"In the country that gave the world the word tsunami, the Japanese nuclear establishment largely disregarded the potentially destructive force of the walls of water. The word did not even appear in government guidelines until 2006, decades after plants — including the Fukushima Daiichi facility that firefighters are still struggling to get under control — began dotting the Japanese coastline."
"A natural warming cycle called El Niño is sizzling Pacific Ocean waters, leaking moisture into the air that can fuel passing storms. Such El Niño events can happen irregularly every couple of years, but scientists say the latest iteration is particularly extreme — and it’s just getting started, with impacts expected for several more months."
Whether it's pipelines bringing leaks, coastal erosion and storms bringing displacement, or now, increasingly, data centers bringing loss of sovereignty, the central relationship that Indigenous communities have with place is under constant peril. Voices columnist Yessenia Funes urges fellow environmental journalists during Native American Heritage Month to refocus on the rich stories of Indigenous struggles and victories.
"More heavy rainfall produced flash flooding and mandatory evacuations in a wide swath of the Southwest on Sunday, including in a Colorado tourist town bracing for its main river to rise to historic levels, as weary residents in the normally arid region deal with another massive drenching."
"The Environmental Protection Agency’s response to the disastrous 2023 East Palestine train derailment will be investigated after local residents of the small town on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border and Vice President JD Vance pressed for the review."
"At the height of the Los Angeles fires in 2025, millions of residents were exposed in a 24-hour period to toxic lead levels from smoke that were 80 times higher than the typical background level, according to a new study."
"In the aftermath of the Maui fires, thousands of people across all the major social media platforms shared posts and videos alleging that the fires had a more sinister origin. They posited that the government had used a “direct energy weapon,” or a form of laser, to ignite the area."
"An oil spill from a damaged tanker off the coast of the United Arab Emirates has widened, satellite images showed, triggering more beach closures and raising environmental concerns."
"Nearly a third of local agencies running Central Valley levees have kept up “unacceptable” maintenance, some for years, and the state hasn’t stepped in."
"Sweeping cuts to the premier US climate agency under Donald Trump have severely hampered the country’s capacity to forecast, research and respond to extreme weather events, former government officials and scientists have warned, as the US faces a cascade of hazards fueled by a potentially historic El Niño this winter."
