"There’s an increasingly narrow strip of New Orleans marshland that hardly anyone lives on, but without it, hundreds of thousands of people will face far greater risks from storms and floods."
"Trump’s EPA is planning to weaken restrictions on oil and gas wells that produce very little energy but release vast amounts of methane. Oil billionaire Jeffery Hildebrand, a major Trump donor, is set to reap the benefits. Society as a whole will deal with the environmental costs."
"If protected, researchers say these coral strongholds may help repopulate more degraded reefs across the Central Pacific."
"An executive order in Massachusetts and a regulatory commission action in Minnesota are among the big moves this year that highlight the growing role of virtual power plants in grid management."
"Some day in the next 12 months – maybe in late-August, maybe not until next spring – Lake Mead will drop below the critical threshold of 1,035 feet above sea level. That is the water-level elevation at which hydropower generating capacity at Hoover Dam, the largest in the Colorado River basin, will be cut by 70 percent."
"The Orlando plant had been scheduled for retirement in 2025. The order cited an energy emergency related to a shortage of facilities and proliferation of data centers."
"Renewable energy groups are suing the U.S. military because they say national security reviews for new wind farms on private land have been effectively frozen for months. The groups say this logjam jeopardizes $47 billion in investments and thousands of jobs in 21 states."
"More than 200 data centers are going up in dozens of competitive House districts — and neither party knows how to handle their political fallout heading into the midterms."
The news has been full of warnings about a larger-than-normal El Niño, the periodic weather pattern that portends drastic fluctuations in everything from temperatures and precipitation to ocean currents and hurricanes. The latest Issue Backgrounder takes a step back to help explain exactly how this phenomenon works and what its impacts may be, while offering a parting thought on smart coverage.
"In the days after Hurricane Helene devastated the southern Appalachians in late September 2024, Blue Ridge Parkway Superintendent Tracy Swartout went up in a helicopter to survey the damage. What she saw was deeply troubling. 'When Helene happened, we ended up with 58 landslides spread across 200 linear miles of the parkway,' Swartout says."
