Featured
Photo Credit David Maurice Smith for Mother Jones
Isis Isn’t Dead Yet
Mother Jones
September/October 2018
The story of a transnational, madcap plot to blow up Times Square leads back to the Philippines — and America’s oldest sins.
Photo Credit Peter Van Agtmael for the New York Times Magazine
The Seventh Generation
The New York Times Magazine
January 31, 2017
How a group of Lakota teenagers kicked off the biggest environmental moment in a decade.
Selected work
2021
What the complex math of fire modeling tells us about the future of California’s forests
MIT Technology Review
January 2021
California’s fires are getting bigger and harder to predict. What if the only way to tame them is to remake the landscpae itself?
2020
In tiny Estonia, a fraught debate: what are forests for?
National Geographic, Pulitzer Center
October 19, 2020
When Arvi Sepp was a boy in Soviet-ruled central Estonia, his parents would walk into the forest, carrying gifts.
Could covid actually strengthen the US food system?
National Geographic
July 17, 2020
New port brings tourism hope and pollution fears to Alaskan town
Reuters, Pulitzer Center
July 30, 2020
Burning down the house? Giant Gulf Coast wood pellet plants gear up to feed East Asian power plants
Mongabay
July 29, 2020
Photo credit Joshua Cogan for National Geographic
They all had tried to quit the woods, and all of them had failed.
To profit from ancient Alaskan forests, leave them standing
National Geographic, Pulitzer Center
February 7, 2020
To lock down carbon, build the skyscrapers of the future out of wood
National Geographic, Pulitzer Center
January 13, 2020
Slow Burn
Raleigh News & Observer, Pulitzer Center
January 3, 2020
Europe burns tons of North Carolina trees as fuel. What does this mean for climate change?
2019
How to live with megafires
National Geographic
December 6, 2019
The Mediterranean is the harbinger for the new age of wildfire. It also suggests a path through it. (Funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.)
What’s wrong with planting trees?
National Geographic, Pulitzer Center
April 26, 2019
European renewable energy means burning American trees
Vox, Pulitzer Center
March 4, 2019
Of concrete and corruption: how local resistance killed Amazonian mega-dams
Mongabay
January 24, 2019
2018
“We barreled at top speed through a city that looked like the ruins of Aleppo, or Stalingrad.”
The Terror Connection
Mother Jones Magazine, Pulitzer Center
September 2018
The story of a madcap transnational plot to blow up Times Square leads back to the Philippines — and America’s oldest sins.
The Solar Warriors of Pine Ridge Reservation
Mongabay
February 19, 2018
Fantasy Island
Foreign Policy, Pulitzer Center
January 16, 2018
2017
A Final Fight for the Keystone Pipeline
Rolling Stone
October 11, 2017
Land of Fire
Vice Magazine
April 3, 2017
A ragtag group of park ranchers goes head-to-head with ranchers, corrupt officials, and narco-traffickers to save North America’s largest tropical rain forest.
These Are the Defiant Water Protectors of Standing Rock
National Geographic Magazine
January 26, 2017
The Youth Group that Launched a Movement at Standing Rock
The New York Times Magazine
January 31, 2017
2016
“He pretended he was going to quit. She pretended to believe him.”
Cambodia's Journalists are Dying to Save the Forest
Vice Magazine
September 1, 2016
From Cocaine Cowboys to Narco-Ranchers
Foreign Policy
July 8, 2016
As the drug trade took over Central America, drug barons found an exotic new option for laundering their cash: cows.
"The Field of Battle is the Courts of Justice"
Foreign Policy
April 5, 2016
Guatemala’s far-right is not backing down.
"When the audience filled the courtroom, they found 38 boxes full of bones."
Guatemalan Soldiers Stand Trial for Sexual Slavery
Al Jazeera America
February 25, 2016
Bringing Up the Bodies
Al Jazeera America
February 23, 2016
2015
Dead Air
The California Sunday Magazine
November 18, 2015
Why Ayahuasca is Having a Moment
Men's Journal
October 27, 2015
"You face jaguar woman, and as you suckle at her breast, she throws you off into a pit of vipers."
Demystifying Ayahuasca: an Expert Guide Through the Ritual
Men's Journal
October 15, 2015
If a Tree Falls in a National Park
Foreign Policy
October 6, 2016
Invading the Amazon
Al Jazeera America
September 23, 2015
"He was mining gold from the river bottom when the raiders came."
In Peru's Amazon, Gold Miners Under Fire
Al Jazeera America
September 21, 2015
Poor enticed by gold and better life, leave behind environmental ruin
Mongabay
August 7, 2015
Letter from Peru: Environmental Protection through Violence
Mongabay
July 27, 1987
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. “A fucking Baptist?”
A Friend in Need
The Texas Observer
January 21, 2015
2014
Machine Gun Artist
Men's Journal
September 17, 201
"It may serve as a metaphor for the project as a whole that for 18 months they left a family inundated in its own shit."
Crossing the Line (cover)
The Texas Observer
September 17, 2014
Greg Abbott Strikes Back
The Texas Observer
August 1, 2014
Guatemalans Aren't Just Fleeing Gangs
The New Republic
July 13, 2014
This Land is Our Land
The New York Times Magazine
May 16, 2014
Licensed to Kill
The Texas Observer
May 1, 2014
Get in the Zone: Corporate America's False Confession Problem
The New York Times (Sunday Business)
March 8, 2014
2013
"As the president lays dying something new is being born."
Attack of the Lizard People: Navigating America's Conspiracy Theory Underworld
The Texas Observer (cover article)
November 18, 2013
"Confessions"
This American Life
October 11, 2013
Anatomy of a Tragedy
The Texas Observer
August 28, 2013
"We left you a present, the voice on the other end said. Will you pay now?"
The Most Dangerous Job in the World
The New Republic
June 3, 2013
Iron Hands Behind the Pine Curtain
The Texas Observer
January 10, 2013
2012
Pipeline Protest Draws Pepper-Spray from Authorities
The New York Times
November 23, 2012
"Jason Dix had only been waiting a few minutes when the drug deal went bad."
Paging Mr. Big
The Tyee
November 9, 2012
Fehrenbach's Texas
The Texas Observer
October 12, 2012
"More than 70 percent of Houston's residents are minorities. So why is it represented almost entirely by white Republicans?"
No Shows: Why Texans Don't Vote
The Texas Observer (cover article)
September 27, 2012
Texas Judge Rules Pipeline Company Can Seize Land
The New York Times
August 23, 2012
Pipeline Companies Seize Land in Texas at Will
The Texas Observer
August 22, 2012
How Canada Provoked a Rural Texas Rebellion
The Tyee
August 21, 2012
Letter from Alief: Saving the Mint
The Texas Observer
July 5, 2012
"'It doesn't matter if you're going to get your teeth kicked in. You go out there and fight.'"
"Old Texas Tale Retold"
The New York Times
May 7, 2012
The Long Road Home
The Texas Observer
March 30, 2012
"Thirty years ago, in a now-vanished Austin neighborhood in Austin, a simple act of kindness changed Gene Galbraith’s life forever."
Keeping Time in Lockhart
The Texas Observer
February 2, 2012
Caldwell Czechs In
The Texas Observer
January 9, 2012
2011
"If you ever want to clear a room in Haskell, Texas, here's how."
The Boy from Haskell
The Texas Observer
September 21, 2011
Cuero Bets on Fracking
The Texas Observer
September 8, 2011
"Before everything happened, Anne Mitchell said, Kermit, Texas had a good little hospital."
Old Boys Network
This American Life
June 3, 2011
Get Your Norteno Out of My Conjunto
The Texas Observer
March 20, 2011
Intent to Harm
The New York Times
March 17, 2011
2010
The Extra-Lite Gov
The Texas Observer
October 28, 2010
This State Runs on Clean Natural Gas
The Texas Observer
May 9, 2010
"'Before her conversion, she was shooting through the corporate ranks of Planned Parenthood.'"
Conversion Story
The Texas Observer
January 28, 2010