Yessenia Funes

Earther

CBP Drones Conducted Flyovers Near Homes of Indigenous Pipeline Activists, Flight Records Show

Tom Goldtooth awoke on Feb. 21 expecting a pretty regular day ahead. And by all accounts, his day was normal. He was on the road by 11 a.m. to catch a flight. But unbeknownst to him, around the same time as he left, U.S. Customs and Border Protection was watching his home in Beltrami County, … Continued

Earther

New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward Is a Food Desert—But Residents Are Bringing It Back to Life

Calvin Alexander bought his two-story home in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward back in 1978. He and his wife raised five children there, only to nearly lose it all 15 years ago when Hurricane Katrina hit. Still, the family rebuilt. In the Lower Ninth Ward, Alexander remains. “The immediate aftermath of Katrina was that there … Continued

Earther

Save the Schools, Save the Youth, Save the World

In another life, I may have been a teacher. I have a soft spot for the youth, especially the tiniest ones who don’t yet know what they’re in for. That’s probably what troubles me most about this world and all its problems: what, exactly, are we going to be handing over to them? The coronavirus … Continued

Earther

Hurricane Laura Shows Us the Injustice of the Climate Crisis

Hurricane Laura slammed into the Gulf Coast Wednesday night with winds making it nearly a Category 5 storm upon making landfall. With the storm came more than 9 feet of storm surge in parts of Louisiana. This level of water is incomprehensible. Hurricane Laura tied the strongest storm to hit Louisiana on record, making landfall … Continued

Earther

Hurricane Laura Is Heading for a City That Can’t Take Any More

Hurricane Laura is no joke. The National Hurricane Center isn’t holding back on its warnings, saying the storm will bring “unsurvivable storm surge” to the Gulf Coast. This is the weather of nightmares, folks, and it’s less than 12 hours away from making landfall. Though Laura threatens communities up and down the Gulf Coast, one … Continued

Earther

Bill de Blasio’s Back-to-School Plan Ludicrously Relies on Global Warming to Ward off Coronavirus

On Tuesday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced part of his vision to protect students from the coronavirus. Chiefly among them is proper air ventilation. Some researchers have found this can reduce the spread of the highly contagious virus. Keeping windows open is a no-brainer, then. Right? Well, until winter rolls around. New … Continued

Earther

The Trump Administration Is Getting Sued for Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to Drilling

The Trump administration officially opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for business last week, but Indigenous leaders won’t sit by and let oil and gas interests destroy it. On Monday, 13 groups filed a lawsuit against the federal government with hopes of stopping any extractive drilling before it happens. The Gwich’in Steering Committee has been at the … Continued

Earther

Rihanna’s New Skincare Line Cuts Down on Waste—But Not Enough

Over the last year or so, I’ve been on a journey to make my beauty routine plastic-free. I’ve been trying a number of alternatives—from my shampoo to my make-up—to eliminate as much plastic as possible from my life. However, a new skincare line is having me reconsider all my efforts: Fenty Skin. The skincare line … Continued

Earther

Fun Game Ruined by Reality

I love video games. The popular battle royale game Fortnite, however, is not one of them. That’s probably a good thing for the planet because new data shows that the game is really carbon-intensive. Sorry to my 11-year-old nephew and millions of others, though, who play. The game launched in 2017 as one of the … Continued

Earther

Dammit, Two Hurricanes

A tropical depression and tropical storm are currently blowing through the Atlantic. They are creating the potential for one hell of a rare event by Tuesday: two storms in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time. Not only would this be historic weather-wise; it would stretch disaster response resources even more thin than usual, … Continued

Earther

California’s Prison Covid-19 Outbreak Isn’t Behind Its Firefighter Shortage

Wildfires are raging across California, but the state lacks critical firefighting resources to adequately address the severity of the crisis. In light of the coronavirus pandemic and a worse-than-usual wildfire season, wildland fighting agencies across the U.S. knew they’d be in for a challenging summer. However, California is dealing with an especially precarious situation due … Continued

EartherEnvironmental Justice

Michigan Will Pay $600 Million to Flint Water Crisis Survivors

The people of Flint are finally getting some justice. The state of Michigan is dishing out $600 million in settlement dollars for victims of the water crisis that exposed the city of nearly 100,000 to unhealthy levels of lead in their drinking water. First reported in the New York Times and confirmed by the legal … Continued

Earther

Wildfires Explode Across California Amid Record Heat Wave

If you haven’t already heard, California is on fire. Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Tuesday for the disaster unfurling. The state is in the middle of a dramatic heat wave, which is fueling more than 30 wildfires burning across the state. The situation appears to be going from bad to worse. … Continued

Earther

Tinted Solar Panels Can Help Farms Generate Clean Energy While Growing Food

In a future world, leafy vegetables may not be grown in rows of crops under the sun. Instead, they may be grown indoors beneath tinted semi-transparent solar panels that will allow farmers to grow food and produce energy. That’s the future imagined in a recent study that shows how the use of this technology can … Continued

EartherEnvironmental Justice

The Climate Danger of Kamala Harris’ Prison Labor Legacy

We finally have a woman of color on a major party ticket. Joe Biden’s selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice president is historic and something to celebrate, but she still deserves scrutiny. This coupling makes some important climate battles especially hard if Biden wins the White House. But Harris’ past treatment of incarcerated … Continued

Earther

Trump’s Border Wall Is the ‘Biggest Threat’ to Southwest Wildlife, Government Emails Reveal

We really don’t need another reason to hate President Donald Trump’s stupid border wall, but here’s a new one anyways. Documents the Center for Biological Diversity obtained from the Fish and Wildlife Service through public records requests reveal how the border wall construction is harming critical habitat for eight endangered species at Arizona’s San Bernardino … Continued

Earther

These Satellite Images Show the Final Days of Canada’s Last Ice Shelf

Canada lost its last ice shelf last week, but a set of new satellite images show the crack that pushed the shelf to its edge in macabre detail. Satellite company Planet Labs Inc. released the satellite images Monday, showing some of the final days of the Milne Ice Shelf. It once sat along the northern edge … Continued

Earther

Farms Surpass Coal Plants as the Biggest Sulfur Polluters

Historically, sulfur emissions have come from coal-fired power plants. In the years since the Clean Air Act helped fossil fuel pollutants get their act together—along with the closures of many facilities—sulfur emissions have decreased significantly from this sector. However, a study reveals we have a new source to worry about: agriculture. Published in Nature Geosciences … Continued

Earther

The Pandemic Could Wipe 20% of Exxon’s Oil and Gas Reserves Off the Books

The oil industry isn’t looking too great, folks. That’s especially true for Exxon, which has lost upward of $1 billion due to the economic crisis last quarter alone. Its downward spiral isn’t over, though. In a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, the oil giant laid out how much the coronavirus has … Continued

Earther

Over 17 Million Cubic Feet of Ice Threaten Italian Tourist Town

Anything is possible when it comes to ice these warming days: disappearing ice caps, newly discovered penguin colonies, and now, crumbling glaciers threatening the lives of dozens of people. On Thursday, the northern Italian municipality of Courmayeur announced the evacuation of 15 residents and 60 tourists staying in buildings near where the Planpincieux Glacier in … Continued