Lois Parshley is an award-winning investigative journalist. Her wide-ranging reporting has been published at the New Yorker, Harper’s, the New York Times, Businessweek, National Geographic, and more.
Hurricane Milton and other extreme weather events imperil not only people but also the US economic system, with insurance regulators trailing behind. You may be able to escape the flood, but the financial crises that follow will affect us all.
Alaskan pollock is a $2 billion industry supplying chains like McDonald’s with fish sticks and other products. The fishing industry’s destruction of marine habitats is compounding the dire effects of climate change on Alaska’s ecosystems.
As climate change intensifies extreme weather and claims pile up, insurance companies are raising their rates and limiting their coverage. This leaves those who can least afford insurance unprotected as climate disasters grow more frequent and severe.
Widespread disruptions caused by the climate crisis are now inevitable. The people whose jobs are to maintain ecosystems such as the boreal forest are facing the difficult choice of how much to intervene.
A new study found the amount of pesticides used on farms was strongly associated with the incidence of cancer. It comes on the heels of substantial lobbying by the pesticide industry to limit its liability from lawsuits over their products’ health impacts.
Despite the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, guns are allowed just outside the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. That’s thanks to the gun lobby, which fought for a state law that prohibits cities from restricting guns on public property.
While the mass adoption of AI has transformed digital life seemingly overnight, regulators have fallen asleep on the job in curtailing AI data centers’ drain on energy and water resources.
As climate change raises deadly landslide risks, cities like Juneau, Alaska, must grapple with informing the public about safety while weighing property value and insurance concerns. These climate-driven challenges are a foretaste of future difficulties.
As increasingly severe natural disasters ravage the South, insurance companies are abandoning clients, increasing premiums, and fighting regulation measures — forcing homeowners to fend for themselves in the wake of destruction.