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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Climate change means more rain and higher seas, which adds up to more flooded homes. Even a small amount of water indoors can cost a lot. -
The floods in Missouri and Kentucky this week were both caused by extreme rainfall. Climate change is making such rain more common, and driving dangerous floods across much of the U.S.
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Extreme heat is gripping countries around the world. Host Ailsa Chang talks with NPR reporters in China, the U.K. and the U.S. about what they're seeing and how governments are responding.
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For decades, it was impossible to say that a specific weather event was caused, or even made worse, by climate change. But advanced research methods are changing that.
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For decades, it was impossible to say that a specific weather event was caused, or even made worse, by climate change. But advanced research methods are changing that.
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Most Americans have recently been affected by extreme weather and support efforts to protect against future disasters, a new survey finds. And many people suffer long-term financial problems.
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A majority of people in the U.S. have experienced extreme weather in the last five years, according to a new survey conducted by NPR, Harvard University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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Federal forecasters predict 14 to 21 named storms will form in the Atlantic this hurricane season, which begins June 1. (This story first on on All Things Considered on May 24, 2022)
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Federal forecasters expect more hurricanes than usual this year. Climate change is driving larger, more destructive storms. This is the seventh year in a row with an above-average forecast.
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Burning oil, coal and other fossil fuels releases plumes of tiny, dangerous particles. A new study estimates that eliminating that pollution would save about 50,000 lives in the U.S. each year.
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The U.S. promised to slash its emissions and send tens of billions of dollars to low-lying and less well-off nations. The war in Ukraine is delaying that even as the toll from climate change rises.
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Some ecosystems have already been irreversibly altered, scientists say. And climate change is wreaking havoc on human health.
