The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to strike down greenhouse gas limits for fossil-fueled power plants, arguing their emissions aren’t a significant threat despite overwhelming scientific consensus to the contrary.
Internal EPA documents reveal a plan to repeal all federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas plants, reversing Biden-era rules that required carbon capture and cleaner technologies.
The agency claims U.S. power plant emissions — though making up about 25% of domestic greenhouse gases — are too minor globally to justify regulation, despite emitting more than most countries.
Critics warn the move could gut the legal foundation for federal climate rules, entrench deregulation, and block future efforts to reduce emissions.
Key quote:
“It flies in the face of common sense and puts millions of people in harm’s way to say the single largest industrial source of carbon dioxide in the United States is not significant.”
— Vickie Patton, general counsel, Environmental Defense Fund
Why this matters:
The idea that coal and gas plants don’t “significantly” affect climate change is not just scientifically unfounded — it’s a political fantasy. The Trump administration has been relentlessly eliminating policies aimed at slowing climate change. If finalized, this move won’t just weaken climate action; it’ll be a crucial part of the administration's plan to redefine what the EPA is even for.
Pregnant people in wildfire-prone counties face higher health risks from smoke exposure but often live far from essential maternal and neonatal care, researchers say.
A new study found that pregnant individuals exposed to wildfire smoke are more likely to experience complications such as gestational diabetes and hypertensive disorders, yet many lack access to OB-GYN services or neonatal care.
Researchers used National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite data and public health records to track wildfire smoke exposure and maternal health resources between 2016 and 2020, identifying stark disparities in access to care across risk levels.
High-risk counties had double the PM 2.5 exposure of low-risk counties and, on average, no OB-GYNs per 10,000 births; median distances to hospitals and neonatal care facilities were up to nine times longer than in low-risk areas.
Key quote:
“Millions of reproductive age women and their infants are being exposed and many will need timely treatment.”
— Study authors, University of Maryland and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Why this matters:
Wildfire smoke contains a cocktail of fine particles and toxins that can pass through the lungs and into the bloodstream, posing risks not only to cardiovascular health but also to fetal development. For pregnant people, especially those in high-smoke zones with few nearby health facilities, the stakes are even higher. Smoke exposure during pregnancy is linked to low birth weights, preterm labor, and long-term developmental issues in children. The situation in the U.S. is compounded by inequities in the health care system: Communities most affected by smoke are often rural or economically disadvantaged, with fewer OB-GYNs and farther distances to hospitals equipped for maternity or neonatal emergencies. As wildfires grow more intense and frequent due to climate change, these health gaps stand to widen.
More than 130 researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health lost federal funding after the Trump administration cut grants over the university’s refusal to comply with political demands.
The Harvard Chan School, which gets nearly 60% of its revenue from federal sources, is scrambling to manage the fallout from a sweeping freeze on research grants, jeopardizing hundreds of jobs and studies.
The Trump administration justified the freeze by criticizing the university’s focus on equity and alleging mismanagement of antisemitism complaints, while urging Harvard to use its $53 billion endowment instead.
Long-term public health research on diseases like ALS, tuberculosis, and multiple sclerosis is now in limbo, and some scientists are being recruited by foreign institutions.
Key quote:
“We’re asking faculty, in a very taxing, chaotic time, to also be entrepreneurial, and that’s a tall order for people whose life work is being undone in real time.”
— Amanda Spickard, associate dean, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Why this matters:
The collapse of federal funding at one of the nation’s premier public health institutions threatens decades of research, global leadership in biomedicine, and the careers of hundreds of scientists. The Harvard Chan School has long served as a hub for pioneering work on health disparities, chronic disease prevention, and environmental exposures, fields that have real-world impact on policy and public well-being. As political interference shapes science funding, entire areas of inquiry — especially those tied to equity and social determinants of health — face heightened vulnerability. Biomedical research depends on stability and long time horizons, especially for studies tracking diseases over decades. Disruptions now risk wasting past investments and delaying future breakthroughs. And with other countries eager to poach top U.S. talent, the long-standing global leadership of American science hangs in the balance.
Seven U.S. cities with aging coal-burning steel plants rank among the worst in the country for air pollution, according to new research that links emissions from blast furnaces to dangerous levels of ozone and particulate matter.
An analysis by Industrious Labs shows a direct correlation between pollution from seven coal-based steel mills and poor air quality rankings from the American Lung Association in cities such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Gary, Indiana.
The facilities emit large quantities of nitrogen oxides and PM2.5, pollutants tied to asthma, cancer, heart disease, and other health issues. These emissions help drive their host regions into the top tier of U.S. cities with the worst air quality.
Despite recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules to curb emissions, the Trump administration has offered steelmakers a two-year exemption, and U.S. Steel has already accepted, raising concerns about stalled efforts to transition to cleaner electric arc furnaces.
Key quote:
“It just points to the fact that coal-based steelmaking is harmful to our health, and we need to be taking more action today to clean up these mills.”
— Hilary Lewis, steel director at Industrious Labs
Why this matters:
Air pollution from coal-based steelmaking seeps into lungs, settles in bloodstreams, and alters health trajectories across entire communities. PM2.5, the fine particulate matter released by these blast furnaces, is a known contributor to chronic diseases including heart and lung conditions, cognitive decline, and adverse birth outcomes. Cities hosting these facilities — often historically industrial hubs — already face economic stress and health disparities, compounding the risk. Children, older adults, and low-income populations are especially vulnerable. When federal regulators roll back or delay enforcement, the pollution persists or worsens, entrenching environmental injustice. Moreover, the transition to electric arc furnaces, which emit far fewer pollutants, is within reach — yet under threat.
A sweeping federal directive to fast-track logging across most of the Black Hills has sparked outcry from Indigenous leaders, scientists, and environmental groups who say it threatens forest integrity, tribal sovereignty, and endangered species.
A March 2025 executive order and an April U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) directive aim to expand logging in nearly 60% of the Black Hills National Forest, citing wildfire risk, while curtailing environmental review processes.
Critics argue the move undermines a 2023 federal-tribal agreement and ignores the ecological fragility of an already overcut forest that has yet to recover from past climate-related beetle infestations and fires.
Though the directive is framed as a timber production boost, data shows that large, marketable trees are increasingly scarce, making expanded logging both ecologically damaging and economically questionable.
Key quote:
“Our lifetime is shorter than the life of a forest. It’s spoken of as a renewable resource, but it’s such a long-term thing that in some ways, it’s not.”
— Mary Zimmerman of The Norbeck Society, a volunteer conservation group
Why this matters:
The Black Hills hold deep ecological and cultural significance. Long stewarded by Indigenous nations like the Lakota, who call the land Pahá Sápa, the forest is a living archive of centuries-old trees, wildlife habitats, and sacred sites. Fast-tracking industrial logging under the guise of wildfire prevention risks undoing decades of conservation and erasing tribal management practices rooted in ecological balance. While the Trump administration frames the policy as necessary for forest health and economic growth, many experts warn it prioritizes industry over sustainability, bypassing environmental oversight and violating prior commitments to tribal co-management.
Environmental activists face growing risks worldwide, with over 6,400 attacks — most unpunished — targeting those who challenge powerful industries and defend their land and communities.
A decade-long investigation by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre found over 6,400 attacks on human rights defenders between 2015 and 2024, with 75% targeting environmental defenders.
Attacks include disappearances, killings, and legal harassment, often linked to mining, fossil fuel, and agribusiness projects, with Indigenous communities disproportionately affected.
Companies and governments frequently deny involvement, while defenders, especially women, continue to face physical violence, surveillance, and intimidation without adequate protection or justice.
Key quote:
“That’s close to two attacks every day over the past 10 years against defenders who are raising concerns about business-related risks and harms.”
— Christen Dobson, co-head of the civic freedoms and human rights defenders program at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
Why this matters:
The growing violence against people defending the environment signals a troubling convergence of extractive industries, weak governance, and shrinking civil liberties. Around the world, Indigenous leaders, journalists, and community advocates are being silenced through threats, imprisonment, or worse — often for opposing large projects that jeopardize ecosystems, water sources, and traditional lands. These defenders frequently act in regions where legal protections are thin and corporate accountability is elusive. Women, in particular, face sexualized threats and attacks on their families, compounding the risks. When defenders disappear or are harassed into silence, entire communities lose a critical line of defense against environmental degradation and corruption. The implications ripple outward: ecosystems are further degraded, global emissions rise, and human rights norms erode. Despite public denials, the pattern of retaliation shows that some companies and governments treat resistance not as a democratic right, but as a threat to business.
As AI expands, tech giants like TikTok are building energy-hungry, water-thirsty datacenters in drought-prone regions of Latin America, sparking fears of worsening water shortages and community exclusion.
TikTok, via a local partner, is pushing to build a vast datacenter in Caucaia, Brazil, a region that has declared drought emergencies in most of the past 21 years. The facility could consume tens of thousands of liters of water daily to cool its supercomputers.
This isn’t an isolated case: datacenters are sprouting across Latin America in cities with long histories of water scarcity, yet companies and governments keep their water usage data under wraps, citing “industrial secrecy.”
Experts and locals warn that these facilities could permanently alter fragile ecosystems like the caatinga and worsen food insecurity. Critics say they’re being excluded from critical environmental decision-making.
Key quote:
“While residential users typically don’t use much of the water they withdraw, datacenters often use 60% to 80% of it.”
— Shaolei Ren, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside
Why this matters:
It’s a quiet kind of colonization: tech giants tapping into fragile ecosystems like Brazil’s caatinga while shutting communities out of decisions that reshape their futures. In Caucaia and beyond, residents fear not just the loss of water, but the erosion of autonomy. They’re being asked to trade biodiversity for bandwidth, food security for cloud security. And in a region already grappling with the climate crisis, that’s a high-stakes gamble — with no user agreement to click “Decline.”
