It’s not just Hurricane Helene: Donald Trump has a record of politicizing disaster relief in a way that distorts the truth and flirts with right-wing conspiracy theories. If he wins again, Trump’s ongoing demonization of FEMA will have serious consequences.
At least 95 people died in flash floods in eastern Spain on Tuesday. Far fewer could have died in the Valencia region if its right-wing government had prepared civil protection measures — and if bosses hadn’t insisted that workers come into work.
As climate disasters intensify, conservative politicians are systematically undermining the agencies meant to protect us — slashing budgets, firing experts, blocking climate data from informing policy, and weakening enforcement against corporate polluters.
The selection of Lee Zeldin — a devoted Trump ally with no meaningful environmental expertise — to head the Environmental Protection Agency threatens to gut crucial protections for clean air and water while giving corporate polluters free rein.
The European Union loves boasting about its green agenda. But its plans rely on electric vehicles — and a push for lithium mining in Serbia, which would outsource the environmental costs of the green transition to a non-EU country.
The fate of our climate depends on much more than just which party controls Washington. Despite their current celebrations, polluters will remain vulnerable under President Trump.
Denmark’s new carbon tax targets an often-overlooked greenhouse-gas producer: agriculture. Yet the plan locks in big Danish farmers’ focus on energy-inefficient animal farming for export, frustrating hopes of a serious cut in emissions.
The Democrats have claimed climate change as their issue. But on MSNBC, liberals’ home channel, all meaningful discussion of climate change is overshadowed by the ultimate political fixation: Donald Trump.
A new novel set in the harsh desolation of Western Australia imagines the dystopic future that mining billionaires are creating. Those who remain find beauty in nature and each other — but violent resistance has become key to survival.
Last week, China responded to new US tariffs with a ban on exporting rare earth minerals. While both countries’ leaders engage in great power rivalry, they risk imperiling the green transition, which will rely on the trade of technology between nations.
The US electricity system has long been dominated by corporate interests. A truly democratic energy system will require public control and large-scale state planning, with especially significant input from the workers who know how to make that system run.
From budgetary neglect to climate inaction to private monopolies, political choices have fanned the flames of California’s devastating fires.
The Los Angeles fires threw schools into chaos, revealing their unpreparedness for the escalating challenges of the climate crisis. Schools need comprehensive disaster preparedness systems — not last-minute plans that put students and staff at risk.
TV networks turned the Los Angeles fires into a sensationalist spectacle, repeating words like “inferno” on a loop while almost completely avoiding any mention of climate change. Their coverage treated the disaster as entertainment rather than a warning.
A Jacobin investigation reveals how Iraq’s southern marshes, the birthplace of early civilization, face ruin from environmental and political mismanagement. As the water disappears, so too does a 5,000-year-old culture.
Almost 60 years ago, Joan Didion wrote that “the city burning is Los Angeles’s deepest image of itself.” Since then, insurance companies and developers have prioritized short-term profits over housing resilience and affordability for Californians.
In Colombia, coastal erosion caused by a combination of climate change and environmentally destructive industrial agriculture is displacing the country’s poorest citizens. But the scale of the disaster means that it has no easy solutions.
In a new interview, Sandeep Vaheesan discusses his book Democracy in Power and the history of America’s electrification, showing how organizers can build support for public power and public utilities during hostile times.
Dissatisfaction at established green parties and environmental NGOs has fed the rise of more confrontational forms of activism. The task can’t just be to raise awareness but to mobilize millions of people in fighting for their own interests.
It’s become a cliché to observe that news coverage of disasters like the LA wildfires resembles a Hollywood movie. Yet the movies themselves are now shying away from depicting our disastrous reality by peddling easy myths of technological quick fixes.