When the earth caved in eastern Congo last week, more than 200 Congolese miners were buried alive. Those who survived spent the next several days pulling hundreds of bodies from the red clay that has become increasingly essential to powering the evolution of technology within the U.S. The collapse came less than a month after […]
Adam Mahoney
Adam Mahoney is the climate and environment reporter at Capital B. He can be reached by email at adam.mahoney@capitalbnews.org, on Bluesky, and on X at @AdamLMahoney.
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather, Housing
Insurance Crisis Leaves Black Homeowners One Disaster Away From Homelessness
The insurance check to rebuild Zaire Calvin’s family properties came in at just under $300,000, a drop in the bucket compared to the roughly $2.1 million they had been worth. His family had five homes sprawled across two lots in the leafy suburb of Altadena, California, before the Eaton Fire unleashed its wrath, leveling both […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Politics & Policy
Chemical Plants Keep Exploding, but Trump’s EPA Is Rolling Back Safety Rules Anyway
In September 2023, sirens blared again across Hopewell, Virginia, after oleum, commonly known as fuming sulfuric acid, leaked from the AdvanSix chemical plant. The plant, one of many big polluters in the predominantly Black city, had at least 66 violations of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act at the time. And this […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Technology
In Chicago, a Pentagon‑backed Lab Could Price Out Black Residents
CHICAGO — By the time Jerry Whirley heard that a $9 billion quantum-computing campus was coming a few blocks from his South Shore home, most of what he actually needed from his neighborhood, like somewhere to buy medicine or groceries, had already vanished. He didn’t learn about “Quantum City” from the governor or the mayor, […]
Posted inNews
Racist Doll Thrown at Mardi Gras Parade Ignites Citywide Backlash
During what should have been a joyful 7th birthday at a Mardi Gras parade, a young Black girl in New Orleans caught a gift that stopped her family cold. The child was tossed a Black doll with noose-like beads around its neck from a parade float adorning the phrase “crack pipe,” the child’s mother, Shayna […]
Posted inCourts, Economic Development, Eminent Domain, History, Politics & Policy, Rural Issues
Georgia Is Letting a Railroad Seize Land a Black Family Has Owned For 100 Years
SPARTA, Ga. — In 1850, Andrew Benjamin Tarbutton enslaved 25 people in central Georgia. A year later, he purchased more than a dozen additional people off the docks in Savannah and marched them toward his home, setting the foundation for his family’s generational wealth. Four generations later, a railroad company owned by one of his […]
Posted inCommunity, Culture, History
The Mardi Gras Indian Tradition Carrying Generations of Black History
NEW ORLEANS — From the porch of his family’s home in Uptown New Orleans, Gerard “Little Bo” Dollis remembers being small enough to see only feathers — plumes of red and gold that blocked out the morning sun and the party bus idling behind his father. “You couldn’t even see the bus,” said Dollis, also […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice, Health Equity
The U.S. Government Now Says Climate Change Doesn’t Harm Human Health
In one sweeping move, President Donald Trump on Thursday erased the scientific and legal foundation of America’s clean air protections and modern climate policies. For the first time in a generation, the U.S. government no longer officially recognizes carbon pollution as a danger to public health. Black people are exposed to more pollution, on average, […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
Black Residents Win Key Ruling in ‘Cancer Alley’ Environmental Racism Case
In a pocket of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley,” Black residents bear the generational toll of “plantation country” becoming “pollution country.” Now, a federal district court has given those residents something they almost never get: a chance to put the whole system on trial. On Feb. 9, a judge in New Orleans ruled that groups […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
A Rural S.C. County Quietly Approved a $2B Data Center During the Winter Storm
As a rare winter storm bore down on South Carolina, bringing conditions that historically paralyze the state for days, local officials in a rural county quietly pushed through a massive $2.4 billion data center without most residents knowing it was even on the table. “There was a public meeting, which most were unaware of,” Jessie […]