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Climate Change

The teeming life of dead trees

Rotting logs turn out to be vital to forest biodiversity and recycling organic matter

Solving renewable energy’s sticky storage problem

When the Sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, humanity still needs power. Researchers are designing new technologies, from reinvented batteries to compressed air and spinning wheels, to keep energy in reserve for the lean times.

The great green building makeover

Getting our homes and workplaces to be energy efficient has major benefits — but not when it is done one window at a time. Here’s why deep retrofits and biomaterials are key to more sustainable living.

Can desalination quench agriculture’s thirst?

Miles away from the ocean, projects are afoot to clean up salty groundwater and use it to grow crops. Some say it’s a costly pipe dream, others say it’s part of the future.

The secrets of butterfly migration, written in pollen

Trillions of insects move around the globe each year. Scientists are working on new ways to map those long-distance journeys.

Sustainable building effort reaches new heights with wooden skyscrapers

Wood engineered for strength and safety offers architects an alternative to carbon-intensive steel and concrete

The dirt on biocrusts: Why scientists are working to save Earth’s living skin

Think twice before stepping on that crunchy top layer of soil. It may be a vital ecosystem — one that you can help protect.

To help with climate change, carbon capture will have to evolve

The technologies are a useful tool to reduce CO2 levels but have yet to move us away from fossil fuels

The greening of planes, trains and automobiles

We need new fuels to transport people and goods around the globe as society moves away from coal, natural gas and oil. Here’s how things are shaping up.

Cleaning up cow burps to combat global warming

New tools for lowering methane emissions from livestock are on their way

The hornet has landed: Scientists combat new honeybee killer in US

An invasive yellow-legged wasp has been decimating beehives in Europe — and bedeviling Georgia since last summer. Researchers are working nest by nest to limit the threat while developing better eradication methods.

Geothermal power heats up

Long confined to regions with volcanic activity, geothermal promises to become a much more versatile energy source thanks to new technologies

Why are there so many beetle species?

Diet played a key role in the evolution of the vast beetle family tree

Nuclear’s role in a net-zero world

Is nuclear power a necessary part of the energy transition away from fossil fuels? As the debate rages on, new technologies and smaller reactors may be shifting the balance.

How to overcome political polarization on climate change

Conversations — in real life — can help bridge the partisan divide, but the trick is to have some structure to the discussion, says a human ecologist

Hunting sky islands for genetic clues to climate resilience

OPINION: Isolated mountaintops are hotbeds of evolutionary adaptation and great places to study how climate change affects ecosystems

Moving trees north to save the forests

As the world warms, trees in forests such as those in Minnesota will no longer be adapted to their local climates. That’s where assisted migration comes in.

A big boost to Europe’s climate change goals

The bloc aims to become the first carbon-neutral continent. A new policy called CBAM will assist its ambitions — and may persuade other countries to follow in its footsteps.

Losing the connection between the Andes and the Amazon: A price of peace in Colombia

The South American country, where the biodiversity of the Andes meets that of the Amazon, is losing the great natural wealth of some 1,500 square kilometers of forest each year, mainly in areas formerly under guerrilla control

The hidden threat from rising coastal groundwater

OPINION: Sea level rise won’t hit just homes on shorefronts, but also the infrastructure beneath our feet

Indigenous languages are founts of environmental knowledge

Peoples who live close to nature have a rich lore of plants, animals and landscapes embedded in their mother tongues — which may hold vital clues to protecting biodiversity

Forests are under attack from invasive species

OPINION: International commerce and travel bring ecological destruction to the world’s most cherished natural places. We need to do more to stop the assault.

Green shipping picks up speed

An international treaty aims to bring the shipping industry to net-zero emissions by around 2050. Can novel fuels, wind power and coordination on a global scale get it there?

The race to understand polar ice sheets

As glacial cliffs break off and destabilize frozen landscapes, glaciologist Richard Alley focuses on the fractures. The work could improve predictions about future sea-level rise.

How wind turbines could coexist peacefully with bats and birds

As wind power grows around the world, so does the threat the turbines pose to wildlife. From simple fixes to high-tech solutions, new approaches can help.

Pursuing fusion power

Scientists have been chasing the dream of harnessing the reactions that power the Sun since the dawn of the atomic era. Interest, and investment, in the carbon-free energy source is heating up.

As the climate changes, plants must shift their ranges. But can they?

Lots of them depend on fruit-eating birds and mammals to spread their seeds. But it’s debatable whether the animals — many in trouble themselves — can disperse seeds far and fast enough to keep pace with a warming world.

The quest to understand tornadoes

Scientists are still grappling with how and why violent twisters form. Will new technology and computing power help?

Leaning into Indigenous knowledge on climate change

Native peoples attuned to the natural world have long collected detailed environmental information. Now scientists are cataloging these observations and learning how they’re affecting Indigenous communities globally.

Does it work to pay people not to cut the forest?

Evidence that the approach helps to save trees, preserve ecosystems and reduce carbon emissions is often hard to come by. But it can succeed if it’s done right, says an economist.

How climate change could make fungal diseases worse

Disease-causing fungi are likely to thrive in a warmer, stormier world — and more of them might be poised to make the leap to infecting people

Dead trees around the world are shocking scientists

Forests once deemed resilient are suffering surprising die-offs. To predict the fate of the world’s woods in the face of climate change, researchers need to understand how trees die.

Abandon the idea of ‘great green walls’

OPINION: The notion of planting miles of trees to hold back encroaching deserts is misguided and damaging; we should promote programs that secure livelihoods and respect dryland ecologies instead

Conservation paleobiology: Eyeing the past to restore today’s ecosystems

Researchers use historic remnants like antlers, shells, teeth and pollen to learn how natural communities once worked. The clues serve as guides for restoration.

Can probiotics protect corals from problems like bleaching?

Lab experiments suggest that a dose of carefully selected microbes may boost the health of these reef-building creatures and their symbiotic algae

Why one deforestation solution has yet to stop massive tree loss

OPINION: Zero-deforestation supply-chain commitments aren’t protecting tropical forests as much as hoped. But they might, if the same standards were applied to domestic and export markets.

Is this ‘age of the delta’ coming to an end?

The wet landmasses, though inherently impermanent, have been essential to both people and wildlife for thousands of years. But recent shifts have brought on some rapid losses that worry scientists.

Our oceans’ future: Hot and troubled

OPINION: Ocean warming, acidification and deoxygenation due to climate change — as well as pollution and development — threaten our global waters, but disaster is far from inevitable

Scientists warned about climate change in 1965. Nothing was done.

PODCAST: A report to the US president sounded an alarm — humankind was ‘conducting a vast geophysical experiment’ by burning fossil fuels and filling the atmosphere with an ‘invisible pollutant.’ But a slick campaign by Big Oil led to confusion, politicization and dire consequences for the planet. (Season 3, Episode 1)

The challenges and promises of climate lawsuits

Lawsuits against emissions-spewing governments and fossil fuel companies have established themselves as a key tool in the battle against climate change, but they aren’t always successful

A warmer planet, less nutritious plants and … fewer grasshoppers?

Higher levels of carbon dioxide are changing micronutrients in grasses, trees and even kelp. What does that mean for animals higher up the food chain?

As glaciers retreat, new streams for salmon

Ecologist Sandy Milner has traveled to Alaska for decades to study the development of streams flowing from melting glaciers. He’s seen insects move in, alders and willows spring up, and spawning fish arrive in thousands.

Not enough fish in the sea

The scientist who found a way to tally up global catches is an ocean advocate and a vocal critic of industrial fisheries. Now we have a treaty for the high seas — but does it go far enough?

Controlled burns won’t save all of California from wildfire

There are two types of wildfire in the state, and they’re on the rise for different reasons. Each needs a distinct management approach, a researcher says.

The rise of green hydrogen in Latin America

In anticipation of future demand, several projects are underway in the region to produce this clean energy source

AI for better crops

The technology could transform how growers protect their harvests, by detecting plant diseases very early on. But the challenge is to develop tools that are as affordable as they are effective.

How heat pumps of the 1800s are becoming the technology of the future

Innovative thinking has done away with problems that long dogged the electric devices — and both scientists and environmentalists are excited about the possibilities

Mistletoes in a warming world

Can the famous parasitic plants help animals to survive climate change, or will they be killed off by extreme weather?

Edith’s checkerspot butterfly: Checkered past, uncertain future

How do animal populations respond to climate change? After studying the same butterfly and its habitats for decades, two biologists explain that it’s complicated — but endlessly intriguing.

The obscure calculation transforming climate policy

After long debate, economists and philosophers are reaching consensus on how to value future generations

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