Science
Across New York, a Fleet of Google Street View Vehicles Tracks an Array of Key Pollutants
At first glance, Ramses Diaz’s car seems like any other driving through New York City. Then I spot the phrase, “I measure air quality,” on the left door. Inside, a tablet attached to the dashboard displays a map of New York City, and two big boxes in the trunk beam huge quantities of data back […]
Read MoreExpedition Retraces a Legendary Explorer’s Travels Through the Once-Pristine Everglades
In 1897, the explorer and amateur scientist Hugh de Laussat Willoughby climbed into a canoe and embarked on a coast-to-coast expedition of the Florida Everglades, a wilderness then nearly as vast as the peninsula itself and as unknown, he wrote, as the “heart of Africa.” Willoughby and his guide were the first non-Native Americans to […]
Read MoreHow Should We Think About the End of the World as We Know it?
In the 14th century, the Italian poet Petrarch wrote a letter to a friend in Avignon, describing his sense of “foreboding” after an earthquake shook the foundations of Rome’s churches. “What should I do first, lament or be frightened?” he asked. “Everywhere there is cause for fear, everywhere reason for grief.” The earthquake was only […]
Read MoreIs COP27 the End of Hopes for Limiting Global Warming to 1.5 Degrees Celsius?
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt—The COP27 climate conference in Egypt may be remembered as the moment when the world gave up on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the most ambitious goal set by the 2015 Paris Agreement. Late Friday, the last scheduled day of the climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, the heads of the national […]
Read MoreMicroplastics Pervade Even Top-Quality Streams in Pennsylvania, Study Finds
Scientists have recently become aware that tiny fragments of plastic waste are almost everywhere, from the highest and lowest points on the earth’s surface to beer, tap water, living lung tissue and even human fetuses—all the result of the ubiquitous manufacturing of the material and a failure to seek out alternatives. Now comes evidence that […]
Read MoreNew EPA Proposal to Augment Methane Regulations Would Help Achieve an 87% Reduction From the Oil and Gas Industry by 2030
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed more stringent methane regulations for the oil and gas industry that would dramatically curb emissions of the potent greenhouse gas. The proposed rules, announced Friday at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, would strengthen and expand pending regulations that were first proposed in November 2021. Combined, the new rules […]
Read MoreA New Study from China on Methane Leaks from the Sabotaged Nord Stream Pipelines Found that the Climate Impact Was ‘Tiny’ and Nothing ‘to Worry About’
Acts of sabotage in September against the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines that run from Russia to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea released more than twice as much methane as the 2015-2016 Aliso Canyon gas storage leak in California, yet will have little impact on the climate, according to a study released […]
Read MoreThe myth of ‘home-compostable’ plastics
Study shows 60% of plastics certified for home composting don’t break down.
Read MoreFinally, a Climate Change Silver Lining: More Rainbows
SCIENCE A Role in Our Wellbeing Kim Carson was sitting on her porch one day in the Manoa Valley in Honolulu, Hawaii, sipping her coffee, looking at a rainbow—a common occurrence in the valley—and thinking about how climate change affects so much of our lives. That’s when the question hit her: Would climate change have […]
Read MoreStudy Shows Protected Forests Are Cooler
Measured at a global scale, protected forests with legal limits on human activity are significantly cooler than neighboring forests that lack protections, scientists reported in a new Science Advances study today. The researchers compared land surface temperatures and warming rates in protected areas to those in unprotected zones across five major biomes—boreal, temperate and tropical […]
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