Trees clean urban air, store carbon, slow floodwaters and can be used to design safer streets. Scholars are starting to calculate what these services are worth – a fitting topic for Arbor Day.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Environment + Energy – Articles, Analysis, Opinion
Displaying 1351 - 1375 of 2422 articles
Decades of wildfire suppression have allowed flammable fuels to pile up in US forests. Scientists and managers say careful use of planned fires can reduce risks of large, out-of-control burns.
A new study lays out a road map for protecting and restoring 50% of Earth’s surface, targeted to preserve biodiversity and maximize natural removal of carbon from the atmosphere.
Protecting forests and wetlands, which absorb and store carbon, is one way to slow climate change. Scientists are proposing similar treatment for marine animals that help store carbon in the oceans.
Recent extreme rains and weather in the Midwest are causing a multitude of problems in the topsoil that much of the nation’s food supply relies on.
Are health risks from air pollution less serious than we think? Mainstream scientists call this a fringe view, but it’s getting high-level attention at the Environmental Protection Agency.
A scholar who travels regularly to the US-Mexico border finds ecological links and a community on the other side that welcomes American visitors.
This collective fundraising technique helps defuse anti-cyclist sentiment before it dooms protected bike lanes and other new infrastructure.
What creates such dramatic storms across the US Great Plains? The key factors are topography and temperature differences.
Research shows that moving from a larger dwelling to a tiny home can change behavior in surprising ways.
Can presidents undo decisions by their predecessors to protect federal lands from development? A recent court ruling on offshore drilling says no, and could also affect contested lands in Utah.
Climate change science was driven by curiosity in the past. Now climate researchers need to focus on managing the risk of global warming’s ill effects.
Globalization is making it harder to identify and trace outbreaks of foodborne illness. Technology can help, but consumers may also have to rethink their food choices.
Phragmites australis, an invasive reed, has taken over wetlands across the US. But it also stabilizes shorelines and harbors many fish and birds. Is it time to compromise with this alien?
Starting in 2021, drivers will pay a fee to enter midtown and lower Manhattan during busy times of day. Will this clear New York’s air and streets?
States are folding the social and economic costs of burning fossil fuels into their electricity policies, giving utilities a financial incentive to reduce greenhouse emissions.
For decades, New England students took field trips out into the Long Island Sound. Their data show how quickly the sound is warming, leading to fewer American lobster, rock crab and winter flounder.
Rail advocates often make the case that trains are a cleaner mode of transportation, but why is that so? And what would it take to expand rail in the U.S.?
A climatologist who studies precipitation trends explains how climate change is projected to make flooding events in the Midwest more severe and more frequent.
The FDA has given the green light to sell the first genetically engineered animal – farmed salmon –in the US.
What is proof? In both law and science, it’s basically a consensus of experts – but they work at very different speeds. That means juries may reach verdicts on an issue before the science is settled.
Unless it sparks joy, go ahead and scratch this task off your spring-cleaning checklist.
The ‘used water’ that flows from our showers, dishwashers and toilets isn’t a waste to engineers – it contains valuable materials. The challenge is recovering them and turning them into products.
Many nations are restoring degraded tropical forests to slow climate change, protect endangered species and improve rural life. But those forests often are cleared again soon afterward.
Even before the British billionaire invested US$1 billion in making the region ‘climate-smart,’ Jamaica, Barbados and Dominica were pioneering a renewable energy boom in the Caribbean.