NPR News - Environment

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Breaking news on the environment, climate change, pollution, and endangered species. Also featuring Climate Connections, a special series on climate change co-produced by NPR and National Geographic.
Updated: 19 hours 37 min ago

Trump funding freeze could leave communities on their own as climate threats grow

Wed, 2025/02/12 - 3:30am

Without federal support, American communities will struggle to deal with a challenge as pervasive as climate change, market analysts and environmental advocates say.

(Image credit: Al Drago/Getty Images)

Categories: Environment

Trump says 'we're going back to plastic straws.' Is the paper straw dead?

Tue, 2025/02/11 - 2:36pm

President Trump has signed an executive order decrying the "irrational campaign against plastic straws" and directing federal agencies to stop buying paper straws.

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan)

Categories: Environment

Why clearing the brush around Los Angeles won't reduce the wildfire danger

Tue, 2025/02/11 - 3:00am

After thousands of homes were destroyed, many are looking for ways to make Los Angeles safer from wildfires. But clearing dense shrubs on the hillsides could actually make the fire danger worse.

(Image credit: David Swanson/AFP)

Categories: Environment

Bryan Adams concert in Australia is canceled after a 'fatberg' causes sewage overflow

Mon, 2025/02/10 - 3:21pm

The blockage was detected near a Perth arena mere hours before Canadian musician Bryan Adams' sold-out show was set to take place. Water authorities warned of wastewater overflow at the venue.

(Image credit: Adrian Dennis)

Categories: Environment

Farmers are worried after Trump released billions of gallons of water in California

Fri, 2025/02/07 - 3:54pm

Last week, the Trump administration released significant amounts of water from two dams in California's Central Valley, with Trump claiming the action would have prevented the Los Angeles fires. Water experts say that's not true, and farmers who rely on that water for agriculture say its release now may wind up hurting them later in the season.

Categories: Environment

Call it a comeback: A Lahaina whale-watching business returns after Maui wildfire

Thu, 2025/02/06 - 2:27am

Chrissy Lovett had just opened Maui Ocean Adventures when a deadly wildfire swept through Lahaina in 2023, burning up the entire business. A year and half later, they're finally back in the water.

(Image credit: Ashley Westerman)

Categories: Environment

Farmworkers feed the country, but who protects them from wildfire smoke?

Mon, 2025/02/03 - 3:39pm

Thousands of farmworkers labored in fields in Ventura County, Calif. in late January in wildfire smoke. They have little to no protection from its harmful effects.

(Image credit: Brian van der Brug)

Categories: Environment

After land abandonment, should we tend nature or set it free?

Mon, 2025/02/03 - 1:00am

Ecologist Gergana Daskalova moved back to the small Bulgarian town of her childhood. It's a place many people have abandoned — and that's the very reason she returned. At the same time as land is being cleared around the world to make room for agriculture, elsewhere farmland is being abandoned for nature to reclaim. But what happens when people let the land return to nature? This episode, science reporter Dan Charles explains why abandoned land has conservationists and researchers asking: If we love nature, do we tend it or set it free?

Read more of Dan's reporting for Science Magazine and NPR.

Want us to cover other about ecology, biodiversity or land science stories? Let us know by emailing shortwave@npr.org!

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Categories: Environment

Generative AI and other innovations topping MIT Technology Review's 2025 list

Fri, 2025/01/31 - 1:00am

In a world brimming with innovation and limited time, it can be hard to tell what technology has the potential to really shift life. Yet, every year, MIT Technology Review undertakes this very task and puts out an annual list to magazine readers of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. Today, host Regina G. Barber hops through highlights from the list with Amy Nordrum, an executive editor at the publication.

Check out the full list here.

Another tech topic on your mind that you want us to discuss on an upcoming episode? Let us know by emailing shortwave@npr.org!

Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at
plus.npr.org/shortwave.

Categories: Environment

Study finds India doubled its tiger population in a decade

Thu, 2025/01/30 - 11:09pm

The study found that some local communities near tiger habitats have also benefited from the increase in tigers because of the foot traffic and revenues brought in by ecotourism.

(Image credit: Satyajeet Singh Rathore)

Categories: Environment

A New Zealand mountain is granted personhood, recognizing it as sacred for Māori

Thu, 2025/01/30 - 11:00pm

The recognition acknowledges the mountain's theft from the Māori after New Zealand was colonized. It fulfills an agreement from the country's government to Indigenous people.

(Image credit: Dita Alangkara)

Categories: Environment

Months after Georgia chemical plant fire, residents still grapple with health issues

Wed, 2025/01/29 - 2:20am

A chemical plant fire near Atlanta last fall released a toxic plume that disrupted the lives of nearby residents. Many still experience health problems and don't know what was released in the plume.

Categories: Environment

Here's how climate change fueled the Los Angeles fires

Wed, 2025/01/29 - 2:00am

Extreme conditions helped fuel the fast-moving fires that destroyed thousands of homes. Scientists are working to figure out how climate change played a role in the disaster.

(Image credit: PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

Categories: Environment

Giant iceberg is on a collision course with island home to seals and penguins

Mon, 2025/01/27 - 2:21am

The world's biggest iceberg, known A23a, is on a collision course with a tiny island in the South Atlantic, which is home to millions of seals and nearly half the world's population of king penguins.

Categories: Environment

Their home survived the fires, but there's still danger everywhere

Fri, 2025/01/24 - 4:23pm

As evacuation orders are lifted, people in Los Angeles are returning to their homes--if their homes survived. But the disaster doesn't end when the fire stops.

A single block and a half separates the Altadena home of Jennifer and Ed Barguiarena from complete destruction. Just down the street lies charred, flattened debris.

But for families like the Barguiarenas — the seemingly lucky ones, whose houses survived — an altogether different ordeal is just beginning.

The water still isn't safe to drink, cook or wash with. There are fine layers of ash and dust in people's homes and yards. And families like the Barguiarenas are also worried about what they can't see – the possibility that toxins like lead and asbestos might have drifted into their homes.

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(Image credit: ZOE MEYERS)

Categories: Environment

Here's how Trump's pause on wind projects could threaten jobs and climate goals

Fri, 2025/01/24 - 12:35pm

A Trump executive order temporarily pauses leases and permits for offshore and onshore wind projects. Wind advocates say an offshore wind freeze could threaten states' climate goals and jobs.

(Image credit: Andrew Marszal)

Categories: Environment

The U.S. is trying to unravel a hacking plot that targeted climate activists

Fri, 2025/01/24 - 3:00am

The U.S. claims the hacking was commissioned by a lobbying firm working on behalf of one of the world's biggest oil companies.

(Image credit: Alberto Pezzali)

Categories: Environment

This scientist studies climate change. Then the Los Angeles fire destroyed his home

Thu, 2025/01/23 - 5:00am

Climate scientist Ben Hamlington works on understanding the impacts of climate change. Losing his house in the Eaton Fire has given that work new meaning.

(Image credit: Ryan Kellman)

Categories: Environment

This economist survived a wildfire. Now she's taking on California's insurance crisis

Thu, 2025/01/23 - 4:30am

An economist's harrowing escape from fire, and her big ideas to rescue California from its insurance doom spiral.

(Image credit: San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers)

Categories: Environment

Another casualty of Israel's war in Lebanon: Efforts to save endangered turtles

Wed, 2025/01/22 - 11:00am

Lebanese volunteers are anxious to get back to sea turtle conservation on southern beaches that were off-limits to civilians when fighting escalated between Israel and Hezbollah.

(Image credit: Tamara Saade for NPR)

Categories: Environment