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Nathanael Johnson

Nathanael Johnson is a contributing writer from Grist.org.

Cal firefighter Travis Moore lights a backfire along highway 50 as the Caldor Fire burns near Lake Tahoe, CA on Tuesday August 31, 2021. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Wildfires are erasing Western forests. Climate change is making it permanent

Nathanael Johnson
A tree stump is engulfed in flames in the Bravo Bravo section of the Bootleg Fire on July 21, 2021 in the Fremont National Forest of Oregon. The Bootleg Fire, which started on July 6th near Beatty, Oregon, has burned over 395,000 acres and is currently 38% contained. (Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images)

Good wildfire news? Evidence from the Bootleg Fire supports thinning forests

Nathanael Johnson
Visitors hike the Vernal Fall trail in Yosemite National Park, California. Yosemite is among California's biggest tourist destinations. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Tourists are desperate to return to national forests . . . just in time for wildfire season

Nathanael Johnson
(Getty/recep-bg)

Remember snow days? Today’s kids get heat days

Nathanael Johnson
The wildfire spreads on August 19, 2020 in San Mateo, California. (Liu Guanguan/China News Service via Getty Images)

How many people has climate change killed already?

Nathanael Johnson
Recycled water drips out of a nozzle at the Ironhouse Sanitation District residential recycled water fill station on May 20, 2021 in San Francisco, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Two-thirds of California’s counties are in a drought emergency. Get used to it

Nathanael Johnson
Aerial view of a large soy field eating into the tropical rainforest in Brazil (<a href='url to photographer'>Frontpage</a> via <a href='http://www.shutterstock.com/'>Shutterstock</a>)

These companies’ deforestation promises went up in flames

Nathanael Johnson
(Leonardo Carrato/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

How much forest did we lose in 2020? Like, a Netherlands’ worth

Nathanael Johnson
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., leaves her news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Democrats’ window to pass new legislation is already closing

Nathanael Johnson
Tumbleweed rolls across a dried out landscape in central California's Kern County as trucks head south toward the Grapevine to begin the climb over the Tejon Pass leading into Southern California, on February 3, 2014. The United States government announced on February 5 a new system of regional hubs to tackle the effects of climate change as the country's southwest battles a historic drought. In January, California declared a state of emergency due to what could be the worst drought in a century for the state, and which has prompted fears of lost harvests and devastating forest fires. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

Climate change could take weather patterns back to the Pliocene

Nathanael Johnson
(Getty/violinconcertono3)

Big businesses talk a big climate game — just not on Capitol Hill

Nathanael Johnson
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Getty Images)

These climate bills could get past Mitch McConnell, two senators say

Nathanael Johnson
Joe Biden and Donald Trump (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

Trump gutted environmental protections. How quickly can Biden restore them?

Shannon Osaka, Nathanael Johnson
(Getty Images)

Nuclear power’s big new idea is really … small

Nathanael Johnson
Worker in protective gear producing sausage at the Okraina meat processing plant in Murmansk. (Lev FedoseyevTASS via Getty Images)

The future of beef might be a sausage fest

Nathanael Johnson
Traffic on the northbound and the southbound lanes of the Interstate 405 freeway near Los Angeles International Aiprort (Getty/Kevork Djansezian)

Despite everything, U.S. emissions dipped in 2019

Nathanael Johnson
FILE - In this Dec. 3, 2009 file photo, a Chinese boy cycles past cooling towers of a coal-fired power plant in Dadong, Shanxi province, China. Led by cutbacks in China and India, construction of new coal-fired power plants is falling worldwide, improving chances climate goals can be met despite earlier pessimism, three environmental groups said Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File) (AP)

Coal isn’t dying. It moved to Asia

Nathanael Johnson
Intense flames driven by extreme drought conditions, wind and hot weather sweep over a remote section of the San Bernardino National Forest during the Blue Cut Fire on August 18, 2016 near Wrightwood, California. (David McNew/Getty Images)

California voters now rank climate change as their top priority

Nathanael Johnson
Antarctic Glacier with cavities (Getty Images/goinyk)

New study: Antarctica’s tipping point is closer than we thought

Nathanael Johnson
FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2010 file photo, a massive fire roars through a neighborhood in San Bruno, Calif. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. says it is prepared to pay the maximum fine of $3 million after a jury convicted the company of deliberately violating pipeline safety regulations before a deadly natural gas pipeline explosion in the San Francisco Bay Area and then misleading investigators looking into the blast. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File) (AP)

The power’s out in California. Is this what our future looks like?

Nathanael Johnson
This Sept. 9, 2016 photo shows rush hour traffic moving along the Hollywood Freeway in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) (AP)

Killing California car pollution rules could kill speed limits

Nathanael Johnson
A gas flare at an oil well site on July 26, 2013 in Williston, North Dakota. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

Berkeley triggered a chain of anti–natural gas laws

Nathanael Johnson
(AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Can we stop stupid politics from ruining carbon farming?

Nathanael Johnson
(AP/Jae C. Hong)

Parts of California are too wildfire-prone to insure

Nathanael Johnson
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