Hiroko Tabuchi

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Hiroko Tabuchi

Community groups are fighting an unusual Louisiana law that restricts how they use data from air-quality monitors, saying it violates free speech. Since 2022, residents of St. James Parish, along the heavily industrialized banks of the Mississippi River known as "Cancer Alley," have used low-cost monitors to measure air pollution. But a new law in Louisiana makes it illegal to use that data to push for stricter pollution controls or enforcement.

2 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Hiroko Tabuchi

The planet lost a record amount of forests last year, largely because of fires that raged around the world, data shows. Loss of pristine rainforests alone reached 6.7 million hectares (16.5 million acres) in 2024, nearly twice as much as in 2023, researchers at the University of Maryland and the World Resources Institute said in an annual update of the state of the world’s forests. The world lost the equivalent of 18 soccer fields of forested land every minute, the researchers estimated.

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Hiroko Tabuchi

Forests around the world disappeared at a rate of 18 soccer fields every minute, a global survey found. Fires accounted for nearly half of the losses. The planet lost a record amount of forests last year, largely because of fires that raged around the world, data shows.

2 weeks ago | bostonglobe.com | Hiroko Tabuchi

In Europe, the weedkiller atrazine has been banned for nearly two decades because of its suspected links to reproductive problems like reduced sperm quality and birth defects. In the United States, it remains one of the most widely used pesticides, sprayed on corn, sugar cane, and other crops, the result of years of industry lobbying. It has been detected in the drinking water of some 40 million Americans.

2 weeks ago | thestar.com.my | Hiroko Tabuchi

THE abandoned Galey & Lord textile mill in Society Hill, South Carolina, looms like a relic of industrial decay. Steel gates stripped by looters, rusted tanks submerged in murky water and alligators patrolling wastewater ponds paint a dystopian scene. But the true threat, environmental officials warn, lies beyond the mill’s crumbling walls: up to 4,000ha of contaminated farmland, some still producing food, now at the heart of a battle to become part of a federal Superfund cleanup.