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Collage art of Supreme Court Justices.

Science Historian Naomi Oreskes Schools the Supreme Court on Climate Change

Scientists and lawmakers in the 70s knew more than we think they did about climate change and the impacts of fossil fuel regulations.
Edmund Muskie with a concerned expression, next to a globe.

The Lost History of What Americans Knew About Climate Change in the 1960s

It wasn’t just scientists who were worried, but Congress, the White House, and even Sports Illustrated, newly unearthed documents show.
Supreme Court of the United States.

Deference and Doomposting

Ironically, Chevron deference — which the conservative Supreme Court scrapped last month — began as a conservative legal tool.
U.S. Supreme Court building.
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Why History Supports the EPA's 'Good Neighbor' Rules

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments about the rule, but Congress originally intended to prioritize public health.
Heavy machinery pushes coal at the Ramaco Resources Stonecoal Alma mine near Wylo, W.Va., on Aug. 8, 2017.
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Supreme Court Could Thwart EPA’s Ability to Address Climate Change

No matter the outcome of West Virginia v. EPA, the agency can take action to engage the public and make its data more accessible.
Woodpeckers

Sooty Feathers Tell the History of Pollution in American Cities

Preserved birds and digital photos help pinpoint levels of black carbon in the air and the changes that led to its decline.

The Other 100 Days: 5 Decades Before Trump, the New EPA Truly Made America Great Again

Once upon a time, the EPA had a golden age.

What U.S. Cities Looked Like Before the EPA

Whatever the Trump administration does with Environmental Protection Agency, its urban legacy is clear.

Smoke Blanketing New York City Evokes Memories of 1966 ‘Killer Smog’

The wildfire haze reminded some of the 1966 "killer smog" that wrapped New York in a toxic cloud. A woman recalled how her dad built a machine to save her mom.
Emissions from Union Carbide’s Ferro-Alloy Plant, Charleston, West Virginia, May 1973

The Lost Promise of Environmental Rights

As environmental rights seem on the verge of a comeback, it’s worth remembering why they once seemed so promising, and why that promise remains unfulfilled.
Smoke rises from a derailed cargo train in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 4.
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The Air Pollution Disaster that Echoes in the Ohio Train Derailment

What is an industry-made disaster, and what is caused by natural factors like weather?
Two women baking in a kitchen using a gas stove.

The Forgotten Gas Stove Wars

We’ve been fighting over gas stoves for decades.
Photo of E.P.A Headquarters, shot through a bush

How Government Ends

Through an assault on administrative agencies, the Supreme Court is systematically eroding the legal basis of effective governance.
Students paddling rafts on Milwaukee River

Remember When Earth Day Used to Be Cool?

Today, the holiday is just a chance for ExxonMobil to release nonsensical ad campaigns. But once upon a time, it was a radical success story.
Collage of the U.S. Capitol, a factory, and the earth, connected by coins and price tag stickers.

How the Oil Industry Cast Climate Policy as an Economic Burden

For 30 years, the debate has largely ignored the soaring costs of inaction.
Old-time black and white pictures of Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir with a modern city background

How American Environmentalism Failed

Traditional environmentalism has lacked a meaningful, practical democratic vision, rendering it largely marginal to the day-to-day lives of most Americans.
Illustration of Clarence Thomas in front of factory

The Radicalization of Clarence Thomas

His time working for Monsanto and other polluting industries helped make him the fierce conservative he is today.
Water contaminated with arsenic, lead and zinc flows from a pipe out of the Lee Mountain mine and into a holding pond
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Spin Doctors Have Shaped the Environmentalism Debate for Decades

“Green” public relations work has flown below the radar but made a huge impact.
Aerial view of a mining quarry

The Land Was Ours

Trump, Biden, and public lands.

A Strange Blight: Rachel Carson’s Forebodings

Reading Silent Spring today, in the hazy reddish glow of climate catastrophe, is both an exhilarating and a melancholy pleasure.
Image of the front cover of "The Republican Reversal: Conservatives and the Environment from Nixon to Trump."

Conservatives Before and After Earth Day

As Republicans denounce climate change as a “hoax” and dismantle the environmental regulatory state they worked to build, we are left to wonder: What happened?
Historian Timothy Naftali being interviewed by Fareed Zakaria on television.
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The Federal Agency That Few Americans Have Heard Of And Which We All Need To Know

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs wields enormous power and is key to President Trump's deregulatory agenda.
A surfer carries his oil-coated board.

‘The Ocean Is Boiling’: The Complete Oral History of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill

How the disaster energized the nascent environmental movement and led to a slew of legislative changes.
Folk singer Tom Glazer performs in July 1965 for nearly 400 children enrolled in Head Start centers at Saratoga Square Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. (AP)

Evaluating the Success of the Great Society

Lyndon B. Johnson's visionary set of legislation turns 50 years old.
Photograph of two of the original organizers preparing for the first Earth Day (1970). At left, a woman holds up two advertisements for the event. In front, a man stares into the camera (Denis Hayes) while holding a phone.

The Fate of Earth Day

What has gone wrong with the modern environmental movement and its political organizing.

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