With the Montreal Protocol, life on Earth dodged a bullet we didn’t even know was headed our way. In 1985, the British Antarctic Survey alerted the world that in the atmosphere high above the South Pole a giant hole was forming in the Earth’s protective ozone layer. World leaders swiftly assembled to work
Factory farms will feed the world, or so goes Big Ag’s rallying cry. With a growing global population and shrinking space for farmland, we have no choice but to rely on industrial meat and dairy to feed the nearly 10 billion people who will populate the planet by 2050. A new report released
The American West has always had forest fires — just not like this. Blazes are spreading further and burning longer, incinerating towns and exposing millions of people to noxious smoke. While a century of fire suppression and other land management choices contribute to the severity, climate change is a key factor fueling these
The multi-billion dollar chicken industry seems to be eyeing a climate-crisis-sized opportunity. At this summer’s 2023 Chicken Marketing Summit run by WATT Global Media, a new crop of sessions will teach the poultry industry how to target a particular kind of eater — “climavores.” “Climavores” are what we now call people who choose
Homer City Generating Station has been used to delay environmental regulations. Could the infamous site become a symbol for the just transition? The largest coal-fired power plant in Pennsylvania recently became the latest to announce its retirement plans, prompting questions about its future use and highlighting the debate over the state’s transition to
Nearly a million acres have been destroyed in wildfires across the western Canadian province of Alberta, with more than 30,000 people forced to evacuate and oil production forced to halt after a state of emergency was declared this weekend. The province, which is the country’s largest producer of crude oil and natural gas,
What if governments finally decided to act on climate change and environmental degradation? Later this month world leaders will gather in Hiroshima, Japan for the 49th G7 summit, the annual meeting devoted to issues of global diplomacy. Will they listen to the voices of their youngest constituents and act on climate change? A
This story is published in partnership with the Reno Gazette-Journal, with support by The Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative based at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism. For the first two decades of the 21st century, not even a once-in-a-millennium drought could deter real estate developers from building vast suburban tracts on
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, photographer not specified or unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Researchers in Kotzebue, Alaska, are investigating why their town is increasingly playing host to harmful cyanobacteria. Dead fish were everywhere, speckling the beach near town and extending onto the surrounding coastline. The sheer magnitude of the October 2021
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva legally recognized nearly 800 square miles of Indigenous lands on Friday in an effort to stop illegal logging, mining and land grabbing, reversing policies enacted by his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right leader who encouraged development in the Amazon. Those policies spurred a frenzy of activity,