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Environment + Energy – Articles, Analysis, Opinion

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Students on college campuses in a number of college campuses are pressuring universities to divest from fossil fuel companies. Will professors follow? maisa_nyc/Flickr

College fossil fuel divestment: the view from the lectern

A university professor active in the campaign to divest universities from fossil fuels shares his story, his motivations and arguments for divestment.
Extreme weather events, such as droughts, will impact businesses in many industries, particularly those that rely on natural resources. Jeff Tuttle/Reuters

How well prepared are businesses for climate change?

Industry is on the front lines of responding to the effects of climate change and forward-looking businesses are trying to shape policy – before more stringent measures are imposed.
Lack of rain and poor management of land and water caused the most severe drought in Syria in 100 years and led to a mass migration to cities that contributed to country’s civil war. Khaled Al Hariri/Reuters

Climate change and drought: a spark in igniting Syria’s civil war

A drought in Syria that was exacerbated by climate change helped fuel the unrest that led to the country’s civil war.
Monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus. K. P. McFarlandVermont Center for Ecostudies, www.kpmcfarland.com

Why Monarch butterflies need a helping hand

An iconic North American migration is in jeopardy. The monarch butterfly migrates back and forth from Mexico to Canada every year, its orange and black sails peppering blue skies. In the past 20 years…
Why is the eastern US getting so much Arctic weather this winter? Stuart Rankin/Flickr

A melting Arctic and weird weather: the plot thickens

Everyone loves to talk about the weather, and this winter Mother Nature has served up a feast to chew on. Few parts of the US have been spared her wrath. Severe drought and abnormally warm conditions continue…
To avoid a ‘food versus fuel’ conflict, researchers are exploring bioenergy crops optimized for biofuel. Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center

Will low oil prices be the downfall of cellulosic biofuels?

Over the past decade, there have numerous efforts to replace petroleum-based fuels with fuel made from plants, or biofuels. One challenge to commercializing biofuel made from non-food sources — called…
Nuclear power plants, like this one in Tennessee, supply almost 20 percent of the electricity in the US. Nuclear Regulatory Comission

What’s inside the first new US nuclear plant in two decades

It’s been almost two decades since a new nuclear plant opened for business in the United States. But that’s about to change as construction wraps up on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Unit 2…
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska has for decades been a center of debate on the tradeoffs between environmental protection and oil drilling. Alaska Region US Fish & Wildlife Service

Can Americans have both environmental preservation and expanded oil drilling?

In a few months, we will mark the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The accident released millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing extensive impacts on the marine…
Welcome to Boston - and two feet of snow from one storm. Peter Eimon/Flickr

Does global warming mean more or less snow?

As first glance, asking whether global warming results in more snow may seem like a silly question because obviously, if it gets warm enough, there is no snow. Consequently, deniers of climate change have…
In the 1920s and 1930s crews surveyed much of California, collecting information about vegetation. This photo was taken in 1936 by Albert Wieslander. Marian Koshland Biosciences Library

California’s majestic trees are declining — a harbinger of future forests

Scientists in my native state of California were handed a gift: a trove of detailed information about the state’s forests taken during the 1920s and 1930s and digitized over the past 15 years. When we…
A natural gas well in Bradford County, PA. Reuters

The false promise of fracking and local jobs

In a surprise decision that led to consternation in the oil and gas industry and elation among fracking opponents, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in December banned fracking in the state. He attributed…