"The real estate website scrubbed the data under pressure from California’s real estate brokers and agents who were concerned about its impact on home prices. Neil Matouka thinks prospective buyers have a right to know."
Get more Voices of Environmental Justice in 2026, as we increase column frequency to bimonthly. And for her first contribution of the year, writer Yessenia Funes calls on climate reporters to offer audiences a sense of hope by leaning into solutions narratives, hard-hitting and data-driven stories that hold the powerful accountable. Expert advice on how to make solutions journalism work.
More heat pumps than ever are going into homes and businesses in the United States these days. But they are just one small-scale use of geothermal energy, a promising utility-scale technology that is growing worldwide — and with a minimal carbon footprint to boot. But there are drawbacks as well. The new Issue Backgrounder explains how it all works.
"The Trump administration is suing California over a law that creates a 3,200-foot buffer zone between new oil and gas wells and homes, schools, hospitals and parks."
"Pacific Grove is known as ‘Butterfly Town USA’ for its role as an overwintering spot. As the insect’s population plummets, residents are coming to its rescue"
"For ecologists, the Covid-19 pandemic has presented a remarkable natural experiment in what can happen to wild animals when humans stay home."
"While Gov. Newsom touted the state’s environmental efforts at the UN climate summit, toxic spills and a new law speeding drilling tarnished its reputation at home."
Explore our 10th annual Journalists’ Guide to Environment + Energy, as we scour the beat to identify 15 top stories to put on your radar for 2026. Our updated format for the special report provides a quick read and a broad scope — with insights on climate change and environmental justice, bird and insect declines, data centers and deep sea mining, deregulation and PFAS and much more. Get started here.
"On a jagged coastline in Central California, brown pelicans gather on rock promontories, packed in like edgy commuters as they take flight to feed on a vast school of fish just offshore. The water churns in whitecaps as the big-billed birds plunge beneath the surface in search of northern anchovies, Pacific sardines and mackerel."
"Southwestern states are bracing for many of their streams to lose federal safeguards under the EPA’s proposal to lift Clean Water Act protections for many wetlands and waterways across the US. New Mexico, Arizona, California, and other arid states face the brunt of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal because it explicitly excludes streams that only run when it rains—one of the most common kinds of waterways in the desert Southwest."
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