Abrahm Lustgarten
Abrahm Lustgarten writes about human adaptation to climate change, including global migration, demographic change and conflicts in response to a warming planet.
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Abrahm Lustgarten writes about climate change and works frequently with The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic and PBS Frontline, among others. His forthcoming book, “On The Move,” explores how climate change is uprooting American lives and where people will go.
Lustgarten’s recent reporting focuses on global migration, demographic change and conflict in response to a warming climate. His 2022 investigation into how the International Monetary Fund and global finance institutions have kept Barbados and other climate-vulnerable nations paralyzed by high levels of debt led in part to the introduction of the Bridgetown Initiative, a global effort to reform climate finance for developing countries crafted by Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley. In 2020 Lustgarten’s three-story cover series on a great climate-driven migration, published in partnership with the Times Magazine, helped prompt President Joe Biden’s formation of a climate migration study group and research report in the run-up to the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
Lustgarten’s other investigations include an examination of the global palm oil trade, the climate drivers of pandemics and BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill (which led to the Emmy-nominated “The Spill” with Frontline, a project he worked on). His 2015 series examining water scarcity in the American West, “Killing the Colorado,” was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, received the top journalism honor from the National Academies of Sciences and was also the basis of the 2016 Discovery Channel film “Killing the Colorado,” which Lustgarten co-produced. His early investigation into fracking, starting in 2008, exposed one of the oil industry’s most dangerous legacies — its ongoing threat to America’s drinking water. The work received the George Polk award for environmental reporting, the National Press Foundation award for best energy writing and a Sigma Delta Chi award; it was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize.
Before joining ProPublica, Lustgarten was a staff writer at Fortune. He holds a master’s in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor’s in anthropology from Cornell, and was a 2022 Emerson Collective Fellow at New America. He is the author of two books: “Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster” and “China’s Great Train: Beijing’s Drive West and the Campaign to Remake Tibet.”
The New ‘Dallas’: Sex, Scandal and U.S. Energy Policy!
There’s plenty of cheesy drama in the revamped soap. There’s also fracking and frank discussion about energy.
New Study Predicts Frack Fluids Can Migrate to Aquifers Within Years
A new study has raised fresh concerns about the safety of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, concluding that fracking chemicals injected into the ground could migrate toward drinking water supplies far more quickly than experts have previously predicted.
Feds File First Criminal Charges Related to BP Gulf Spill
The charges against former BP engineer Kurt Mix are expected to be the first step in an ongoing investigation that could reach into the executive suite.
A Punishment BP Can’t Pay Off
What is missing is a criminal prosecution that holds BP individuals responsible.
So, Is Dimock’s Water Really Safe to Drink?
Preliminary test data appears to complicate the Environmental Protection Agency’s assurances that the water is safe to drink in a Pennsylvania town (EPA said nothing about cause).
Feds Let BP Off Probation Despite Pending Safety Violations
A Justice Department spokesman said BP had addressed 270 serious violations at the Texas City refinery where 15 workers died in an explosion, but the company is still negotiating with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration over hundreds more.
BP Settlement Leaves Most Complex Claims Unresolved
BP has agreed to pay $7.8 billion to compensate Gulf Coast residents damaged in a massive 2010 oil spill, but the company still faces a criminal investigation and a battery of state lawsuits and federal claims
Years After Evidence of Fracking Contamination, EPA to Supply Drinking Water to Homes in Pa. Town
The federal agency announced it would bring tanks of drinking water to four homes in Dimock, Pa.
Fracking Cracks the Public Consciousness in 2011
The year brings a bumper crop of studies, intensifying health concerns, and a landmark development when environmental regulators conclude hydraulic fracturing likely caused groundwater contamination for the first time.
Feds Link Water Contamination to Fracking for the First Time
The EPA’s investigation into water pollution near Pavillion, Wyo., produces landmark findings that could erode arguments used to defend safety of the gas drilling process.
by Abrahm Lustgarten and Nicholas Kusnetz,