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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Four states are strengthening rules that require home sellers and landlords to disclose information about whether a home has flooded in the past, or is likely to flood in the future. -
The Atlantic hurricane season begins Wednesday. This year, the National Hurricane Center is making a big upgrade to its forecasts, especially when it comes to storm surge.
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Temperature records are falling left and right. Wildfires, hurricanes, heat waves and droughts are exacerbated by human-caused climate change.
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This was the hottest July ever recorded on Earth, according to federal climate scientists. It's a stark reminder that humans are rapidly warming up the planet by burning fossil fuels.
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It's the middle of the winter in Antarctica, when the ocean around the continent freezes. But this year there's less sea ice than ever recorded.
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Home insurance is becoming more expensive and increasingly difficult to get in states that are on the front lines of climate change. And some of the potential solutions aren't politically popular.
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It's increasingly expensive and difficult to get home insurance, as losses rise from climate-driven disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes. And the solutions aren't always politically popular.
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NOAA has announced its forecast for El Niño, as well as expectations for drought, heat and precipitation in the coming months. (This piece originally aired on ATC on July 20, 2023.)
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El Niño is warming up the water in the Pacific Ocean. That extra heat affects the whole planet, and has helped drive record-breaking hot weather.
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Flood experts all use the same language to convey risk: 10-year floods, 100-year floods, 500-year floods. But those intervals are often misunderstood, and climate change is making them less accurate.
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Scientists recommend the start of a geological epoch defined by how humans have impacted Earth — soot, plastics and radioactive fallout have made it into the rocks, ice and mud that form our planet.
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Some of the hottest global weather in recorded history is happening this week. It's likely that record temperatures will continue to occur this year.
