Caleigh Wells

Los Angeles

Climate Reporter at KCRW-FM (Santa Monica, CA)

Reporter @KCRW & @Marketplace covering climate. Host of The Anti-Dread Climate Podcast. Previously @KPCC & @WCPN. @USCAnnenberg alum. [email protected]

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Articles

Housing inventory is up, but buyers remain in short supply

5 days ago | marketplace.org | Caleigh Wells

There’s good news and bad news from the housing market today. The good news: Mortgage rates dipped a bit, and sellers are finally selling. That’s helping with the housing shortage. Housing inventory is 19% higher than it was a year ago, according to Zillow’s new Housing Market Report. The bad news: Buyers still aren’t buying. A lot of sellers hadn’t been selling because of what’s known as the “lock-in effect.”“Homeowners have very low interest rate.
Coal-fired generating capacity is likely to keep declining, despite the President's order boosting coal

6 days ago | marketplace.org | Caleigh Wells

Coal power has been on the decline for years here in the U.S. Since its peak in 2011, coal generating capacity has fallen by nearly half. And it’ll keep declining, according to a new brief from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Coal declined as the rise of fracking made natural gas way cheaper.
Organic produce is 53% more expensive than conventional, a study finds. Tariffs might shrink that gap

1 week ago | marketplace.org | Caleigh Wells

If you stick to the organic offerings in your supermarket fruit and vegetable section, you’re going to pay a premium: Organic produce costs 53% more than conventional, according to a new analysis from LendingTree. With tariff threats come uncertainty, and Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst with LendingTree, said just the fear of higher grocery prices might make organic food less popular.
Water bills have been rising at twice the rate of inflation. Blame drought and "ancient infrastructure"

1 week ago | marketplace.org | Caleigh Wells

Water bills keep going up. Some of that is normal – they’re supposed to rise with inflation. But a new report from the Bank of America Institute shows that the average water bill has risen at nearly twice the rate of inflation in the past year — more than 7%. There are two big causes.
That drop in car insurance costs may soon be in the rearview mirror

1 week ago | marketplace.org | Caleigh Wells

One of the more notable inflation readings in the March consumer price index, which came out Thursday, was for motor vehicle insurance. Prices in that sector — by 0.8%, seasonally adjusted. Maybe you’re looking at your last car insurance bill and finding that hard to believe. That’s because the inflation index that includes car insurance is still 7.5% higher than it was a year ago. Jeff Rieder knows firsthand why car insurance has increased. He leads benchmarking at Aon’s insurance consulting.
Acting on uncertainty

2 weeks ago | marketplace.org | Justin Ho |Caleigh Wells |Kai Ryssdal |Nancy Farghalli

Current stream: Carbon Sound - change to marketplace when marketplace.stream.publicradio.org is available Apr 9, 2025Universities issue bonds to compensate for federal funding cuts and companies rescind their 2025 revenue projections. Plus, benzene and the trade imbalance. Segments From This Episodeby Justin HoUniversities have long issued bonds to raise money, but the amount being issued has nearly doubled in recent years —and is increasing as government funding is paused.
Delta throws out 2025 profit projection, says future is uncertain

2 weeks ago | marketplace.org | Caleigh Wells

Delta Airlines had predicted that 2025 would be its best year yet. Clearly, 2025 had other plans. This morning Delta reneged that prediction. And it didn’t provide a new one. It’s weird, but it’s not an unprecedented move for companies to respond to market uncertainty with a big shoulder shrug. The last time this happened was about five years ago, when the economy was in uncharted territory. I’ll give you one guess why.
Oil prices fell to just $60 a barrel. Tariffs are only part of the reason.

2 weeks ago | marketplace.org | Caleigh Wells

While concerns mount over how exactly President Donald Trump’s tariffs will impact the cost of coffee, cell phones and cars, there’s one price that’s tanking — and it’s something a lot of us rely on every day. Oil fell to just $60 a barrel. That’s the lowest we’ve seen it since 2021. (And if you’ll recall, that was back during the height of the global pandemic, when we weren’t traveling much.)Tariffs are helping to cause that, sure, but that’s not the only factor at play here.
Solar facility shutdown

2 weeks ago | laist.com | Caleigh Wells

There is a blinding beacon of light at the top of a tower in the middle of the Mojave Desert. About this article This article originally published on Marketplace on April 7, 2025. Listen to Marketplace each weekday at 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on LAist 89.3-FM. It’s a solar power facility called Ivanpah. It’s been supplying enough juice to power 140,000 homes for more than a decade. But it doesn’t generate electricity directly like rooftop solar panels do.
Cheap solar panels are sidelining a California solar power plant

2 weeks ago | marketplace.org | Caleigh Wells

There is a blinding beacon of light at the top of a tower in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It’s a solar power facility called Ivanpah. It’s been supplying enough juice to power 140,000 homes for more than a decade. But it doesn’t generate electricity directly like rooftop solar panels do. It’s surrounded by a bunch of mirrors in concentric circles. “Those mirrors reflect the heat of the sun to a receiver that’s mounted at the top of a big tower,” said Ed Smeloff, a clean energy consultant.