Lisa Song: SEAL Award Winner 2021

A selection of this year’s best environmental journalism

Poison in the Air

“In all, ProPublica identified more than a thousand hot spots of cancer-causing air. They are not equally distributed across the country. A quarter of the 20 hot spots with the highest levels of excess risk are in Texas, and almost all of them are in Southern states known for having weaker environmental regulations. Census tracts where the majority of residents are people of color experience about 40% more cancer-causing industrial air pollution on average than tracts where the residents are mostly white. In predominantly Black census tracts, the estimated cancer risk from toxic air pollution is more than double that of majority-white tracts.”
Source: ProPublica (Approx. 11 minutes)

They Knew Industrial Pollution Was Ruining the Neighborhood’s Air. If Only Regulators Had Listened.

“Neither industrial polluters nor the regulators who govern them know exactly how much hazardous air pollution is billowing out of smokestacks at any given time, nor the degree to which that pollution is finding its way into surrounding neighborhoods. The law doesn’t require them to.”
Source: ProPublica (Approx. 23 minutes)

Lawmakers Question California Cap and Trade Policies, Citing ProPublica Report

“The state’s Air Resources Board… issued tens of millions of carbon credits that may not have provided real climate benefits. The chief concern in the legislators’ Aug. 6 letter is that the landmark cap-and-trade program, which the board oversees as California’s top climate regulator, isn’t doing enough to drive down emissions as the state strives to meet ambitious climate goals by 2030.”
Source: ProPublica (Approx. 5 minutes)

A Nonprofit Promised to Preserve Wildlife. Then It Made Millions Claiming It Could Cut Down Trees.

“New research by the San Francisco nonprofit CarbonPlan provides evidence that this is occurring: It shows that landowners in the program routinely maximize the number of trees they assert they could chop down if they weren’t given carbon credits, even if they have little history of logging or have mission statements in sharp opposition to such practices.”
Source: ProPublica (Approx. 18 minutes)

The Climate Solution Actually Adding Millions of Tons of CO2 Into the Atmosphere

“CarbonPlan estimates the state’s program has generated between 20 million and 39 million credits that don’t achieve real climate benefits. They are, in effect, ghost credits that didn’t preserve additional carbon in forests but did allow polluters to emit far more CO2, equal to the annual emissions of 8.5 million cars at the high end. Those ghost credits represent nearly one in three credits issued through California’s primary forest offset program.”
Source: ProPublica (Approx. 40 minutes)

Read the SEAL Awards 2021 Environmental Journalism Award Announcement