With Germany as inspiration, the United Nations and World Bank poured billions into renewables like wind, solar, and hydro in developing nations like Kenya. But then, last year, Germany was forced to acknowledge that it had to delay its phase-out of coal, and would not meet its 2020 greenhouse gas reduction commitments. It announced plans to bulldoze an […]

Many analysts claim that yet another such consequential energy revolution is upon us: “clean energy,” in the form of wind turbines, solar arrays, and batteries, they say, is about to become incredibly cheap, making it possible to create a “new energy economy.” Never mind that wind and solar—the focus of all “new energy economy” aspirations, […]

A report on the state of New Zealand’s environment has painted a bleak picture of catastrophic biodiversity loss, polluted waterways and the destructive rise of the dairy industry and urban sprawl Environment Aotearoa is the first major environmental report in four years and presents a sobering summary of a country that is starkly different from the […]

Environmental purity, not common sense, motivates the Golden State’s ban on bags, drinking straws, and cutlery. Shoppers flaunt their reusable bags (which might carry disease), big business parades its green credentials, and lawmakers seek the approval of likeminded thinkers by enacting bans.  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has become a rallying point for environmentalists, but it’s made up […]

Americans are consuming more and more stuff. Now that other countries won’t take our papers and plastics, they’re ending up in the trash. For decades, we were sending the bulk of our recycling to China—tons and tons of it, sent over on ships to be made into goods like shoes and bags and new plastic […]

“Independence of mind and climatology have become incompatible,” Judith Curry says. Do you mean that global warming isn’t real? I ask. “There is warming, but we don’t really understand its causes,” she says. “The human factor and carbon dioxide, in particular, contribute to warming, but how much is the subject of intense scientific debate.” Curry […]

Over the last two decades, the Earth has seen an increase in foliage around the planet, measured in average leaf area per year on plants and trees. Data from NASA satellites shows that China and India are leading the increase in greening on land. The effect stems mainly from ambitious tree planting programs in China […]

Beneath the hoods of millions of the clean electric cars rolling onto the world’s roads in the next few years will be a dirty battery. Every major carmaker has plans for electric vehicles to cut greenhouse gas emissions, yet their manufacturers are, by and large, making lithium-ion batteries in places with some of the most […]

So before that next animated discussion about the marvellous potential of the digital revolution, artificial intelligence or big data, let us pause first for a reality check. According to the International Energy Agency, a little under 1 billion people still have no access to electricity. The World Bank says India has the world’s largest “electricity access […]

  About 57% of California forestland is owned by the federal government while most of the rest is private land regulated by the state. Nearly 130 million trees died in California between 2010 and 2017 due to drought and a bark beetle infestation. Dense forests put trees at greater risk for parasitic infection and enable […]