This contraction means the upper atmosphere is becoming less dense, which in turn reduces drag on satellites and other objects in low orbit—by around a third by 2070, calculates Ingrid Cnossen, a research fellow at the British Antarctic Survey. On the face of it, this is good news for satellite operators. Their payloads should stay […]
Read MoreThis story originally appeared on Inside Climate News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Seabirds evolved about 60 million years ago, as Earth’s continents drifted toward their current positions and modern oceans took shape. They spread across thousands of undisturbed islands in the widening seas. And as flying dinosaurs and giant omnivorous sea […]
Read MoreThe redesigned Google Home app for Android, which is currently in the Public Preview stage, opens up in the Favourites tab. It has four sections located at the top edge of the screen: Cameras, Lighting, Wi-Fi, and Climate. Clicking on any of those tiles will bring up a list of all the devices related to […]
Read MoreBut Rosemartin echoed Alonzo in cautioning against attributing the earlier bloom directly to climate change. “I wouldn’t say that climate change caused the early spring,” she said. “But climate change is loading the dice every year. We’re more likely now than we were 30 years ago to have an early spring.” This is a trend […]
Read More“We see that play out perfectly in Australia: strong attention on reducing domestic emissions, and policy shying away completely from addressing the export side of things,” says Jotzo. The Australian government elected in 2022 has set a target of net zero emissions by 2050, but it refuses to ban any new coal or gas projects. […]
Read MoreToday, the plummeting price of renewables is helping humanity decarbonize: Wind energy prices dropped by 55 percent in the 2010s, the new report notes, while solar power and lithium ion batteries got 85 percent cheaper—much cheaper than researchers had anticipated. Lower prices have allowed for the proliferation of solar panels, reducing dependence on fossil fuels. […]
Read MoreToday, the plummeting price of renewables is helping humanity decarbonize: Wind energy prices dropped by 55 percent in the 2010s, the new report notes, while solar power and lithium ion batteries got 85 percent cheaper—much cheaper than researchers had anticipated. Lower prices have allowed for the proliferation of solar panels, reducing dependence on fossil fuels. […]
Read MoreAs people’s incomes rise, they tend to switch from “starchy staples” like grains, potatoes, and roots to meat and dairy products. “You’d think there would be big cultural differences across human populations in these patterns,” says Thomas Tomich, a food systems economist at the University of California, Davis, who wasn’t involved in the new paper. […]
Read MoreThis story originally appeared on High Country News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Mike Williams Jr. doesn’t remember when he started mushing, but once he was strong enough to handle the sled dogs, it became his passion. At first, he mushed after school, taking his father’s dogs on 3- and 4-mile trails […]
Read MoreWhile that small-scale, low-tech approach may have kept saffron production going over the past few decades, it has also left it on the edge of extinction. “We’re being held back by the idiosyncrasies of the sector itself,” says Fernández. “What we’re trying to do now is bring about a change and a transition so we’re […]
Read MoreSamsung often touts its sustainability initiatives, presenting them as the guiding principles for its business. The company’s other sustainability initiatives have included a self-repair program for customers in the US, sustainable packaging materials, and increasing energy efficiency in products. When Samsung first announced that it would provide three years of Android OS upgrades, it said […]
Read MoreBut attribution science can do a lot more than tell us how climate change influences the weather. Otto wants to use her attribution reports to hold polluters to account for extreme weather events. “We have started to do a lot of work with lawyers, to basically bridge this knowledge gap between what we can say […]
Read MoreThat transition to an all-electric life—no more gas stoves or water heaters, either—will also create jobs. One estimate reckons that the IRA will create nearly a million per year over a decade. These should serve both red and blue regions: Rural areas might have solar or wind farms that need building and maintenance, while bluer urban areas […]
Read MoreThis story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Scientists have discovered a record number of dead fir trees in Oregon, a foreboding sign of how drought and the climate crisis are ravaging the American West. A recent aerial survey found that more than a million acres of forest […]
Read MoreThis story originally appeared on Hakai Magazine and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. As the storm first gathered strength in the Gulf of Mexico, its future path was indecipherable. Its capacity for damage, though, was clear. The water was warm and the air was thick and humid—the recipe for a potentially historic tempest. […]
Read More“The biggest finding that we had was that truffles were responding to these hot and dry summers,” says Steidinger. He and colleagues found that a temperature anomaly of just 3 degrees Celsius was enough to stop the production of truffle fruiting bodies altogether. As tree-growing seasons shortened, truffles also tended to get smaller. The relationship […]
Read MoreSpeakers have frequently invoked the phrase “climate reparation” to describe the responsibility to compensate future generations based on past harms. That reflects a tradition as old as World War I, when certain nations were held responsible for paying for the clean-up, explains Lisa Vanhala, a political scientist at University College London who studies loss and […]
Read MoreFor years, the world has known what it has to do about climate change: hold the line at 1.5 degrees Celsius to stave off the worst effects of warming. To do so we need to make serious cuts to carbon emissions, fast—at least 42 percent from 2019 levels by 2030. That’s been the aim since […]
Read MoreAfter mapping comes planning. Sustainability professionals, warehouse managers, CFOs, or whoever uses the platform are given a to-do list for decarbonization. “It explains specifically what kind of materials you need to switch to, what stakeholders you need to involve, and who is responsible for this decarbonization activity,” Jordanova says. The science-based approach to analyzing company […]
Read More“Climate pollution,” by contrast, conjures images of billowing smokestacks, putting the culpability back on industry. The pollution lens gels with the idea that the climate crisis requires big-picture solutions from governments and corporations, as more Americans are beginning to understand. “It really shows it’s a systemic problem that affects everybody, and that to solve it, […]
Read More
