No. 90, July 25, 2019

Hello Revelator readers,

We've got a heck of a story for you this morning: Los Angeles is preparing for some big changes that will ultimately ensure its resilience in the face of climate change. But before it can do that, the city must contend with a hidden source of decades-old groundwater pollution dating back to WWII. Can the sustainable city of the future deal with the ghosts of its past?

An African monkey called the Miss Waldron's red colobus hasn't been officially observed in decades, and the IUCN now considers it "possibly extinct." But conservationists haven't given up looking. Find out why.

Speaking of extinction, photographer Marc Schlossman has spent the past 10 years exploring the collection of endangered and extinct species at Chicago's Field Museum. And now his showcase of these species and their stories is on public display. Check out some of the pictures and read about his Extinction photo project.

Finally this week: Who eats lemurs — and why? The answers are more complex than you might think, and emerging solutions could help both people and the endangered primates.

Subscriber bonus: The Wild 5

Let's go a little deeper. Here are five additional stories we're watching this week.

1. A new study finds that six East Coast cities are emitting two times the amount of methane as the EPA estimates.

2. As public outrage over plastic pollution reaches a tipping point, the plastic industry is working hard to cover its tracks and manage its image — anything but actually limit plastic production.

3. House Democrats have begun laying the groundwork for legislation to get the United States to net-zero emissions by 2050, but the plan has been criticized for not going far or fast enough.

4. The Trump administration has removed 25 percent of references to climate change from federal websites, according to a watchdog group.

5. Should the endangered South American jaguar have legal rights? That's the question currently being addressed by Argentina's top court.

In case you missed it:

Have you heard about the extinction deniers? They're just like professional climate-change deniers, but they're out to obfuscate the facts behind the biodiversity crisis and make things easier for industry to keep wrecking the planet.

What should we cover next?

Drop us a line anytime. We welcome your ideas and inside scoops.

Coming up:

We're hard at work on a wide range of new stories and essays for you, including a look at a rare New Zealand lizard and an unexpected take on the future of rural life.

Look for our links in next week's newsletter — or follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the headlines as they go live. We share other interesting news there, too!

As always, thank you for reading.