This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

The daughter of a woman who was killed by extreme heat during the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome has filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against major oil companies claiming they should be held responsible for her death.

The civil lawsuit, filed on May 29 in King County Superior Court in Seattle, is the first wrongful death case brought against Big Oil in the US in the context of climate change. It attempts to hold some of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies liable for the death of Juliana Leon, who perished from overheating during the heat dome event, which scientists have determined would have been virtually impossible absent human-caused climate change.

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NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas—Abigail Lindsey worries the days of peace and quiet might be nearing an end at the rural, wooded property where she lives with her son. On the old ranch across the street, developers want to build an expansive complex of supercomputers for artificial intelligence, plus a large, private power plant to run it.

The plant would be big enough to power a major city, with 1,200 megawatts of planned generation capacity fueled by West Texas shale gas. It will only supply the new data center, and possibly other large data centers recently proposed, down the road.

“It just sucks,” Lindsey said, sitting on her deck in the shade of tall oak trees, outside the city of New Braunfels. “They’ve come in and will completely destroy our way of life: dark skies, quiet and peaceful.”

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GILA RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION, Ariz.—About 33 miles south of Phoenix, Interstate 10 bisects a line of solar panels traversing the desert like an iridescent snake. The solar farm’s shape follows the path of a canal, with panels serving as awnings to shade the gently flowing water from the unforgiving heat and wind of the Sonoran Desert.

The panels began generating power last November for the Akimel O’otham and Pee Posh tribes—known together as the Gila River Indian Community, or GRIC—on their reservation in south-central Arizona, and they are the first of their kind in the US. The community is studying the effects of these panels on the water in the canal, hopeful that they will protect a precious resource from the desert’s unflinching sun and wind.

In September, GRIC is planning to break ground on another experimental effort to conserve water while generating electricity: floating solar. Between its canal canopies and the new project that would float photovoltaic panels on a reservoir it is building, GRIC hopes to one day power all of its canal and irrigation operations with solar electricity, transforming itself into one of the most innovative and closely watched water users in the West in the process.

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This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

PASADENA, Calif.—Nicole Byrne watched anxiously from across the small kitchen in her home as Parham Azimi, a Harvard University researcher, lined up sample bottles next to the running tap.

As his phone timer chimed, indicating the water pipes had been flushed for the required five minutes, Azimi began filling collection bottles and packing them to be mailed to a lab in San Diego later that day.

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This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

The latest anomaly in the climate system that can’t be fully explained by researchers is a record annual jump in the global mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured in 2024.

The concentration, measured in parts per million, has been increasing rapidly since human civilizations started burning coal and oil in the mid-1800s from the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm.

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As President Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders Tuesday aimed at keeping coal power alive in the United States, he repeatedly blamed his predecessor, Democrats, and environmental regulations for the industry’s dramatic contraction over the past two decades.

But across the country, state and local officials and electric grid operators have been confronting a factor in coal’s demise that is not easily addressed with the stroke of a pen: its cost.

For example, Maryland’s only remaining coal generating station, Talen Energy’s 1.3-gigawatt Brandon Shores plant, will be staying open beyond its previously planned June 1 shutdown, under a deal that regional grid operator PJM brokered earlier this year with the company, state officials, and the Sierra Club.

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For two decades, farmer John Burk has been working to improve the soil on his farm in Michigan, taking a few extra steps to make it more resilient and productive. His efforts have paid off.

“When we have the dry, hot summers or lack of rainfall, our crops can sustain the dry spells better. We don’t have huge yield decreases,” Burk said. “And when it rains and we have the freak storms, like it seems to do so much now, we don’t have the ponding and all the runoff.”

An added bonus: He needs less fertilizer, a major operating expense.

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