Environment

There is one number that the Environmental Protection Agency relies on to decide which climate policies to pursue. So why does that number assume the lives of richer people are worth more?

As winter cold bites deep, MPR News is celebrating the best of the season through a new series called Winter Play. Our staff across the state set out to try a new-to-them winter pastime. MPR News producer Samantha Matsumoto and reporter Simone Cazares visited Watershed Spa in northeast Minneapolis to take a much-needed break from winter. 

Clean energy advocates, large utilities and labor unions said the new target would put the state on track to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change. But North Dakota officials say they may sue over the new law.

It's not often that this pathogen jumps from bats to horses, then humans. When it does, the result is brutal. New research points to a surprising way to stop spillovers.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled Monday in favor of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, and ordered the city of Cohasset to reconsider whether a more detailed environmental review is required for a proposed wood mill.

For our Winter Play series, where MPR News staff try winter activities new to them, Bemidji bureau reporter Mathew Holding Eagle III drove further — and maybe flew further — than anyone else as he tried winter kiteboarding.

Minnesota sits at the intersection of several ecoregions, making it a prime place to catalog bees, some so tiny they can only be identified through a microscope. The University of Minnesota and the DNR are working now on a definitive list of the state’s native bees.

The illegal miners have polluted rivers and land in the reserve, leading to widespread hunger and disease.

Highway resurfacing projects pose a temporary inconvenience but are not usually all that controversial. But a section of Highway 34 in norther Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Transportation is also cutting trees as part of its repaving plan. Locals are not happy.

As MPR News staff fanned out across the state to experience cold weather activities they had never tried for the Winter Play series, Regina Medina and Elizabeth Shockman took a transformative plunge in Lake Harriet.