HORNBROOK, Calif. — The Iron Gate Dam, one of four dams on the Klamath River, will be removed in 2023. It will be the largest dam removal in U.S. history.

For Pachomio Feliz, the waters of the Klamath River and Pacific are life. He’s a member of the Yurok Tribe.

“This is our lifeblood," he said. "Without the river, we’d be dead.”

The Klamath River runs from southern Oregon to the Pacific Ocean in California.

Along the way, there are four dams holding back the river's natural flow. The dams were originally built to produce electricity and regulate water levels on the river. Environmentalists in the area say those dams are harming the river’s health.

“It has huge impacts. It has impacts on water quality, huge impacts on river systems and the basins where they’re placed,” said Jim McCarthy, an activist working for WaterWatch, a group in Oregon that advocates for river and water health.

WaterWatch, and other groups, have been advocating for dam removals around the U.S. for decades.

“I think what people don’t realize is there are a lot of dams in the country, over 90,000,” said Brian Graber, who works for the group, American Rivers.

According to the group's most recent dam report, 85% of the country’s dams are over 50 years old, which is the average life expectancy for most dams.

“We have to be deliberate about what we do with our rivers because they are facing more and more stress and if we want to keep these resources alive, taking out dams is part of the portfolio of things we need to be doing,” said McCarthy.

The Klamath’s health has been declining for years. The river was once the third-largest salmon run on the West Coast. The dams have impacted the salmon’s habitat and food supply, causing the runs to drop drastically. Those fish were the food supply for the Yurok Tribe.

“The word for salmon in Yurok is Ney-puy. The direct translation of Ney-puy means ‘what we eat’,” said Frankie Myers, the vice-chair of the Yurok Tribe.

The dams have dominated the river his whole life.

“The lower four dams on the Klamath River—for Yurok people— are a monument to colonialism,” said Myers.

The Yurok and advocates like Brian and Jim have been fighting through government red tape for the last 20 years. They might have finally achieved their goal.

Right now, the four dams are slated to be removed starting next year.

“The removal of the four lower dams on the Klamath River would have a dramatic impact on our way of life not only for our subsistence fishery but for the emotional and mental well-being of our people as well,” said Myers.

If the four are removed it will join a growing list. Nearly 60 dams were removed last year in 22 states and almost 2,000 dams have been removed over the last 100 years.

Myers hopes the Klamath will be renewed for his tribe.

“This has been my fight, my whole life. My children, my prayer, is that it won’t be theirs. Not that they won’t need to fight. Not that they won’t have a struggle, but that this struggle won’t be theirs,” he said.

Freezing rain and drizzle is disrupting travel from Central Texas to the Great Lakes, with ice-glazed roads leading to hundreds of traffic accidents, including one in Kentucky that killed a toddler.

Hundreds of flights were canceled Wednesday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas braced for an ice storm.

More than half an inch of ice could accumulate in parts of the Ozarks through Friday morning, while another area of freezing rain was expected to hit south-central Pennsylvania and western Maryland, the National Weather Service said.

In western Kentucky, ice on a bridge caused multiple collisions that left a toddler dead and closed interstate lanes for hours, officials said.

Seven collisions involving 12 tractor-trailers and 6 passenger cars were reported beginning late Wednesday on Interstate 24 in Marshall County due to ice on the Tennessee River Bridge, Kentucky State Police said in a statement.

In one crash involving two semi-trailers, an 18-month-old unrestrained child was ejected and then hit by a car, police said. The toddler was declared dead at the scene by the Marshall County coroner.

In Arkansas, dozens of schools were closed or switched to remote learning on Thursday as another round of freezing rain was expected by midday. Airlines canceled more than 1,700 U.S. flights Thursday, according to the FlightAware.com tracking site. Many of them were at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, where temperatures were expected to top out above freezing only briefly late on Thursday afternoon.

DFW Airport is the biggest in the American Airlines network, and American had canceled 21% of its Thursday flights by Wednesday night, according to FlightAware. Meanwhile, heavy snow was expected in upstate New York and New England later this week, with more than 6 inches possible through Saturday morning.

Winter took a fleeting break in the Northeast on Wednesday, with temperatures soaring into the 60s before plunging within hours. The warm spell sent people streaming outdoors, but it was bad news for ski resorts.

"It's not exactly what you want to see in the middle of the busiest week of the year," said Ethan Austin, spokesperson for the Sugarloaf ski area in Maine, which was busy because of school vacation week. But he was happy to hear snow was on the way.

The weather whiplash marked the second time in less than a week that there was to be a temperature swing of more than 40 degrees in 24 hours.

Newsy is the nation’s only free 24/7 national news network. You can find Newsy using your TV’s digital antenna or stream for free. See all the ways you can watch Newsy here.

Once dry and desolate, this riverbed in southern Arizona has been given new life.

“The idea of bringing water back to the Santa Cruz River for Tucsonans has been around for about 100 years. That's when the Santa Cruz River stopped flowing because of overpumping of the aquifer here in Tucson for the agriculture that was going on here in the early 1900s,” John Kmiec, the interim director of Tucson Water, said.

Here in the desert, every drop of water counts.

“South of where we’re standing, this is what the Santa Cruz looked like…it’s dry. It's been like that since the 1920s almost continuously. It only responds for rain,” he explained. “If you want to see abundant life in the desert, just add water, and it's amazing what happens after that.”

So that’s what Tucson water did back in the summer of 2019 – by putting water back where it used to be as part of the Santa Cruz River Heritage Project.

“This is highly treated effluent from our regional wastewater treatment plant,” Kmiec explained. “Our daily flow right now is about 1,500 gallons per minute.”

“We had more than 400 people at about 110 degrees down in this riverbed when we turned this outfall on,” he explained.

The recycled water runs 24/7 into where the Santa Cruz River used to run, attracting people above and wildlife below.

“Just about every desert creature you can think of, you see down here,” Kmiec said.

It’s the sounds of this ecosystem that show the success of the project. Keeping track of the biodiversity here is part of researcher Michael Bogan’s job.

“This is basically how we collect it from the river,” Michael Bogan, assistant professor of aquatic ecology at the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona, said.

“So we need to preserve them in ethanol and bring them back to the lab.”

Bogan said he noticed wildlife return right after the water was turned on.

“I immediately noticed dragonflies who had obviously flown in from some other water body somewhere in Tucson, golf course, pond, something like that. Flown in and not only had they found this brand new water that was only a few hours old, but they were already mating and laying eggs in the water. To me that was like seeing the birth of an ecosystem,” he said.

So his team, along with other groups, are keeping track of the species coming in.

“In most places because of either drought, climate change and drought that we’re in or because of human water withdrawals from dams or diversions, most places are drying up. So most of what we study is what happens when the water goes away. This is totally the opposite,” Bogan said.

“It’s a relatively small amount of water, yet it has a huge positive impact.”

Kmiec said the Santa Cruz River Heritage Project shows how to use water in a sustainable way to bring life back to the area for wildlife and for people.

“We see it as one of many. So we’re looking at other opportunities,” he said.

“We’ve done a lot of damage to the ecosystems so this is an example of trying to undo some of that damage,” Bogan said.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to reaffirm its authority to regulate toxic mercury from power plant smokestacks.

The EPA action restores the 2012 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rules imposed under former President Barack Obama.

The rules were nixed under the Trump administration in 2020 when they were deemed not “appropriate and necessary.”

The 2012 rule requires significant reductions in emissions of mercury, acid gases and other harmful pollutants, primarily by coal-fired power plants.

According to the agency, mercury emissions were down significantly five years after the rule took effect.

Mercury emissions went down 86% in 2017 compared to 2010.

Acid gas emissions were also reduced by 96% during that time.

Now that the standard will be implemented again, other hazardous pollutants apart from mercury will also be monitored.

The EPA said this will improve public health by reducing the risk of heart attacks, cancer and reducing delays in brain development in children.

Most coal-fired power plants have already made the technological upgrades required by the 2012 rule.

The agency will take public comment on the proposal for 60 days and will hold a virtual public hearing on the rules.

The Los Angeles City Council has approved a measure to ban new oil and gas wells and phase out existing ones.

The measure would shut down oil and gas fields in the city after a decade of complaints from residents about negative health impacts including nosebleeds, wheezing and coughing. Residents of the city blamed air pollution on the sites.

Activists say that Black and Latino residents of the city are the most affected by pollution from the sites.

The Los Angeles City Council voted on Wednesday for a plan that would phase out new wells over a period of five years. As CNBC reported, over half a million Los Angeles residents live within a quarter-mile of an active oil and gas well, which can release various pollutants including benzene and hydrogen sulfide.

Phaseouts like these are part of what is being seen as a statewide movement in California to move away from fossil fuel production to meet ambitious, but possible climate goals. There's also a strong public health motivation to the movement.

As the Associated Press reported, California's oil and gas regulator proposed in October to ban new oil and gas wells that lie within 3,200 feet of schools, homes, and hospitals.

Existing wells could potentially be subject to new pollution controls.

Upstate New York is digging out from another round of lake-effect snow as the east coast prepares for a potential nor'easter this week.

Meteorologists have been warning residents to prepare because the system is taking shape and it's zeroing in on the Atlantic coast. The storm is expected to form off the coast in the Atlantic Ocean but, the jet stream will determine if any major cities, from Philadelphia to New York, will see snow.

If the upstream flow current is inland, the heaviest snow will hit New York City. However, if it slides closer to the coast, then the big snowfall will hit Boston.

The storm is expected to begin Friday and last through Saturday night.

This story was originally published by Scott Withers of Newsy.

MOULTONBOROUGH, N.H. — Even with bare branches still anticipating winter snow, the landscape of New Hampshire’s lake region holds an estimable, eerie beauty.

Along with foliage, this time of year also sees an absence of one of New England's beloved waterfowl that is a haunting fixture along lakeshores.

This time of year, common loons leave their lake homes before they freeze to bob and fish in the warmer waters of the Atlantic Ocean. While they may be at their most elusive in the winter, there’s a group trying to prevent the beloved bird from disappearing altogether at the hands of an invisible enemy.

"These contaminants are ubiquitous and they're persistent and it makes one shudder to think what might all be out there that just hasn't been identified," said Tiffany Grade, a biologist at the Loon Preservation Committee.

Grade has been tracking a disturbing decline in the birds' population since the mid-2000s. Ever since, they’ve been testing no longer viable eggs in look nests on local lakes and what her team has discovered is a disastrous chemical cocktail lurking in the egg, including banned chemicals DDT and PCB.

"Here we are decades after the fact, and these are still showing up in these sediments. They're flushing into the lake and we're seeing them potentially impacting our loon population," said Grade.

DDT was a pesticide used heavily in the 1940s and 1950s in orchards. PCB was used in everything from electrical equipment to fluids for vehicles to sprays to keep the dust down in the summer on country roads. Both have been banned since the 1970s.

It’s not just the loon population in New Hampshire that these “legacy chemicals” have been found in, but in wildlife around the country and world – such as marine life up and down the east coast as well as waterfowl on the Great Lakes.

While the full extent of how these chemicals are impacting animals is still being studied, it’s been found that they can stunt growth, weaken eggshells, reduce reproduction and compromise immune function.

"This is not just the New Hampshire issue. This is a, this is a issue across the country," said Grade. "We just need more information to help us understand. You know where these areas of contaminants are both for the sake of protecting loons, other wildlife, but people as well."

The Loon Preservation Committee may be a small nonprofit, but they’re the one agency in the state who’s systematically testing species high up on the food chain measuring the impacts of these banned chemicals, which is an expensive endeavor. Grade hopes other organizations jump on board to figure out this issue not only for the sake of wildlife but for our sake, too.

"We need to make sure we understand. What the impacts potential impacts of these contaminants can be and that that's an open and transparent process," Grade said.

While this team works to figure out how to save these beautiful creatures, they also have a plea about watching what we release into our revered landscapes, because we may never be able to take it out.

"We know we can't plead ignorance anymore about what these chemicals can do, and we really need to be careful about it," said Grade.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that American households contribute an extra 1 million tons of waste a week to landfills between Thanksgiving and the New Year.

However, experts say that making just a few small changes over the holidays can reduce the impact on the environment.

Creating a more sustainable holiday season starts with reducing food waste, which ends up in landfills and contributes to the emission of greenhouse gasses like methane.

"There are apps now that you can get on your phone for meal planning, and folks can RSVP if they're coming (to a party) and (noting) what meal they're going to bring," said Nathan King, the sustainability manager at Virginia Tech.

King also recommends that homeowners start using composting units, some of which are small enough to fit under a kitchen sink.

He also encourages people not to use single-use plastics for holiday meals.

Gift wrap can also lead to an increase in waste over the holidays.

"A lot of the wrapping paper that you buy this time of year is not necessarily going to be recyclable in your typical recycling programs, just due to a lot of the dyes and inks," King said.

He suggests re-using packaging and shipping materials and using newspaper, fabric or reusable bags as gift wrapping.

King also suggests shopping locally to avoid buying items that travel long distances.

For electronic gifts, King also suggests purchasing re-chargeable batteries.

Gifting experiences like event tickets or memberships can also reduce holiday waste.

"Those are going to create lasting memories and bonds with your family and friends that will mean a lot for years to come," King said.

Homeowners can also swap out older Christmas lights with LED bulbs. LED bulbs are about 80% more energy-efficient, and putting them on a timer can also help save homeowners money.

Planning for holiday travel can also be more cost-effective and reduce emissions. King suggests carpooling to and from the airport or driving multiple family members to the same holiday party.

TOOLE COUNTY, Mont. – About 30 miles south of the Canadian border, Well Done Foundation chairman Curtis Shuck meets his crew at an old oil well.

Well Done Foundation is a nonprofit that was formed specifically for identifying and plugging abandoned oil and gas wells.

Abandoned oil and gas wells, also called ‘orphaned’ wells, have been relinquished by companies that once used them. Well Done Foundation adopts the wells through an agreement to plug them up.

“So the well that we were on today, the Anderson #5 was drilled in 1926, and produced viable oil for maybe seventy of those years,” Shuck said.

Shuck says wells will transfer from operator to operator until the last person standing is out of business because the well is no longer commercially viable. He was inspired to start the foundation after discovering so many orphaned wells in Toole County.

“Well, you see one and you start to see more," Shuck said. "And I was literally horrified and embarrassed as being in the oil and gas industry for nearly 30 years. I just I couldn't believe that in any universe that it would be OK to leave something like that behind for somebody else to deal with.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there are millions of orphaned wells across the U.S.

A percentage of those wells, like Anderson #5, are considered ‘super emitters’ because they’re releasing so much methane. Steven Hamburg is the chief scientist with Environmental Defense Fund.

“Methane is a potent, short lived greenhouse gas, which is responsible for more than one quarter of the warming we're experiencing today,” Hamburg said.

Hamburg says methane needs to be dealt with quickly because it could cause more warming than carbon dioxide in the next couple decades.

“Methane is going to drive the climate changes we see in my lifetime and my daughters to a large degree," Hamburg said. "And carbon dioxide will dominate the changes that we see over our grandchildren's grandchildren's lifetime.”

The sources of methane emissions include raising livestock, managing waste, and producing fossil fuels – like oil and gas. At the annual Climate Change Conference, more than a hundred countries signed a pledge to reduce methane emissions from human sources by 30%.

When it comes to plugging orphaned wells, Shuck says it hasn’t been a cheap endeavor. It’s been paid for through corporate sponsors, individual donors, fundraisers, and even out-of-pocket expenses.

“We can make a big impact one well at a time, every little bit counts,” Shuck said.

So far, since November of 2019, the Well Done Foundation has plugged 14 wells with cement – creating approximately 40 jobs along the way. And that number will continue to grow as Well Done scales up.  

“We're opening up an entire new frontier, if you would, in the measurement and monitoring space,” Shuck said.

Shuck says the oil and gas industry is in a state of transition, and simply needs to adapt. Well Done Foundation has big plans for 2022 expanding into more states like Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and California.

“Let's leave this place better than the way we found it," he said. "Let's do our part and really lean in and we can make a difference and we are making a difference one well at a time."

WASHINGTON — The transition to the future of how homes are heated and cooled is already happening.

Many businesses have already installed environmentally-friendly solar panels to generate the electricity they need.

While some businesses say the switch is obvious and easy, other businesses are more reluctant.

That includes some utility companies that are responsible for generating the electricity people use.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2.3% of America’s electricity is generated through solar panels.

Meanwhile, 60% of electricity in the U.S. comes from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas.

President Biden believes the more the country’s utility companies rely on fossil fuels, the harder it will be to stop the planet from getting warmer.

“When I think climate I think jobs," President Biden said at a recent event.

IDEAS

It’s why he supports efforts in the House of Representatives to create the Clean Electricity Performance Program.

The $150 billion program would reward utility companies that transition to clean energy, like solar, while penalizing those that do not.

However, as the New York Times first reported last week, that plan is likely getting removed from the pending spending legislation in Congress.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, whose vote is needed to pass anything, doesn’t like the idea of fining utility companies. Manchin, this week, expressed opposition to a carbon tax as well.

Manchin’s position is now in line with Republicans.

Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming says it would hurt jobs, especially out west.

“The house Democrats plan will effectively end any new oil natural gas oil development on federal lands," Barraso said at a recent congressional hearing.

WHAT IS STILL POSSIBLE

Just because some climate change policy proposals appear to be off the table, it doesn’t mean every climate change proposal is off the table.

Americans who buy an electric vehicle in the coming years could still receive a tax credit worth at least $4,500 if the legislation passes Congress.

President Biden still wants billions of dollars to create the climate conservation corps too, which would employ thousands of young men and women to build projects to help the environment.

Tax incentives that inspire more renewable energy production is also expected, as well as some executive action by President Biden which doesn't require congressional approval.

Many environmentalists, however, believe more is needed.

Professor Leah Stokes of the University of California, Santa Barbara says taking the Clean Electricity Performance Program out of the bill would drastically hurt ambitions to cut emissions.

“The clean electricity performance program delivered about a third of the pollution cuts in the package, it was a real critical policy, and the answer can't be oh, gee shucks we lost out on that,“ Professor Stokes said in a recent interview.

RICHMOND, Va. — Duron Chavis is trying to right an environmental wrong in his neighborhood that’s been generations in the making.

In Richmond’s Southside neighborhood, heat radiates from the asphalt and relief is hard to find. For the last five years, Chavis has been building community gardens as a way to rectify that, but he says the way his neighborhood is set up today, was no mistake.

"What we've decided to do and what the work that we enjoy doing is work. To remedy that neglect and that discrimination," Chavis said.

Starting in the 1930s, banks would "redline" nieghborhoods that it determined would be risky to give out loans to. This practice had a lot to do with race, as the main factor in determing which neighborhood would be redlined was whether or not the majority of its population was Black.

Southside is one of the neighborhoods that was redlined.

This isn’t just a Richmond problem, 200 American cities had neighborhoods that were redlined. Today, the majority of those redlined neighborhoods are primarily Black, Latino, and low-income.

According to research done at the nearby University of Richmond, formerly redlined neighborhoods are on average five degrees hotter and can be up to 20 degrees hotter than neighborhoods that weren’t.

Because of a lack of investments over decades, formerly redlined neighborhoods have less parks and trees and more asphalt and buildings - leaving folks who live there more susceptible to heat-related illness and impacts of climate change. This is called the Urban Heat Island effect.

"What does that say when the neighborhood that you lived in, all the people who look like you and there's all this, like, all this abandoned property, all of this just willful, benign neglect," said Chavis. "But then you go across the bridge onto another side of town and you see just all of the things and but none of those folks look like you. I think that that does something to the consciousness of a people."

A few streets over from Broad Rock, hidden behind kudzu and chain link, is a dirt path that will one day soon lead to a brand new green space.

"It's part of a realization of how past actions have led to current realities," said Ryan Rinn, the business services manager from Richmond's Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities.

When the city of Richmond saw the data on the heat and green space disparity, they put together a team and made it their mission to make sure everyone is within a 10-minute walk of a park.

"What I think more green space coming into the Southside will show is that we value the people that live here and we want people to enjoy the space right outside their front door," said Javonne Bowles, a community advocate with Virgina Community Voice.

Bowles is a part of the on-the-park initiative, making sure the Southside has a voice in its creation. She says while there’s excitement around the project, the skepticism of some neighbors can’t be ignored.

"There has been a lot of broken promises, particularly in the Eighth and the Ninth District of South Richmond," she said.

"However, a lot of people are also grateful for the opportunity for people to see, again, that there is something beautiful already right here in Southside of Richmond that we can take advantage of," Bowles continued.

Addressing systemic wrongs that were put in motion generations ago takes time, but it also takes care and while neighbors like Chavis put in the work, he also hopes the care he and others put into these spaces catches on.

"Spaces like this create the common ground for folks to love up on each other, you know, build relationships with each other, and do something for each other that I don't feel like any other space of social justice allows us to do," he said.

LONG ISLAND, N.Y. — There’s a lot of solutions out there that people like to talk about when it comes to climate change, but one that’s gaining a lot of traction is kelp.

The seaweed is more than just a slimy sushi wrap. It could be key to fighting climate change. Just ask Michael Doall, the Associate Director for Restoration & Aquaculture at Stony Brook University.

“Not only is the kelp soaking up nitrogen, it’s soaking up carbon. It’s doing photosynthesis just like plants on land, soaking up this carbon. So, it’s sequestering this carbon, taking it out of the water and then again, when we harvest the kelp, we’re removing that. We’re approaching one of our farm sites and it’s part of this study over the last three years. We’re helping farmers learn how to grow kelp and integrate kelp in their oyster farms,” said Doall.

Doall and his crew took us to see one of their kelp farms off the coast of Long Island. We joined them with some waders to get a closer look.

“Reach in, grab that line and just lift it up. We seeded this at the end of December,” Doall explained.

And we got to taste it too.

Back on shore, Doall's partner, Chris Gobler, the Endowed Chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation at Stony Brook, explained why kelp is such an important asset in the fight against climate change.

“Most of the research I’ve done is on environmental pollution, things like climate change, ocean acidification, harmful algeal blooms, overloading of nutrients. And as it turns out, seaweeds, and in particular kelp, is sort of the remedy for all of these environmental insults,” Gobler explains.

Like Doall said earlier, one of the main things the seaweed does is absorb nitrogen and carbon in the water. CO2 in the ocean can make the water more acidic, which can cause damage in a number of ways, but it’s incredibly detrimental to shellfish.

That's why oysters may go better with kelp than cocktail sauce.

“Ocean acidification is the biggest threat to animals that make shells. You can create what we’d call a halo effect. So, you’d have a particular area where maybe the whole estuary is getting acidified, but in that area where you’re farming the oysters, where you have the kelp, you’re actually creating sort of a refuge,” said Gobler.

We wanted to get an even closer look at the kelp, so we dove in.

It’s an amazing plant that can grow incredibly fast. Doall expects the long string blades to be up to 12 feet long in a few months. They thrive in the icy waters.

Kelp isn’t the only solution to fight climate change, but Doall and Gobler hope it can be another tool for humans to use in this fight to save the planet.

Almost 100 people in Oregon have now died as a result of a recent heatwave that brought historic temperatures to the Pacific Northwest last week.

Oregon's governor, Kate Brown, said communities of color and low-income families were disproportionately impacted.

She is calling for more federal resources to combat the issue. 

Brown said the heatwave showed a need to prepare even more for climate change.

Heat-related deaths have also been reported in Washington state and Canada.

At the same time, emergency responders in British Columbia are battling more than 180 wildfires, most of which were likely caused by lightning strikes.

This story originally reported by Robin Dich and Alex Livingston on Newsy.com.

Bethany Wilcox has always wanted to have kids.

“Seeing my parents and how much satisfaction and fulfillment they seemed to have from raising my sister and me, I always wanted that," Wilcox said. "I always thought that was an amazing thing.”

It was something she pictured herself doing once she settled down with a partner. She’s in that stage of life right now, but the thought of having kids scares her. She says she's afraid climate change would take away her children’s ability to live their best life.

“I am not confident that that happy future can exist for anyone anymore.”

Wilcox is not alone in her feelings. Dr. Sabrina Helm, an associate professor at the University of Arizona, has studied the role climate change plays in reproductive decision-making.

“I am generally very interested in the mental health impacts that climate change has on people in general, particularly in the United States,” Dr. Helm said.

Dr. Helm says overconsumption, overpopulation, and an uncertain future were the three major concerns that emerged in her research.

“What is the earth going to look like? Dr. Helm said. "What is the environment going to look like? And if we expose children to this new world which we all assume may not be as pretty as the world we see today, what does that mean? And it is fair to bring children into a world that might be bleaker.”

Dr. Helm says these thoughts are taking a toll on the mental health of adults in the child-rearing stage of life. Wilcox says she’s often hesitant to share her feelings on the topic because people can be very judgmental.

“The anonymity of the internet makes people terrible sometimes,” Wilcox said.

There’s also societal pressure to have kids.

“In history, the vast majority of history, the main thing that women contributed to society was their ability to have children,” Wilcox said.

Dr. Helm says many of the people she interviewed in her research said they didn’t feel validated in their fears and concerns.

“The answer is always ‘you’ll change your mind’ or ‘you’re going to regret that later’ or ‘who’s going to take care of you when you’re older,’” Wilcox said.

Wilcox says it makes it that much more difficult every time she thinks about having kids.

“It’s definitely a sad thought to think that I wouldn’t be able to have kids,” Wilcox said.

However, the idea of having kids is still on the table.

“Even if we do decide that we don’t want to have a kid on our own, we’ve talked a lot about adopting because even if I am questioning about whether or not I want to bring a child into the world, I have no qualms about loving one that’s already here,” Wilcox said.

Dr. Helm says many people with these concerns do have hope that their children could be the change-makers. She also says there are ways to cope if you are feeling this way.

“Just talking with others about what’s going on in the environment and trying to find ways to help be it on a political level, a community level, a grassroots level, all those are ways to make a difference proactively and that usually helps with our mental state.”