Rebecca Hersher
Rebecca Hersher (she/her) is a reporter on NPR's Science Desk, where she reports on outbreaks, natural disasters, and environmental and health research. Since coming to NPR in 2011, she has covered the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, embedded with the Afghan army after the American combat mission ended, and reported on floods and hurricanes in the U.S. She's also reported on research about puppies. Before her work on the Science Desk, she was a producer for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered in Los Angeles.
Hersher was part of the NPR team that won a Peabody award for coverage of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and produced a story from Liberia that won an Edward R. Murrow award for use of sound. She was a finalist for the 2017 Daniel Schorr prize; a 2017 Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting fellow, reporting on sanitation in Haiti; and a 2015 NPR Above the Fray fellow, investigating the causes of the suicide epidemic in Greenland.
Prior to working at NPR, Hersher reported on biomedical research and pharmaceutical news for Nature Medicine.
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Studies based on private health data are crucial to understanding dangers posed by pollution. A new rule makes it harder for the EPA to consider many studies when setting safeguards. -
2020 and 2016 are virtually tied for the hottest year on record. That means more powerful hurricanes, more intense wildfires, less ice and longer heat waves. -
Regan is the top environmental regulator for North Carolina. He would be first African American man to run the EPA, and he would oversee much of the federal government's response to climate change. -
Mallory, an Obama veteran, would take the helm at a White House office where she worked as former general counsel. The CEQ is seen as critical to address climate change and environmental equity. -
Heat waves, air pollution and extreme weather are making people sick and, increasingly, killing people. A key report by global physicians says fossil fuels are to blame. -
Space is the best place — maybe the only place — to get a complete picture of how climate change is affecting the Earth's oceans. And what happens in the ocean does not stay in the ocean.
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The United States is the only country to back out of its promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. America has contributed more cumulative carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than any other nation. -
Most landlords are not required to disclose if a property is in a flood plain or has flooded before. That's a big problem in cities where climate change is driving more frequent and severe floods. -
About 15 million properties in the U.S. are prone to flooding, but patchwork and ineffective disclosure laws mean most people get little to no information about flood risk before they move. -
Wildfires and floods threaten tens of millions of properties in the U.S. But most Americans get little or no information about climate risks when they move.
