When marble-size hail fell on Alabama in 2023, it devastated Camp Hill, a town of 1,000 where nearly half the residents live below the poverty line. Decks were demolished, cars shattered, roofs destroyed, and few people had insurance. The community was expecting to get help this month in the form of a $20 million federal grant to help homeowners make …
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7 Steps L.A. Could Take to Gird Against Future Wildfires
Fire and wind are certain to shape the future of Los Angeles as the world warms. Los Angeles had started taking steps to prepare. But there are lessons it can learn from other cities adapting to extreme fire weather: managing yards; taking care of neighbors; making it easier to get out of harm’s way. One big challenge, among many, is …
Read More »Doug Burgum Is Confirmed by Senate as Interior Secretary
Doug Burgum, a promoter of oil and gas, was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday to lead the Interior Department, a role in which he will oversee drilling and mining policies on federal lands and waters. The 79-18 vote for Mr. Burgum puts him in charge of nearly 500 million acres of public land, 1.7 billion acres of offshore waters, …
Read More »Inside a $35 Billion Loan Project, Led by World Bank, Aims to Expand Electricity in Africa
The leaders of more than half of Africa’s nations gathered this week in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s sprawling seaside metropolis, to commit to the biggest burst of spending on electric-power generation in Africa’s history. The World Bank, African Development Bank and others are pledging at least $35 billion to expand electricity across a continent where more than a half-billion people …
Read More »Trump Said, ‘We Have More Coal Than Anybody.’ See Where We Burn It.
After declaring a national energy emergency on his first day in office, President Trump said Thursday that coal could be a fuel source for new electric generating plants. He announced a plan to issue emergency declarations to build power plants to meet a projected increase in electricity demand for artificial intelligence. “They can fuel it with anything they want, and …
Read More »Wind Power in U.S. Faces Hit From Trump’s Executive Order
President Trump launched a broad attack on the wind power industry in the United States, with a sweeping executive order that could block not just new offshore wind farms in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans but potentially many smaller wind farms on federal land and even on private property across the country. The order, which Mr. Trump signed in the …
Read More »Trump Plans to Order U.S. Exit From World’s Main Climate Pact
The White House on Monday said that President Trump would withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the pact among almost all nations to fight climate change. By withdrawing, the United States would join Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only four countries not party to the agreement, under which nations work together to keep global warming below levels …
Read More »Airborne Lead and Chlorine Levels Soared as L.A. Wildfires Raged
At the height of the Los Angeles County wildfires, atmospheric concentrations of lead, a neurotoxin, reached 100 times average levels even miles from the flames, according to early detailed measurements obtained by The New York Times. Levels of chlorine, which is also toxic at low concentrations, reached 40 times the average. The spiking levels underscore the added danger from wildfires …
Read More »Fake Meat Is Processed. What Does That Mean for Its Health Benefits.
It’s not exactly the best moment to pitch ultraprocessed foods as healthy and delicious, but that’s exactly what two major producers of plant-based meat are trying to do. Beyond Meat wants to convince people that its vegan versions of meat products are good for you. So does its competitor, Impossible Foods, which recently changed its packaging colors from green to …
Read More »The Next Threat to L.A.? Rainfall That Could Cause Landslides
While winds and flames continued to ravage Los Angeles, small teams began creeping onto the charred soils left in their wake. Roughly a dozen members of the California Watershed Emergency Response Teams and the United States Forest Service are studying the edges of the Eaton and Palisades fires to determine what patches of land burned most severely. Soon, they’ll issue …
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