Having grown up in Minnesota, the second-coldest state in the continental United States, Mia Brooks smiled at the thought of the year-round soggy Southern heat before moving to Texas. But as climate change makes summer more oppressive nationwide, it’s made Southern winters particularly more intense. Over the past two decades, the South’s winter and spring […]
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
Pollution Is Driving Today’s Reverse Great Migration
This is the fourth installment of a yearlong Capital B series on the country’s current Black migration, the most significant movement of Black people in the U.S. in 50 years. It was made possible, in part, by a grant from the Environmental and Epistemic Justice Initiative at Wake Forest University. ENGLEWOOD, CHICAGO — Deborah Payne’s […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
How Labor Rights and Infrastructure Improvements May Limit This Silent Killer
It was just his second day on the job at the Modesto Junk Company in California’s Central Valley — but it was the region’s 34th consecutive day of 90-plus-degree weather. Feeling dizzy, he asked for a break around 2 p.m. The 40-year-old never received one. Later, a co-worker found him unconscious and sprawled across the […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
An Electric Car Journey Through the South
The Southeast corridor of the U.S. — the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida — is the country’s largest producer of electric vehicles. Roughly 40% of the nation’s electronic vehicle assembly investments, totaling $60 billion, and manufacturing jobs are found here. So when my preferred rental car company ran out of gas-powered cars in Charlotte, North […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
‘We All Deserve Help’: Building Black-Latino Solidarity Amid Migrant ‘Crisis’
Although many Black Chicagoans say the influx has intensified their struggles, some residents and organizers are working toward racial unity.
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice
Is Your Neighborhood at Risk? New Climate Risk Map Breaks Down 184 Hazards by Community
Globally, this year’s hottest summer on record was deadly, and researchers estimate that numbers will continue to rise in the United States. But those deaths aren’t equally distributed, and the disparities result from hundreds of different social, economic, and health factors, which leave Black and Indigenous people most susceptible to extreme heat. A new mapping […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
A Gas Storage Plant and New Pipeline Disrupt Life for This Black Community
HOUSTON — With their heads bowed, eyes shut, and hands locked, the Southwest Crossing Community Initiative starts every meeting with a prayer: “Please, protect us from a deadly explosion.” “And please, cover us … and ease our minds.” Southwest Crossing is an aging community in Houston where nearly 20% of residents are over 65. They […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
A Detroit Community Fights to Survive as Its Industrial Neighbor Grows
DETROIT— For decades, Detroit has been a poster child for the economic drain of decreased manufacturing across the Midwest. The city has lost hundreds of thousands of mostly Black residents and experienced bankruptcy. Its East Canfield neighborhood hasn’t been spared — but in a rarity, its demise has been caused by industrial growth, not decline. […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice
How the Country’s Largest Climate Bill Threatens to Leave Black Communities Behind
One year after the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act — the largest bill in U.S. history aimed at mitigating climate change — examples of the bill’s key policies harming Black communities continue to surface. Capital B has reported on several, including: Experts like Rhiana Gunn-Wright, climate policy director at the Roosevelt Institute, contend that […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
In Chicago, Environmental Justice Was Birthed by a Black Woman. A New Podcast Tells Her Story.
Like many Black women throughout the history of social movements, Hazel Johnson’s contributions to bettering her community on the South Side of Chicago — and the rest of the country — are often forgotten. But in the 1970s and 1980s, when industrial polluters largely evaded consequences, the Altgeld Gardens public housing resident was one of […]
