Can protecting land promote employment? In New England, the answer is yes
Katharine Sims, Amherst College; Jonathan Thompson, Harvard University, and Spencer Meyer, Harvard University Protecting land…
US agriculture needs a 21st-century New Deal
Maywa Montenegro, University of California, Davis; Annie Shattuck, University of California, Berkeley, and Joshua Sbicca,…
Listening to nature: How sound can help us understand environmental change
Garth Paine, Arizona State University Our hearing tells us of a car approaching from behind,…
Retired oil rigs off the California coast could find new lives as artificial reefs
Ann Scarborough Bull, University of California, Santa Barbara and Milton Love, University of California, Santa…
As more developing countries reject plastic waste exports, wealthy nations seek solutions at home
Kate O’Neill, University of California, Berkeley Less than two years after China banned most imports…
To solve climate change and biodiversity loss, we need a Global Deal for Nature
Greg Asner, Arizona State University Earth’s cornucopia of life has evolved over 550 million years….
Why reducing carbon emissions from cars and trucks will be so hard
David Keith, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Christopher R. Knittel, MIT Sloan School of Management…
Is recycling an idea whose time has passed?
Neil Seldman, Director, Waste to Wealth Initiative, Institute for Local Self-Reliance If you read accounts of recycling…
Is an ‘insect apocalypse’ happening? How would we know?
Brian Lovett, University of Maryland Insects scuttle, chew and fly through the world around us….
Sea creatures store carbon in the ocean – could protecting them help slow climate change?
Heidi Pearson, University of Alaska Southeast As the prospect of catastrophic effects from climate change…
When people downsize to tiny houses, they adopt more environmentally friendly lifestyles
Maria Saxton, Virginia Tech Interest is surging in tiny homes – livable dwelling units that…
3 ways activist kids these days resemble their predecessors
David S. Meyer, University of California, Irvine A gaggle of young activists recently paid Dianne…
Stemming the tide of trash: 5 essential reads on recycling
Jennifer Weeks, The Conversation A year after China upended global materials markets by banning imports…
Wastewater is an asset – it contains nutrients, energy and precious metals, and scientists are learning how to recover them
Yalin Li, Colorado School of Mines Most people think as little as possible about the…
Plastic bag bans can backfire if consumers just use other plastics instead
Rebecca Taylor, University of Sydney Governments are increasingly banning the use of plastic products, such…
Fossil fuels are bad for your health and harmful in many ways besides climate change
Noel Healy, Salem State University; Jennie C. Stephens, Northeastern University, and Stephanie Malin, Colorado State…
Utilities are starting to invest in big batteries instead of building new power plants
Jeremiah Johnson, North Carolina State University and Joseph F. DeCarolis, North Carolina State University Due…
How energy efficiency delivers green dividends in red and blue states
David Cash, University of Massachusetts Boston The Green New Deal, a bundle of proposed policies…
How urban agriculture can improve food security in US cities
Miguel Altieri, University of California, Berkeley During the partial federal shutdown in December 2018 and…
Why stop at plastic bags and straws? The case for a global treaty banning most single-use plastics
Anastasia Telesetsky, University of Idaho Single-use plastics are a blessing and a curse. They have fueled…
Capturing carbon to fight climate change is dividing environmentalists
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Georgetown University and Holly Jean Buck, University of California, Los Angeles Environmental…
New findings on ocean warming: 5 questions answered
Scott Denning, Colorado State University Editor’s note: A new study by scientists in the United…
Switching to electric vehicles could save the US billions, but timing is everything
F. Todd Davidson, University of Texas at Austin; Dave Tuttle, University of Texas at Austin;…
Why covering the environment is one of the most dangerous beats in journalism
Eric Freedman, Michigan State University From the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi by Saudi…
George H.W. Bush understood that markets and the environment weren’t enemies
Matthew Kahn, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Former…
Wildfire smoke is becoming a nationwide health threat
Richard E. Peltier, University of Massachusetts Amherst The impacts of recent forest fires in California…
Fine particle air pollution is a public health emergency hiding in plain sight
Douglas Brugge, Tufts University and Kevin James Lane, Boston University Ambient air pollution is the…
Yes, eating meat affects the environment, but cows are not killing the climate
Frank M. Mitloehner, University of California, Davis As the scale and impacts of climate change…
Being Good Ancestors
An Interview with Alan Glass of the Pittsburg USD Alan Glass is the Special Projects Accountant/Energy…
Why the offshore wind industry is about to take off
Matthew Lackner, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Erin Baker, University of Massachusetts Amherst There are…
Why we can’t reverse climate change with ‘negative emissions’ technologies
Howard J. Herzog, Massachusetts Institute of Technology In a much-anticipated report, the Intergovernmental Panel on…
A vision for green schoolyards across California
An Interview with Sharon Danks, Founder of Green Schoolyards America Sharon Danks, the author of Asphalt…
Human-caused climate change severely exposes the US national parks
Patrick Gonzalez, University of California, Berkeley Human-caused climate change is disrupting ecosystems and people’s lives…
What the world needs now to fight climate change: More swamps
William Moomaw, Tufts University; Gillian Davies, Tufts University, and Max Finlayson, Charles Sturt University “Drain…
California aims to become carbon-free by 2045. Is that feasible?
Sarah Kurtz, University of California, Merced California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a new law…
Los Angeles wants to use the Hoover Dam as a giant battery. The hurdles could be more historical than technical
Anthony F. Arrigo, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Los Angeles is looking into whether it should…
Many native animals and birds thrive in burned forests, research shows
Derek E. Lee, Pennsylvania State University Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is blaming this summer’s large-scale…
Healthy soil is the real key to feeding the world
David R. Montgomery, University of Washington One of the biggest modern myths about agriculture is…
Bio-based plastics can reduce waste, but only if we invest in both making and getting rid of them
Danny Ducat, Michigan State University With news that companies like Starbucks, Hyatt and Marriott have…
Climate change and wildfires – how do we know if there is a link?
Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research Once again, the summer of 2018 in the…
Apartments rarely come with access to charging stations. But electric vehicles need them
Lucas Davis, University of California, Berkeley Americans have now purchased more than 800,000 electric vehicles,…
Spiraling wildfire fighting costs are largely beyond the Forest Service’s control
Cassandra Moseley, University of Oregon Just six months after the devastating Thomas Fire – the…
Ozone pollution in US national parks is nearly the same as in large cities
David Keiser, Iowa State University; Gabriel E. Lade, Iowa State University, and Ivan Rudik, Cornell…
The global impact of air conditioning: big and getting bigger
Lucas Davis, University of California, Berkeley With a heat wave pushing the heat index well…
How ride-hailing could improve public transportation instead of undercutting it
Daniel Sperling, University of California, Davis; Austin Brown, University of California, Davis, and Mollie D’Agostino,…
Why California’s new rooftop mandate isn’t good enough for some solar power enthusiasts
Garth Heutel, Georgia State University More California rooftops will soon sport solar panels, partly due…
Market forces are driving a clean energy revolution in the US
Bill Ritter, Jr., Colorado State University Transforming U.S. energy systems away from coal and toward…
Many Republican mayors are advancing climate-friendly policies without saying so
Nicolas Gunkel, Boston University Leadership in addressing climate change in the United States has shifted…
As more solar and wind come onto the grid, prices go down but new questions come up
Joachim Seel, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Andrew Mills, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Ryan Wiser,…
Are public objections to wind farms overblown?
Jeremy Firestone, University of Delaware; Ben Hoen, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Joseph Rand, Lawrence…