Your local storm forecast is likely based on weather miles away – mesonets can help bridge that gap Weather apps might see that a storm is coming, but mesonets capture what’s happening as it arrives with local real-time data. Patrick Emerson/Flickr, CC BY-SA by Chris Vagasky, University of…

In Coal Country, black lung surges as federal protections stall Read the full story at e360. While the Trump administration is directing hundreds of millions of dollars to coal projects, miners in Appalachia are suffering from a resurgence of black lung disease. But industry pushback is delaying…

Faster slaughterhouse line speeds are increasingly a climate problem Read the full story at Inside Climate News. See also Trump’s plan for ultrafast meat processing would be a disaster for workers and the environment from Grist. Reacting to Trump administration proposals calling for higher-paced…

Stopping the sustainability brain drain The current landscape for sustainability professionals is undergoing a major shift, transitioning from years of growth to a period of cutbacks. In some cases, companies are downsizing or reorganizing their teams, and academic institutions are following suit…

War harms the environment. Can a peace treaty repair the damage? Read the full story at Inside Climate News. On a sweltering July day, 30 Kurdistan Workers’ Party fighters stripped the rifles from their backs and tossed them into a blazing fire. The symbolic ceremony last year marked the end of a…

Climate-driven urban growth could erase 55,000 Illinois cultural sites by 2100 Read the full story from the Prairie Research Institute. See also: White, A., & Lambert, J. M. (2026). Projecting the effects of climate-driven migration and development on heritage resources: An example from the…

New Orleans wants to fix its Mardi Gras mess. So why is the trash pile still growing? Read the full story at Grist. When cleaning crews dug deep into New Orleans’ clogged drains in 2018, they pulled up leaves, mud — and 46 tons of Mardi Gras beads. The sheer magnitude of waste accumulated over…

Scientists discover a mysterious silicone pollutant that may be everywhere Read the full story from Utrecht University. See also: Yao, P., Holzinger, R., Oyama, B. S., Masalaite, A., Paul, D., Ni, H., Noto, H., Materić, D., Andrade, M. D. F., Huang, R.-J., & Dusek, U. (2026). Widespread occurrence…

Trump officials, billionaires and the quiet reshaping of America’s public lands Read the full story at Floodlight. There are more than 600 million acres of federally owned public lands across America — from iconic national parks and monuments to forests, grasslands and seashores. But now, nearly…

In Cuba, the U.S. fuel blockade is spurring on a solar boom Read the full story at e360 Digest. Facing a months-long U.S. blockade, Cuba announced Wednesday that the country had run out of diesel and fuel oil. Its unsteady power grid is running on domestically produced crude oil, natural gas, and…

‘Green card for the planet’? FIFA’s World Cup is on pace to be a climate catastrophe Read the full story in The Guardian. Soccer fans are increasingly watching preparations for the 2026 World Cup through their fingers. The most popular sporting event on the planet is awash in controversy, whether…

The best environmental photography of the year Read the full story at e360 Digest. The winners of the 2026 Environmental Photography Award capture both the lush beauty of the natural world and the heavy imprint left by humanity. Presented by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the award…

Ditch the niceties in AI prompts to save energy use, say researchers Read the full story in New Scientist. See also: Aczel, M., Chamanara, S., Matin, M., Farsi, A., Marwala, T., & Madani, K. (2026). The environmental cost of AI’s energy use: Carbon, water and land footprints. United Nations…

National parks crisis hits home Read the full story in the Illinois Times. National parks are facing a triple whammy – underfunding, reduced staffing, and what some call unprecedented federal oversight. Central Illinois is home to three National Park Service (NPS) sites, including the Lincoln…

Warmer waters bring great white sharks to southern California Read the full story at e360 Digest. Southern California has seen a spike in great white shark sightings amid a spate of unseasonably warm spring weather. Experts expect to see more unusual heat, and more sharks, in the months ahead.

How one program is working to bring Corn Belt farmers together for conservation agriculture Read the full story at Illinois Public Media. All of Greg Thoren’s cows are technically identified by the number on their ear tag. But when he drives around his pastures checking in on his animals, they go…

This herbicide is so toxic it’s been banned in over 70 countries. But plants in the South are releasing it into the air. Read the full story at Investigate Midwest. Wayne County, Mississippi, in a quiet southeast corner of the state, is home to about 20,000 people surrounded by forest and…

Black farmers sue USDA over $127 million in canceled grants Read the full story at Capital B. When Sharon Mallory’s nonprofit received a $13 million federal grant to help farmers, it felt like a blessing and answered prayer. Through the 2020 Farmers Cooperative, the group had planned to purchase…

Montana tribes combine traditional knowledge and Western science in climate plan Read the full story from NPR. RONAN, Montana — On a crisp April morning, Mike Durglo Jr. stood on a hillside overlooking a stretch of the 1.2-million-acre Flathead Indian Reservation — the home of the Confederated…

Residents demand cleaner future for steel in northwest Indiana Read the full story at Capital B. More than 100 residents gathered Thursday evening at the Gary Public Library to discuss the future of one of Northwest Indiana’s most important industries: steel. The town hall, titled “Our Mill, Our…

3 ways to manage AI’s environmental impact Read the full story at Trellis. More than 90 percent of companies are stepping up their use of artificial intelligence, but just 39 percent of chief information officers are confident their organization is managing AI’s environmental impact. That’s…

Indigenous peoples bear the brunt of climate change — and get almost none of the money to fight it Read the full story at Grist. Billions of dollars have been pledged to fight the climate crisis, but almost none is reaching Indigenous peoples, even as world leaders credit them as essential to…

One night a year, humans command this march of frogs and salamanders Read the full story at Grist. Each year in New England, on the first warm, wet night of spring, when the ground has thawed, and the temperature is just right, armies of frogs and maelstroms of salamanders emerge from the woods.…

Yankee Ridge students head to Sola Gratia Farm for the last time this spring – with the program’s future uncertain Read the full story from Illinois Public Media. Yankee Ridge Multilingual School fourth and fifth graders trek for almost a mile, singing about the importance of waiting at crosswalks…

What the US could learn about mining on indigenous peoples’ ancestral lands Read the full story at Inside Climate News. In the U.S., many Native American tribes maintain deep cultural and historical ties to ancestral lands outside of reservation boundaries. A 19th-century mining law still governs…

Flooding in Chicago is getting worse. Here’s why. Read the full story at Inside Climate News. Designed decades ago, Chicago’s sewers can handle just 2 inches in that short period of time before flooding becomes likely. That means every neighborhood in Chicago is at risk of flooding, and that…

Scientists say this algae could remove microplastics from drinking water Read the full story from the University of Missouri-Columbia. See also: Long, B., Li, Q., Hu, C., Chen, Y., Zeng, Y., Li, W., Pearson, S., Liu, M., Fei, C., Yuan, J. S., & Dai, S. Y. (2025). Remediation and upcycling of…

Oklahoma AG sues to stop construction of Trump-endorsed aluminum smelter in Inola Read the full story at News from the States. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond on Tuesday filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the largest aluminum smelter in the country from being built in Inola. The Inola…

Conservation groups speak out after Trump repeals off-road vehicle regulations on public land  Read the full story at News from the States. Some conservation groups in Idaho and other Western states spoke out Tuesday after President Donald Trump recently repealed executive orders that govern…

White House seeks to impose political test on billions in federal grants Read the full story in the New York Times (gift article). The White House is seeking to exert more control over billions of dollars in annual government grants, aiming to restrict a vast swath of funding — in health, housing,…

Trump administration to dismantle ocean monitoring system Read the full story in the New York Times (gift article). The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and…

Proposed bill would stop eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines in Illinois Read the full story in the Illinois Times. When central Illinois farmer Steve Hess found out that his community had won a fight against Navigator CO2 Ventures, a Dallas, Texas-based company building a pipeline to…

Resilience isn’t a rebrand. It’s what sustainability always was Read the full story at Trellis. The word “resilience” is everywhere right now. Which probably means it’s already in trouble. In our latest Two Steps Forward episode, Solitaire Townsend and I pulled on this thread — and found something…

He’s the only comprehensive lead tester in this contaminated neighborhood. He graduates next month. Read the full story at Grist. The lack of inexpensive and comprehensive toxics testing has created a fragile public safety net in polluted towns across the country.

How the rush to mine the metal of the future echoes America’s colonial past Read the full story at Inside Climate News. Using public records and corporate filings accessed through the financial firm S&P Global, CJI and ICN have identified roughly 540 proposed lithium mines worldwide, as well as…

New chemical kills 95% of termites without harming humans Read the full story from the University of California-Riverside. See also: Poulos, N. A., Lee, C.-Y., Rust, M. K., & Choe, D.-H. (2025). Toxicity and horizontal transfer of chitin synthesis inhibitors in the western drywood termite…

The deep roots and fragile future of biodiversity Read the full story at Knowable Magazine. Species are disappearing at least 10 to 100 times more rapidly today than extinctions observed over millions of years. A biologist says the answer is reciprocity — to give to the planet and not just take.

Box turtles are back for the summer. Here’s how to help them survive another year Read the full story from Illinois Public Media. Ornate box turtles and their kin face steep challenges in today’s world, but people can help out by raising the deck height on their mowers, allowing turtles to cross…

After USDA cuts, complaints over food safety spike Read the full story at Investigate Midwest. The number of complaints filed about the safety of meat, poultry and egg products jumped nearly 40% last year, from 1,443 to 2,016, according to a new federal report. The report comes a year after the…

Restoring the flow: a milestone in the revival of the Everglades Read the full story at e360. The campaign to restore the Everglades has received a boost with completion of a key project that returns the flow of water to 55,000 acres that had once been drained for development. Experts see it as a…

How a ‘model’ for climate migration became a cautionary tale Read the full story in the New York Times (gift article). The resettlement of Isle de Jean Charles, which began a decade ago using a landmark $48 million federal investment, was envisioned as the first in a wave of retreats from the…

A guide to converting your lawn into a wildlife friendly garden  Read the full story from NPR. Read all of NPR's Climate Solutions Week stories. Lawns are great surfaces for throwing a football or laying out a picnic. But turfgrass in the United States now covers an estimated 40 million acres — an…

Trump is rolling back climate solutions. What can cities and states do? Listen to the full story at NPR. For people working to address climate change in the U.S., the last year has been a hard one. The Trump administration has been rolling back rules and regulations aimed at reducing…

Litter, forever chemicals and algae blooms are changing southern Illinois watersheds Read the full story from the Daily Egyptian. High amounts of PFAS in largemouth bass from Campus Lake and harmful algae blooms in nearby bodies of water have spurred IDPH intervention 

They’ve got a plan to combat global warming (and also Russian tanks) Read the full story from the New York Times (gift article). In a scrubby forest an hour outside the Lithuanian capital on a recent day this spring, excavators were digging ditches and tree harvesters were whirring in an effort to…

From technical solution to systems change: Tackling the problem of plastic waste Read the full story from MIT. When Akorfa Dagadu arrived at MIT, she had a solution in mind: a mobile app to improve recycling and environmental engagement in her home country of Ghana. The project, called Ishara,…

These seed banks preserve crucial corn and soy varieties. A federal plan may put them at risk Read the full story from Illinois Public Media. The U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to move two of the nation’s most important seed banks from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — even as…

This AI tool for net-zero research discloses its energy use Read the full story at Trellis. ChatNetZero, an AI chatbot trained to handle questions about greenhouse gas emissions targets, can now tell you how much energy was used to generate the answer. The tool, first introduced in October 2023,…

With fertilizer pollution on the rise, Iowa will invest $100 million in water treatment Read the full story at Inside Climate News. After years of worsening water quality, the move marks Gov. Kim Reynolds’ first official action to tackle harmful agricultural nutrients in state waterways. Critics…

Why this tribe is buying up hundreds of acres of farmland — and flooding it Read the full story from NPR. Tidal marshes are crucial nurseries for young Chinook salmon and a focal point for efforts to bring these fish back from the brink of extinction. The Stillaguamish Tribe has been buying…