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 […]

The plan leans heavily on Inuit knowledge, which yields population estimates higher than those suggested by western science There are too many polar bears in parts of Nunavut and climate change hasn’t yet affected any of them, says a draft management plan from the territorial government that contradicts much of conventional scientific thinking. “Inuit believe […]

In Queens, opponents of second HQ say building plans bypass elected officials, will rip off taxpayers and harm neighborhood Opponents called the plan – which will give Amazon nearly $3bn in tax breaks and subsidies from state and city – a ripoff to taxpayers that will stress the neighborhood’s infrastructure while doing little to help local residents. […]

Wind farms will cause more environmental impact than previously thought   In two papers — published today in the journals Environmental Research Letters and Joule — Harvard University researchers find that the transition to wind or solar power in the U.S. would require five to 20 times more land than previously thought, and, if such large-scale wind farms were […]

Some of the most significant developments in the electric car market are likely to come from China, where the market for electric vehicles grew by 72% last year, with 94% of that market owned by domestic manufacturers. Yet the growing market for electric cars may be causing harm to people in one of the world’s […]