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The ‘Doomsday Glacier’ is melting faster than scientists thought
At the bottom of the Earth sits a massive bowl of ice you may know as the West Antarctic ice sheet. Each day, the ocean laps away at its base, slowly eroding the glaciers that line its rim. When they inevitably give in, the sea will begin to fill the basin, claiming the ice for its own and flooding coastlines around the world.
A pot of unspent federal money could have prevented Jackson’s water crisis
Late in the summer of 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency sent the Mississippi state government a routine report assessing its use of federal funding for water infrastructure. The agency concluded with the words: “no findings” — that is, the EPA found no issue with how Mississippi was spending its money.
Microplastics are in human testicles. It’s still not clear how they got there.
No human organ is safe from microplastic contamination, it seems — not even the testicles. Researchers at the University of Mexico recently tested 70 samples of testicular tissue — 47 from dogs and 23 from humans — and found microplastics in every single one. The attention-grabbing study, published last week in the journal Toxicological Sciences, highlights microplastics’ “pervasive presence” in male reproductive systems, and their potential consequences on male fertility.
As reservoirs go dry, Mexico City and Bogotá are staring down ‘Day Zero’
In Mexico City, more and more residents are watching their taps go dry for hours a day. Even when water does flow, it often comes out dark brown and smells noxious. A former political leader is asking the public to “prioritize essential actions for survival” as the city’s key reservoirs run dry. Meanwhile, 2,000 miles south in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, reservoir levels are falling just as fast, and the city government has implemented rotating water shutoffs. The mayor has begged families to shower together and leave the city on weekends to cut down on water usage.
The key to better climate outcomes? Respecting Indigenous land rights and autonomy.
Conservation efforts are more effective when Indigenous peoples and local communities are given more autonomy and involvement over their lands. That’s according to a new study published this month in the sustainability journal One Earth. Researchers analyzed 648 studies of conservation areas between 1991 and 2020, about half of...
Five creative visions for the future, from Looking Forward’s readers
Hey there, Looking Forward fam. In honor of our 100th newsletter last month, we launched a drabble contest, asking you to imagine the evolution of a single climate solution that excites you, 100 years from now. We are honored, and inspired, by the creative visions that so many of you sent in — the joyful, the poetic, and the slightly spooky. Enormous thanks to all who participated!
Northern Michiganders are getting off propane — and on to natural gas
This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan. Like many buildings in this part of rural northern Michigan, the Tsuber Auto garage in the Village of Mesick is heated with propane, delivered by truck once or twice a month to the tank outside.
Billions of people cook over open fires. Are gas stoves the solution?
Could changing the way you cook help fight global warming? If you’ve considered this question and you live in a rich country, you’ve probably been thinking about whether to ditch your gas stove for an electric or induction cooktop. But for nearly a third of the world’s population, even that gas stove would be a big step up from the preindustrial cooking methods still in wide use across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Some 2.3 billion people regularly cook their meals over open fires or on makeshift stoves using fuels like wood, animal dung, charcoal, and coal — methods that generate deadly local air pollution and are far more carbon-intensive than the electric and gas stoves enjoyed by the relatively wealthy of the world.
Small island nations get big climate victory in international maritime court
Island nations in the Pacific, Caribbean and West Indies won a major international legal victory this week that puts more pressure on large governments like the European Union and China to curb their carbon emissions. On Tuesday, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany, unanimously...
South Korea’s energy trap: Government-funded dead end fossil fuel investments
When the war in Ukraine upended the global energy supply in 2022, South Korea suddenly found itself competing for natural gas. Cut off from Russia’s supply, an energy-starved Europe began buying up supplies worldwide. In 2022 alone, South Korea saw electricity costs rise approximately $17 billion because of the global spike in natural gas prices.
How data gaps could put US territories like Guam and Puerto Rico at greater risk for climate change
A new federal report found that federal agencies frequently fail to collect the same amount of data about U.S. territories that they collect, and maintain, for states, which advocates say has wide implications for climate adaptation and mitigation. The report, authored by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO, examined...
Landfills leak methane with impunity, new research shows
Any climate action plan that wants to quickly turn the tide of global warming has to tackle methane, which traps orders of magnitude more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide in the first years after it’s emitted. For this reason, the Environmental Protection Agency recently required oil and gas drillers to monitor for leaks of the potent greenhouse gas — and fix them immediately if they’re found. The new regulations also empower community groups and environmental advocates to report fossil fuel companies if they can provide evidence of leaks themselves.
Oil companies contaminated a family farm. The courts and regulators let the drillers walk away.
This story was originally published by ProPublica and was produced in partnership with Capital & Main and Gray Television/InvestigateTV. The first sign of trouble bubbled up from gopher holes a stone’s throw from Stan Ledgerwood’s front door. The salt water left an oily sheen on the soil and a swath of dead grass in the yard.
As fossil fuel plants face retirement, a Puerto Rico community pushes for rooftop solar
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The coastal communities of Guayama and Salinas in southern Puerto Rico feature acres of vibrant green farmland, and a rich, biodiverse estuary, the protected Jobos Bay, which stretches between the neighboring townships. But this would-be tropical paradise is also the home of both a 52-year-old oil-fired power plant and a 22-year-old coal-fired power plant, which local residents say contaminate their drinking water and air, and harm people’s health.
Vermont passed a bill making Big Oil pay. Now comes the hard part.
Last July, heavy storms lashed Vermont with record rain, leaving roads torn asunder, communities submerged, and farms washed out. In response, state legislators made a historic move by introducing the Climate Superfund Act to hold Big Oil accountable for the damages spurred by the emissions generated by the extraction and combustion of its products.
In a debut book, a love letter to eastern North Carolina — and an indictment of colonialism as a driver of climate change
This story was produced in partnership with Covering Climate Now. As the planet grapples with the ever-starker consequences of climate change, a debut book by Lumbee citizen and Duke University scientist Ryan Emanuel makes a convincing argument that climate change isn’t the problem — it’s a symptom. The problem, Emanuel explains in On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice, is settler colonialism and its extractive mindset, which for centuries have threatened and reshaped landscapes including Emanuel’s ancestral homeland in what today is eastern North Carolina. Real environmental solutions, Emanuel writes, require consulting with the Indigenous peoples who have both millennia of experience caring for specific places, and the foresight to avoid long-term disasters that can result from short-term material gain.
DeSantis says he’s ‘restoring sanity’ by erasing climate change from Florida laws
South Florida suffered through brutal heat and humidity this week when the heat index (the “feels like” temperature) in Key West reached 115 degrees F — matching the record for any time of year. With rising temperatures, flooding on sunny days, and toxic algae blooms, Floridians recognize that something’s amiss. Ninety percent of residents accept that climate change is happening, according to a new survey from Florida Atlantic University, and two-thirds want their state government to do more to address the problem.
Canadian wildfire smoke just blanketed the Midwest — again.
This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan. Wildfires in western and central Canada spread rapidly this week, forcing thousands of people to evacuate, with smoke sweeping into the Midwest and triggering air quality alerts in several states, a reminder of last year’s smoky conditions.
This enzyme is responsible for life on Earth. It’s a hot mess.
Proof of Concept is a video series profiling the science and scientists behind some of the environment’s most unexpected research. Pretty much all life on Earth – plants, animals, humans – in large part, owe their entire existence to one microscopic protein. It’s called ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, better known as RuBisCO, and it’s an enzyme: a biological machine that helps turn CO2 into energy.
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