Abrahm Lustgarten
I report on climate change and how people, companies and governments are adapting to it.
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I’m discreet and handle confidential communications and sources with extreme care.
What I Cover
I investigate the social and political consequences of our rapidly warming environment, focusing on how money and power influence policy. My reporting is science driven, and I embrace nuance and complexity, telling the stories that are most difficult to tell.
My Background
I have been reporting on environmental harm and the warming planet for ProPublica since its inception in 2008 and before that as a writer covering the global oil industry at Fortune. I’ve reported from around the world, including Iran, Russia, Indonesia and China. Throughout, my work has focused on the social and economic consequences of warming and the conflicting business interests that often drive them.
My most recent reporting has focused on global migration, finance and conflict associated with climate change. In 2024, I wrote about how climate pressures are driving far-right extremism and violence in the United States, especially around fears of immigration. In 2022, I investigated how the International Monetary Fund and global banks have paralyzed small climate-vulnerable nations with debt that makes it impossible for them to address their own climate risks. That work followed a three-part 2020 investigation into the potential displacement of billions of people and global climate-driven migration, both outside and inside the United States, which is also the subject of my third book, called “On The Move.”
This work — beginning with my early investigation into fracking in 2008 — has been recognized with honors, including a George Polk Award; a Scripps Howard Award; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s communications award; and consecutive Whitman Bassow prizes from the Overseas Press Club. My 2015 series about water scarcity in the American West, “Killing the Colorado,” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
EPA Finds Compound Used in Fracking in Wyoming Aquifer
After years of complaints from residents about foul water and health concerns, government investigators have found chemical compounds consistent with those used in natural gas fracking.
Science Lags as Health Problems Emerge Near Gas Fields
People who live close to natural gas drilling in four states complain of similar health symptoms, ranging from respiratory infections to lesions and neurological problems, but there is little science or study to get at the cause of their ailments.
N.Y. Enviro Commissioner Expects Little From EPA Fracking Study
In an interview, the commissioner of New York's Department of Environmental Conservation says he is confident underground contamination from hydraulic fracturing is not a risk, and that the Environmental Protection Agency's study of fracking won't yield new information.
Does an Old EPA Fracking Study Provide Proof of Contamination?
A 24-year-old EPA report uncovered this week adds to a list of examples of how water supplies are polluted in natural gas drilling areas and provides the strongest articulation yet by federal officials that fracking has caused the contamination.
Latest BP Spill in Alaska Was Foreshadowed in Risk Assessment Last Year
A section of the BP pipeline that leaked thousands of gallons of methanol and oily wastewater into the Alaskan tundra on Saturday was flagged by the company more than a year ago as so corroded it presented an imminent threat of rupture.
EPA Fracking Study to Focus on Five States—But Not Wyoming
The Environmental Protection Agency has picked seven sites in five states that it will focus on for its national study of the effects of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water. The sites do not include two counties in Wyoming, where the EPA has already been collecting data for three years.
Gas Drilling Companies Hold Data Needed by Researchers to Assess Risk to Water Quality
Drilling companies complain that a recent study that linked methane in water wells to gas drilling lacked critical data. Now it turns out that the industry has been collecting that type of data for years but hasn’t made it public.
Scientific Study Links Flammable Drinking Water to Fracking
For the first time, a peer-reviewed scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire.
Natural Gas Drilling Is at a Crucial Turning Point
The natural gas industry must develop regulations that scale up drilling safely and learn from the mistakes made in the United States.