Articles by Kendra Pierre-Louis

On a Warming Planet, Outdoor Concerts Need a New Safety Playbook

Just before Ana Clara Benevides lost consciousness, she likely found it hard to breathe. Packed with 60,000 people in Rio de Janeiro’s Nilton Santos Stadium for a Nov. 17 Taylor Swift concert — amidst a heat wave with a “real …

Extreme Weather Is Driving More US Power Outages, Studies Show

For decades, residents of eastern Queens in New York City have complained that they’re more likely to lose power when extreme weather hits, even as lights in other parts of the city stay on. A new study that looks at …

Rising Sea Levels Increase Threat of Arsenic in Drinking Water: Study

Rising seas due to climate change could exacerbate the threat of arsenic in drinking water, according to a study published in PLOS One in January. Researchers focused on arsenic in well water in Bangladesh, where up to 97% of the …

Unusually Warm Atlantic Ocean Is Supercharging Hurricane Idalia

Hurricane Idalia, now a Category 1 storm, is expected to make landfall along Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday. The hurricane’s likely transformation between now and then will be due in part to the unusually warm waters on its path. As …

Climate Change Doubled Odds of Eastern Canada’s Extreme Wildfire Weather: Research

This summer’s wildfires in eastern Canada have raged so intensely that smoke from them darkened skies as far away as Portugal. From the outset, scientists said that Canada’s historic wildfire season bore the hallmarks of climate change. Now, a new …

Vermont Prepared for Epic Flooding. It Wasn’t Enough.

In Windham, Vermont, a wooden A-frame house that normally evokes blustery winters sits on a roadway transformed by record rainfall into a river. Twenty miles away in Bridgewater, a man wades through waist-high waters clutching his belongings. In Montpelier, the …

A Greenwashing Lawsuit Against Delta Aims to Set a Precedent

As tranquil instrumental music plays over gauzy images of nature, a woman’s voice-over begins. “Isn’t it a paradox,” she wonders aloud, “that the love for this world that gets us out in it, sometimes leaves behind the things that can …