In 2015, the Oklahoma oil magnate Harold Hamm got a glimpse of the future and didn’t like what he saw. Renewable energy, he realized, was a threat to the long-term dominance of oil and natural gas. At the time, Oklahoma was facing a budget crisis and lawmakers wanted to increase taxes on oil and gas. […]
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A refinery in New Mexico that the federal government has accused of some of the worst air pollution in the country. A chemical plant in Louisiana being investigated for leaking gas from storage tanks. Idaho ranchers accused of polluting wetlands. Under President Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency took a tough approach on environmental enforcement by […]
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Amid the torrent of executive orders signed by President Trump were directives that affect the language on government web pages and the public’s access to government data touching on climate change, the environment, energy and public health. In the past two months, hundreds of terabytes of digital resources analyzing data have been taken off government […]
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The three bundled up figures, puny against the vastness of miles of snow, trudged toward a hole they had cut into the ice. Their sled was parked nearby, and the woolly dogs that pulled it were huddled on the frozen ground, barking for food. Man and dog had to move carefully out here. In some […]
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It’s kind of a lot to live with a personal finance reporter like me. Everything is diversification and risk, prudent investing and delayed gratification. So it was not a surprise a few years ago when my wife started asking open-ended questions about what constitutes smart real estate decision-making as the planet warms and the weather […]
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A North Dakota jury on Wednesday awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to the Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer, which had sued Greenpeace over its role in protests nearly a decade ago against its Dakota Access Pipeline. The verdict was a major blow to the storied environmental organization. Greenpeace had maintained that it […]
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Oil and gas executives will meet with President Trump at the White House on Wednesday as they seek to influence him on tariffs, tax credits and deregulation. Some executives in the industry, which spent more than $75 million to help elect Mr. Trump, are increasingly frustrated with Mr. Trump’s agenda. Tariffs are making essential materials […]
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Wildfires in Los Angeles. Tornadoes in the South and Midwest. Flooding in North Carolina. From coast to coast, a wave of extreme weather events over the past year has destroyed homes and upended lives. As the planet gets warmer, it’s essential for home buyers to consider climate vulnerability. If you already own a home, how […]
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With the addition of 2024, yet another record-hot year, the past 10 years have been the 10 hottest in nearly 200 years of record-keeping, the World Meteorological Organization reports. “That’s never happened before,” said Chris Hewitt, the director of the W.M.O.’s climate services division. It marks the first time since record keeping began that all […]
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Yesterday I published an article about the growing group of Republicans and business leaders who are rallying to support the clean energy tax credits that President Biden signed into law in 2022 as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. At the center of that push is Andrew Garbarino, a House Republican from New York. He […]
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The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research arm, firing as many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists, according to documents reviewed by Democrats on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. The strategy is part of large-scale layoffs, known as a “reduction in force,” being planned by the Trump […]
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A growing group of Republicans and business leaders is rallying behind an unlikely cause. They want to protect Biden-era tax credits for wind, solar and other clean energy. President Trump has made dismantling federal efforts to address climate change a signature part of his agenda, eliminating environmental regulations, withholding congressionally approved funding, firing workers, halting […]
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As President Trump works to blunt the growth of wind and solar power and expand fossil fuel production in the United States, the renewable energy industry is making a new pitch: You need us. Wind and solar developers are increasingly pointing out that America’s demand for electricity is soaring, driven by a boom in data […]
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Good etiquette is expected at meal time in the penguin colony, but the diners with the best manners are found on a new, special island for birds of a certain age. There, geriatric African penguins don’t have to worry about younger birds bombarding the buckets of fish delivered by trainers at the New England Aquarium […]
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Greenpeace is among the most well-known environmental organizations in the world, the result of more than 50 years of headline-grabbing protest tactics. Its activists have confronted whaling ships on the high seas. They’ve hung banners from the Eiffel Tower. They’ve occupied oil rigs. A (fictional) activist even sailed with Greenpeace in an episode of “Seinfeld,” […]
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After climbing into a Tesla Model S last week, President Trump pledged to buy one. The next day, the Fox News host Sean Hannity said he had bought a Model S Plaid to support the embattled company, saying a Tesla “has more American parts in it than any other car made in our country.” In […]
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President Trump’s cabinet has been busy rolling back regulations that will make it far easier to extract and produce fossil fuels. But who will buy them? Nearly everyone, it turns out, particularly under the threat of tariffs. At an annual energy-industry conference in Houston, executives spoke openly about how companies from around the world are […]
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Germany’s centrist politicians are losing votes to the far right and the far left. They are losing faith in America, their longtime friend and protector. And they are rapidly losing what could be their best chance to address both those problems at once. The German government in waiting, led by the likely next chancellor, Friedrich […]
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In a barrage of pronouncements on Wednesday the Trump administration said it would repeal dozens of the nation’s most significant environmental regulations, including limits on pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks, protections for wetlands, and the legal basis that allows it to regulate the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. But beyond that, Lee Zeldin, […]
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The Trump administration intends to eliminate Environmental Protection Agency offices responsible for addressing the disproportionately high levels of pollution facing poor communities, according to a memo from Lee Zeldin, the agency administrator. In the internal memo, viewed by The New York Times, Mr. Zeldin informed agency leaders that he was directing “the reorganization and elimination” […]
Read MoreThe U.S. power grid added more capacity from solar energy in 2024 than from any other source in a single year in more than two decades, according to a new industry report released on Tuesday. The data was released a day after the new U.S. energy secretary, Chris Wright, strongly criticized solar and wind energy […]
Read MoreBefore a packed crowd of oil and gas executives on Monday, Chris Wright, the new U.S. energy secretary, delivered a scathing critique of the Biden administration’s energy policies and efforts to fight climate change and promised a “180 degree pivot.” Mr. Wright, a former fracking executive, has emerged as the most forceful promoter of President […]
Read MoreThe sprawling estuary about 70 miles inland from San Francisco feels distinctly out of place — more like the swampy Florida Everglades than arid California. But from that confluence of two great rivers, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, 1,100 miles of webbed waterways and levees send upward of six million acre-feet of freshwater a […]
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When New Yorkers get a sky-high energy bill, many turn to social media and vent their frustrations on Instagram, TikTok or Reddit. Recently, their rage has been directed toward a state-run website, too. In January, the Department of Public Service, which regulates utilities, began considering a request for a rate increase by Con Edison, the […]
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A multibillion dollar dispute between the Environmental Protection Agency and several nonprofit organizations escalated on Saturday when one group sued the E.P.A. and Citibank, seeking access to grant money that has been frozen under President Trump. Climate United, a nonprofit organization, claimed that the E.P.A. and Citibank have illegally withheld a nearly $7 billion award […]
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the nation’s premier agency for weather and climate science, has been told by the Trump administration to prepare to lose another 1,000 workers, raising concerns that NOAA’s lifesaving forecasts might be hindered as hurricane and disaster season approaches. The new dismissals would come in addition to the roughly 1,300 […]
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Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform U.K. party has attracted more than a dozen donors from Britain’s once dominant Conservative Party, new data reveals, underlining the threat the Tories face from a right-wing populist party that models itself on President Trump’s MAGA movement. In total, Reform U.K. raised 4.75 million pounds ($6.1 million) last year, a sharp […]
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For the oil and gas industry, cutting emissions of one of the most potent greenhouse gases was supposed to be relatively straightforward. But last week Congress voted to roll back the “methane fee,” a penalty on excess methane emissions passed during the Biden administration. The decision removed what was supposed to be an incentive for […]
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When Jennifer Trebb first pulled into her driveway two years ago with her sleek Tesla Model Y, it was — as she put it — “kind of like a ‘Back to the Future’ moment.” She was helping the environment, she said, but driving a Tesla also had cachet. “It was definitely a little bit of […]
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Perched atop craggy bluffs in a beachside city north of San Diego, a railroad line offers passengers a sweeping view of the Pacific Coast. But the ground beneath it is crumbling. No one denies the problem, but a fight over how to solve it highlights a broader challenge, and a worrisome reality, for California residents: […]
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Humans are living in a plankton world. These minuscule organisms are spread across the oceans, covering nearly three-quarters of the planet, and are among the most abundant forms of life on Earth. But a warming world is throwing plankton into disarray and threatening the entire marine food chain that is built on them. A year […]
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