News & Commentary

Reflections of a Chicago Community Organizer: Water Justice and the Need to Act Now

September 14, 2022 PerspectivesChicagoOscar Sanchez

During a trip to a water conference, an environmental justice activist considers what it takes to support his community without letting go of the importance of healing.

This Lawyer Is Ensuring the Fight for a Just and Clean Energy Future in Puerto Rico Remains Front and Center

September 12, 2022 NRDC in ActionPuerto RicoCarmen Cusido

Five years after Hurricane Maria, NRDC’s Luis Martinez remains committed to helping develop solar projects that make the archipelago more equitable for those most in need.

With the Inflation Reduction Act, Congress Takes a Monumental Step in the Climate Fight

August 16, 2022 NRDC in ActionCourtney Lindwall

Here’s what it took to pass this climate bill and how it could change the game for climate action.

Tackling Climate Change from a Gamer's POV

August 5, 2022 PerspectivesUnited StatesCourtney Lindwall

The Games for Change Student Challenge helps young designers gamify solutions to real-world problems.

Mount Vernon: Where Environmental Injustice Became a Sewage Nightmare

June 27, 2022 NRDC in ActionNew YorkNicole Greenfield

For decades, residents of this majority-Black suburb of New York City have been dealing with a noxious infrastructure crisis with little recourse. Finally, they’re getting some relief.

What Pride Illuminates About Human Rights and Our Planet

June 1, 2022 PerspectivesUnited StatesNRDC

Four NRDC staffers consider the legal protections that changed their lives and how all rights, including those related to the environment, are intimately connected.

America’s Gray Wolves Get Another Chance at Real Recovery

April 21, 2022 NRDC in ActionShelia Hu

After getting last year’s unlawful delisting rule reversed, NRDC is setting the stage for stronger wolf conservation.

Climate Change at the Doctor’s Office

April 11, 2022 PerspectivesUnited StatesPrasanna Vankina, Teniope Adewumi-Gunn

Dr. Cheryl Holder helps her patients and fellow physicians find holistic solutions to coping with the intertwined impacts of sickness and climate change.

Four Poets Honor Chicago’s Hazel M. Johnson, the Mother of Environmental Justice

April 1, 2022 PerspectivesChicago

This National Poetry Month, four writers champion the legendary local activist who launched a movement while they continue to grapple with the work left to be done.

Illinois Shows Us What the Road to Clean Energy Should Look Like

December 2, 2021 NRDC in ActionUnited States, IllinoisCourtney Lindwall

Here’s how a formidable clean energy coalition helped pass the most equitable climate legislation in the country—and developed a blueprint for other states to follow.

A Lawyer That Sees Grassroots Relationship-Building as the Path Toward Social Change

November 16, 2021 NRDC in ActionCaliforniaKeith Mulvihill

NRDC’s first chief equity and justice officer, Melissa Lin Perrella, believes the way to strengthen advocacy work is to prioritize community partners who are closest to the problem—and often closest to the solution.

The Scientist Who Helps Us Visualize—and Act on—the Facts

November 16, 2021 NRDC in ActionUnited StatesKeith Mulvihill

Sometimes you have to wade through a lot of data to see the big picture, but NRDC’s first chief science officer Kristi Pullen Fedinick sees beauty in the details.

Five Indigenous Poets Explore Loss and Love of their Native Lands

November 1, 2021 PerspectivesUnited StatesCourtney Lindwall

From saguaros to sacred waters, the writers weave their personal relationships to the environment with the ancestral.

These Photographs Show How the Rising Sea Connects Us All

October 21, 2021 PerspectivesInternationalJeff Turrentine

In images both beautiful and disturbing, photographer Kadir van Lohuizen documents how sea level rise is altering coastlines—and lives—around the world.

They’re Spreading the Joy of Birding—and Making It More Inclusive

October 13, 2021 PerspectivesUnited StatesKeith Mulvihill

A birding podcast host, a science journalist, and a conservationist strive to share their passion with more BIPOC birders like themselves.

This Smithsonian Exhibit Will Leave You Both Unsettled and Inspired about the Anthropocene

October 8, 2021 PerspectivesUnited StatesJason Bittel

The mash-up of art and science examines humanity’s impact on the world—and our power to do something about it.

The Chlorpyrifos Ban Is a Win for Science—and Children

September 17, 2021 NRDC in ActionCaliforniaNicole Greenfield

NRDC advocates and our partners spent decades fighting against a highly toxic pesticide that harms kids, farmworkers, and their families. In August, the EPA finally banned it.

Afterglow

September 14, 2021 PerspectivesUnited StatesLindsey Brodeck

As the wealthy flee Earth, a young woman must decide whether to follow her partner to a new world or stay behind to save a dying planet. A queer cli-fi story with cyberpunk vibes, published by Fix, Grist’s solutions lab…

The Cloud Weaver’s Song

September 14, 2021 PerspectivesUnited StatesSaul Tanpepper

In a city high above the desert, a dew harvester and her friend sacrifice everything to prove the end of the Great Drying is at hand. The tale of a thirsty society that has retreated to the clouds, published by…

A Séance in the Anthropocene

September 14, 2021 PerspectivesUnited StatesAbigail Larkin

Long after the age of fossil fuels has drawn to a close, a Cherokee teenager attending an elite tribal school puts the last ghosts of coal and oil to rest. A story that retells the experiences of those who lived…