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Culture

What We Read to Understand the Wildfires

Here are our favorite articles on the wildfires from around the web.

A man reading a smoky magazine.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The past week of wildfire smoke blanketing the East Coast was confusing, unprecedented, and unnerving.

While Heatmap has covered the story’s many angles, our writers are also looking to other sources to understand — and help them explain — the last two days of extreme weather. Here’s a selection of stories that we found helpful:

Canadian Wildfires and Climate Change” (The Climate Brink)

I really enjoyed Zeke Hausfather’s review of what the research says about the connection between these wildfires and climate change. The science of these fires is more complicated than Western blazes, and I think Zeke threads the needle well. –Robinson Meyer

We Suffer Too Many Fools Who Start Wildfires” (The New York Times)

I liked this piece because, as a climate journalist, I have a tendency to see wildfires as the result of system changes in the environment that lead to more fires. This piece, an essay by a former fire protection official, makes what seems like an obvious point that's too often unheeded: wildfires are often the immediate result of very stupid behavior. –Matthew Zeitlin

Liberty Game Postponed as NYC Battles Air Quality Issues from Wildfire Smoke” (New York Post)

We hear so much about how we ought to stay inside during air quality events like this, but the indoors isn’t totally safe — apparently, smoke actually penetrated Barclays Center, where the game was supposed to be played. But if we can’t get away from the smoke indoors, where does that leave us left to go? –Jeva Lange

Trying to Breathe in a City of Smoke” (The New Yorker)

“We know the story of the climate crisis, of how wealthy nations have burned fossil fuels at an astonishing rate, pushing our planet to the brink. Yet we live as though we do not, and we breathe the consequences,” Carolyn Kormann writes for The New Yorker. –Neel Dhanesha

As Smoke Darkens the Sky, the Future Becomes Clear” (The New York Times)

“The haunting gray glow of the sky this week was both a throwback to a more contaminated past and a portent of a future clouded more regularly by airborne toxic events such as these," David Wallace-Wells writes. –Emily Pontecorvo

WGA East Cancels All NYC Picketing for Rest of the Week Due to Record Unhealthy Air Quality” (Deadline)

Wildfire smoke has all kinds of implications - including on labor, when the smoke in New York forced the Writers Guild of America East to cancel its planned pickets for Wednesday. But unions can't be stopped so easily, and ironically the air quality in LA was better, so WGA West pickets went on as scheduled. –Neel Dhanesha

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Economy

Trump Is Disabling the Agency That Could Fight China’s Rare Earths Embargo

The Loan Programs Office is good for more than just nuclear funding.

Xi Jinping and Donald Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

That China has a whip hand over the rare earths mining and refining industry is one of the few things Washington can agree on.

That’s why Alex Jacquez, who worked on industrial policy for Joe Biden’s National Economic Council, found it “astounding”when he read in the Washington Post this week that the White House was trying to figure out on the fly what to do about China restricting exports of rare earth metals in response to President Trump’s massive tariffs on the country’s imports.

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Q&A

You, Too, Can Protect Solar Panels Against Hail

A conversation with VDE Americas CEO Brian Grenko.

This week's interview subject.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s Q&A is about hail. Last week, we explained how and why hail storm damage in Texas may have helped galvanize opposition to renewable energy there. So I decided to reach out to Brian Grenko, CEO of renewables engineering advisory firm VDE Americas, to talk about how developers can make sure their projects are not only resistant to hail but also prevent that sort of pushback.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

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Hotspots

The Pro-Renewables Crowd Gets Riled Up

And more of the week’s big fights around renewable energy.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Long Island, New York – We saw the face of the resistance to the war on renewable energy in the Big Apple this week, as protestors rallied in support of offshore wind for a change.

  • Activists came together on Earth Day to protest the Trump administration’s decision to issue a stop work order on Equinor’s Empire Wind project. It’s the most notable rally for offshore wind I’ve seen since September, when wind advocates protested offshore opponents at the Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island.
  • Esther Rosario, executive director of Climate Jobs New York, told me the rally was intended to focus on the jobs that will be impacted by halting construction and that about a hundred people were at the rally – “a good half of them” union members or representing their unions.
  • “I think it’s important that the elected officials that are in both the area and at the federal level understand the humans behind what it means to issue a stop-work order,” she said.

2. Elsewhere on Long Island – The city of Glen Cove is on the verge of being the next New York City-area community with a battery storage ban, discussing this week whether to ban BESS for at least one year amid fire fears.

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