Matt Simon

San Francisco

Senior Writer at Grist

@mrmattsimon.bsky.social Senior writer @grist. Formerly @wired. Book on microplastics: https://t.co/TMwRuuZp5j. [email protected]

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Articles

Canadian wildfire smoke may be even more toxic than usual

2 weeks ago | bridgedetroit.com | Matt Simon |Lauren Abdel-Razzaq

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. More than 200 wildfires are blazing across central and western Canada, half of which are out of control because they’re so hard for crews to access, forcing 27,000 people to evacuate. Even those nowhere near the wildfires are suffering as smoke swirls around Canada and wafts south, creating hazardous air quality all over the midwestern and eastern parts of the United States. The smoke is even reaching Europe.
The smoke from Canada’s wildfires may be even more toxic than usual

2 weeks ago | popsci.com | Matt Simon

A satellite view of Flin Flon, Manitoba, on May 28. Image: Gallo Images / Orbital Horizon / Copernicus Sentinel Data 2025 via Getty Images This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.
A Poison Like No Other: Excerpt

2 weeks ago | resilience.org | Matt Simon

Ed. note: This excerpt is taken from Pages 54 – 60. Chapter 2 of A Poison Like No Other, by Matt Simon, published by Island Press, and posted here with permission. Every day, ocean life embarks on a mass migration that puts a bird flock or reindeer herd to shame. When the sun’s up, animals large and small hang out in the relative safety of deeper, darker waters, where their predators can’t see them.
The smoke from Canada's wildfires may be even more toxic than usual

2 weeks ago | nationalobserver.com | Matt Simon

What exactly is lurking in the smoke from Canadian wildfires will require further testing by scientists. But an area of particular concern is around the mining city of Flin Flon, in Manitoba, which is known to have elevated levels of toxic metals in the landscape, said Colin McCarter, an environmental scientist who studies pollutants at Ontario's Nipissing University. Flin Flon's 5,000 residents have been evacuated as a wildfire approaches, though so far no structures have been destroyed.
Smoke from Canada’s wildfires may be even more toxic than usual

2 weeks ago | ctmirror.org | Matt Simon

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. More than 200 wildfires are blazing across central and western Canada, half of which are out of control because they’re so hard for crews to access, forcing 27,000 people to evacuate. Even those nowhere near the wildfires are suffering as smoke swirls around Canada and wafts south, creating hazardous air quality all over the midwestern and eastern parts of the United States. The smoke is even reaching Europe.
A federal program to protect US cities against extreme heat has just evaporated

2 weeks ago | motherjones.com | Matt Simon

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Straddling the border with Mexico along the Rio Grande, the city of Laredo, Texas, and its 260,000 residents don’t just have to deal with the region’s ferocious heat. Laredo’s roads, sidewalks, and buildings absorb the sun’s energy and slowly release it at night, a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect.
Mayors are making climate action personal. It's working.

3 weeks ago | nationalobserver.com | Matt Simon

For local leaders, climate action has grown all the more urgent since the Trump administration has been boosting fossil fuels and threatening to sue states to roll back environmental regulations. Last week, Republicans in the House passed a budget bill that would end nearly all the clean energy tax credits from the Biden administration's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.
The smoke from Canada's wildfires may be even more toxic than usual

3 weeks ago | grist.org | Matt Simon

More than 200 wildfires are blazing across central and western Canada, half of which are out of control because they’re so hard for crews to access, forcing 27,000 people to evacuate. Even those nowhere near the wildfires are suffering as smoke swirls around Canada and wafts south, creating hazardous air quality all over the midwestern and eastern parts of the United States. The smoke is even reaching Europe.
The fix for parched Western states: Recycled toilet water

3 weeks ago | stacker.com | Matt Simon

If you were to drink improperly recycled toilet water, it could really hurt you—but probably not in the way you're thinking. Advanced purification technology so thoroughly cleans wastewater of feces and other contaminants that it also strips out natural minerals, which the treatment facility then has to add back in. If it didn't, that purified water would imperil you by sucking those minerals out of your body as it moves through your internal plumbing.
Funding to protect American cities from extreme heat just evaporated

3 weeks ago | envirolink.org | Matt Simon

Straddling the border with Mexico along the Rio Grande, the city of Laredo, Texas, and its 260,000 residents don’t just have to deal with the region’s ferocious heat. Laredo’s roads, sidewalks, and buildings absorb the sun’s energy and slowly release it at night, a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. That can make a hot spell far more dangerous than for people living in the surrounding countryside, where temperatures might stay many degrees cooler.