Stories featured in
The Innovative Design of One of the World’s Largest Net-Zero Buildings
It is hard to build a net-zero building — one that produces more energy than it consumes — in the middle of a city. For one thing, nearby skyscrapers might block sunlight from reaching rooftop solar panels. For another, urban office buildings are cramped for space, and it generally isn’t possible to set up wind turbines on site. But MartineREAD MORE
At UN Climate Conference U.S. Growers Defend Large-Scale Farming
For the first time ever, the UN is building out a roadmap for curbing carbon pollution from agriculture. To take part in that process, a coalition of U.S. farmers traveled to the UN climate conference in Madrid, Spain this month to make the case for the role that large-scale farming operations, long criticized for their outsizedREAD MORE
Drought Is Crippling Small Farmers in Mexico (PHOTOS)
Talk with farmers in Mexico and they will tell you they’re already feeling the brunt of climate change. Persistent heat and meager rainfall are drying out the land, posing a significant challenge to indigenous small farmer in southern states like Oaxaca, Chiapas and Quintana Roo. Complicating matters, these farmers, called “campesinos,” often lack access to irrigation,READ MORE
What Climate Change Will Do to Three Major American Cities by 2100
By Nexus Media in collaboration with Teen Vogue Climate change is already here. It’s not something that can simply be ignored by cable news or dismissed by sitting U.S. senators in a Twitter joke. Nor is it a fantastical scenario like The Day After Tomorrow or 2012 that starts with a single crack in the ArcticREAD MORE
Farming with Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Our Food Supply
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
This Year, Graduating Seniors Will School the Country on Climate Change
In June of 1968, Dartmouth valedictorian James Newton devoted his commencement speech to the foremost issue of his time: the Vietnam war. Calling the conflict a “vast international atrocity,” Newton urged his fellow classmates to resist the war and avoid the draft, earning “energetic booing and walk-outs by parents” and criticism from the follow-up speaker, asREAD MORE
The Long Fight Against Racism Shows How to Deal with Climate Denial
Early 20th-century black historian Carter G. Woodson once wrote that schools were places where African-Americans “must be convinced of their inferiority.” He saw that the tools of oppression wielded by white Americans were not limited to billy clubs and poll taxes, but included books, lectures and tests on U.S. history, which left black students with aREAD MORE
Oceans Are Losing a Football Field of Seagrass Every Half-Hour
Seagrasses are flowering marine plants that live in shallow coastal waters almost everywhere in the world. The more than 70 species of seagrass provide an important habitat for thousands of ocean animals, from tiny invertebrates, crabs and turtles to large fish and birds. Equally if not more important, seagrasses also are natural carbon sinks — even more effectiveREAD MORE
The Year That Climate Change Became a Kitchen-Table Issue
It feels like a standard-issue attack ad—menacing voiceover, pulsing underscore, rust-tinted photos that signal dirt, grime, corruption. The narrator warns of a politician surrounded by “shady characters,” who is profiting off a dubious family business while running a campaign “flooded with dirty coal money.” Here’s the twist. The politician isn’t Donald Trump, and the ad wasn’tREAD MORE
Immigrant Detention Center Stifled by Pollution (VIDEO)
Karnes County was once one of the poorest counties in Texas, but a few years ago it saw the beginnings of an oil and gas boom spurred on by advances in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Karnes, a county of just 15,000 people, is now home to more than 2,300 active wells churning out a multitude ofREAD MORE
Extreme Heat Is Killing Farm Workers. The Government Won’t Protect Them. (VIDEO)
In the Lake Apopka region of Florida, a typical August day might yield a high temperature of 92 degrees F, a heat made all the worse by the stifling humidity. The weather is bad enough for office workers who spend most of the day next to an air conditioner. For farm workers, who spend their AugustREAD MORE
Will Climate Change Make the Next World Cup Too Hot to Handle?
After four weeks of fanfare, the 2018 World Cup has come to a close. France’s victory in Sunday’s final marked the end of a summer filled with thrilling victories, surprise defeats, national pride (and disappointment), penalty kick-induced panic and many other emotions associated with soccer. Fans, unfortunately, will have to wait longer than usual to experienceREAD MORE
Uncovering the Mental Health Crisis of Climate Change
The young man believed he only had five years to live. “Not because he was sick,” said Kate Schapira, “not because anything was wrong with him, but because he believed that life on Earth would be impossible for humans.” The sign on Schapira’s booth read: CLIMATE ANXIETY COUNSELING 5¢ THE DOCTOR IS IN. Time to earnREAD MORE
Climate Change Gets Personal for Shellfish Growers
A great wine is the product of many things, from the strain of yeast used in fermentation, to the variety of wood used in the casks, to the soil, climate and topography of the region where the grapes are grown—factors collectively known as “terroir.” Terroir is the reason why wine made in Santa Barbara has aREAD MORE
Cities Are Short on Housing. That’s Bad News for the Climate.
Over the last decade or so, white-collar workers have flocked to cities, driving up rents and triggering shortages of affordable housing. Now, advocates and policymakers are in a pitched battle over what to do. That conflict came to a head in Sacramento this week, as California legislators killed a bill that would have allowed developers toREAD MORE
Young Americans Want to Save You From Climate Change
It was one of the largest youth-led protests since the Vietnam War, as hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the capital to protest gun violence. But it wasn’t the size or scale of the March for Our Lives that made it remarkable. As Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic wrote, it was that “adults paid attentionREAD MORE
Is Partisanship the New Religion?
President Trump enjoys a 61 percent approval rating among white evangelical Christians, despite the fact that he does not seem to share many of their core beliefs. He may be willing to appoint pro-life judges, and he’s hawkish on Israel, but in many other ways, he stands at odds with U.S. evangelicals. He does not belongREAD MORE
Pollution, Race and the Search for Justice (VIDEO)
Without a touch of irony, the EPA celebrated Black History Month by publishing a report that finds black communities face dangerously high levels of pollution. African-Americans are more likely to live near landfills and industrial plants that pollute water and air and erode quality of life. Because of this, more than half of the 9 millionREAD MORE
Extreme Temperature Fluctuations Tied to Increase in Heart Attacks
Temperatures along the East Coast began fluctuating wildly last month, from winter-like cold one day — which is normal for February — to summer-like hot the next day — which is anything but. This is a portentous harbinger of global climate change, and an irksome turn of events, as it forced people to switch their clothes, thermostats and ceiling fans from oneREAD MORE
Cutting-Edge Design On Display at Super Bowl LII
Early one December morning in 2010, the inflatable roof on the Minnesota Vikings’ old stadium in Minneapolis ruptured and collapsed under the weight of 17 inches of wet snow. No one was hurt, but the incident was a wake-up call for the Vikings’ front office. The team needed a new facility that could withstand the rigorsREAD MORE
Coal Country Knows Trump Can’t Save It
Since taking office, President Trump has been checking items off of a coal-industry wish list—ditching the Paris Agreement, stripping environmental safeguards, undermining workplace protections for miners. While the president’s rhetoric has raised hopes for renaissance of American coal, Trump’s policies have done little to revive the ailing industry. Experts warn that the administration’s repeated promises toREAD MORE
Why Are There No Good Movies About Climate Change?
It’s Oscar season, and Hollywood is abuzz with chatter about the year’s best flicks, which include films about poverty, racism and war. Not mentioned by prognosticators is 2017's one big movie about climate change, Geostorm, a sci-fi thriller so thin on story, drama and spectacle, it earned a rating of just 13 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.READ MORE
Scientists Are Speed Breeding Plants In a Race to Beat Climate Change
Some years ago, NASA bred wheat in space with the goal of providing an unending food supply for astronauts. To help the plant along, astronauts shined light on the plant continuously. As far as the crop was concerned, the sun never set. It was always noon on a cloudless day. The extra light fueled its rapidREAD MORE
The Cost of Saving the World
This week, diplomats are gathered in Bonn, Germany to hammer out the latest details of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. While the minutiae of the negotiations are important, the real action isn’t at the UN. The climate pact is bottom up, which means it’s up to each country to meet the goals set forth in Paris.READ MORE
ABC and NBC Failed to Explain How Climate Change Fueled Hurricane Harvey
Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm that has laid waste to Barbuda and inundated Puerto Rico, is headed for Florida. The most powerful storm ever to descend on the Atlantic, Irma has produced winds so fierce some scientists have suggested it deserves a new classification — Category 6. Will the major broadcast networks report on the role ofREAD MORE