The background: The disappearance of Arctic sea ice has been accelerating since the late 1990s, outpacing rates predicted by climate models and seizing media attention (see “How nuclear weapons research revealed new climate threats”). But it’s been an altogether different story at …Continue reading
How a town destroyed by fire is trying to make itself fireproof
The Camp Fire that ripped through the Sierra Nevada foothills last fall was the most destructive in California’s history, consuming nearly 19,000 structures and killing 85 people. Around 90% of the homes in Paradise, California, were destroyed. Only an estimated 3,000 people …Continue reading
Soaring temperatures will raise the risk of armed conflict
A new analysis in Nature finds that climate change has likely played a relatively small role in driving armed conflict so far. But if temperatures reach more than 2 °C above preindustrial levels, it may substantially increase violence around the globe. The …Continue reading
This engineered wood could help keep buildings cool by reflecting heat
It could help cut carbon emissions by reducing the need to use air conditioning. How it was created: A team from the University of Maryland stripped out lignin from wood. Lignin acts like a sort of glue holding molecules of wood’s other …Continue reading
These flexible solar cells bring us closer to kicking the fossil-fuel habit
Last December, researchers in a lab in Oxford, England, shined a sun lamp onto a tiny solar cell, only about one centimeter square. The device was actually two cells, stacked one atop the other. The bottom one was made of the type …Continue reading
The economic argument behind the Green New Deal
The Green New Deal proposed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives has dramatically changed the US debate on climate change. It calls for decisive and deliberate public investments to tackle climate change and other social challenges, particularly inequality. This kind of …Continue reading
Cleaning up the air we breathe might actually be making droughts worse
Climate change is clearly making some regions wetter and others drier. But it’s been difficult for scientists to detect a clear, consistent human role in increasing the frequency and severity of global droughts given natural climate variability, regional differences, and limited data. …Continue reading
Startups looking to suck CO2 from the air are suddenly luring big bucks
A small band of scientists have been trying to pluck carbon dioxide out of the air for years, despite the deep skepticism of their peers. But the space has suddenly gotten pretty popular. This week a startup based in Dublin, Ireland, acquired …Continue reading
The race to make a lab-grown steak
In 2013, the world’s first burger from a lab was cooked in butter and eaten at a glitzy press conference. The burger cost £215,000 ($330,000 at the time) to make, and despite all the media razzmatazz, the tasters were polite but not …Continue reading
The new, safer nuclear reactors that might help stop climate change
BP might not be the first source you go to for environmental news, but its annual energy review is highly regarded by climate watchers. And its 2018 message was stark: despite the angst over global warming, coal was responsible for 38% of …Continue reading