Large parts of Appalachia’s forests, once owned by coal companies, now make money for investors by storing carbon. But the results bring few jobs or sizable investments for residents.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell bristles at talk of managing climate change, but the damage it is doing the US economy is hard to ignore, as the latest National Climate Assessment shows.
Already, climate change plays out in all parts of the world. Every further increment of warming will bring rapidly escalating hazards, including more intense heatwaves and heavier rainfall.
A new international report on climate change finds rapid changes could cut emissions from transportation by 80% to 90%. Three behavior change trends could bring big improvements.
Lithium is essential for batteries that power electric vehicles and store energy from solar and wind farms. A new U.S. source could provide 10 times more lithium than the country uses today.
The damage from storms, droughts and sea level rise is in the news almost daily. Some money is flowing to help poor countries, but what isn’t clear is how much impact the funds are having.
Permaculture – a mashup of ‘permanent’ and ‘culture’ – is a way of doing agriculture that’s inspired by the resilience and biodiversity of healthy natural ecosystems.
New Zealand has announced a more ambitious pledge to cut emissions, but the commitment relies on buying credits from offshore. There is no system for doing this yet, or for ensuring genuine cuts.
Being able to identify communities that are susceptible to the pandemic ahead of time would allow officials to target public health interventions to slow the spread of the infection and avoid deaths.
Forest management is not a cure-all for wildfires, although it can help reduce the chances of massive burns. Making this happen will require broad collaborative efforts and more money.
Risk has to do with uncertainty; people struggle to conceptualise and manage that which they’re unsure about. This is true in the higher education sector, too.
Professor of Public Policy, Psychology and Behavioral Science, USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences