Environment

After an unprecedented year in natural disasters, cities like Hoboken and New York City, pictured here after Hurricane Ida, say better weather forecast can save lives.

After a year of deadly weather, cities look to private forecasters to save lives

4:28pm December 16, 2021

by Jeffrey Pierre

New York City and Hoboken are the latest localities finalizing a deal with a private weather service, stepping away from something that has largely been the job of the federal government.

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Residents clear fallen trees Thursday, after a strong storm swept through Hartland, Minn. A powerful storm system swept across the Great Plains and Midwest, bringing hurricane-force wind gusts and spawning reported tornadoes in Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesot

The U.S. set a new record for powerful wind gusts, with 55 in one day

2:22pm December 16, 2021

by Bill Chappell

Winds peaked at 100 mph in Russell, Kansas, one of many places where existing wind records for December were obliterated, the National Weather Service said.

In this handout photo provided by the Philippine Coast Guard, a rescuer assists a girl as they wade through flooding caused by Typhoon Rai in Cagayan de Oro City, southern Philippines.

Powerful typhoon hits Philippines, nearly 100,000 evacuated

4:56am December 16, 2021

by The Associated Press

A powerful typhoon slammed into the southeastern Philippines on Thursday, prompting the evacuation of nearly 100,000 people. Officials say 10,000 villages lie in the projected path of the typhoon.

This Dec. 11, 2021 photo, provided by the U.S. Navy, shows a diving salvage unit at work in a contaminated water well near Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Thousands displaced from Oahu military base due to contamination in Navy water system

1:37pm December 15, 2021

by Rachel Treisman

State health officials said samples from the Red Hill shaft contained petroleum levels 350 times the level considered safe. Some 3,000 military members and families were moved to temporary housing.

Dayton Hall, left, and Jackson Mountjoy use calipers to measure a baby oyster at the school's oyster garden in Bay St. Louis, Miss. The school is among more than 50 locations in Mississippi and more than 1,000 nationwide where people raise oysters to help

Volunteers are growing oyster gardens to help restore reefs

5:03am December 15, 2021

by The Associated Press

There are more than 1,000 oyster gardens in the coastal waters of Maryland, Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama as volunteers try to restore a keystone of coastal ecosystems.

A gloomy report card from the Arctic

5:00pm December 14, 2021

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Twila Moon, co-editor of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2021 Arctic Report Card, which shows oceans warming and sea ice disappearing.

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Cattle graze on land burned and deforested by cattle farmers near Novo Progresso, Para state, Brazil. Brazil is among the nations that have signed a pledge to protect forests.

Most nations are promising to end deforestation, but skeptics want proof

4:55pm December 14, 2021

by Dan Charles

More than a hundred countries just promised to protect and restore forests. Similar pledges in the past have not succeeded, but forest advocates hope that this effort can learn from past mistakes.

Megadrought is renewing debates about how to manage water in the arid American West

4:23pm December 14, 2021

by Nathan Rott

The Western megadrought is revealing a famed desert landscape long drowned by a controversial dam. It's raising questions about the future of this oasis, and water in the American West.

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Fossil fuel subsidies are proving harder to end than first thought

5:54am December 14, 2021

by Jeff Brady

President Biden campaigned on ending oil and gas industry subsidies. But getting rid of them requires passing legislation. A bill eliminating the overseas drilling subsidy is stalled in Congress.

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The Delicate Arch in Arches National Park near Moab, Utah, is shown here in 2018. Next year, Arches will launch a temporary timed entry reservation system.

Arches is the latest U.S. national park to roll out timed reservations as visits surge

2:24pm December 13, 2021

by Joe Hernandez

The Utah national park joins Glacier and Rocky Mountain in setting up a timed entry reservation system to deal with a gush of visitors that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.