"As the remnants of Hurricane Ida barreled north in September 2021, Chris Erdner heard a startling warning on TV: Residents in her area needed to seek shelter immediately. Erdner’s quiet suburban neighborhood in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, was directly in the path of a tornado."
"Carolyn Baker, clad in a neon pink top and matching sunglasses, smiled as she ran the Falmouth Road Race on the shore of Cape Cod, looking around for friends as she neared the end of a race she’d completed more than a dozen times before. Suddenly, Baker collapsed, as her exertion on a sunny August day sent her internal temperature soaring. As medical volunteers rushed to her aid by plunging her into a tub filled with ice water, they measured it at nearly 107 degrees (41.6 Celsius)."
"Massachusetts and Connecticut are the first two states in the nation to ban PFAS from firefighter gear, citing health hazards."
"Hotter summers in Canada that have sparked wildfires in tourist areas, intense hailstorms and thunderstorms with severe flooding in major cities, all likely linked to climate change, are leading to personnel shortages and potentially claims adjustment delays, according to insurance sector insiders."
"Extreme heat and flooding are accelerating the deterioration of bridges, engineers say, posting a quiet but growing threat."
"California’s latest historic wildfire serves as a stark reminder of the regenerative promise of Indigenous cultural burning, practitioners say."
"On the day he would become homeless, Wesley Bryant was awoken by his wife, Alexis. “Get up,” she told him. “There’s a flood outside.”"
"A year and a half after a catastrophic Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical fire in East Palestine, Ohio, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has announced plans to monitor private drinking water wells for Pennsylvania residents living within one mile of the accident site for the next decade."
American Jews are heavily involved in climate action in both the political and civic realms. But current events in Israel and Gaza can make it hard for U.S. journalists to cover environmental stories important to Jews at home or abroad. Jewish freelancer Ethan Brown on differences and synergies between Israeli and American Jewish environmentalism and how to approach stories within each community.
