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Smoke rises from a coal-burning power plant. Refuse-derived fuel (RDF), which includes large amounts of plastics, is replacing fossil fuels in some energy and industrial furnaces. But critics say this practice is merely replacing one dirty fuel for another.

Boom in burning waste for fuel puts human health and environment at risk

Sean Mowbray 10 Dec 2025
TotalEnergies’ Mozambique LNG Afungi Park construction site. Image courtesy of Justiça Ambiental.

UK, Dutch agencies pull funding from Total’s controversial Mozambique LNG project

Victoria Schneider 10 Dec 2025
A woman gathers plants along the banks of the Mekong River while a child plays in the background. Water levels of the mighty Mekong River have dropped drastically due to drought-like conditions and damming upstream. The drop disrupts the region’s water supply, transport routes, and the livelihood of communities in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that more than one billion people will face water shortages due to climate change. Credit: © Greenpeace / Vinai Dithajohn

New mapping reveals hidden mining boom in Laos that threatens the Mekong

Andy Ball, Gerald Flynn, Konlaphat Siri 10 Dec 2025

In Chocó, river defenders say race for energy transition threatens lifelines

Euan Wallace 8 Dec 2025
Ugandan and Tanzanian EACOP-impacted community representatives attending the hearing at the EACJ. Image courtesy of Stop Eacop Movement.

East African court dismisses controversial oil pipeline case in setback to communities

Elodie Toto 8 Dec 2025
The resulting piles of plastic after beach clean-up volunteers sifted microplastics from water and sand in Kailua Bay, a few miles south Kāneʻohe Bay, Oʻahu. Image courtesy of: Ken G Kosada/Lethal Lens Photography.

Another threat to reefs: Microplastic chemicals may harm coral reproduction

Kari Goodbar 5 Dec 2025
A child at work collecting e-waste in the Agbogbloshie dump in Ghana.

Can two Amazons survive? Invisible e-waste is poisoning the world

Gerry McGovern, Sue Branford 3 Dec 2025
Spraying pesticides on a field. Chemical pesticides have become ubiquitous in industrial agriculture, and have contributed to a rapid rise in chronic diseases, researchers say.

‘Silent epidemic of chemical pollution’ demands radical regulatory redo, say scientists

Mike Gaworecki 3 Dec 2025
Jean Beasley with the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center with a juvenile Kemp's Ridley sea turtle on Sept. 17, 2013 in Surf City, N.C. Photo courtesy of KEN BLEVINS/STARNEWS

Jean Beasley, who turned her young daughter’s dying wish into a mission to save sea turtles, has died

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Dec 2025
Where cars go to die: an auto graveyard.

A ‘Life After Cars’ can provide huge human health and environmental benefits

Mike DiGirolamo 2 Dec 2025
Workers at BRAC's plastic project sort out single-use plastics.

New ventures set out to tackle the plastic choking Bangladesh’s ECAs

Abu Siddique 2 Dec 2025
Sorting of plastic bottles collected in Costa Rica for analysis. Photo by Juan Manuel Muñoz-Araya.

Lost at sea, found in Latin America: the journeys of discarded plastic bottles

Olivia Maule 2 Dec 2025

Central America’s forests are crucial for migrating birds: Study

Bobby Bascomb 26 Nov 2025
A sea otter

‘Forever chemical’ contamination could undermine sea otters’ fragile recovery in Canada

Edward Carver 21 Nov 2025

IDB financed meat & poultry company that polluted Indigenous Ecuador lands: Report

Ana Cristina Alvarado 21 Nov 2025

Gold mining exposes Indigenous women in Nicaragua to high mercury levels

Aimee Gabay 20 Nov 2025
A forest fire in Acre, the westernmost state of the Brazilian Amazon. Image courtesy of Victor Moriyama/Clean Air Fund.

Soot: The super-pollutant choking a burning Earth, in photos

Shanna Hanbury 20 Nov 2025
A turtle consumes a plastic bag.

Lethal dose of plastic for seabirds and marine animals ‘much smaller than expected’

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 19 Nov 2025
Youth activist Oliver Nyirenda in Kabwe. Image courtesy of Radio Workshop.

As Zambia eyes green minerals, Kabwe’s poisoned past looms large

Chisapi Kumbutso 19 Nov 2025
Dodo bird icon.

A slowdown, not salvation: what new extinction data reveal about the state of life on Earth

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Nov 2025
Producing an AI chip requires 10-15 times more energy than making a standard chip.

AI data center revolution sucks up world’s energy, water, materials

Gerry McGovern, Sue Branford 14 Nov 2025

‘Green’ energy transition leaves a dirty trail in the Philippines’ nickel belt

Bong S. Sarmiento 14 Nov 2025

What’s at stake for the environment in Chile’s upcoming election?

Maxwell Radwin 13 Nov 2025

Coal-dependent South Africa struggles to make just energy transition real

Anna Weekes 11 Nov 2025

Chilean pulp giant Arauco’s history of pollution trails it to Brazil biodiversity site

Tainah Ramos 11 Nov 2025

Air pollution levels surge in India’s capital, sparking rare protests

Associated Press 10 Nov 2025
Volunteers clean up plastic and other waste materials on a beach on the Arabian Sea coast on World Environment Day in Mumbai. Environmental crises are lived experiences for young generations today — including journalists. Image by AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool, File.

Early-career journalists join the next wave of environmental reporting (commentary)

Shradha Triveni 7 Nov 2025

Healthy rivers, healthy people: A Brazil project links human & ecosystem well-being

Fernanda Biasoli 6 Nov 2025
Satellite images of the chemical spill in Bais Bay. Images courtesy of Sentinel-2L2A.

Ethanol plant spills harmful wastewater into Philippine marine reserve

Mongabay.com 5 Nov 2025
Ganga River at Varanasi ghat. Image by Babasteve via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

India’s Ganga River drying at unprecedented levels

Mongabay.com 4 Nov 2025

Critical minerals drive legalization of mining on Amazon Indigenous lands

Lucas Berti 3 Nov 2025
Wilmar Eliaser Simandjorang

One man’s mission to rewild a dying lake

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Nov 2025

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