Environmental News

MPR News is your source for environment news from Minnesota and across the country.

Getting to Green: Minnesota’s energy future

Getting to Green is an MPR News series that shares stories about Minnesota’s clean energy transition, including what needs to be done to get there.

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Smith Foundry to partially shut down operations in settlement with federal regulators
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday it has reached a settlement with Smith Foundry, located in Minneapolis’ East Phillips neighborhood. The foundry, owned by Zynik Capital, has a one-year deadline to shut down its furnace and casting processes, which regulators say will drastically reduce emissions.
‘Something we’ve never seen before’: Minnesota emergency experts aid Iowans hit by tornadoes
Minnesota first responders and emergency management experts are returning home in waves after lending their time to the community of Greenfield, Iowa, where an EF4 tornado killed four people, injured dozens more and wrecked more than 200 homes.
St. Paul schools turn towards geothermal energy as Minnesota‘s climate shifts
School years in Minnesota can be hot and muggy on either end and freezing in the middle. A high school on the east side of St. Paul wrapped up its first year with a new heating and cooling system to combat climate change that draws energy from the ground.
Update on bird flu in Minnesota as pathogen spills into other populations
Millions of birds around the country are being culled by farmers as an outbreak of avian influenza, or bird flu, continues to spread — and infect other species like cattle.
Forecasters predict another sweltering summer. Are we ready?
The summer of 2023 saw skylines choked by Canadian wildfire smoke, coral cooked in hot tub-warm ocean water and a month straight of 110-degree Fahrenheit high temperatures in Phoenix. Scientists say 2024 will likely bring another hotter-than-normal summer and, with it, the potential for more climate-driven disasters.