cedar chests. His 29-year-old daughter piled family photos on a bed until it started floating. The inundation ruined documents, appliances, and insulation, and repairs cost the family $150,000. “We lost everything,” Lowrey said.

What Lowrey didn’t know then was that the flood that wrecked his home would return the following summer. And the summer after that.

Alaska is warming at two to three times the global average, and the changing climate poses a particular risk to Juneau. Since 2011, meltwater and rain collecting in a basin beside the Mendenhall Glacier have periodically flooded neighborhoods along the Mendenhall River. For more than a decade, the floods remained relatively small. Then, in 2023, the river reached a record high of nearly 15 feet. New benchmarks followed in 2024 and again in 2025.

Another flood came last month. Scientists expect them to return annually for decades to come.

That has forced Juneau to confront a problem that communities around the world are increasingly facing: How do you prepare for a natural disaster when you know it will come back?

Juneau is beginning to find an answer. Scientists and local officials are putting increasingly sophisticated flood forecasts directly into the hands of residents. The online dashboard rolled out in 2025 translates complex glacier and hydrology data into information they can use to decide when to protect their belongings, prepare for rising water, or leave their homes.

The forecasts are changing how Juneau responds to the threat by providing officials and thousands of people in the flood zone more time to act before the water arrives. The approach could offer lessons far beyond Alaska as communities elsewhere contend with floods, hurricanes, and other climate-driven disasters that strike again and again.

Juneau sits amid the mountains and wilderness that define much of southeast Alaska. Although it is the state capital and home to 32,000 people, it is accessible only by air or sea. Lowrey’s family has deep roots in this rugged landscape. He recounted his story standing beneath the hide of a brown bear his grandfather shot decades ago. Still, the flood traumatized his family. His daughter tears up thinking about it. 

“We didn’t know anything,” he said. “We didn’t understand the nature of the basin. We thought it was a 100-year flood.”

They quickly learned otherwise. Each summer, the basin beside the Mendenhall Glacier fills with meltwater and rain. The glacier acts as a dam until enough water accumulates to trigger a flood downstream. In 2023, one of those floods inundated roughly two dozen homes, sweeping a house into the river and causing millions of dollars in damage. A year later, another flood damaged nearly 300 homes.

Glacial outburst floods are not unique to Juneau. They occur in Iceland, the Alps, the Himalayas, and other regions with glaciers. In Alaska’s capital, however, residential neighborhoods sit directly in the flood’s path, leaving thousands of residents exposed to the recurring threat.

“For Sale” signs dot the valley, but it’s a buyer’s market in the flood zone. Those within it have had little choice but to adapt to the annual floods. Some have dug moats. Others have raised their houses several feet above the ground. The city has built roughly 6 miles of barriers between the Mendenhall River and residents’ homes. 

Amid the uncertainty, the dashboard has become a source of comfort. Mark Miller, 75, checks it every day, waiting for the warning he knows is coming. “It’s pretty much on my mind constantly,” he said.

Two years ago, the sound of water pouring into the crawl space beneath his home jolted Miller awake in the wee hours. When he ventured into the garage and opened the door, a wall of gray slush surged toward him.

By the time the water receded, 16 inches of water filled the garage and mud and silt streaked the walls. Setting it all right took seven months and cost $35,000. Tears still fill his eyes at the memory of it all. Now, he prepares for each flood by placing sandbags on both sides of his doors to hold them in place against the water’s pressure. He turns to the dashboard to understand what happened and what is coming. 

“It can accurately predict the height of [glacial] floods within hours, which is pretty amazing,” he said.

Last year, more than 15,000 people accessed the dashboard for real-time updates on the floods. In addition to flood maps and forecasts, it offers an interactive explanation of how the basin formed and how glacial outburst floods happen.

It was there that Miller learned the science behind the water that invaded his home.

The Mendenhall Glacier peeks out behind verdant mountains in the summertime, a vast block of ice streaked with blue and gray that has long drawn tourists and scientists to Alaska’s capital.

The basin beside the glacier is known as Suicide Basin. As the water accumulates, the pressure can lift the expanse of ice, creating a drain that sends a torrent rushing toward the Mendenhall River. During a large outburst flood, the basin can release upward of 15 billion gallons, enough to fill 22,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Mendenhall Valley first flooded in 2011, but scientists had no idea why. They hopped in a helicopter and discovered that water in the basin behind the glacier was leaking.

Looking for a way to communicate directly with residents, researchers at the University of Alaska Southeast and the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center collaborated with the city to develop the dashboard. They then worked with residents to distribute flyers and magnets with QR codes that directed people to the dashboard.

Eran Hood, one of the environmental scientists who developed the tool, said he sees a broader lesson in Juneau’s experience.

“You can do the same thing with hurricanes, storm surges,” he said. “You could do the same thing with floods on rivers like the Mississippi.” The goal, he said, is to “find the best way to provide people with information that gives them the power to make decisions. That to me is the biggest lesson from this.”

The flood data and forecasts are also shaping the city’s response. In 2024, officials started studying them to determine where to build miles of temporary walls along the Mendenhall River to protect homes from future floods.

On a rainy July afternoon, Nate Rumsey, deputy director of engineering and public works for the city, stared up at stacks of army-green, dirt-filled barriers lining the river to protect residents from a deluge that came on August 13.

Another severe flood “could put the viability of our community at risk,” he said.

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The defenses, known as Hesco barriers, snake through town, behind the library and elementary school and past homes, sometimes coming within inches of windows. The fabric-lined wire-mesh baskets, which are filled with sand and gravel, connect like Legos, stacked two, three, or four high. Rumsey spent months working with the Army Corps of Engineers to map out and oversee their installation.

The dashboard helped homeowners watching soldiers carry barriers into their backyards understand the threat they faced and the city’s response, Rumsey said.

“We recognized early on that the community needs to have information pertinent to this available to them for their own decision-making,” he said.

Residents could use the online tool to see how high the water might rise on their property without the barriers, and understand what those defenses were designed to prevent.

The dashboard has also changed how residents understand the landscape around them. 

Alyssa Fischer never gave much thought to the glacier towering over her house until she woke at 2 a.m. to find her street had turned into a river.

As the water rolled into her garage and swept away her front porch, the 33-year-old single mother decided it was time to go. She grabbed her 8-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son and carried them through knee-deep, icy water, shouting to wake her neighbors. She put her pet duck, quail, and goose in the bed of her red pickup as water rose above the wheels.

Like so many residents in Juneau, Fischer now speaks the language of the scientists studying the ice above her. She talks about how rainfall can change a flood’s timeline and how many cubic feet of water could spell disaster for her and her neighbors. During flood season, she checks the dashboard hourly.

“Before it impacted my life, it was, like, ‘Oh, that’s interesting,’” she said. “Now, I want to know what’s happening.” That knowledge shapes decisions about her home, her children, and her future. “It’s your life,” she said. “It’s your money and your investment, and understanding what’s actually happening in the world around you and how it’s going to affect you.”

Armed with a radio, flashlights, and the dashboard, she awaits the next flood.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Juneau can’t stop the floods, but it’s learning to see them coming on Sep 17, 2026.

It once took Santos 22 days to cross the 540-mile route. An unexpected rain pounded the highway during the dry season, leaving large pools of mud that mired convoys of trucks. “It’s a survival test in the jungle,” he said. “Time moves slowly. You have to ration food and water.” At night, Santos would hang a hammock in his truck cabin and watch as jaguars, tapirs, and snakes crossed the road in front of him. For weeks, he dug vehicles out of ditches, bathed in nearby rivers, and waited for heavy machinery to pull rigs from the mud one by one.

When he finally got home, Santos rested for a few days and then returned for another haul down the 319. “I went back because I enjoy it,” he said. “It’s one hell of a challenge.”

But there’s another reason such conditions are endured aside from a penchant for adventure. The BR-319 is the only road connecting the state of Amazonas, home to 4.2 million people and twice the size of Texas, to the rest of Brazil. Now, after decades of court battles and challenges by environmental groups and regulators, sections of the highway are being asphalted, and plans to pave the entire route are moving forward. 

Asphalting the 319 is a long-held demand of many in the region, who feel their isolation hinders economic development. “Why should we be forgotten?” Santos asked. “Why doesn’t the state of Amazonas have the right to be connected to the rest of the country?”

But the decision isn’t so straightforward. Scientists warn that paving the road will connect previously inaccessible regions of the Amazon to its most under-pressure areas, leading to a deforestation boom with dire consequences for the global climate. The biome currently holds an estimated 150 to 200 billion tons of carbon in its plants and soils, helping to offset greenhouse gas emissions from activities like burning fossil fuels. When the forest is cleared and burned, that stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere, fueling climate change. Indigenous groups that live in the area also say the project poses an existential threat to their communities. 

This May, before the paving went into full swing, I joined Santos on his route to observe how the 319 and the forest it traverses are already changing. We met at 3 a.m. at a distribution center on the outskirts of Manaus, the capital of Amazonas and home to over 2 million people. Despite its isolation, Manaus is a major manufacturing hub, the legacy of tax incentives that have attracted industry since the 1960s. The vast majority of goods currently enter and leave the city by boat or by air. Proponents of asphalting the 319 argue this dependence raises costs, lengthens delivery times, and leaves the region vulnerable to river-navigation interruptions brought on by severe droughts, which have become more common. 

Santos was born and raised in Manaus and has been driving a truck since he was 18 years old. “I was never a fan of being locked in a room in front of a computer,” he said. Now 45, he is affable with an easy smile. His belly comes close to touching the steering wheel, and his trimmed salt-and-pepper beard matches the remaining hair on the sides of his head. A long career driving the potholed roads of Amazonas has left him with a bad back.

We pulled out of the distribution center in an immaculate bright blue semi-truck, smaller and more nimble than some of the larger rigs that are regularly seen stranded or capsized amid the mud of the 319. The truck belonged to Bemol, a leading retailer in the Amazon region, and carried large kitchen appliances, furniture, and medicine. Our destination was Porto Velho, the capital of Rondônia, which sits at the other end of the highway.

Santos has been driving on the 319 since 2015, when it reopened after decades of disrepair. Back then, he said, mud pools would stretch for dozens of yards during the rainy season, and potholes were the size of small craters. He was recounting this as we crossed the Rio Negro on a ferry, with dozens of other vehicles. The sun began to rise as we passed the famous meeting of the waters, where the dark, Coca-Cola-colored Rio Negro meets the murky brown Solimões, and the two rivers flow side by side without mixing. An hour later we were off the ferry and onto the highway. It would be a two-day trip with an overnight stop, but that was not guaranteed. The speed of travel on the 319 is highly dependent on the conditions of the road on any given day.

“You never know what to expect,” Santos told me.

In many ways, the history of deforestation in the Amazon is a history of road-building. 

In the 1970s, Brazil’s military dictatorship pursued an aggressive policy of constructing roads and encouraging settlement in the Amazon region. Since then, an area roughly the size of Spain has been deforested — 94 percent of which sits within 3 miles of a road. Often the mere possibility that a road will be built or paved is enough to increase deforestation in a given area.

The BR-319 was fully paved when it opened in 1976, but maintaining it proved too costly. It runs through a low-lying part of the forest and over the years, the grinding conditions of the rainy and dry seasons eroded the asphalt. Bus companies ceased service along the route, and businesses stopped using it to ship goods. The trees closed in on the highway and by 1988 it was virtually impassable, with only the ends still covered with asphalt. 

For years it was left to the forest, used only by the handful of communities that still lived along its route and the occasional adventurer passing through. The trees blocked the sky for long sections of the road, and the wood bridges rotted away. In 2015, federal regulators issued a license for the cleanup and maintenance of the roadway, though not its repaving. Crews worked to clear the trees and repair the more than 50 bridges that run along the road. Conditions remained precarious, but traffic returned. 

When Jair Bolsonaro was elected president in 2018, he gutted environmental regulations and announced he would pave the BR-319 once again. A far-right former army captain, Bolsonaro had campaigned on a platform friendly to loggers, miners, and agribusiness. The promise alone drove a 122 percent rise in deforestation in the area surrounding the highway between 2020 and 2022, greater than the already high deforestation rate for the Amazon as a whole during the same period. 

Brazil’s federal courts blocked the project due to inconsistencies in the environmental licensing process, but in 2025, years after Bolsonaro had left office, Brazil’s pro-agribusiness Congress passed a law that said work on existing roads could bypass licensing altogether. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula, tried to veto parts of the bill but was overruled by Congress. In May, the government opened bidding for paving contracts. “By the end of June,” George Santoro, the Minister of Transportation, announced, “the entire BR-319 will be under construction.” 

After the ferry, the BR-319 continues on potholed asphalt for 120 miles, the final remnants of the original 1970s road. As we drove through the district of Careiro, the first on the 319 after Manaus, the landscape varied between forest and pasture, with modest, scattered homes on the side of the road. “Houses used to be a rare sight,” said Santos. “You’d see one here and another way off in the distance. Not anymore.”

It’s typical of a region in the early stages of deforestation. First, speculators and loggers clear public land. Once the timber is extracted, ranchers move in. They might live on the land themselves, but often they’ll hire someone to live there for them and tend the livestock. The ultimate goal is to petition the government for a formal land title which, if granted, can be resold once the road is fully paved and the land worth far more. The process of land regularization in Brazil is slow, bureaucratic, and rife with irregularities. Occupation is often a first step towards legal recognition, even when the initial clearing was illegal.

For three months in 2023, Manaus was shrouded in a thick cloud of smoke, ranking it among the cities with the worst air quality in the world. The governor of Amazonas at the time blamed the crisis on forest fires in the neighboring state of Pará. Research using satellite imagery and atmospheric data has since shown that while some of the smoke was indeed coming from Pará, much of it originated from forest-clearing blazes in districts at the start of the BR-319, like Careiro. 

As the old asphalt continues, the pastures become less frequent and the landscape progressively more wild. Then, all of a sudden, the asphalt turns into a reddish, iron-rich clay. It’s a surface that is rock-hard when dry and extremely slippery when wet. The rainy season brings mud and a slickness that causes trucks to glide out of control. The dry season brings clouds of dust that reduce visibility to just a few yards. This constant wetting and drying causes the dirt to form small ridges that drivers have come to call “cow ribs.” They rattle trucks like never-ending rumble strips.

Compared to what the highway was like in the recent past, this is a minor nuisance. “For the veterans around here, the road is a cakewalk now,” Santos said. The BR-319 may not be paved yet, but maintenance on the route has intensified in the past few years.

We encountered a road crew just a few miles after hitting dirt. To keep the highway passable, crews work daily on different sections, flattening uneven terrain, packing the ground, and adding gravel. Areas that easily flooded just a few years ago have been raised, bridges repaired or rebuilt entirely. (Environmentalists claim that much of this work goes beyond the maintenance license that was issued in 2015.) The road is still mostly used by trucks, but new companies can now be seen on the route, mostly transporting consumer goods, some coming from as far as São Paulo, 2,400 miles away.

Traveling the 319 with Santos means listening to an unbroken catalogue of accidents he’s witnessed. A truck that rolled into a ravine here, dropping brand new washing machines into the river. Another that tumbled over there, spilling gallons of milk onto the road. Even today, it is not uncommon for Santos to encounter a capsized truck, sometimes more than one in a single journey. 

As we ventured deeper down the highway, lush forest occupied both sides of the road. “It’s every shade of green you could think of,” Santos remarked. He had a point. One hectare of Brazilian Amazon holds more species of trees than all of the continental United States and Canada combined.

About eight hours in, we reached the settlement of Iguapó-Açu. The town is home to some 75 families who live in stilt houses with tin roofs. It serves as a final rest stop for truck drivers before they face the BR-319’s middle stretch, where it cuts through 250 miles of dense forest with virtually nothing else around. Residents of Iguapó-Açu live on subsistence farming, fishing, and by operating a sluggish barge that drivers must take across a narrow river to continue on their way down the 319. 

While waiting for the barge, I spoke to residents who were eating freshly-caught fish stew on the porch of one of the houses. Raimunda de Sá Assunção, 53, moved to the town as a child and still remembers when the road was paved. She also remembers the years when the road fell into disrepair, many families left, and the drive to the nearest hospital could take days. Now the drive can take as little as two hours. She remains skeptical whether the road will ultimately be paved. “My hair’s turned white, and nothing’s happened. All they do is plug holes,” she said. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

A spot just a few miles north of Iguapó-Açu was the site of a presidential photo-op in late May. As Lula posed with a road crew working on the 319, he painted a rosy picture of the future. “We will set an example of how to build a road,” he said, adding that the paved highway would be “the most beautiful and most preserved road in the world.” 

Lula was elected in 2022 by a broad anti-Bolsonaro coalition. Among those who buoyed him to victory was Marina Silva, the politician and environmental activist who is one of the Amazon’s most respected defenders. To get her support, Lula put the environment at the forefront of his campaign, pledging to put Brazil on a road to end deforestation by 2030.

He’s had mixed results. Deforestation rates are significantly down from the Bolsonaro years, but the government has had little success in stopping a barrage of anti-environment legislation coming from Congress, including the licensing reform that cleared the path for the paving of the 319. Now running for office again, Lula has thrown his support behind the paving, knowing that not doing so will cost him votes in the Amazon region. Silva has since left the Lula government to run for Senate in the upcoming elections. She has long been seen by many in the Amazon as an obstacle to paving the BR-319. In reality, she has never opposed the road outright, only insisted that it proceed with adequate environmental safeguards in place.

The week of the photo-op, in closed meetings with environmental groups, the government said a portion of the highway’s R$1.5 billion ($300 million) construction budget would also go towards an environmental governance plan. It would involve the creation of protected areas, wildlife bridges, and a ramp-up of environmental monitoring in a 60-mile buffer zone along the entire route. The main criticism from environmental groups is that these measures should have been implemented before any paving takes place. Instead, they are still in the discussion stage while the BR-319 is actively being asphalted.

“The plan being drawn up needs to be translated into documents with feasible, credible targets,” said Suely Araújo, Public Policy Coordinator at Observatório do Clima, a coalition of Brazilian civil society organizations focused on climate. “You need structural measures that are actually implemented. Not just promised.”

On September 8, Lula announced the formal creation of four protected areas around the BR-319, encompassing 2,600 square miles, well below the nearly 14,000 square miles the government had promised in closed meetings months earlier. 

“On one side were people who thought it was off-limits to undertake a project on a road that had already been built, connecting two state capitals,” Lula said in a speech during the announcement ceremony. “On the other were people who thought we should do it haphazardly, without any environmental-preservation criteria, without properly demarcating the relevant areas, turning it into a way for a few people to get rich by buying and selling land. We insisted that it was possible … We found a way to demarcate whatever needed to be demarcated.”

As it stands, most of the land around the BR-319 remains undesignated public land, the most attractive target for land-grabbers. It’s unclear if the government plans to announce additional conservation units. There is speculation that it might do so next year if Lula wins reelection in October. Polls show him neck-and-neck with Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

While research shows that giving an area protected status is a powerful deterrent to deforestation, it is by no means a silver bullet. “It’s far from enough. Many conservation units exist only on paper.” said Araújo. “The plan for the region hasn’t been formalized yet. What we’ve seen is a Power Point presentation.” 

The whole notion of whether the Brazilian state is capable of closely monitoring an area as large as the one impacted by the BR-319 is up for debate. Araújo told me there is no historical precedent for it in Brazil. IBAMA, the main agency responsible for environmental enforcement, is chronically understaffed. The area around the BR-319 almost entirely lacks state presence. Authorities that attempt to enforce environmental regulations in the region are often met with hostility. There are no police checkpoints and no bases for any of Brazil’s environmental monitoring agencies along the 319, though the government had pledged to establish them in the future. 

The main risk is what experts call the “fishbone phenomenon,” a pattern seen from above in many parts of the Amazon. Highways serve as a main corridor from which illegal side roads opened by loggers, land-grabbers, and wildcat miners branch out. The highways are the spine of the fish and the side roads are the ribs. It is from these unauthorized roads that much illicit activity takes place.

The BR-319 is only in the early stages of this process, which picked up when the road reopened in 2015 and intensified during the Bolsonaro years, but it already has more miles of side roads than the length of the highway itself. Follow one of those through satellite images and inevitably you’ll find large, recently cleared areas in the middle of the rainforest. 

Phillip Fearnside, a biologist at the National Institute of Amazonian Research, or INPA, has studied the region for decades. “You have a huge area that could be deforested very quickly,” he said. 

Researchers have used complex modeling to simulate how the paving of the BR-319 and the proliferation of side roads — both legal and illegal — will impact the forest. One study, led by Britaldo Soares-Filho of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, found that if the road is asphalted, the resulting deforestation in the region would emit 8 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2050, four times more than if the highway remained unpaved but maintained. A separate study projected that deforestation will be 60 percent greater by 2100 under a paved scenario. 

Fearnside argues the impact would extend far beyond the 60-mile buffer zone that the government has pledged to monitor because the asphalt would connect the mostly untouched central Amazon — “the last big stretch of forest,” as he described it — to deforestation hotspots in the south. “It would be enough to push climate past the tipping point where warming gets out of control,” he said.

The threat is not only theoretical or in the future. Indigenous communities in the highway’s reach are already feeling the consequences. There have been several reports of illegal side roads encroaching into Indigenous territory. The Mura people in the region of Lago Capanã Grande have been under growing threat from land-grabbers since 2020, as conditions on the 319 improved and traffic increased. There is evidence that the toxic chemical 2,4-D, one of the main components of Agent Orange, was used to deforest land the Mura use to harvest Brazil nut, a key food source in the region. The waste was then dumped into rivers relied on by the community and made 20 people ill.

In total, there are 69 Indigenous territories in the region impacted by the BR-319, including some groups living in voluntary isolation. Together, these territories are inhabited by at least 13 different ethnicities comprising over 18,000 people. Although Brazilian law requires that Indigenous groups be consulted on large infrastructure projects that could impact them, there is no evidence this has happened in this case. 

“Consultation must happen before any decision is made, with real dialogue and the possibility of influence, including the right to say ‘no.’ What is happening is the opposite,” Mariazinha Baré told the Brazilian website Nexo. Baré is a coordinator at APIAN, a coalition of Indigenous groups from Amazonas. “BR-319 is not just infrastructure; it is an instrument of death that threatens the existence of Indigenous peoples and weakens the Amazon,” she said.

After Iguapó-Açu, the 319 enters its wildest section. We stopped so I could get an aerial view using a drone. At 400 feet, nothing but thick, impregnable forest stretched to the horizon in every direction, except for the distinct red gash of the highway.

Since there is no cell service, truckers going in opposite directions often stop to swap notes on road conditions and weather. It wasn’t long after we started driving again that a passing trucker warned of rain ahead.

It began as a soft patter but quickly turned torrential. “While it’s raining, it’s best to push on,” Santos said. It’s the hours after the downpour, when the ground is drying but still slick, that are the most dangerous for drivers. It was getting late, and we still had 100 miles to go before reaching the town of Realidade, where we’d spend the night.

Large puddles began pooling across the road, and the ground turned to sludge. A few miles later, we encountered a stranded truck, a flatbed carrying generators that had drifted to the road’s soft shoulder and listed sharply to one side. “Welcome to the BR-319!” Santos laughed.

The sun set and soon we could only see what was illuminated by the headlights. The rain continued relentlessly. At times our speed was reduced to just 5 miles per hour. Santos pressed on, passing other stranded trucks and crossing rickety wooden bridges that creaked under the wheels. Many hours later, we came to a town that appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The muddy streets were deserted and dark as we pulled into a bright orange motel called La Kazita.

It was 11 p.m., 20 hours after our departure from Manaus.

The largest settlement on the unpaved part of the 319, Realidade is a dusty outpost typical of Amazonian boom towns. Its population has swelled from just 800 people in 2010 to 7,000 today. The town lives and dies by the highway.

Many of its original residents were workers who built the road in the 1970s. When the route closed in 1988, Realidade became a virtual ghost town. Landless farmers from out of state arrived in the region in 2004 and were granted settlement rights under a federal land-reform program. Since then, a steady stream of land-grabbers, loggers, and cattle-ranchers have poured in.

Exploring Realidade, the impression is that the people arrived before the government did. The town has no police station and only a small health post, but numerous cattle-ranching supply stores. The dynamic has been the same throughout the modern history of the Amazonian frontier: People come in search of land and the riches of the forest; the state then scrambles to catch up with basic services and the rule of law.

At La Kazita, Santos and I were eating a breakfast of plain bread when the manager began telling us how two nights before he had been paid R$600 ($115) to drive some logging workers to Humaitá, a mining town southeast of the 319. They had just come out of the forest after weeks of work felling trees. Flush with cash, they wanted to party.

Data from Simex, a system that uses satellite images to monitor logging, show that 16 square miles of land were illegally logged between 2021 and 2024 in the municipality that includes Realidade.

“All the money flowing through the region is rooted in illegal logging and land grabbing,” Lucas Ferrante, a researcher at the University of São Paulo who has studied the area extensively, told me.

The scenery around Realidade is a far cry from the lush forest I had driven through the day before. Illegal side roads abound, sawmills dot the side of the highway, and native forest is interrupted by swaths of pasture. I stopped by one of the largest ranches in the region.

Eliane Jesus Pereira, 33, lives in a ramshackle wooden house at the edge of an expansive pasture. She sells cheese made out of buffalo milk while her husband tends to the cattle. The couple moved to the farm from Realidade in 2021 when her husband was hired as a ranch hand. The owner of the land lives in Manaus. Since she has been living on the farm, she’s seen a marked improvement on the road. “Sometimes my daughter couldn’t go to school because the bus got stuck in the mud,” she said. “Now it’s better.”

It’s consensus among the scientific community that paving the BR-319 without environmental safeguards will lead to drastic consequences. Realidade might well be a vision of the future of the entire highway. Beyond the immediate impacts, studies suggest that the deforestation the asphalt could trigger may disrupt key hydrological cycles within Brazil that, in the long run, will lead to severe water shortages in large cities like São Paulo. And if Amazonas, with its size and its 97 percent forest coverage, goes the way of other Brazilian states, like Rondônia, which has lost more than a third of its native vegetation, the climate implications would be global in scale.

On the local level, it is hard to begrudge the people of Amazonas for wanting a paved road connecting them to the rest of the country, particularly in a nation as rich as Brazil. A 2025 poll by the Instituto de Pesquisa do Norte showed that 9 in 10 Amazonenses were in favor of the BR-319 being asphalted. The state has the 25th lowest GDP per capita among Brazil’s 26 states and the federal district. It ranks well below the national average in most developmental metrics, including access to education and healthcare.

“We have the sense that the region is subordinate to Brazil, like an invaded territory, a colony,” said Augusto Rocha, an engineering professor and logistics expert at the Federal University of Amazonas. “Infrastructure is a way of reducing this inequality.” Rocha is in favor of the road being paved, but warns that without environmental controls, deforestation will increase.

“We don’t deny the importance of the road,” said Suely Araújo. “The problem is building it without the necessary social and environmental conditions in place.”

Whether environmental governance is possible along the BR-319 is an open question. In the spectrum of opinions surrounding the road and development in the Amazon as a whole, there are those who would just shut it all down and leave the forest intact. On the other end, there are those who believe the forest is there to be exploited, and that the preservationist approach is to blame for the economic woes of the region. In the middle, there are those who believe that sustainability with development is possible, even if the history of the Brazilian Amazon has not yet provided a large-scale model to follow. And there are the Indigenous peoples who are too often an afterthought.

As we grew closer to Porto Velho, the dirt turned to asphalt again. I was relieved to finally be on a smooth surface after two days of bumpy, uneven terrain. The truck, now caked in dried mud from top to bottom, picked up speed for the first time since the previous morning. During the whole ride I had not seen a single instance of roadkill. But just minutes into the asphalt I did — a bright green snake and a few miles later an anteater strewn across the highway.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A trip down the road that will determine the fate of the Amazon on Sep 17, 2026.

It was November 12, and her advisor had sent her an article link — apparently, a journalist had inquired about it. She opened the page, and was stunned by what she read. The Trump administration planned to lease millions of acres of seafloor around the island to mining companies. 

“I’ll never forget the date,” Leon Guerrero said from her office overlooking Agaña Bay. “I had not heard anything about it.”

She immediately called David Apatang, the governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a neighboring U.S. territory.

“We were both very upset that we didn’t get any kind of warning,” she said. Shortly after, she rang Bill Hague, an official in the Department of the Interior, an agency that handles federal relations with territorial leaders and tribal nations. 

“I know we are a U.S. territory,” Leon Guerrero recalls saying to him. “I know that you as the federal government can just come in and say, ‘I don’t care about what you guys say. We’re going to do it anyway.’” But still, she said, “I want you to know I don’t support this.” Hague reassured her, she said, that mining would never proceed without the community’s support. 

Nearly a year later, that’s exactly what’s happening. 

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American Samoa says no to deep-sea mining. The Trump administration might do it anyway.

Anita Hofschneider

The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to lease vast swaths of seafloor to mining companies. It is part of a broader push to secure critical minerals and counter China, which dominates the global supply. These resources — including copper, manganese, nickel, and rare earth elements — are essential to military technologies and batteries.

First up are America’s Pacific island territories. In July, the Marine Minerals Administration said that it would auction access to 31 million acres of the continental shelf around American Samoa in mid-November. A month later, the agency announced plans to do the same in December across more than 67 million acres on either side of the Marianas archipelago, which includes the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. About half of those acres border a national marine monument established by President George W. Bush.

Local leaders and environmentalists staunchly oppose these plans. Recently, Earthjustice, an environmental law nonprofit, filed lawsuits against the Trump administration on behalf of conservation groups in American Samoa and the Mariana Islands, arguing that the government does not yet know if seabed mining would harm animals that are protected by the Endangered Species Act, like whales and sea turtles.

The Marine Minerals Administration declined to comment on the ongoing litigation. Brent Lawrence, a spokesperson who responded to Grist’s questions, said that the department would continue “to closely coordinate with territorial leadership” as well as community members in American Samoa, Guam, and the Mariana Islands.

Unlike neighboring Pacific nations, which can decide for themselves whether to allow mining, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands are subject to federal decisions often made without their approval. Under international law, the Indigenous peoples of these islands have the right to free, prior, and informed consent to projects affecting their lands and waters. The Trump administration, however, says it has the authority to proceed under U.S. law.

That decision is the latest example of how the United States has for more than a century denied the residents of these islands a meaningful voice in decisions that affect them, said Adi Martínez-Román, co-director of Right to Democracy. They cannot vote for president, have no voting representation in Congress, and their right to self-determination is generally ignored, she said.

“The territories are practically invisible to the general U.S. society and to public officials,” said Martínez-Román. “It is an insidious result of the colonial framework.”

On July 16, while staying with family in Manuʻa, American Samoa, J.V. Langkilde awoke at 2 a.m. It was Manuʻa Flag Day, a holiday commemorating the islands’ chiefs signing a treaty that brought Manu‘a under U.S. sovereignty more than a century ago.

The family had agreed to cater the day’s festivities, which included a cricket tournament, a parade, and a competition to determine who could make the best oka, a Samoan raw fish dish similar to ceviche. His favorite dish of the day was lobster with coconut sauce, but there was also pig, and smokey Samoan taro cooked in an umu, or earthen oven, he said. 

The early start meant Langkilde immediately noticed when his phone screen lit up the darkness with a text message alerting him to the news: On a day marking the anniversary of the United States agreeing to respect Samoan property rights, the Trump administration had announced it was proceeding with a plan to allow deep-sea mining in the waters of American Samoa.

The subject came up again and again during his time at home. The first concern people in Manuʻa have is, “Shouldn’t there be a full understanding of impacts before someone gets a property interest in our ocean floor?” said Langkilde, an attorney at the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice. During the rest of his visit home, his fellow Samoans repeatedly expressed their unease.  

“They think it’s a little bit backwards that some company who has no stake in the community here will have property interest on our ocean floor without a full understanding of impacts,” he said.

Deep-sea mining has not yet occurred on a commercial scale, and scientific understanding of the consequences is scant. One recent study suggests mining could create sediment plumes that harm large fish like tuna, which makes up more than 99 percent of American Samoa’s exports. Mining companies dispute these claims, but locals and environmentalists remain unconvinced.

“The throughline of concern I hear is becoming a test site with no kind of guarantees for money being reserved, not just for revenue share, but even for environmental protection,” Langkilde said. “There could be some sort of bond or fund imposed upon the company should things go wrong.” 

The governor of American Samoa, Pula’ali’i Nikolao Pula, has expressed similar concerns. In June of 2025 he announced that the government was united in its opposition to mining “in line with the express will of the people and the protection of American Samoa’s natural resources.”

Five months later, the Trump administration nearly doubled the area that might be mined.

Because American Samoa is a U.S. territory, its ban on seafloor mining only extends three nautical miles from shore, a fraction of the 200-mile radius around the islands that the federal government claims jurisdiction over.

By contrast, Samoa, which lies just 40 miles to the northwest, has complete control over its waters, of which it plans to protect at least 30 percent. The nation has also joined others calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining in international waters. It was the first of a dozen Pacific island nations that have achieved independence from colonial powers in the modern era, an autonomy that allows them to determine how their waters are managed. 

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Digging for minerals in the Pacific’s graveyard: The $20 trillion fight over who controls the seabed

Anita Hofschneider

Some, like the Republic of Naoero (which was until this month known as Nauru) and the Kingdom of Tonga, are eager to see the industry move forward. The two countries sponsor deep-sea mining companies, allowing them to apply for exploration contracts in international waters through an international body in exchange for financial benefits. “For Nauru, seabed minerals represent more than economic diversification. They are a pathway to resilience and a pathway to contribute to global solutions,” said David Adeang, the president of Naoero, at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025. 

Earlier this year, Tonga’s prime minister, Lord Fatafehi Fakafānua, signed an agreement with the Trump administration for mining research and exploration. Fakafānua called it an “exciting development.” Others, like the Republic of Kiribati, are considering similar moves. 

But the majority of Pacific nations support an international moratorium on the industry. Palau has banned the practice in national waters, while others like Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands have taken similar stances amid concerns about its effects on fisheries and cultural practices. 

Unlike U.S. territories, independent Pacific nations have a vote in international negotiations over seabed mining. More than 45 countries have called for an international moratorium or ban.

A 1994 United Nations treaty created the International Seabed Authority to oversee mining in international waters, which lie beyond any country’s jurisdiction and cover about half the globe. That body holds biannual meetings to develop potential rules for the industry. This mining code has been under debate for more than a decade, and commercial extraction has not yet been approved.

The Trump administration isn’t waiting. The president ordered federal regulators to begin processing applications for mining in international waters under a decades-old U.S. law. That prompted outcry from other nations, which say the United States is circumventing international law. As with mining in U.S. waters, it could also leave Indigenous Pacific peoples with little say over industrial activity in the seas they have long stewarded.

More than 170 nations have ratified the treaty establishing the seabed authority, allowing them to attend meetings and cast votes. But territories without independence are excluded. The federal law extending U.S. citizenship to the people of Guam explicitly grants Congress the right to overturn any law passed by the island’s legislature. 

“A decision about our islands is going to be made at a desk,” said Sabrina Suluai-Mahuka, a fellow at Right to Democracy from American Samoa. “It does not make sense that we can’t have any say in how our futures go.”

Four months after the Trump administration announced plans to lease the seabed around Guam, Lou Leon Guerrero met with officials in Washington, D.C. to share her concerns. Three days later, back on Guam, she learned that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had doubled the area that might be mined, including waters closer to Guam than initially proposed. Again, she called Hague at the Interior Department. The department had not told Leon Guerrero that they were days away from making the change.

“You guys don’t include us in your discussions,” she told him. “We’re the ones that’re going to be impacted. 

“He said he made it very clear to everybody to make sure that the governor and the leaders are apprised about what’s happening,” she recalled Hague assuring her. 

“We hear it only in the media or in the CFR announcements,” Leon Guerrero told him, referring to federal regulatory notices.

Hague did not respond to Grist’s request for comment. A department spokesperson, Alyse Sharpe, clarified that while the agency facilitates support for tribal people and nations, “Mr. Hague does not have a role in that,” and that the department regularly communicates with U.S. territory leadership and will continue to do so. In an emailed statement, she declined to comment on or verify the conversations with Leon Guerrero, “due to the often confidential and deliberative nature of these conversations.”

The statement also said, “The Department of the Interior is committed to maintaining a transparent process as the possibility of mining critical minerals from the seafloor is explored,” and noted that a signed lease does not necessarily grant permission to mine and that any lease holder would be subjected to a feasibility, safety, and environmental assessment.

Neildino Taisacan, an Indigenous Carolinian-Chamorro environmental advocate in the Marianas, said the community submitted extensive comments opposing the proposal despite the short notice. The governors had requested a 120-day extension which would give residents until after the holidays to leave a public comment. The Trump administration instead approved a 30-day extension. In the end, when the proposed area was eventually doubled, many residents were left wondering whether their concerns had been heard, Taisacan said.

“All we can do is just scream at the top of our lungs and say, ‘No, we don’t want this,’” he said. 

The administration is also pursuing seabed mining in the waters of Alaska and Virginia. But residents of those states can vote and have representatives with sway in Congress. Those rights are not extended to residents of the territories, giving lawmakers little motivation to take their concerns seriously. 

That hasn’t stopped territorial leaders from trying. In June, Pula’ali’i Nikolao Pula, the governor of American Samoa, flew to Washington, D.C. to testify before the Senate. There, wearing a black suit and yellow tie, he reaffirmed his opposition to deep-sea mining. 

“However, should the federal government move forward,” he said to senators, “we would like to have basically a seat at the table.” If mining is done in an environmentally friendly way, he said, “our little territory would very much appreciate revenue sharing.”

Kimberlyn King-Hinds, who is the U.S. House delegate for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, plans to introduce legislation that would give the commonwealth half of all seabed mining revenue. “If they’re going to shove this down our throats,” she said, “I want to be able to ensure that we have a backup plan, we have insurance and that we actually benefit from the waters that surround us.” 

Still, what happens next remains to be seen, because she, as a delegate, cannot vote on bills.

One company interested in mining in the region, Impossible Metals, has suggested a benefit-sharing agreement that would give territories a small percentage of their profits, as a gesture of goodwill. But these promises are not yet legally binding. 

And with decision-making power consolidated in Washington, D.C., there is little incentive for companies to approach territorial leaders like Pula. The Metals Company, for example, has instead spent about $800,000 lobbying federal officials to permit seabed mining. 

If the nascent industry becomes profitable, even a small share of the windfall could provide a significant boost to Pacific island economies.

In American Samoa, a single StarKist tuna cannery employs about 2,000 people and accounts for 80 percent of the private-sector jobs. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands has endured a prolonged tourism downturn and was battered by two super typhoons earlier this year. In Guam, fewer people have visited since the pandemic, leaving the island increasingly reliant on military investment. Without stable economies at home, many residents leave their island communities for jobs abroad.

That’s one reason some Pacific governments with more autonomy than U.S. territories are in favor of mining. The Cook Islands, for instance, supports the industry and has used government funds to explore nearby waters for mineral deposits.

Prime Minister Mark Brown has described that exploration as part of the islands’ “journey of sovereign independence.” Mining companies have been courting the islands’ communities for years, sponsoring local cultural organizations and sporting events. Brown has said the industry could boost revenue significantly. 

But some mining analysts and environmentalists doubt that. A recent study found that mining near American Samoa would carry steep operating costs and might not generate enough revenue to be profitable. It also concluded that demand for some targeted minerals — including cobalt, manganese, and nickel — may not hold, while other analyses found that proposed financial arrangements would return little revenue to developing countries.

Langkilde, the Earthjustice attorney from American Samoa, said his community was shocked by how the latest lease proposal doesn’t include revenue sharing. And while the federal notice suggests that deep-sea mining companies invest in training a local workforce and upgrading public facilities like ports, neither is mandated.

Seeing it in black and white is, he said, “very discouraging to people here who might have otherwise been like, ‘Maybe the federal government will do right by us.’”

In April, Sheila Babauta hid with her parents and her 2-month-old son in a storage room for hours, listening to 150-mph winds moan and rattle the windows as Typhoon Sinlaku battered her home island of Saipan. 

They had no running water or electricity for weeks afterward. While cleaning up flood damage, collecting water for baths, and caring for her newborn son, Babauta received a group chat message about the federal government’s latest push to accelerate seabed mining.

“I didn’t have capacity to even think about it,” she said. “All of the immediate needs definitely took priority over keeping track of what was happening with seabed mining.”

Babauta, a former member of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands House of Representatives, is a longtime Indigenous Chamorro-Pohnpeian environmental advocate who has been vocal about opposing seabed mining. But even she has found it difficult to keep track of what the federal government is doing and find the time and energy to weigh in as her community recovers from two climate-fueled typhoons.

“After the typhoon, I definitely felt overwhelmed, especially with a baby, because he’s my priority, right?” Babauta said of her son, whom she envisions growing up and living on the island.

“Deep-sea mining is also important to me because I want to protect our home for future generations,” she said. “All of that is going on in my head while outside of me, in reality, you see destruction all over.”

Pacific islands are on the front lines of climate change, with rising seas and worsening storms already impacting residents. But as the Trump administration pushes seabed extraction while undermining climate action, those immediate crises leave many territorial residents with less time and energy to influence whether mining proceeds.

That’s happening despite what many Pacific Islanders describe as the incalculable cultural costs seabed mining could impose on the environment and on the ancestral beliefs, practices, and traditions of Indigenous peoples.

Companies like the Metals Company have spent hundreds of millions of dollars exploring deep ocean ecosystems. Scientists who conducted that research later published some of their findings independently in peer-reviewed journals, concluding that these habitats are fragile and slow to recover.

Any risk to fishing, an essential part of culture and identity in American Samoa, looms large. 

“The people of American Samoa have a profound connection to the ocean, relying on it for sustenance, cultural practices, and economic activities, particularly through fisheries and tourism,” then-Governor Lamanu Peleti Mauga wrote in his 2024 moratorium on seabed mining. 

Other Indigenous Pacific Islanders, including John Castro, worry about how mining would impact traditional seafaring.

On an afternoon in May, Castro sat beneath a damaged canoe house in Susupe, Saipan. Its thatched roof had been partially destroyed by Typhoon Sinlaku, and Castro had joined others in repairing it. He is a fisher who coordinates a program that helps pass down the knowledge required to navigate canoes across the Pacific using the stars and waves.

Traditional seafarers rely on marine life to determine where they are, he said. “If deep-sea mining happens, and that thing kind of drives whales in a different course, then we’re going to get lost, too.” 

This knowledge was once widespread across the Pacific but was lost to colonization in many places, including the Marianas and Hawaiʻi. It has recently returned with the help of expert navigators from the Federated States of Micronesia. Disrupting that revival would be an enormous loss. 

Still, Castro is resigned to what feels like an inevitable consequence of his communityʻs status as a U.S. territory. “We do have a say-so, but it’s not going to be entertained,” he said. “We’re small compared to Uncle Sam, who makes the rules.”

Earthjustice is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline She governs a US territory. But she has no say in who mines its waters. on Sep 16, 2026.

Some days, the employees burned discarded wood in a fireplace to keep the warehouse warm. The facility has backup generators, but they were expensive to run. Tired of relying on a grid that was being routinely bombarded by Russian missiles, Yaroslav, the facility’s owner, decided to switch to solar earlier this year.

Switching to solar energy will enable them to “further expand our capacity and be a bit more independent from the general grid,” he said. “It will be cheaper, more economical, and more ecological.” (Yaroslav requested that Grist use only his first name and withhold details about the facility for fear of Russian retaliation.)

In the spring, he contacted Yasno, a private Ukrainian electricity and gas supplier, to install solar panels on his rooftop. Yasno’s clients pay for the panels to be installed, often with the help of a government program that covers some of the installation expenses. Ukraine created incentives to encourage businesses to switch to renewable energy, like the “Affordable Loans 5-7-9” program, which offers loans to purchase solar panels and other equipment. The preferential loans have interest rates of 5, 7, or 9 percent, depending on the type of business, and can cover up to 80 percent of the installation costs.

Yasno will ultimately decide where to station hundreds of solar panels on the warehouse rooftop and install them. The project is one of dozens that the company has undertaken across the country. In the past two years, it has installed solar panels at 117 sites with a combined capacity of 23 megawatts. The company paused its work for the first two years of the war, but resumed operations in the summer of 2024.

Volodymyr Hershtun, a service maintenance manager with Yasno who led the project in Bila Tserkva, said that Ukraine is rapidly developing its renewable energy portfolio in part because the country needs to be resilient as it continues to face a barrage of Russian attacks.

“The enemy is trying to destroy energy infrastructure, and we are building what is very easy to restore,” he said. “And those same systems can store electric energy.”

Before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine relied on a highly centralized electricity system dominated by nuclear power. More than half of the country’s electricity came from four nuclear power plants, while natural gas and coal generated roughly a quarter of the energy mix.

Renewables made up a small share of the energy portfolio, though the country had been rapidly expanding its solar generation in the years leading up to the war. The surge was driven by the country’s “green tariff” program, which encouraged households and businesses to produce solar and wind power through guaranteed above-market payments for electricity. Ukrainian law guarantees the tariff until 2030, and lawmakers have described the program as a step toward integrating the country into the European Union’s energy market.

Those government incentives led Ukrainian businesses to install about 8 gigawatts of solar by 2022. But Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure over the past few years have upended that model. Since the invasion, missiles and drones have repeatedly struck power plants, substations, and transmission lines, leaving millions without electricity during the coldest months.

Roughly 30 percent of the installed solar capacity and most of the country’s 36 wind farms in the south were either destroyed, fell under Russian occupation, or are unaccounted for. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine has also been shut down and under Russian control since the invasion began. Given the legacy of Chernobyl, many Ukrainians live with the fear of another nuclear disaster.

The repeated attacks on the grid have caused prolonged power outages. Parts of Kyiv continue to ration electricity with scheduled power outages that can last for hours. Ukraine’s National Bank has said that Russia’s energy infrastructure attacks this year have worsened the electricity deficit assumptions, raising them from 3 percent to 6 percent.

With the vulnerabilities of relying on large, centralized power stations exposed, Ukraine has begun accelerating its shift toward smaller, distributed sources of electricity that are harder to knock offline. ​In 2025, the Solar Energy Association of Ukraine estimated that 1.5 GW of new solar capacity was built — almost double the prior year’s total — and it expects 2026 installations to at least match that pace.

“Renewables have become the very obvious choice for Ukraine when the full-scale invasion started and when Russia started deliberately and heavily attacking the energy infrastructure, especially the centralized generation facilities,” said Anastasia Vereshchynska, the director of the European-Ukrainian Energy Agency, a nonprofit that works with energy efficiency and renewable resources in Ukraine.

The investments are likely to help Ukrainians weather brutal winters. Last year, as temperatures dropped to -1 degree Fahrenheit, Russia’s bombardments caused widespread electricity and heating outages. Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, had just half the electricity supply it needed to weather the winter, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared a state of emergency.

Volodymyr, a taxi driver in Kyiv who asked that his last name be withheld for safety reasons, told Grist in May that during last winter’s attacks, his apartment building lost power, leaving him and his family without heating and hot water. Fortunately, he said, his apartment faced south and received sunlight most of the day, keeping it relatively warm.

In an attempt to minimize the effects of outages, the building’s management company has since decided to install solar panels on the roof to help keep the boiler turned on and operate the elevators. The installation is part of the 5-7-9 program.

“It’s a cool thing that the government covers at least part of the cost,” said Volodymyr. “In emergency cases, during power outages, you could turn to the solar panels. There is no harm to the planet. It’s a good thing.”

The need for renewable energy is especially critical in communities closest to the war’s frontlines. As Russian forces advance, towns and villages are increasingly cut off from the energy grid as attacks destroy power lines, and the threat to maintenance workers makes repairs difficult or impossible. Some villages in particular have become so dangerous that repairs cannot be conducted, leaving residents without electricity and access to the outside world.

In those communities, volunteers and nongovernmental organizations have stepped in to install solar panels and battery systems that can power homes and businesses. ​Denny Ugorchuk, the founder of Kosmo Tabir, an NGO that works to help villages access solar energy, said that much of the funding for large projects comes from the help of international partners in the West, while local donations from Ukrainians help fund smaller projects. In one village, solar panels installed at a private residence gave a 50-year-old woman access to online university classes.

In Ukraine, solar panels are a “basic human right,” said Ugorchuk. “People should have access to communicate with one another — you can call a doctor, the police, and it helps you feel safe.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline As Russia attacks Ukraine’s grid, solar offers a path to resilience on Sep 16, 2026.

Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed what so many Americans suspected, that the heat has been extra unbearable lately: This meteorological summer, which runs from June through August, was the hottest on record for the contiguous U.S., beating the previous champions of 1936 and 2021 by 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Compared to the average over the 20th century, this summer was 3 degrees hotter, with August specifically climbing even higher at 3.5 degrees. Across the pond, Europe has been suffering under one heat wave after another, which have killed more than 25,000 people this year.

Blame the sun for doing what it’s been doing for billions of years, but also blame human-driven climate change. According to an analysis released today by the research group Climate Central, this summer 293 million Americans, or 86 percent of the population, sweltered through at least 30 days of risky heat. (Meaning those that were hotter than 90 percent of previous days in a given area.) In Asia, some 2.8 billion people faced the same exposure. Of the top 10 most unusually hot countries globally, seven were in Europe, which remains the fastest-warming continent.  

“The numbers are just really mind-boggling,” said Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at Climate Central. “Extreme heat on its own can cause health problems, but it can also exacerbate a lot of underlying health conditions.”

This summer, the average American suffered about 26 days with temperatures strongly influenced by climate change, the report found, but some regions were hit harder than others. Four of the five states with the most risky days were in the west: New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, and Utah. Colorado’s plight has been especially glaring, as its summer temperatures were 4.4 degrees F above normal, followed by Utah and Nevada, both at 3.8 degrees.

Still, Europe takes the crown as the fastest-warming continent, and it certainly showed this summer. (As we reported last month, the heat pushed electrical grids to their breaking points, but solar power swooped in to save the day.) This is due in part to the region’s proximity to the Arctic, which is warming far faster than the rest of the planet — as more sea ice disappears, it exposes darker waters that absorb more of the sun’s energy. A stranger factor is an unintended side effect of clean air policies: While they’ve massively benefited public health, they’ve also reduced the atmospheric particulate matter that reflected solar energy back into space. “As we clean up our industrial processes and we have less aerosols in the atmosphere, which is the case in much of Europe, we’re unmasking that climate signal,” Dahl said. “Europe’s experiencing more of the full brunt of climate change because of that.”

In Europe and beyond, rapidly climbing temperatures are creating a public health nightmare that got even scarier this summer. Climate change isn’t just making heat waves hotter, it is extending them. At the same time, nights are warming faster than days. So with day after day of relentless heat, and less of a cooldown at night, the human body doesn’t get a chance to recover. “When you don’t have the ability to cool off at night, your body is storing some of that accumulated heat from the daytime and carrying it over into the next day,” Dahl said.

Extreme heat can kill on its own, of course, but it can also exacerbate heart and lung conditions. This is especially dangerous for farmworkers and other outdoor laborers, who return to work in the morning carrying the heat effects of yesterday’s shift. The elderly are also at high risk, as their bodies aren’t as efficient at cooling themselves. 

And now the world is staring at what could turn out to be an incredibly strong El Niño, the band of warm Pacific water extending from South America. This is adding still more heat to the atmosphere, and played a part in driving up temperatures this summer, the analysis found. But scientists worry that as El Niño continues to develop, next year’s summer could be even hotter. “It’s still an event that’s taking shape,” Dahl said, “so it’s nowhere near its peak.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Yes, this summer really was as hot as you think it was on Sep 16, 2026.

It was an urgent meeting. The number of gray whales along the U.S. West Coast has recently plummeted by the thousands, falling by half in the last decade. The leading theory is that climate change has been causing the whales’ food source in the Arctic to dwindle. And the situation seems to be getting worse. This past summer, 187 gray whales washed up dead on beaches across the region. So far, the Trump administration has largely ignored the problem. 

The attendees at the conference, who came from across North America, were there to share as much as they knew about the animals. Bill Keener, a researcher at the Marine Mammal Center, a nonprofit in California, said it was inspiring to see so many scientists come together to tackle the issue. 

But the atmosphere in the rooms was tense, others said. Gray whales have been off the list of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act for decades. And the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — whose scientists participated in the meetings — recently missed the legal deadline to respond to a petition to relist them. At the end of August, three conservation groups filed a notice of their intent to sue, which would kick off a lawsuit if the Trump administration doesn’t respond to the petition within two months. 

“People were walking on eggshells there,” said Mark Palmer, who helps lead a project protecting marine mammals at the Earth Island Institute, one of the groups behind the potential lawsuit. Presenters at the conference were careful to focus on science and avoid politics, he said, adding that the event organizers “made it very clear from the beginning that they would not discuss policy issues.”

That’s likely because many of the attendees were scientists who work in the government, or depend on federal funding in some way, Palmer said. Since taking office in 2025, the Trump administration has made sweeping cuts to staff and funding at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, to better align with partisan beliefs. It has also proposed eliminating the Marine Mammal Commission, which helps other parts of the government protect animals like whales, and it recently rolled back habitat protections from the Endangered Species Act. There is a backlog of some 400 species currently awaiting a federal listing decision.

“Obviously they are very nervous about what the administration could do to them,” Palmer said. In addition to failing to respond to the petition, NOAA is several months late in releasing the count of gray whale births this year. “Yes, they’ve been dragging their feet, but also the administration has been targeting this funding,” he said. The agency declined to comment in response to Grist’s request.

In many ways, gray whales’ fortunes have long been decided by humans. Starting in the 19th century, commercial whaling drove their numbers to historic lows, but bans on the practice, along with federal endangered species protections beginning in the 1970s, helped the population along the U.S. West Coast more than double. Their recovery was so strong that, in 1994, U.S. officials decided to remove them from the endangered species list.

Now, sharing a planet with humans appears to have reversed their fortunes again. Those found on the U.S. side of the Pacific are known as eastern gray whales, and they are distinct from the western population, found near East Asia and Russia. They feed on small crustaceans in the Arctic waters near Alaska in the summer, and then swim down to Mexico to give birth in the winter — one of the longest migrations of any mammal. But climate change is heating up the Arctic nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet, and the melting ice has led to a number of cascading changes that have caused the whales’ prey to sharply decline. Scientists think hungry gray whales are beginning their migrations with too little energy in reserve, leading to fewer births and more deaths. 

“The science on this is perfectly clear,” said Richard Steiner, a marine conservation biologist who initially submitted the petition to relist gray whales. “As goes Arctic sea ice, so goes the gray whale population. And Arctic sea ice will continue its decline throughout this century.” If humans don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions that warm the planet, he said, the consequences could be “apocalyptic” for gray whales, as well as many other species on Earth.

Gray whales on the other side of the Pacific are struggling too, with only a few hundred remaining. And the Atlantic gray whale disappeared centuries ago, likely due to whaling. The loss was “the only extinction of a whale in human history,” Steiner said. “Thus, we know this particular whale population is extremely vulnerable to anthropogenic impact.”

Malnutrition may be making it harder for whales to withstand threats along their routes, like collisions with ships or getting tangled in fishing gear. It may also be pushing more whales to forage for food in dangerous stretches of their route — like the San Francisco Bay Area, where scientists have been tracking an increased number of whale strandings in recent years. At least a fifth — and possibly up to half — of all whales that enter the San Francisco Bay end up being killed by ships. This summer, 13 were discovered dead in the area, but scientists say many more are sinking before they can be counted. 

U.S. government scientists estimate that eastern gray whales peaked in 2016 with some 25,000 to 30,000 individuals. But in the last decade, the population crashed to about half that, with estimates ranging from 11,700 to 17,000. Normally, a thousand calves are born each year. But last year, scientists estimated just 85 births — a record low. 

Relisting gray whales as an endangered species is an important first step, said Miyoko Sakashita, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental nonprofit, who is leading the impending lawsuit against the Trump administration. Once a species is formally protected, federal agencies are generally required to develop a recovery plan. Listing also opens the door to federal funding for monitoring, research, and efforts to protect or restore habitat. That could “buy us some time for us to solve that bigger climate change problem,” Sakashita said. 

If the Trump administration decides not to relist the whales, Sakashita said, the plaintiffs would file another lawsuit and probably end up in court anyway. “The law says they have to use the best available science,” when deciding which species are endangered, she said. “When we look at this terrible population decline, it seems like there cannot be any other answer than to proceed forward with a threatened or endangered listing.”

NOAA has released estimates indicating that whale populations rebounded by roughly 5,000 whales in the last year. Palmer, of Earth Island Institute, is among those who are skeptical of these numbers. Especially considering the low number of calves born last year, “it’s just physically impossible for gray whales to produce that many animals in such a short time,” he said.

Many groups are racing to protect whales, even without an endangered species listing. One promising approach starts with asking ships to slow down near hotspots of whale activity — a step that can significantly increase the odds that a whale will survive a collision, said Rachel Rhodes, a scientist with the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California in Santa Barbara. She leads Whale Safe, a large project that has been mapping whales in shipping lanes by using sonar, thermal cameras, and satellite tags. 

In an ideal world, ships would be able to avoid whales entirely. But waterways are often too busy and confined for that to be possible, she said. “So the next best thing is to ask ships to slow down to 10 knots or less.” 

Similar speed limits are mandatory for large vessels on the East Coast, but remain voluntary on the West Coast. Another California project, Blue Whales Blue Skies, has had success in paying and publicly praising shipping companies whose ships slow down. But some vessels, particularly cruise ships, continue to speed through these areas. 

“The scientists have done their job in reporting the dire situation for gray whales,” said Steiner. “Now it’s time for the policymakers to put that science to work in protecting them as much as possible.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Gray whales are starving as the Arctic warms. Will the US protect them? on Sep 15, 2026.

For almost 20 years, the United States has whipsawed on the question of whether the federal government should try to speed up that phaseout. After Barack Obama failed to push a carbon tax through Congress, his administration drafted the “Clean Power Plan,” which would have forced electric utilities to cut their emissions by shifting away from coal. President Donald Trump repealed that rule during his first term, and the Supreme Court later said that the president could not unilaterally force utilities to give up the fuel.

Instead of forcing utilities to abandon coal, the Biden administration tried to work around the Supreme Court ruling in its 2024 rule by giving utilities a choice. They could either retire their coal plants sometime in the 2030s, or they could equip them with new machines that would capture almost all the carbon dioxide that would come out of their smokestacks. The result either way would be a significant drop in carbon emissions from the power sector.

The Trump administration is now repealing that rule. The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Monday that it plans to wipe away all federal regulations for carbon emissions from the electricity sector, essentially allowing utilities to warm the Earth as much as they want. The agency used the same justification as it did in its repeal of climate regulations on motor vehicles earlier this year, arguing that the science of climate change was uncertain and that the repeal would save consumers money on power bills.

“For over 15 years, the Obama and Biden administrations implemented a war on coal to destroy reliable and affordable energy,” said Trump’s EPA chief Lee Zeldin at an international energy summit in Texas. “We are working to go even further so that American energy can be fully unleashed. Realizing the full potential of American energy means more jobs, lower prices, and a more prosperous America.”

This repeal deals a significant blow to the federal government’s efforts to force the power sector away from coal. The whiplash between Democratic and Republican administrations has been so frequent and so severe that neither the Obama nor the Biden rules have done much to speed the decarbonization of the power sector, especially when compared to other federal efforts like the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies for solar and wind.

“The reason to have a target is that it sends a clear signal to decision-makers in companies,” said Kenneth Gillingham, a professor of environmental economics at Yale University and an economic adviser to the Obama administration, where he helped draft the Clean Power Plan. “If you’re on the fence between choosing two things, you might as well choose the one that’s in line with the target. That’s been undermined. There has to be some teeth behind it.”

Even though the Obama and Biden rules never took effect, coal power has still been plummeting in the United States over the past 20 years. That’s thanks to the shale fracking boom, which lowered the cost of natural gas and made it cheap for utilities to replace their coal plants with gas plants. When burned, natural gas does warm the Earth, but slower than coal, and the shift has caused overall power sector emissions to fall in the U.S. by almost half.

The repeal of the Biden rule will likely delay that phaseout and will have significant effects for the nation’s public health. Coal plants also release harmful toxins like mercury and particulate matter, leading to thousands of premature deaths around the world. Inasmuch as the Biden rule would have sped up coal closures, it would also have prevented around $370 billion in health damages from climate change and air pollution. The Biden administration predicted that in 2035, the rule would have prevented hundreds of thousands of asthma flare-ups, hundreds of emergency room visits, and more than 1,200 premature deaths.

The artificial intelligence boom is also slowing the phaseout of coal. The Biden administration drafted its 2024 rule at a time when coal was expected to keep shrinking on its own; the rule projected a “continued decline in projected coal-fired steam generating unit capacity as well as a steady decline in annual operation of those [plants] that remain online,” driven largely by “eroding economic opportunities for coal-fired steam generating units to operate.” Now the rapid growth in power demand from data centers has led to a resurgence in demand for coal plants, and has led many utilities to push out the retirement date for their legacy coal assets. For coal power plants that sell into wholesale markets like the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic, high prices have made it worthwhile to stay online. (The Trump administration has also ordered some coal plants to stay online past their planned retirements, a move that a federal court found to be unlawful earlier this month.)

A case in point is Southern Company, the massive utility that produces energy for states including Georgia and Mississippi. Under the Biden administration, the utility had planned to retire its major Mississippi coal plant by 2028, but Southern announced last year that data centers would necessitate keeping it online well into the 2030s. The company’s previous efforts to install carbon capture at its coal units, meanwhile, have ended in failure. Environmental groups have criticized these decisions and argued that AI demand is inflated, but the Trump administration is happy to give utilities leeway to keep coal online.

The next president who seeks to take action on climate change will face much the same coal challenge that Obama did: how to speed up the phaseout of a fuel that is declining, but not dying? Gillingham argues that the short-term boost provided by Trump and the data center boom may not help rescue the coal fleet. The nation’s coal plants are only getting older, and many utilities will choose to replace them with gas or other fuels rather than repair them. The next president may still need the regulatory “stick,” but by that time the sector may be on its last legs.

“We have more electricity demand than we did before, which is, on the margins, going to make it easier for a coal plant to stay on,” said Gillingham. “But the trend is pretty clear, and you can only fight markets so much.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump topples the last pillar of Biden’s climate agenda on Sep 14, 2026.

Over recent decades, federal funding for public air monitoring has declined, the number of monitors has fallen, and much of the remaining equipment is aging or located far from major polluters.

Now, the stakes are rising: Wildfire smoke is reaching more communities, data centers are adding pollution, and climate-driven heat waves are worsening ozone levels. The Trump administration, meanwhile, has delayed and rolled back requirements meant to hold companies accountable for their emissions.

As the public monitoring system has weakened, communities have increasingly turned to an alternative: low-cost sensors they can use themselves. 

But a Floodlight investigation finds industry is moving to restrict that option, too.

Since 2024, lawmakers in Louisiana, Ohio, and Kentucky have passed strikingly similar bills — backed by chemical or manufacturing trade groups — that curb the use of community-collected data in enforcement actions.

The bills share a common thread: They block regulators from using air-quality data for enforcement purposes unless it meets EPA-approved standards. Similar bills in West Virginia have yet to pass. 

In case after case, proponents have made the same argument: Community monitoring isn’t reliable enough for regulatory enforcement. 

Yet when lawmakers in West Virginia offered a version of a bill designed to ensure accuracy, industry resisted. 

The bill “essentially codifies what we are trying to prevent,” an official at the chemical giant Chemours wrote in an internal email.

An early-warning system in decline

Thousands of small, often-unremarkable instruments serve as the nation’s early-warning system for dangerous air — detecting pollution that people can’t always see or smell.

Some sit inside shelters the size of garden sheds. Others are mounted on rooftops or tucked into fenced compounds. Together, these monitors measure pollutants ranging from ozone and carbon monoxide to carcinogens such as benzene and vinyl chloride.

The network grew out of the 1963 Clean Air Act and transformed the way the nation tracked air pollution, giving regulators data they could use to identify dangerous conditions and hold polluters accountable. Since then, air pollution has fallen dramatically across much of the U.S.

But today, the network is “showing its age,” said Chet Wayland, who led EPA’s Air Quality Assessment Division for nearly two decades. “And it’s getting smaller over time.”

For example:

• Leaks, termites, and ants plague monitoring stations in one state while officials in another have resorted to shopping on eBay for discontinued parts, according to a 2020 congressional watchdog report. 
• Adjusted for inflation, federal grants to support the network have fallen more than 35 percent over the past two decades, while the Trump administration tried unsuccessfully last year to eliminate them entirely — and is trying again this year.
• The number of government air monitors nationwide fell by nearly half over the same 20-year period, according to EPA data.

The decline was especially pronounced among air monitors that track toxic chemicals, including those linked to cancer and other serious health effects. 

For example, the network monitoring vinyl chloride — the carcinogen at the center of the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio — shrank by more than half from 2004 to 2025. So did the network for chloroprene and benzene.

Floodlight analyzed the largest industrial sources of air pollution in Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, and West Virginia — where the monitoring legislation was introduced — and compared what each one reported releasing against what public monitors in those states are capable of detecting.

For 71 of the 100 facilities examined, the chemical they release most isn’t measured by any government monitor in the state. 

Hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, methanol — no air monitor currently reporting to the EPA measures those toxic chemicals. 

Nelson Roque, an assistant professor at Penn State, co-authored a 2025 study that found nearly six in 10 U.S. counties have no public air monitor at all.

Such gaps matter most in communities already facing higher risks. Black and low-income people bear a disproportionate share of elevated cancer risks from air toxics, according to the EPA. 

“We’ve realized the value of other infrastructure, and yet not this one,” Roque said. “Last I checked, we all breathe air.”

The shrinking public network has set the stage for another fight: who gets to measure the air, and whose data counts.

Louisiana: A monitoring gap, and the fight to keep it

Public air monitors in Louisiana — a national hub for oil, gas, and petrochemicals — are often located miles from major industrial polluters and fail to test for some of the most dangerous chemicals, a recent Floodlight investigation found. 

Community groups have tried to fill that gap. A $500,000 grant awarded under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act would have allowed the Louisiana Environmental Action Network to establish air monitoring in 27 communities it identified as pollution hot spots.

But the group was able to install monitors in only four communities before the Trump administration canceled the grant last year. 

“It’s like having your legs knocked out from under you,” said LEAN executive director Marylee Orr.

In 2024, meanwhile, Louisiana became the first state to restrict the use of community air monitoring data. 

The Louisiana Chemistry Association helped draft the Community Air Monitoring Reliability Act (CAMRA), which cites the need for “science-based standards” and bars the use of air pollution data in enforcement or regulatory actions unless it’s captured by EPA-approved monitors. That equipment typically costs tens of thousands of dollars.

In a previous statement to Floodlight, LCA president David Cresson defended the law, saying it ensures “data used to enforce our state’s environmental protection laws complies with minimum U.S. EPA standards” and doesn’t stop residents from monitoring air quality for their own information — only from using unregulated methods for enforcement purposes.

The same period brought other rollbacks, some sought by the chemical industry’s most powerful national lobbying group. The American Chemistry Council — the LCA’s national counterpart — spent more than $22 million lobbying in 2024, ranking 10th among 9,200 organizations tracked by an independent watchdog group. 

The ACC and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers last year requested a blanket two-year exemption from Biden-era regulations meant to cut certain toxic emissions by nearly 80 percent at roughly 200 chemical manufacturing plants. They didn’t get the blanket exemption — but individual plants that applied did.

So far, President Donald Trump’s EPA has granted more than 60 petrochemical facilities exemptions from the rule, and the agency is now weighing whether to rescind it entirely. 

The ACC also successfully lobbied against federal rules that would have required about two dozen chemical plants to conduct fenceline monitoring for ethylene oxide, a carcinogen that contributes substantially to the elevated cancer risk in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley.

The national trade group did not respond to Floodlight’s questions about its lobbying or its involvement in Louisiana’s CAMRA law. Nor did it explain its role in promoting similar legislation in other states. 

But in an emailed statement, the ACC said it has invested in community air-monitoring projects and “publicly advocated for expanded access to credible air quality information.” It said it supports monitoring that produces reliable, transparent data and gives communities and regulators information they can use to make informed decisions.

Kentucky takes a page from Louisiana 

Odors from Rubbertown, an industrial complex that housed tire and synthetic rubber plants during World War II, have long bothered residents in west Louisville, Kentucky. So, in the early 2000s, the city’s Air Pollution Control District, the EPA and others launched a study that confirmed what residents had long known: The air had unacceptably high levels of toxic pollutants. 

A plan was enacted, regulations were revised, and the air was continuously tested. More than 15 years later, regulators announced toxic air contaminants in the Louisville metro area were down by almost 80 percent — with the most dangerous chemicals cut by 96 percent.

Despite the success of expanded air monitoring in Louisville, Kentucky lawmakers have moved in the opposite direction. In March 2025, 10 months after Louisiana’s CAMRA law, they passed House Bill 137, which also restricted how air-monitoring data can be used in enforcement actions. 

Lloyd “Rusty” Cress, executive director of the Kentucky Chemical Council, told the Kentucky Lantern that the bill was similar to Louisiana’s community air monitoring legislation.  The law says air needs to be tested with “scientifically defensible” methods — echoing a phrase used in an ACC blog post in 2023.

The ACC, the American Petroleum Institute, Dow Chemical and Chemours all lobbied for it.

Jess Loizeaux, a Chemours spokesperson, said the company doesn’t object to community air monitoring. “We object to community air monitoring results being used for enforcement decisions without first verifying the validity and accuracy of the data through official tests performed by trained technicians at the appropriate regulatory authority,” she told Floodlight.

Kentucky’s political push unfolded against a backdrop of major gaps in public air monitoring. Only one of the state’s 25 largest air polluters is close to an air monitoring station that measures the top toxic chemical it emits.

Fewer than a quarter of the state’s counties have an air monitoring station. 

Ohio’s restrictions meet with legal challenge 

Ohio’s new air monitoring rule was tucked into last year’s budget bill with no named sponsor.  It, too, stops regulators from acting on air-monitoring data collected by community groups. 

“When we take away the ability for those folks to have a reasonably priced monitor … for their own protection, we’ve just taken any tool they had right out of their hands,” said Miranda Leppla, an attorney who sued the state over the new rules last year on behalf of environmental groups.

The lawsuit also challenges another provision in the budget bill that instructs state regulators to remove Ohio’s “air nuisance rule,” which allowed citizens to take legal action against companies whose emissions endanger public health.

One of the plaintiffs, Donna Ballinger, lives in Middletown, Ohio, hundreds of feet from a steel manufacturing plant that frequently rains down black, white, and gray particles onto her house and yard, she said. Fumes sometimes burn her eyes and throat, she said, and she often holds her nose when walking between her house and car. 

“My fear is cancer,” Ballinger told Floodlight.

She has an air monitor mounted in her front yard. But Ohio’s new requirement has made it impossible to use the data such monitors collect “as evidence of the nuisance conditions,” the lawsuit says.

The Ohio Chemistry Technology Council backed the measure. The group did not respond to Floodlight’s requests for an interview.

Tony Long, general counsel for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, said businesses are concerned that uncalibrated air monitors will spread misinformation.

“Given our litigious nature in this state, we think that the guardrails make sense,” he told Floodlight. “You don’t want to be stopped for speeding on an uncalibrated speed gun.”

With more than 90 public air monitoring stations, Ohio has a more robust air monitoring network than some states. Yet none of Ohio’s 25 largest air polluters are within 20 miles of a public air monitoring station that measures its top toxic emission. In fact, no air monitor in the U.S. measures the chemical that 10 of them release most.

Ohio’s Syensqo Specialty Polymers plant, which makes a resin used in plastics, released more than 130 tons of volatile organic compounds into the air last year, according to Ohio regulators.

The nearest air monitoring station is about 4 miles away — in West Virginia — and doesn’t measure VOCs. 

Industry resistance stalls West Virginia efforts 

West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection runs just 14 monitoring sites in 12 counties. The other 43 counties have no state monitoring stations at all.

None of West Virginia’s 25 largest air polluters has a public air monitor within 25 miles that measures the pollutant it releases most. For 17 of the facilities, no air monitor anywhere in the U.S. measures their top toxic emission.

In 2024, a state bill backed by the West Virginia Manufacturers Association would have barred community air monitoring data from use in regulation, enforcement and lawsuits; it passed the House but died in the Senate — partly because industry couldn’t agree on what to include.

A compromise version of the 2024 bill, drafted to address the concerns of some lawmakers, would have let regulators use community data if the monitors met manufacturer standards. Industry refused to support it. 

In emailed comments about the compromise bill, West Virginia Manufacturers Association Bill Bissett said it “neuters” the measure and was “now toothless.” Chemours’ Jeff Fritz wrote, “I do not like this draft,” and said the bill “essentially codifies what we are trying to prevent,” according to emails obtained by Mountain State Spotlight. Neither Bissett nor Fritz responded to requests for comment.

Subsequent bills, introduced in 2025 and 2026, also failed.

Why monitoring matters 

Evidence shows that better monitoring can reduce pollution — and potentially save lives. 

In 2018, the EPA made refineries begin monitoring benzene along their fencelines, and within five years, the number of refineries above EPA’s benzene action level dropped by half, according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project.

While some states have made it difficult to know what’s in the air, others have been proactive: 

• California is funding equipment and training for residents in fenceline communities to monitor for things like pesticides, hexavalent chromium, and other toxic chemicals. From 2017 to 2025, the state budgeted $1.4 billion to help communities that have historically been overburdened with air pollution.
• Colorado required four industrial plants to install fenceline monitors that measure hydrogen sulfide, benzene, and hydrogen cyanide in real time. The state also bought two mobile vans that regularly sample the same pollutants in surrounding neighborhoods. 
• The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and its contractors operate 33 automated gas chromatographs — sophisticated equipment that collects air samples every hour and provides near real-time readings of volatile organic compounds. 

But in much of the U.S, those who live near industrial plants still have little way to know what they’re breathing.

An unanswered question

Reonda Victor lives in Louisiana’s heavily industrialized corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where flares from industrial plants often illuminate the night sky. 

Her mother, grandmother, and sister all had breast cancer. Concerned about her own risk, she underwent genetic testing, which showed no predisposition to the disease, she said.

The closest public air monitoring station to her home — which lies in an area where air pollution poses one of the highest cancer risks in the country — tests only for lead. 

Did industrial pollution cause the illnesses that struck her family members? She can’t say. But proper air monitoring could help answer that question, she said.

“Without information, we don’t know.”

Kentucky Public Radio contributed to this investigation.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline America’s air monitors are disappearing. So is your power to expose polluters. on Sep 13, 2026.

The report, released in July by the Consumer Federation of America, a nonprofit representing nearly 250 consumer groups, concluded that homeowners in predominantly Hispanic ZIP codes pay on average a 30 percent higher premium ($950 more annually) compared with homeowners in white communities. In predominantly Black ZIP codes, homeowners pay, on average, a 16 percent higher premium ($500 more annually).

The findings were based on an analysis of identical policies across communities, eliminating the possibility the inequities were related to differences among homeowners, their homes or what they chose to insure, the report said. Local risk factors could be responsible for some of the disparities, although even when such factors were accounted for the gap remained large.

“We’ve talked a lot about our insurance affordability crisis,” said Sharon Cornelissen, director of housing at the Consumer Federation of America and a co-author of the report. “What we haven’t really talked about is sort of the racially inequitable impacts of that, and that Black and Hispanic homeowners are particularly struggling.”

The inequities add up to at least $28,500 in additional insurance costs over the span of a 30-year mortgage for homeowners in Hispanic communities and $15,000 for homeowners in Black communities, according to the report. The situation points to a legacy of redlining in home insurance that continues to challenge communities of color when it comes to homeownership and exposure to risk, although the discrimination today may be inadvertent.

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The historical practice of redlining involved the designation of certain neighborhoods as “hazardous” for mortgage lending, based largely on the race of residents. People in these neighborhoods were denied home loans, leading to lower home values and less homeownership. Although redlining ended in 1968 with the Fair Housing Act, the practice has left a legacy of segregation and disparities in these neighborhoods that endures today when it comes to health care, education, incarceration, access to nutritious food and public investment in infrastructure. The inequities also have left these communities more vulnerable to climate impacts such as heat. 

Mark Friedlander, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group, said premiums are based on risk and not race or ethnicity and that the system used to establish premiums is actuarially grounded and heavily regulated.

“Using race, or any proxy for race, to set insurance rates is illegal in every U.S. jurisdiction, and state insurance regulators review and approve the rating factors insurers use precisely to guard against that,” he said in a statement provided to Inside Climate News. “Many of the communities cited in reports like this are located in areas with objectively higher catastrophe exposure or higher costs to rebuild and repair after a loss.”

The report found the most acute home insurance disparity among homeowners in predominantly Hispanic ZIP codes in Florida, where they pay on average 58 percent more ($5,014 annually) for the same coverage as those in white communities. In the next four states, the gap was pronounced, but smaller: 20 percent ($431) in New York, 18 percent ($278) in Washington, 16 percent ($244) in Massachusetts and 15 percent ($633) in Kansas.

The inequities in Florida, where homeowners have been particularly hard-hit by insurance costs, represent “an enormous amount of money,” said Moira Birss, senior fellow at the Climate and Community Institute, a progressive think tank. “And so when we’re thinking about how we’re having an affordability crisis in this country … that’s unconscionable.”

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When it comes to predominantly Black ZIP codes, the inequities are greatest in Michigan at 74 percent ($1,768 annually), followed by Pennsylvania at 57 percent ($1,048), New Jersey at 22 percent ($332), Massachusetts at 20 percent ($321) and New York at 19 percent ($417).

Meanwhile, the cost of insurance for the typical homeowner jumped by 24 percent between 2021 and 2024, according to the report, based on previous research by the Consumer Federation of America. Greenhouse gas emissions, primarily those associated with fossil fuels, are heating the global climate, shifting weather patterns and leading to more extreme disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires. That risk is moving insurance companies to raise rates.

Insurance companies have provided fewer and more expensive options in communities of color compared with white communities, the report said. It highlighted a $17.5 million settlement from the 1990s over a lawsuit alleging the insurance company Nationwide discouraged agents from selling coverage in Black neighborhoods, labeled Black ZIP codes as undesirable and used racial profiling to deny insurance to Black homeowners. American Family Mutual Insurance Company similarly agreed to pay more than $16 million in a settlement to Black homeowners who were provided inferior policies and, in some cases, denied coverage based on race.

More recently insurers have adopted new proprietary methods for determining premiums and claims payments, including some incorporating artificial intelligence, that raise concerns about possible discrimination, according to the report. For instance, previous research by the Consumer Federation of America found that homeowners with lower credit scores pay an average penalty of $1,996 annually, or 99 percent more, for insurance, a concern considering longstanding structural factors that have meant communities of color tend to have lower credit scores.

“I’m not saying that they have some secret race factor that they put into their model,” Cornelissen said. “A lot of this bias can kind of creep in if they’re not paying attention to potential unequal impacts. A lot of this could be through AI models or other factors that have a disproportionate impact on Black and Hispanic communities.”

Friedlander said the best way to make insurance more affordable and equitable is by reducing risk through resilience efforts such as strengthening building codes and increasing mitigation funding. 

The report called on states to enforce fair housing laws and demand more transparency and accountability.

“Unless the insurance industry wants to give us more information about why this is happening,” Birss said, “it’s pretty hard not to interpret this as pretty serious racial discrimination.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline As extreme weather worsens, Black and Hispanic homeowners are paying more for insurance on Sep 12, 2026.

The J.H Campbell plant is one of seven fossil fuel plants around the country that the Trump administration has forced to stay in operation, despite the pollution they cause and the enormous costs of keeping them online. Just before it was about to close last May, Trump’s Energy Department invoked short-term emergency powers under the Federal Power Act to keep the 64-year-old plant running, arguing that the threat of outages, along with the need for more energy to power data centers, constituted an emergency. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected that argument, with Appeals Court Judge Cornelia Pillard writing that the emergency statute “is essentially a narrow, last-resort backstop.”

When he declared a “national energy emergency” on his first day in office in 2025, President Donald Trump instructed federal agencies to use whatever emergency powers they had to increase energy production — specifically for fossil fuels. This ruling represents one of the first successful legal challenges to how the administration has used its “energy emergency” powers.

It doesn’t overturn the idea that there is an energy emergency, said Ted Kelly, director and lead counsel for U.S. Clean Energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, one group involved in the lawsuit. But it does limit its practical implications. 

“You can say there’s an ‘energy emergency’ as much as you want — even if you’re the president,” Kelly said. “But what you can actually do depends on what the real facts on the ground are and what the law actually lets you do in different situations.”

Of all of the coal plants that the Trump administration has forced to stay open, the Michigan plant has emitted the most pollution, according to Kelly. Since it was forced to stay open, it has emitted 1,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, 2,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, and 140 tons of particulate matter as of the end of June. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that mix of pollutants could contribute to about 100 new cases of asthma for the 3,000 people that live near the plant in West Olive, Michigan. Its continued operation since May last year has cost $259 million, which the utility, Consumers Energy Company, is seeking to recover from its customers in Michigan and 10 other states.

The court order doesn’t mean that the plant has to shut down immediately. Kelly hopes that the Trump administration voluntarily backs down, or if that doesn’t happen, that the court could force a shutdown. But the administration could challenge the ruling, delaying action by asking for a re-hearing or for a review by the Supreme Court, said Gavin McCabe, senior litigating counsel at the Natural Resources Defense Council, another environmental group involved in the lawsuit. 

Either way, the D.C. Circuit Court’s ruling sets a precedent that there has to be a true emergency to keep these plants open. Several lawsuits against the other fossil fuel plants have been on hold as courts waited to see how the federal court ruled on the case, and the legal arguments there are pretty similar, Kelly said. 

It’s hard to square the idea of an “energy emergency” with the Trump administration’s actions against renewable energy: By mid-August, the administration had committed about $4 billion in payouts to companies to stop offshore wind projects that could have, altogether, powered more than 15 million homes.

“Why would the administration be blocking sources of energy that are ready to come online in favor of keeping online something that has been set to be retired?” McCabe said. “I mean, there appears to be a pretext that the president wants to help coal industry supporters. And this is one of the ways to attempt to do that.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A federal judge just told Trump there’s no ‘emergency’ to justify keeping a Michigan coal plant open on Sep 11, 2026.

Oscar Rozo, an Episcopal clergy member who works with Spanish-speaking immigrants in western North Carolina, was among the leaders of the group. Their petition calls on Costa Farms to ensure that plant nursery workers have sufficient protections from extreme heat, including access to water, shade, and paid breaks. “We’re part of the community,” Rozo said to the Costa Farms managers present. “The nursery industry has been part of Asheville’s economy.”

As the activists lined the hallways, workers in the plant nursery looked up curiously, but kept their distance.  

Rozo and the other activists were taking part in a multi-state action organized by WeCount, a worker-led labor and human rights group, targeting the five cities in the U.S. where Costa Farms operates nurseries. “We consider this a very historic day of action,” said Oscar Londoño, co-executive director of WeCount, who earlier that day helped deliver a petition to a different Costa Farms nursery in Apopka, Florida. “And we know this is only the beginning.”

Since 2021, WeCount has been advocating on behalf of outdoor workers who lack meaningful protections from extreme heat. Based in South Florida, WeCount previously campaigned for a municipal heat standard in Miami-Dade County, where deaths from heat exposure are estimated to spike by 600 during extremely hot periods. But those efforts were cut short in 2024, when industry groups complained and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis passed a law preempting local governments from enacting their own heat standards. (DeSantis said such regulations could cause “a lot of problems.”)

Planting Justice, WeCount’s new campaign to protect outdoor workers across the South, aims to bring corporations like Costa Farms to the table and create consumer awareness around where their plants come from — and the human cost of growing them. 

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This model of mobilizing for stronger workplace protections is known as worker-driven social responsibility. WeCount’s campaign is heavily inspired by the Fair Food Program, which farmworkers have successfully used for years to boost their labor conditions and is considered the highest standard of labor protections for farmworkers in the U.S. The Fair Food Program, launched in 2011 by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, has proven effective as a framework for workers to continually surface and address their needs. For example, while access to drinking water is one of the core tenets of the program, this year, workers won the right to electrolyte beverages or supplements year round.

“We know that every year this crisis is getting worse,” said Londoño, referring to how summer temperatures climb year to year, driven by human-caused climate change. “But increasingly, legislative avenues are more and more limited.”

Heat is the deadliest form of extreme weather. In the U.S., official counts of deaths from extreme heat exposure vastly underreport the scope of the problem, as a two-year investigation by Boston University and NPR recently demonstrated. For years, labor advocates and community groups have pushed for the creation of a federal heat standard — a set of guidelines that would apply to employers across the country designed to reduce workers’ risk of heat illness. While the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — or OSHA,  the nation’s workplace regulator — seemed to be making progress toward such a rule under the Biden administration, those efforts have since stalled out. Meanwhile, agricultural workers, a category that includes plant nursery workers who handle the greenery directly, are excluded from federal collective bargaining protections under the National Labor Relations Act. And yet, agricultural workers are also more than 35 times more likely to die from heat-related complaints than workers in other industries.

In a statement, Costa Farms told Grist it has received multiple awards for the quality of its workplace protections. “We have a full-time, on-site nurse with a functional medical clinic and our robust heat protection policy is aligned with the proposed OSHA heat safety rules,” said Ariana Cabrera de Oña, the company’s senior vice president, general counsel, and head of human resources. After Hurricane Helene struck North Carolina, Costa Farms rolled out a policy of holding daily five-minute meetings for workers and supervisors to discuss potential health and safety risks, including extreme weather forecasts. When certain wet bulb temperatures are reached, workers are also provided with “increased break frequency [and] additional hydration stations,” according to the company.

The goal of the Planting Justice campaign is for Costa Farms to sign onto a code of conduct developed by workers. The agreement outlines relatively straightforward demands: educating workers and supervisors on the signs of heat illness; providing access to shade, water, and rest breaks; and creating systems for monitoring and responding to heat stress. 

Organizers believe the agreement would help directly address issues that workers themselves see on the job. For example, while Costa Farms reports that the company provides access to hydration stations on very hot days, workers industry-wide have reported water with a strong chemical smell, as well as seeing mold in water coolers, said Londoño. 

Alejandro Gonzalez, a plant nursery worker originally from Guatemala, told a Florida rally that the summer days have topped 110 degrees Fahrenheit on occasion. “They don’t give us cold or clean water,” Gonzalez said emphatically, in Spanish. “They don’t provide any breaks or shade.”

Eighty-six percent of nursery workers who responded to a survey by WeCount reported dangerous incidents on the job, stemming from heat illness, pesticide exposure, and workplace accidents. Over two-thirds reported being entirely denied breaks and days off. The visa conditions of many houseplant workers — dependent on H2-A or other visas, or entirely undocumented — leave them with few rights to recourse, often entirely dependent on their employers for housing, and unable to rely on much of federal labor law for support should they speak out.

WeCount sees Tuesday’s action as just a start. The group is also calling on major retailers — like Home Depot and IKEA, that buy plants from Costa Farms — to only work with growers who agree to this code of conduct. 

Soon after they walked into the Leicester office, Costa Farms’ management asked Rozo and the other activists to leave the premises. They delivered the petition and walked out.

Correction: This story previously misstated the year the Fair Food Program launched. In addition, the 86% statistic refers to houseplant workers industry-wide, not specific to Costa Farms as originally stated. 

Clarification: The story has been updated to reflect that the WeCount has received testimonies of unsafe conditions from workers across the houseplant industry, not just Costa Farms.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline America’s houseplants come at a steep price for greenhouse workers on Sep 11, 2026.

“At least at the macro level, Republican-led and governed states are not only open to but embracing solar energy as a technology,” said Tim Pawlenty, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association and a former Republican governor of Minnesota. 

Altogether, solar construction in Trump-supporting states has buoyed an ongoing explosion in national solar deployment. The country added more than 11 gigawatts of solar power in the second quarter of 2026, an increase of 45 percent compared to the same period in 2025. States that supported Trump in the last election made up close to three-fourths of that growth.

Texas and Florida, the two largest Trump-supporting states by population, were ranked first and third, respectively. Those Sun Belt states have been consistent leaders in solar construction, as have Indiana, Ohio, and Arizona, which have also remained in the top 10 solar-building states since 2024. Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, and Utah also reached the top 10 in some, but not all, of those years.

Those red states are fostering solar development through their general pro-business attitude and booming electricity-hungry industries, even if they don’t support solar for climate-related reasons. Republican-leaning states tend to have more available land and easier permitting processes for energy projects, Pawlenty said. That attractive business environment has also drawn electricity-consuming industries, like manufacturing and data centers, to red states, producing demand for quickly constructed, cheap energy sources like solar.

“Red states, as a general proposition, have sort of a pro-build mentality. They want to build things,” Pawlenty said.

But the future for solar in red states is more complicated. After Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, energy companies investing in solar projects and homeowners buying solar for their rooftops received tax credits for their investments. But last year, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and brought an early end to the credits. Credits expired for most uninitiated solar farms on July 4, 2026. As a result, solar developers rushed to start construction before the deadline, helping create a bump in solar installations in the second quarter of 2026. The lack of tax credits could make solar growth less certain in the future, especially for rooftop solar projects, which have already begun declining in 2026, the solar industry report notes.

The nature of this uncertainty is not the same for all solar-investing, Trump-voting states. While Texas has remained a titan in solar development, earning the top spot in 2024, 2025, and the first half of 2026, other states are just beginning their solar booms. Michigan, a politically mixed state where a majority of voters chose Trump in 2024, reached the top 10 for the first time this year. The state has climbed steadily from 23rd place in 2024 to fourth in the first half of 2026. 

Whether Michigan, which lacks Texas’ year-round strong sunlight, can maintain that solar energy growth after the end of federal tax credits is another question, said Michael Craig, an associate professor in the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. Solar farms may remain economically feasible to build without the credits only in areas with the right weather. 

“The economics of solar largely depends on your solar resource,” said Craig. ”The better the resource, I’d say the less important the tax credits are.” 

Without federal tax credits, Michigan’s solar industry will likely fall back on state clean energy goals, which create demand for solar by mandating that utilities build renewable power sources. Though Michigan voted for Trump in 2024, the state has a Democratic governor and Democrat-led state Senate. The state established a law that utilities must generate 50 percent of their power from renewables by 2030. That requirement, in combination with data center electricity demand, is likely a large factor in the state’s rapid solar rise, Craig said. 

Nonetheless, some strategists have argued the solar industry needs tax credits less than it needs an easier federal permitting process and continued power demand to support growth. Even if Congress never reinstates the tax credits, those structural factors could push the industry forward, especially because solar requires relatively little time to build compared to other power sources. Regardless of cost, tax credits, or even geography, that speed still counts for something, said Rachel Skaar, communications director for Solar Energy Industries Association.

“Solar and storage can deploy so much faster than other technologies,” Skaar said. “So when we talk about the need for energy right now, solar and storage can provide it.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline More than 70% of new solar is being built in states that voted for Trump on Sep 10, 2026.

According to AAA, the average price of diesel as of September 10 stands at a staggering $5.98 — about $2.31 more than in late February, when the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran. The jump has been even higher in some states, such as California, where a gallon of diesel currently costs $7.91. 

Most Americans don’t buy diesel fuel, but they pay for it. It powers the trucks and ships that move everything from milk to lumber, and the costs are embedded in the prices people see at stores. The last time consumers saw diesel prices climb to such heights was in 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine and they hit $5.82 per gallon. 

This year, the Iran war has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 10 percent of seaborne diesel once traveled. This has sent prices soaring, and consumers are increasingly feeling the impact. 

“Early on, much of the cost increase gets absorbed along the supply chain through existing freight contracts and retailer margins,” David Ortega, a professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University, told the Associated Press. “But as contracts reprice and fuel surcharges take hold, more of that cost makes its way to the grocery store.” 

All told, the rising price of diesel has cost U.S. consumers an additional $46 billion, or about $350 per household, according to a Brown University tracker. That’s slightly less than the impact of rising gasoline prices — at $55 billion — but the 61 percent jump in diesel prices has outpaced the 41 percent increase in gas. 

“Diesel right now is caught up in more of a geopolitical turmoil than gasoline,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, an app that lets consumers track fuel prices. In addition to the Iran war, Ukraine’s increasingly successful attacks on Russian oil refineries have also applied upward pressure. 

“Russia is no longer supplying the global market,” said De Haan, and U.S. refineries are already at full capacity, giving them little ability to pick up the slack. Domestic inventories are at their lowest level since 1982, according ​to data from the Energy Information Administration.

“We’re entering a key period for diesel consumption with the lowest inventories on record for early September,” David Russell told Reuters. He’s the global head of market strategy at the brokerage service TradeStation. “Farmers and truckers typically use more diesel in the ​autumn, which raises the stakes for the current crisis and increases the risk of sharper price increases.” 

Winter is likely to bring more problems. Because heating oil is also essentially diesel, the millions of U.S. households that still rely on it can expect unprecedented bills. This comes as President Donald J. Trump’s administration has threatened to eliminate the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps households afford their fuel bills. 

“If you’re in the Northeast, then this is much more burdensome than anywhere else in the country,” Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, told Axios. “Families are getting hit by both gasoline and heating oil.” 

These surging costs are hitting consumers just before the midterm elections, when the economy is at the front of voters’ minds. Normally, fuel prices are a somewhat downstream factor in the voting calculus, but Kevin Book, head of research at energy consulting firm ClearView Energy Partners, told Axios that this year could be different. “In cold weather states — particularly those that rely on fuels other than natural gas,” he said. “It could be a very big deal.”

Even if the wars in Iran and Ukraine were to end tomorrow, it would take weeks or months for fuel prices to come down and diesel supply to recover. 

“After both of those are solved, then once the flow normalizes, that will start to help global inventories recover,” said De Haan. “Only after inventories have recovered do diesel prices really see a full decline.”

This post has been updated to reflect the current price of diesel fuel as of September 10.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What the record-high cost of diesel means for you on Sep 10, 2026.

Georgia-based bus manufacturer Blue Bird started selling electric buses commercially in 2018 and built an expanded factory for electric buses in 2023. In 2022, Hyundai built a plant near Savannah that it said would be dedicated to making EVs. In 2024, Kia started making EVs at its West Point plant. And in 2025, Rivian broke ground on its manufacturing plant near Atlanta. The Hyundai and Rivian operations are two of the biggest economic development projects in Georgia history. The state has also worked to attract other parts of the EV and clean energy manufacturing sector, including battery makers and recyclers and solar panel companies.

Under the second Trump administration, the economic outlook for these companies has been destabilized. In addition to ending federal EV tax credits, the Trump administration has imposed tariffs on battery packs, charger hardware, and other components; loosened rules around emissions from gas-powered cars; and ended the Biden administration’s push to make government vehicle fleets electric. And a year ago, federal immigration agents raided an electric vehicle battery plant and arrested more than 400 people, most of them South Korean workers there to help get the new factory off the ground.

The past year and a half has been a grim moment for what was a booming industry in Georgia. But the EV makers are still forging ahead, even if that means making some adjustments.

At Kia’s plant in West Point, a long and constantly varied line of vehicles moves steadily forward on the assembly line, step by step gaining all the trimmings that turn metal shells into driveable cars. But this plant functions more like a short-order cook than a traditional assembly line. Instead of producing big, uniform batches, Kia has designed the plant to manufacture cars according to unique specifications — each one a different model, color, trim, or even drive train — that is, gas-powered, hybrid, or electric. Kia says it has done this to make more of the cars people most want to buy at any given moment. Right now, that means hybrids.

“What we’ve seen is a transition back away from maybe full EV vehicle building to this kind of a middle-of-the-road opportunity,” said factory CEO Stuart Countess.

Electric cars are still the future, he said. But for several reasons, including price and charging access, consumers just aren’t there yet. Changes to federal policy are a major factor, too.

“We had a tax incentive credit that did go away,” Countess said. “Sales were really moving in the right direction, but once it went away, it became a much different environment.”

Just as Kia has ramped up hybrid production, its sister company Hyundai has added hybrid production to the lineup produced at its massive plant near Savannah, which was originally built to make EVs. 

“It’s kind of a messy period we’re in right now,” said Stephanie Valdez-Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive. “But I think the manufacturers are adjusting.”

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At the same time, battery makers throughout the state have started shifting to producing storage batteries for electricity in addition to ones made to power vehicles.

“The state continues to have a lot riding on the success of both the electric vehicle but also the battery market,” said Stan Cross of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, or SACE. 

Georgia leads the region in EV and battery manufacturing, but the growth has stumbled, with layoffs at SK Battery earlier this year. More than $4 billion in investment has been canceled or scaled back in the last year across the Southeast, according to SACE. 

That’s dwarfed, though, by the nearly $74 billion in manufacturing investment that’s moving ahead. Still, one open question, Cross said, is whether Georgians will buy the hybrids and EVs being made in the state.

Despite actively pursuing EV manufacturing, Georgia doesn’t have incentives to encourage EV adoption like some other states. In fact, there’s an extra registration fee designed to make up for lost gas taxes. And the thorny politics may extend beyond state policy and the now-ended federal incentives. “When it comes to electric vehicles, Georgia politics remains utterly confused,” Cross said.

Private investment continues, though. Kia and Hyundai are part of a charging consortium called IONNA that has installed several charging stations around the state, including one at the Kia factory site in West Point. Electric utilities are investing more in vehicle charging too. Across the region, EV-related investment by utilities increased by 14 percent this year, according to SACE.

“Though we’re not seeing a lot of activity on the legislative side, we do see potential on the regulatory side and really are encouraging Georgia Power to step up and help kind of fill the void that policymakers in the state are creating,” Cross said.

Valdez-Streaty believes that, over time, making EVs in Georgia will likely lead to more people in Georgia buying them.

“It’s like that familiarity, right?” she said. “People have jobs at those companies and familiarity with those products.”

Though shaky for the last 18 months or so, she said the EV market is starting to stabilize — and the auto industry is still going electric, it’s just taking a little longer.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Georgia bet big on EV manufacturing. Trump pulled the plug. on Sep 9, 2026.

His answer to the fundamental question of how to live right was to start small — to revere the Earth’s endless beauty, and to work a little, each day, to reverse the harm we’ve caused. 

“There is no public crisis that is not also private,” Berry wrote in his essay “Think Little.” Written in 1972 as the environmental movement emerged, the piece marked a conflict of Berry’s: Despite strong environmental convictions, he sometimes despaired of the movement’s focus on bending the ear of politicians, without individuals healing the rupture between modern life and the land. “The changes that are required are fundamental changes in the way we are living,” Berry wrote. 

He extolled this approach in one of his most well-known poems, “Manifesto: Mad Farmer Liberation Front”: “Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. / Say that your main crop is the forest / that you did not plant.”

The language of activism was often at odds with Berry’s worldview. It seemed to warn of a coming apocalypse, but to Berry, the world had no end and no beginning. To move in nature’s time meant to think in cycles of death and rebirth, not a straight line leading toward destruction or salvation. 

That didn’t stop Berry from engaging with activism even when it frustrated him, said Jeffrey Bilbro, an English professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, who’s written several books on Berry. 

Berry was arrested in 1979 for protesting a nuclear plant in Indiana. In 2011, he was arrested again during a sit-in inside Kentucky state government offices while protesting mountaintop removal coal mining. He remained active in the fight against coal throughout the 2010s, helping to block the gates to a coal-fired power plant in Washington, D.C., and pulling his papers from the University of Kentucky after the school accepted a $7 million donation from Alliance Coal.

After Berry wrote his essay in Harper’s Magazine, “Why I am not Going to Buy a Computer” in 1987, some called him a Luddite. As a Grist article in 2014 pointed out, he was, in perhaps the truest sense, taking after that early 19th century movement, when textile workers at the advent of industrialization destroyed machinery to protect the dignity of their work. Berry refused, as much as he could, to let technology alienate him from his work. For this, he was sometimes criticized or called a curmudgeon.

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His views didn’t fit neatly into modern politics. He believed that marriage and family strengthened community ties, but didn’t believe the government had authority to legislate such things. The law of nature, he said in one essay, was universal kinship and kindness, and Biblical stories and Psalms supported that. Berry was religious, but didn’t always like church, calling himself, according to Bilbro, a “bad weather church-goer” because he preferred to spend nice Sunday mornings walking in the woods. He hated dualisms — between humanity and the natural world, between body and soul, between person who believes x and person who believes y. This lent him broad appeal across the political and class spectrum, especially to those who felt that capitalism and industry had moved humanity away from a more honest way of life, whether through agriculture or other means.

“For an uncompromising person or a person of convictions, I think he recognized the need in a fallen world,” Bilbro said. “Our hands are all dirty, and we’re making these compromises, and it’s better to be honest about the necessity to do so and try to do what we can to live right, even if we can’t attain the purity that we might wish.”

The environmental crisis, according to Berry, takes hold in our lives and evinces itself as a sort of social decay. But living isn’t an unforgivable sin in itself, if we can only leave things better than we found them, knowing that the strip-mined mountaintop where we plant spruce, aspen, and wildflowers might not become a lush forest again until long after we’re gone.

In the poem, “A Discipline,” Berry imagines apocalypse: “it approaches / on every side, there is no other place / to turn.” 

And yet, the poem continues, nothing ever really goes away: “It is the time’s discipline to think / of the death of all living, and yet live.”

Only the hard work of tending the land and learning its rhythms again can heal it, he believed. In coming into relationship with the smallest handful of earth, you can understand what it means to fight for change almost too enormous to fathom. To Berry, by tending a sprouted seedling in the ground, you can recognize you are it, and it is you.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Wendell Berry’s life on Earth on Sep 9, 2026.

The scale of the disaster is extraordinary, even for a region accustomed to deadly floods and landslides. It will take months for scientists to confirm exactly what happened. But, they warn, one thing is already clear: As climate change melts icy landscapes worldwide, tragedies like this are more likely to happen. They are also incredibly hard to predict.

“Glacial loss destabilizes slopes in many far-reaching ways that are often unpredictable and catastrophic,” said Mark Carey, a professor of environmental studies and geography at the University of Oregon who leads a lab that studies glaciers. Proactive research and monitoring have saved lives in some parts of the world, Carey said, but in a place like the Himalayas, where thousands of glaciers are spread over vast areas, “it’s impossible to predict everything and establish early warning systems everywhere.”

The world’s glaciers have shrunk by about one-fifth in the last century and are expected to lose at least another quarter of their mass by 2100. Each fraction of a degree of warming makes them vanish faster, with hundreds of billions of tons of ice lost each year.

The downstream effects of this disappearing ice are complex and varied. Glaciers often buttress the sides of mountains and, as they retreat, newly exposed silt and rock can become unstable. The soil itself is also often glued together by a frozen layer known as permafrost, which helps lock slopes into place, but thaws when temperatures become too warm. Glacial meltwater can eat into the cracks in the bedrock, weakening it over time. All of these processes can result in sudden avalanches or rock slides — like one that caused a 1,500 foot tsunami in Alaska last summer, or possibly like the collapsed mountain slope in Nepal.

It’s also common for retreating glaciers to leave behind ridges of dirt and rock, known as moraines, that trap meltwater and rain. These natural dams can release enormous amounts of water if they break. 

Glaciers themselves can behave as dams, too. In Juneau, Alaska, glacial meltwater has triggered flooding every year since 2011. Just north of the city, a glacier-dammed valley, known as Suicide Basin, fills with meltwater and rain throughout the year. When it becomes too full, the ice holding back the water lifts up, releasing billions of gallons at once. But while the yearly flood causes plenty of property damage, it has never killed anybody. That’s because it’s carefully monitored, said Eran Hood, a hydrologist and professor of environmental science at the University of Alaska who studies the basin.

“Every single cell phone in Juneau goes off when the lake starts to drain,” he said. “We have a lake in a known location, we have cameras all over it, we have a laser measuring the elevation of the water, and we have the ability to make drone maps every few weeks to update our estimates of the volume of water in the lake.”

Close monitoring and engineering has successfully prevented disaster in Peru as well. The country has spent decades draining dozens of high-risk glacial lakes across the Andes, “no doubt saving tens of thousands of lives,” said Carey, who wrote a book, In the Shadow of Melting Glaciers, about these measures. And last year, Swiss authorities were able to evacuate 300 residents from the Alpine village of Blatten just days before a glacier collapsed and engulfed it in an avalanche. 

But success stories like these stand in stark contrast to what happened in Nepal, Hood said. While early-warning systems in the Himalayas monitor water levels in some high risk rivers and lakes, there is no regional system capable of continuously watching for the kind of sudden rock-and-ice collapse that triggered the disaster. Doing so would require intensive research and surveillance across a vast, remote, and difficult-to-access landscape where resources are limited.

“There’s really no effective way to monitor all these glaciers,” Hood said. “When you’re dealing with something that releases immediately and moves downslope so quickly, how can you find a way to provide people with any warning?” 

Emerging or repurposed technology may be able to help fill some of these gaps, said Dan McGrath, a glaciologist and associate professor at Colorado State University. 

In places like Mexico City, seismic early-warning systems have sometimes given residents more than a minute to prepare before strong earthquake shaking arrives. Scientists are now wondering whether these same networks could be used to detect landslides and floods caused by glaciers. The glacial-break in Nepal caused readings equivalent to a 5.2 magnitude earthquake that traveled as far as Alaska, leading authorities to initially assume a seismic event had caused the disaster. There, too, just a few minutes of warning was shown to make all the difference. After warnings of the flood reached a school downstream, the principal was able to evacuate 900 students to safety before the torrent submerged it. 

Researchers have also recently experimented with laying fiber-optic cables across a glacier in Switzerland to detect “icequakes,” or tiny fractures in the ice that generate seismic vibrations and could provide clues about changes in a glacier’s stability.

A new satellite, recently launched jointly by the United States’ and India’s space agencies, also holds promise. Known as NISAR, it was designed to detect subtle changes in Earth’s surface, like shifting glaciers, and can capture detailed information about ice and snow cover while seeing through cloud cover in ways that previous satellite sensors were not capable of. Recent analysis of the satellite’s data showed that it had recorded slumping on the mountain slope in Nepal several weeks before it collapsed. 

But still, there’s no silver bullet, McGrath said. “Many of these mountain ranges are at a tipping point,” he said. “Freezing, or not freezing, is binary. And as temperatures warm above that and permafrost thaws, that is undoubtedly going to lead to an increase in disasters like this.”

Matt Simon contributed reporting to this article.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why it’s so hard to predict a tragedy like Nepal’s glacier collapse on Sep 8, 2026.