In “Why are we paying for crop failures in the desert?,” Stephen Robert Miller explains to readers that, although extreme heat is not going anywhere, year after year, Southwest farmers keep planting thirsty crops on parched land. Why? Because the American taxpayer keeps footing the bill for their losses.

The story was syndicated to Yahoo News, which sees around 250 million pageviews a month.

On social media, the story was engaged with by Riverdance Farms (certified organic farm, 4.8K followers, Facebook), Kurt Haumesser (Executive Director at Fitzgerald Foundation, Facebook), EWG (64.5K followers, Twitter), Sarah Grady (communications at EWG, 650 followers, Twitter), Anne Schechinger (Midwest Director of EWG, 800 followers, Twitter), David Wallace-Wells (writer, NYT Opinion, 99K followers, Twitter), Jamie Jiang (wildlife reporter at North State Public Radio, 1.1K followers, Twitter), Kari Hamerschlag (Friends of the Earth, 4K followers, Twitter), Bear Trust International (7K followers, Twitter), Code for PDX (focuses on using tech to improve lives of people in Portland, 2.8K followers, Twitter), Watchdog Progressive (news aggregation, 10.9K followers, Twitter), Save the Colorado (nonprofit focused on protecting and restoring the Colorado River, 2.8K followers, Twitter), Sun E Farms (Texas farm, 704 followers, Instagram), Virginia Gewin (journalist, 222 followers, Instagram), Mission Climate Sustainability (focused on raising awareness on enviro issues, 1.5K followers, Instagram), David Lehnherr Photography (photojournalism, 113 followers, Instagram), Sarah Bee Girl (beegirl.org, 35.5K followers, Instagram), Hal Herring (host for BHA podcast and Blast, contributing editor for Field & Stream, 2.5K followers, Instagram), Josh Jackson (writer and conservationist, 21.8K followers, Instagram), Auburn Meadow Farm (Pa. free-range farm, 1.4K followers, Instagram), Boulder County Climate (Office of Sustainability, Climate Action & Resilience (OSCAR), 1.5K followers, Instagram), Climate Action Coalition (enviro conservation org, 700 followers, Instagram), Shannon Rese (water reporter for the California Sun, 425 followers, Instagram), and Mark M. Lorenz (photojournalism, 2K followers, Instagram).

Our media partner for this story, The New Republic, sees 6.4 million pageviews each month. In addition, the publication reaches nearly 354K users on social media.