The United States is on the brink of its most consequential transformation since the New Deal—a colossal shift from a fossil fuel economy toward one based on cleaner and renewable sources of electric power. This difficult yet vital makeover, the sheer scope of it, and the obstacles to its success are at the heart of our May+June print magazine cover package. You will find those stories below, along with related work from our Climate Desk partners.
Yes in Our Backyards
It’s time progressives like me learned to love the green building boom.
—Bill McKibben
The Green Movement’s Best Weapon Has Become a Problem
How environmental laws are used to kill climate-friendly development.
—Chris Elmendorf
Think Globally, Build Like Hell Locally
How can we decarbonize the economy when we can’t even build housing?
—Clara Jeffery
What if Walmart Turned Its Parking Lots Into Solar Farms?
We asked experts to help crunch the numbers.
—Michael Mechanic
The Little City That Could
For Chelsea, Massachusetts, a new microgrid means energy resilience.
—Lois Parshley
What “Electrify Everything” Actually Looks Like
Get ready for a US building spree not seen in generations.
—Jesse D. Jenkins
Snapshots From a Clean Energy Future
Across America, microgrids are changing the power dynamic.
—Michael Mechanic
Big Utilities Are “Diabolical, Man!”
Unscrupulous monopolies endanger the transition to clean energy.
—David Roberts and David Pomerantz
From our Climate Desk partners
To Ditch Fossil Fuels, We’ll Need to Raise an Army of Electricians
Labor shortages could derail efforts to “electrify everything.”
—Emily Pontecorvo (Grist)
A Colorado Town Tried to Discourage Fossil Fuel Dependency. The Utility Wasn’t Having It.
How powerful energy interests meddle in local affairs.
—Nick Bowlin (High Country News)
A Colorado Town Tried to Discourage Fossil Fuel Dependency. The Utility Wasn’t Having It.
How powerful energy interests meddle in local affairs.
—Nick Bowlin (High Country News)
The Woman Daring Us to Build a World Without Oil and Coal
Tzeporah Berman is pushing a new kind of nonproliferation treaty.
—Jude Isabella (Hakai Magazine)
Why Are We So Afraid of Nuclear Power?
It's greener than renewables and safer than fossil fuels—but facts be damned.
—Tyler J. Kelley (Undark)
The Next Big Thing in Recycling: Expired Solar Panels
As arrays age out, firms are looking to harvest valuable materials.
—Jon Hurdle (YaleE360)
Why Kentucky Is Dead Last in Wind and Solar Energy Production
Big Coal and climate denial paved its race to the bottom.
—James Bruggers and Dan Gearino (Inside Climate News)
The Double-Edged Sword of Deep Sea Mining
We need raw materials for electric cars—but there will be consequences.
—Avery Arena (Slate)
Arizona Utility Just Won’t Let This Historic Black Community Be
“We won, they lost, but they won’t accept it.”
—Nina Lakhani (The Guardian)
How Just a Fraction of EV Owners Could Protect the Power Grid
And get paid to do it.
—Matt Simon (Wired)
More partner stories
- “How Millions of Electric Vehicles Can Help—Not Hurt—the Grid” (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
- “Green Colonialism Is Flooding the Pacific Northwest” (High Country News)
- “Why Toyota Spent Years Treating Electric Cars Like the Enemy” (Slate)
- “The Man in Charge of How the US Spends $400 Billion to Shift Away From Fossil Fuels” (The Guardian)
- “How the ‘Electrify Everything’ Movement Went Mainstream” (Grist)
- “Tidal Power’s Fickle Future” (Hakai Magazine)
- “This Dime-Sized Battery Is a Step Toward an EV with a 1,000-Mile Range” (Inside Climate News)
