How Hop Nerds Are Saving Your Favorite Beer From Climate Change

Whether you love lagers or extra-bitter IPAs, you love alpha acids and just don’t know it. These are the compounds in hops that impart that bitter taste, which can be subtle or intense, depending on the cultivar. For centuries, farmers who produce hops for traditional European beer making—particularly in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia—have […]

Read More

The EU Just Kicked Off Its Biggest Climate Experiment Yet

With little fanfare, the European Union has launched a huge climate experiment. On October 1, the EU kicked off the initial phase of a Europe-wide tax on carbon in imported goods. This marks the first time a carbon border tax has been tried at this scale anywhere in the world. Europe’s experiment could have ripple […]

Read More

Sweat Is Helping You Survive Climate Change

The marketing campaign was a lasting success, even a century later. Last year, the global deodorant market was valued at $24 billion, and it’s on track to grow to $37 billion by the end of the decade, in part because of global warming, according to the market research firm Fortune Business Insights. Today, some cultures […]

Read More

A Revelation About Trees Is Messing With Climate Calculations

Every year between September and December, Lubna Dada makes clouds. Dada, an atmospheric scientist, convenes with dozens of her colleagues to run experiments in a 7,000-gallon stainless steel chamber at CERN in Switzerland. “It’s like science camp,” says Dada, who studies how natural emissions react with ozone to create aerosols that affect the climate. Clouds […]

Read More

The Climate Crisis Is Driving People to Substance Abuse

Kamal Sonavane knew she’d pass out if she chewed smokeless tobacco one more time. It was a scorching April afternoon in the middle of another of India’s brutal heat waves, and with no job to go to, the farmworker had already chewed tobacco five times that day. “Even an addicted person avoids doing this in […]

Read More

The US Is Mobilizing an Army to Fight the Climate Crisis

Climate change is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, and the United States has begun mobilizing an army to fight it: the American Climate Corps. Formerly conceptualized as the Civilian Climate Corps, the new initiative will “put more than 20,000 young people on career pathways in the growing fields of clean energy, conservation and […]

Read More

The UK Is Burning Climate Pledges to Fuel a Culture War

The UK government has taken the unusual step of scaling back major climate commitments, despite widespread pushback from scientists, businesses, and lawmakers across the political divide. In a speech today, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the UK would push back deadlines for the planned phaseout of gas-powered vehicles, ending fossil-fuel heating in homes not connected […]

Read More

A Global Surge in Cholera Outbreaks May Be Fueled by Climate Change

The global cholera surge drove a vaccine shortage right when countries needed it most. Malawi in the past used the cholera vaccine for prevention, but “now if you don’t have an outbreak, you don’t get the vaccine,” said Otim Patrick Ramadan, WHO incident manager for regional cholera response in Africa. In response to the shortage, […]

Read More

Climate Change Has Finally Come For Burning Man

Because Burning Man chooses to situate its event in the Nevada desert, resources, including food and generators, need to be trucked to the site—a challenge given heavy rain has made roads impassable. It’s this, in part, that explains why Chris Rock decided to abandon the event: In an Instagram Story, he posted that he understood […]

Read More

Montana Youth Win a Historic Climate Case

“I know that climate change is a global issue, but Montana needs to take responsibility for our part,” 22-year-old Rikki Held, the lead plaintiff, testified. “You can’t just blow it off and do nothing about it.” Seeley agreed. “Every additional ton of greenhouse gas emissions exacerbates Plaintiffs’ injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries,” […]

Read More

10 Facts That Prove the World Is in a Climate Emergency

8. Arctic sea ice is rapidly diminishing Temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than almost anywhere else on the planet. Between 2011 and 2020, annual Arctic sea ice reached its lowest level since at least 1850, and late summer Arctic sea ice was smaller than at any time in at least the past 1,000 […]

Read More

Inside the First Youth-Led Climate Lawsuit to Go to Trial

“I would feel relief and joy, that what we’re doing matters,” said 18-year-old Kian Tanner, “that when we speak out, when we create action, we can create positive change in the world.” The tension between the two sides was especially apparent while the defense was cross-examining the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses, attempting to prove that any […]

Read More

The Upper Atmosphere Is Cooling, Prompting New Climate Concerns

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 More

Bring Back the Seabirds, Save the Climate

This 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 More

Google Home app gets Climate tab to shows ACs, heaters, and more

The 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 More

Washington, DC’s Cherry Blooms Draw Crowds—and Climate Questions

But 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

Climate Freeloaders Are Destroying the Planet

“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 More

The IPCC’s Climate Report Foretells Humanity’s Future

Today, 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 More

The IPCC’s 2023 Climate Report Has Dire Warnings About Humanity’s Future

Today, 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 More

The Food System Is Awful for the Climate. It Doesn’t Have to Be

As 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 More