The dire state of the environment is one of humanity’s greatest challenges. Here are some of our 2020 environmental stories you may have missed.
Among all the heartbreaking issues facing humanity this year, climate change is still the greatest long-term threat we face. Temperatures and sea levels have risen, glaciers have shrunk, drought and storms have become more frequent and intense. And climate change is a threat for which we are largely responsible. We must do far more to reverse it, and soon.
Below are stories about the ways that we (mis)treat our planet and what might be done to prevent further damage.
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Photo credit: Images from Unsplash users: Maria Mendiola, Brian Yurasit, Brian Yurasits, Barthelemy de Mazenod, Erik Mclean, Pedro Aguilar, Ishan Seefromthesky, Jonathan Gonzalez, Justin Bautista, and Greg Rosenke.
US-Canada Plastic Trade Deal Subverts Basel Convention
As the Basel Convention receives a major update, outsiders like the US may suddenly have to face their own trash.
The Sheenjek River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo credit: Alaska Region U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service / Flickr
Arctic Refuge Parceled Out for Sale in Trump’s Final Push
Meet the opposition the Trump administration faces as it pushes to auction off one of Alaska’s last remaining wild places to the oil and gas industry.
Photo credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Breath by Breath: Living by the AQI in San Francisco Bay
COVID-19 and spontaneous wildfires were bad enough; now it’s the quality of the air which keeps us prisoners in our own homes.
Austin fire officials help hundreds of east Texans and west Louisiana residents get settled at the Circuit of the Americas race track after evacuating low-lying areas about to get hit by Hurricane Laura on the Gulf Coast, August 26, 2020. Photo credit: © Bob Daemmrich/ZUMA Wire
Hurricanes Rage While the RNC Ignores Climate Change
In an unprecedented year for climate disasters, the RNC opted to lambaste Democrats rather than face the two storms raging in the Gulf and the fires in California.
Photo credit: Lorie Shaull / (CC BY-SA 2.0)
How to Get Climate Change Deniers on Board With Science
If neither scientific consensus nor the increasingly obvious effects of global warming can convince climate change deniers, what will?
Tori Satow on a hike in West Virginia. Photo credit: courtesy of Beth Okolish
Water Woes in the World’s Wealthiest Nation
There’s a secret water crisis in America. Two million people across the US lack access to running water and basic indoor plumbing. Keystone, WV, has gone without reliable water for almost a year. Local Tori Satow is fed up and determined to make a difference.
Photo credit: Carbon Visuals / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
As the World Burns, Big Oil Executives Get Rich Fueling the Fire
While you are doing your small part to save the environment, oil and gas executives are getting bonuses for destroying it.
Left to right: Brown University students Jessie Sugarman, Andrew Javens, Cole Triedman, and David Wingate. Photo credit: Courtesy of Timmons Roberts
Students Expose Plot to Cast Doubt on Climate Change
Who is blocking meaningful progress on climate change? Four undergraduate students set out to find the answers.
Catastrophic fires in Davistown, a southeastern suburb of the Central Coast region of New South Wales, Australia, on November 12, 2019. Photo credit: Rob Russell / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
‘We Sleep in Our Gas Masks’: Eyewitness to Australia’s Firestorm
A despairing resident, living in the path of the Australian “fire apocalypse,” describes the horror of the great climate change disaster.
Related front page panorama photo credit: Adapted by WhoWhatWhy from Karsten Wurth / Unsplash.
