This story is published in partnership with Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Marvin Hayes pulled up outside a beige brick home in Baltimore’s leafy Mount Washington neighborhood in his white cargo van to collect the bucket of food scraps his […]
Environmental Justice
On a ‘Toxic Tour’ of Baltimore, a Hidden Part of the City is Revealed
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here. Harm City: First in a series about environmental justice and climate adaptation in Baltimore’s neighborhoods. Nicole Fabricant seemed like a natural guide. A professor of anthropology at […]
A Tree Grows in Birmingham
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Sometimes Thomasine Jackson can’t get to work. Jackson, 65, said if there’s been a hard rain, water covers her entire street, leaving her […]
Biden’s EPA Has Resolved Only One Civil Rights Complaint Brought Since 2021
The Environmental Protection Agency’s recent dismissals of three cases that would fix some of the problems in “Cancer Alley” underscores a difficult complaint process that works against Black communities’ best interests. They fall in line with a history of neglecting marginalized residents and failing to fully realize the legal power of the Civil Rights Act […]
Biden’s Big Plan for Environmental Justice May Actually Increase the Racial Pollution Gap
A Biden administration initiative that assured at least 40% of federal investments in climate and clean energy would reach “disadvantaged” communities may prove costly to environmental justice goals because of a metric related to race, a new study reveals. A policy analysis published in Science this week and conducted by a dozen of the country’s […]
How to Protect Yourself During Record-Setting Heat Wave
The dangerous heat wave sitting over two-thirds of the country comes two weeks after the globe’s average temperature was the highest recorded in 12,000 years. In Phoenix, one of the fastest-growing cities for Black people, temperatures have topped 110 degrees for three weeks straight. In Houston, the heat index pushed 110 degrees for multiple days. […]
Combating Climate Change Begins With Reparations, Bay Area Residents Say
Freda Linder walks daily past a small sign donned with 20 words in Crescent Park Apartments, a majority-Black housing complex in Northern California’s Bay Area. “WARNING,” the placard reads. “This area contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.” Linder lives in Richmond, a city of […]
Black Joy Can Be Found in Nature’s Simplicity
Chris Allen is most at peace outside. Like a disproportionate amount of Black Angelenos, he is considered unhoused. Having called a shelter home on and off for nearly two years, he’s lived through everything from rat infestations to consistent police violence. But his time outside, something as simple as sitting at a bus stop or […]
How Biden’s Goal to ‘Electrify Everything’ Contributed to a Flooding Crisis
Sometimes, even when it’s not raining, 78-year-old widower Willie Horstead Jr. thinks he hears the floodwaters seeping beneath his home, sucking the metal box deeper into Alabama’s rich soil. When it does rain – which is often in Coffee County, Alabama – the U.S. Army veteran is afraid he’ll fall through the floor of his […]
The Ways Pollution and Climate Change are Linked to Policing and Incarceration
Hurricane Ida was the second strongest storm to hit Louisiana over the last three centuries, dwarfing the beast that was Katrina. As virtually every Gulf Coast city was put under evacuation orders, thousands of incarcerated people were forced to stay put, some in flooded facilities that lacked electricity and running water, and had sustained intense […]

