LISTEN: Climate migrants in North Carolina
Rubble outside of apartments at Trent Court Housing Development in New Bern, NC. (Credit: Lewis Raven Wallace)

LISTEN: Climate migrants in North Carolina

Reporter Lewis Raven Wallace discusses on 'Living on Earth' the EHN/Scalawag Magazine report about Hurricane Florence's displacement of Bern, N.C. residents

Journalist Lewis Raven Wallace joined Steve Curwood on Living on Earth last week to discuss his recent series for Environmental Health News and Scalawag Magazine on how last fall's Hurricane Florence has upended the lives of public housing residents in New Bern, North Carolina, and left many homeless.


Wallace visited New Bern to document the challenges of the community's most disenfranchised. Public housing residents, along with other poor, disabled, elderly, and vulnerable people, are becoming a first wave of climate migrants in the U.S.—people selectively displaced by increasingly frequent storms and floods, moved because they can't afford to stay.

"I think that everybody that I interviewed in New Bern believes that nobody should be displaced, with no place to go," Wallace told host Steve Curwood. "That said, that's already happened, there's more than 200 people who lost their homes at Trent Court."

Wallace went on to outline how this problem is bigger than just North Carolina.

"Well, something that I find kind of stunning with regard to the public housing situation is that we don't exactly know, you know? After Harvey, obviously, after Katrina, Florence, Matthew, there were a bunch of people in the Florida Panhandle who were displaced, just this last fall, from public housing," he said.

"But it's not evident to me that that's being sort of clearly tracked. We conduct a census, but we don't track individuals from one place to another demographically across the United States as they move."

You can listen to the interview above or at Living on Earth.

Read Wallace's entire series on New Bern here.

A suburban neighborhood of large two-story houses, some with rooftop solar panels, and ample lawns with a forest in the background.

Solar costs are going up — and not just because of demand

Going solar is getting pricier in the U.S., and Trump-era tariffs targeting China may be to blame.

Alexa St. John reports for the Associated Press.

Keep reading...Show less
Sunrise in the woods

Get our Good News newsletter

Get the best positive, solutions-oriented stories we've seen on the intersection of our health and environment, FREE every Tuesday in your inbox. Subscribe here today. Keep the change tomorrow.

A group of commercial fishermen standing around a table filled with fish.

Trump reopens protected Pacific waters to commercial fishing, sparking backlash

President Trump has opened a vast marine reserve in the Pacific Ocean to commercial fishing, rolling back more than a decade of protections in a move he says will boost the U.S. seafood industry.

Rebecca Dzombak and Lisa Friedman report for The New York Times.

Keep reading...Show less
Cargo ships docked at port.
Credit: Andy Li/Unsplash

New international carbon tax on shipping is significant, but falls short of climate goals

A new carbon pricing system adopted by the International Maritime Organization could reduce global shipping emissions slightly by 2030 but fails to meet the agency’s climate targets.

Joseph Winters reports for Grist.

Keep reading...Show less
Red and black ship on sea under blue sky during daytime.

Tankers shipping U.S. LNG emit more greenhouse gases than all the country's electric cars can offset

A single year of emissions from U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports by ship outweighs the climate benefits of every electric vehicle on American roads, according to a new analysis.

Phil McKenna and Peter Aldhous report for Inside Climate News.

Keep reading...Show less
A patchwork of agricultural fields and fragmented Amazon forest.

Trump’s China tariffs drive up Brazil soy farming and Amazon deforestation

China is expected to buy more soybeans from Brazil — accelerating forest loss in the Amazon and the Cerrado — as U.S. tariffs disrupt global agricultural trade.

Sarah Sax reports for The Atlantic.

Keep reading...Show less
A large cement factory next to a body of water during daytime.

Trump administration cuts stall U.S. cement industry’s path to lower carbon emissions

Concrete, a cornerstone of modern infrastructure, faces an uncertain future as the federal government pulls back funding meant to reduce the cement industry’s significant climate impact.

Ames Alexander reports for Floodlight.

Keep reading...Show less
woman using laptop and looking behind her with a worried expression.

Most Americans worry about climate change, but fear of isolation keeps them quiet

Most Americans recognize climate change as a serious threat, but a new study finds they rarely talk about it, deepening a silence that limits personal and political action.

Saul Elbein reports for The Hill.

Keep reading...Show less
From our Newsroom
Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro speaks with the state flag and American flag behind him.

Two years into his term, has Gov. Shapiro kept his promises to regulate Pennsylvania’s fracking industry?

A new report assesses the administration’s progress and makes new recommendations

silhouette of people holding hands by a lake at sunset

An open letter from EPA staff to the American public

“We cannot stand by and allow this to happen. We need to hold this administration accountable.”

wildfire retardants being sprayed by plane

New evidence links heavy metal pollution with wildfire retardants

“The chemical black box” that blankets wildfire-impacted areas is increasingly under scrutiny.

People  sitting in an outdoors table working on a big sign.

Op-ed: Why funding for the environmental justice movement must be anti-racist

We must prioritize minority-serving institutions, BIPOC-led organizations and researchers to lead environmental justice efforts.

joe biden

Biden finalizes long-awaited hydrogen tax credits ahead of Trump presidency

Responses to the new rules have been mixed, and environmental advocates worry that Trump could undermine them.

Op-ed: Toxic prisons teach us that environmental justice needs abolition

Op-ed: Toxic prisons teach us that environmental justice needs abolition

Prisons, jails and detention centers are placed in locations where environmental hazards such as toxic landfills, floods and extreme heat are the norm.

Stay informed: sign up for The Daily Climate newsletter
Top news on climate impacts, solutions, politics, drivers. Delivered to your inbox week days.