Not that long ago, Brian Neilson, program manager at Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources-Division of Aquatic Resources, had only two ways of mapping coral reefs: send out divers or gather satellite images. Neither was perfect. Divers could produce detailed maps, showing which corals were healthy and which were ailing, but they could only coverREAD MORE
Hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, Royal Dutch Shell saw its profits drop 71 percent between 2019 and 2020. Its recovery will likely be stymied by the rise of electric cars and renewable energy, which will lead to falling demand for oil and, in the United States, natural gas. There is one bright spot for theREAD MORE
Some years ago, David Howell got a call from a landowner in Central Texas who had 300 feet of an old oil pipeline buried under his property. It was clearly no longer in use. The area around the pipeline was overgrown and the signage had faded or fallen away. The landowner wanted to build there now,READ MORE
Miami, Oklahoma is caught in a vice, being squeezed from both sides. To the north, dust from abandoned lead mines is seeping into the ground and into waterways. To the south, homeowners on Grand Lake o' the Cherokees are pushing to raise the lake level. But doing so would worsen the already devastating floods upstream, inREAD MORE
The Trump administration is making a last-minute push to sell oil rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Firms can now select which swaths of pristine Alaskan wilderness they would like to drill, and they could bid on leases before President Trump leaves office in January. ANWR is the largest wildlife refuge in the country,READ MORE
When Hurricane Laura slammed into Lake Charles, Louisiana at the end of August, it downed power lines, felled trees and stripped roofs off houses in its path. After the storm passed and the skies cleared, it was time to rebuild. But in 2020, that would be no easy task. This year has seen so many namedREAD MORE
Record heat across California last weekend spurred Golden Staters to blast their air conditioners. The strain on the power grid was so great that California’s grid operator started rationing electricity. For the first time since the 2001 electricity crisis, it imposed rolling blackouts, shutting down power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses up and down theREAD MORE
Pipelines exploded with the force of bombs, setting homes ablaze in Merrimack Valley, Massachusetts, on the evening of September 13, 2018. Columbia Gas, the local gas utility, had allowed too much pressure to build up in its aging cast-iron pipes until finally, they erupted in a series of blasts that injured more than 20 people and killedREAD MORE
This year, levels of methane, a powerful heat-trapping gas, hit an all-time high, driven in large part by pollution leaking from gas pipelines and drilling sites. Plugging these leaks is cheap, has enormous upsides for the climate, and is widely supported by major players in the industry, which is why it’s striking that the EPA has decided to weaken anREAD MORE
The Karuk people define themselves by the Klamath River, just as the Romans did the Tiber or the Egyptians did the Nile. The word “Karuk” means “upstream,” a reference to the waterway, which runs from Klamath Lake in southern Oregon, across the mountains of northern California — where the Karuk live — before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. EveryREAD MORE
The United States is facing two massive threats — climate change and the coronavirus — that we cannot solve without science. One is playing out slowly, over decades, growing inexorably worse as we continue to burn fossil fuels. The other is advancing rapidly, exacting a grim toll in human lives, as we fail to contain theREAD MORE
Experts disagree about how fast the United States can replace coal and gas-fired power plants with zero-carbon electricity. Some say we can shift to 100 percent clean power by 2050 with little friction and minimal cost. Others say that’s unrealistically optimistic. Scientists on both sides of the argument agree that it’s possible to get to 80READ MORE
Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan is cutting a 400-mile line across the middle of Texas, digging up vast swaths of private land for its planned Permian Highway Pipeline. The project is ceaseless, continuing through the coronavirus pandemic. Landowner Heath Frantzen said that dozens of workers have showed up to his ranch in Fredericksburg, even as public healthREAD MORE
You may have heard about the hole in the ozone layer, which hovers over Antarctica. It has shrunk over time thanks to policies that curbed the use of ozone-depleting chemicals. In the nearly 40 years that NASA has kept track, it has never been smaller. That’s the good news. The bad news is that a separateREAD MORE
While there is some preliminary evidence that sunlight, heat and humidity could slow the spread of the coronavirus, the summer months also promise a host of new risks, The Washington Post reports. Soaring temperatures will either compel people wanting relief to go outside, where they could catch the coronavirus, or the coronavirus will force people toREAD MORE
If you are a climate scientist, you are likely to hear the same question, again and again, from inquiring minds at weddings, bar mitzvahs, birthday parties and cocktail hours — are we screwed? It’s a fair query. Experts have put forward a litany of bleak scientific reports outlining what climate change means for the future of life onREAD MORE
Rumors take hold after every crisis, whether it’s a global pandemic or a climate-driven disaster. Social media makes it easy. Anyone can post any story, true or not, and count on others to share it, particularly if it inspires anxiety, fear or anger. While rumors can fuel stress, however, they are not meant to hurt otherREAD MORE
For decades, the Inuit woman, a victim of the 1918 Spanish flu, lay buried in a mass grave under six feet of Alaskan permafrost. But when the frozen ground began to thaw in the 1990s, the Inuit town of Brevig Mission gave scientists permission to dig her up. Her ample body fat kept her lungs insulatedREAD MORE
Architect Ruurd Gietema lives in The Netherlands, a country perennially trying to hold back the sea. He said his homeland has paid a price for the high dikes and tall dunes it built to thwart rising waters and prevent flooding. “Protection was a high priority, but landscapes were erased,” Gietema said. This fact is not lostREAD MORE
The last year or so has seen a spate of landmark climate change reports that lay out an apocalyptic vision of the future, a vision that is already starting to take shape as rising temperatures fuel hellish wildfires in Australia, punishing floods in the Midwest, and ferocious hurricanes along the Gulf Coast. But it’s not justREAD MORE
Forests are critical to slowing climate change because they soak up huge amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide. Birds help keep forests healthy by eating insects that spread tree-killing diseases. Birds also scatter seeds that give rise to new trees. If birds leave, the forests could be in trouble. “Without birds, forests would be more vulnerable toREAD MORE
A healthy coral reef sounds like a bowl of Rice Krispies in milk. Snap. Crackle. Pop. “Thousands of invertebrates make this constant crackling, sizzling, static-like sound as … shrimp snap their claws and sea urchins scrape over rocks,” said scientist Tim Gordon. “Punctuated throughout that, you can hear the grunts, whoops, and chatter of many different fishes.”READ MORE
The flu has a paradoxical relationship with the weather. In the United States, the flu thrives in the winter, when the air is cold and crisp, and then ebbs in the spring, when the disease is stymied by hotter temperatures. However, in tropical countries, where it is usually warm, humid and rainy, people get sick withREAD MORE
When retired Canadian meteorologist Michael Purves transcribes the handwritten notes from an ancient ship’s log, he finds himself transported back in time a century, imagining he is on board an old cutter, a fast-moving patrol boat, as it sails through the Bering Sea. In August 1919, for example, the cutter Bear, one of the forerunners ofREAD MORE
The colorful parrotfish is special. Over its lifetime, it can change its hue — making it a sought-after vision for scuba divers — and even its gender. It poops fine white sand that washes up on land, creating beaches. A popular delicacy, with a sweet shellfish flavor, it is eaten in many parts of the world and served raw inREAD MORE
Mother Nature has it figured out. She’s designed a master scheme that connects plants and animals, all working in concert to keep every living thing in balance. Imagine a stack of dominoes — knock down one of them, and the rest will tumble. The same can happen in nature. This is especially evident in places like central AfricaREAD MORE
Powerful winds can topple trees and tear up shrubs in the forest. And this can create an opening for invaders, plants that don’t belong there. To learn more about this post-storm phenomenon, scientists decided to take a look — up close and personal. But this can be grueling, as Eric Larson and Melissa Daniels discovered. For Daniels, whoREAD MORE
Botanist Lynn Sweet regularly treks through California’s Joshua Tree National Park, nearly 800,000 acres that lie at the intersection of the Mojave and Colorado deserts. She likes to photograph the gnarly, spikey-limbed trees, which look — as some have observed — like a picture from a Dr. Seuss children’s book. Much as many of the park’s million or more yearlyREAD MORE
Nearly a century ago, German engineer Anton Flettner launched a ship into the ocean. “Without sails or steam, like a ghost ship, it moved mysteriously through the water with no apparent means of propulsion,” according to a 1925 article that appeared in Popular Science Monthly. The ship cruised in silence, without spewing anything into the air.READ MORE
Kyle Rosenblad was hiking a steep mountain on the island of Maui in the summer of 2015 when he noticed a ruggedly beautiful tree species scattered around the landscape. Curious, and wondering what they were, he took some photographs and showed them to a friend. They were Bermuda cedars, a species native to the island ofREAD MORE
Raw fish. Source: Pixabay Firat Güder admits it, albeit a bit chagrined. He often leaves unopened yogurt in his office at room temperature for several weeks before he eats it. He likes to prevent food waste. So far, he’s escaped any ill effects. “They’re still good to eat,” he said. “I have not gotten sick fromREAD MORE
Wine growers have a neat, if unusual, trick for making more flavorful wine — don’t water the vines. Let the vines go dry right before harvest, and they will yield smaller grapes with more skin and less juice. Smaller grapes produce wine with a deeper color and more complex flavor. What if artificial intelligence could discover other tricksREAD MORE
Climate warriors like to imagine a future where electric cars put oil companies out of business. Firms would stop injecting known carcinogens into the ground to break up the layer of hard, shale rock hiding stores of fuel, and they would no longer plumb the ocean depths for oil, letting sticky black goo leak into theREAD MORE
Sometimes, it’s easy to get lost in the soil. It’s a relationship that people passionate about farming have with the earth, especially this time of year. It infuses their lives, leaving everything else as just background. “It immerses us into natural cycles that inextricably link us all,” said Logan Davis, who has a small farm inREAD MORE
Edible insects are a great source of protein. But it’s probably folly to think that more than a few people want to swap crickets for steak on the dinner plate. Chomping on a sautéed cricket or savoring a spoonful of caterpillar stew just wouldn’t be the same. Natalie Rubio, a doctoral student and researcher at TuftsREAD MORE
The summer of 2018 in Europe, North America and Asia was blistering. People died from the scorching heat. Roads and train tracks cracked. Power fizzled. Wildfires erupted. In Switzerland, climate researcher Martha Vogel found relief by swimming in Lake Zurich. But trying to work in her south-facing office without air conditioning became a real challenge. SheREAD MORE
When the conversation turns to clean, renewable energy, the talk almost always is about sun and wind. No one ever brings up another natural power source, as yet untapped — snow. Incredible as it may sound, falling snow carries an electrical charge. Scientists have known this for decades, but until recently they couldn’t figure out how to turnREAD MORE
For nearly two centuries, scientists have pondered “Darwin’s Paradox,” the enduring mystery of why coral reefs thrive in tropical waters, which are woefully short on nutrients. Reefs are teeming oases in aquatic wastelands, and researchers have puzzled endlessly over how they flourish. One answer may come from the thousands of species of tiny colorful fish, rarelyREAD MORE
It’s impossible to imagine modern life without plastics. From the moment the day begins, we are using plastic. It’s in our toothbrushes, our shower curtains and our phones. We use it on on the way to work in bus seats, car dashboards and bicycle helmets. We see it at lunch in takeout containers and disposable utensils.READ MORE
Catherine Puckett needs to be close to the ocean. That's because she is an ocean farmer. “I just can’t be away from it,” she said. “It means everything to me.” She has to see it and smell it and hear the bells that ring from buoys offshore when a heavy sea rolls in from the east.READ MORE
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