Many US coastal towns are building defenses to protect against rising seas and storms. This can encourage people to stay in place when they should be moving inland.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Environment + Energy – Articles, Analysis, Opinion
Displaying 1551 - 1575 of 2433 articles
Many people board up their houses and stay in place during disasters – but often they aren’t prepared to go without water, power or transportation for days or weeks afterward.
Hurricane Harvey swamped much of Houston in 2017, causing more damage than all other US hurricanes except Katrina. But now the city is authorizing construction in zones at high risk for flooding.
Trump’s energy plan may meet the letter of the law but the Affordable Clean Energy Plan reflects the administration’s clear agenda to move slowly or not at all on climate change.
The Trump administration’s Affordable Clean Energy Plan would help the declining coal industry, but a study shows many coal workers could transition to a new industry – solar – and earn more money.
The Trump administration wants to step up logging, saying it will benefit wildlife by reducing forest fire risks. But wildfires create habitat for threatened Spotted Owls and many other species.
Colombia’s coffee industry is at risk due to unpredictable seasons, floods, landslides, droughts and pests. Farmers say they want to learn to adapt to these environmental changes but don’t know how.
Incineration of household waste has gotten a bad name, argues an economist, who sees today’s recycling crisis as an opportunity to reconsider how the U.S. handles its waste.
Bitcoin is often criticized for using up tons of energy. But its carbon footprint may not be that bad.
Roughly 10,000 tons of plastic enter the Great Lakes every year, and scientists want to know where it ends up. There are some parallels to ocean plastics, but also important differences.
Since China stopped importing ‘foreign garbage’ in March 2018, scrap – especially plastic – has built up in the US. Will this shock trigger long-overdue investments in plastic recycling here?
Bio-based plastics made from natural sources break down more easily than conventional plastic, without producing toxic byproducts. But for this to happen they have to be composted, not buried in landfills.
Research is yielding strategies for making plastics greener and more sustainable. But without support as they scale up, new versions will struggle to compete with well-established synthetic plastics.
As California reels from another devastating fire season, environmental resource scholars explain how the state – and other fire-prone areas – can better prepare and coexist with wildfires.
Two business professors spent five years studying Walmart’s ambition project to bring sustainability to its millions of budget-conscious customers – a plan that began with the birth of a granddaughter.
A jury concluded on Aug. 10 that exposure to the herbicide Roundup caused Dewayne Johnson’s cancer and ordered the company to pay $289 million in damages. Thousands more claims are pending.
With California suffering another devastating wildfire year, more people are wondering about whether and how global warming is contributing. A climate scientist explains.
Red tide and a blue-green algae outbreak are fouling hundreds of miles of coast, killing fish and driving tourists away from beaches. Some of the causes are natural, but human actions play a big role.
There’s no precedent for selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a time when there’s no market-driven reason for doing that.
In 2015, over 320 million tons of polymers, excluding fibers, were manufactured across the globe.
The Trump administration’s move to freeze fuel economy standards reflects a sea change in American energy policy first born during an era of oil shortages and environmental crises.
Cells that transmit nerve impulses in the part of elephants’ brains responsible for functions such as learning and memory are structured differently from those of any other mammal.
Whether they aim to stop pipelines in Virginia or block Pacific Northwest export terminals, organizers are trying to ‘keep it in the ground’ to save the climate.
The Ogalalla Aquifer is a vast underground lake that irrigates farms across the US Great Plains. It took thousands of years to fill, but human use could drain it in roughly a century.
Hundreds of lawsuits against Monsanto contend that its popular Roundup weed killer gave users cancer. But proving this kind of connection is challenging in both science and law.