Regional deployment of marine cloud brightening off the U.S. West Coast would be far less effective in the warmer world of 2050, and if implemented, could unleash higher temperatures in…
As climate change rapidly advances, with 2023 and 2024 vying for the hottest year on record, solar radiation modification (SRM) geoengineering strategies are gaining momentum as short-term climate fixes. These…
Plastic trash has become one of the most visible global environmental crises of our time. Single-use plastics make up nearly half of all plastics produced, with 15 million metric tons…
Japan is at a crossroads in its controversial use of burning forest biomass to make electricity. While the government and private sector’s understanding of the fuel’s harmful environmental and climate…
DHANGMARI, Bangladesh — In late May, elementary school children rushed up and down the worn footpaths between their homes in Dhangmari, giggling and showing off small clay sculptures. One girl…
This is Part Two of a two-part story. Find Part One here. In April, researchers from the University of Washington sprayed sea salt particles into the air off the California…
This is Part One of a two-part story. Find Part Two here. A 2023 study published in JGR Atmospheres found that implementing a global solar geoengineering project could slow the…
YAQUI VALLEY, Mexico — Without the Yaqui River, survival is almost impossible for the Yaqui tribe in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. A lack of water affects the food…
YAQUI VALLEY, Mexico — On Sept. 11, 2014, Mario Luna Romero was arrested by state judicial police in Obregón, a city on the periphery of his tribe’s territory in Sonora,…
For a few days each June, the saltwater wind that blows over the fairgrounds in Utqiagvik, Alaska mixes with the smell of coffee, salmonberry pie and fresh whale meat. The…
BIKINI ATOLL, Marshall Islands — “I felt so many emotions during my trip to Bikini,” said Victoria Jamore. “I asked myself questions like: How many times have we been moved?…
A new study finds the terrestrial part of the Arctic has shifted from being a greenhouse gas sink to being a source. Another finds that El Niño undermines Antarctic ice shelves by intensifying melt from below, putting onshore glaciers at risk.
Scientists called for project ideas and scored them from reasonable to wild. While all agree cutting emissions needs action now, some of these methods of last resort could be tested, and one day be applied to save the polar region.
The Caribbean Basin is drowning in waste, especially plastic trash that’s contaminating rivers and the surrounding sea.
Biological solutions offer hope for tackling human-caused pollution — but only if government and industry significantly support getting those solutions out of the lab and into the real world.
Representatives of 170 nations met in Ottawa, Canada, last week pushing a final U.N. plastic pollution treaty agreement closer to completion. But much remains to be done, with debate over plastic production limits and other barriers still unsettled.
As negotiators meet this week for the fourth round of global plastics treaty talks, scientists warn that both plant-based and petroleum-based plastics are toxic, with both needing tough regulation to protect public health.
ATHENS — From April 15-17, state delegates, organization representatives, academics and philanthropists met at the 9th Our Ocean Conference (OOC) in Athens to discuss the protection of the world’s oceans…
PHNOM PENH — New data published by the University of Maryland on April 4 and available through satellite monitoring platform Global Forest Watch show continued forest loss across Cambodia last…
With the bankruptcy of the world’s biggest wood pellet maker, Enviva and the forestry industry are reaching out to the Biden Administration for subsidies that could offer it a lifeline, but environmentalists are pushing back.
A paper generated by the Merz Institute, an Aotearoa New Zealand-based research institute, and published in the journal Science Progress in 2023, hypothesizes that the environmental crises our planet faces…
A machine learning model of ammonia emissions from the world’s rice, wheat and corn crops shows that optimal fertilizer management could slash ammonia air pollution from these crops by 38%.
The climate emergency has affected development and violated the rights of children and adolescents around the world, and in Brazil. In addition to fires, prolonged, extreme droughts make access to…
Conflicts between communities and government plans to protect vast swaths of land in line with international conservation policies, such as the “30 by 30” goal of preserving 30% of the…
The 2024 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement has gone to Johan Rockström who led the team of international researchers who originated the planetary boundary framework in 2009.
It’s been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine and since the Arctic scientific community was cut off from its Russian colleagues. But permafrost melt is quickening and renewed data flow is needed to track Russian carbon emissions.
In the past year, international agencies worldwide have continued to sound an alarm over surges in food insecurity that are plunging millions of people into extreme hunger, malnutrition and threats…
Historically, the leather industry has created large amounts of pollution and waste, while using huge amounts of water. But some companies are cleaning up their act, even as synthetic and biobased alternatives multiply.
Human actions are rapidly changing the world’s oceans, whether through overfishing, pollution or coastal development. But among the most intense pressures placed on the seas right now is humanity’s ongoing…
In 2016, Finland became the first country in the world to adopt a national circular economy road map, with the ambition to become a world leader in moving away from…
Forest and air quality advocates in the United States have long argued that manufacturing wood pellets from leveled forests and burning the compressed wood for energy is neither a green…
As the world grapples with escalating climate change, policymakers remain laser-focused on CO2, with humanity striving to decarbonize energy systems, capture carbon, issue carbon credits, and plant millions of trees…
