As negotiators meet this week for the fourth round of global plastics treaty talks, scientists warn that both plant-based and petroleum-based plastics are toxic, with both needing tough regulation to protect public health.
The concrete industry is a major carbon emitter and polluter, with severe human health impacts. But circular solutions, including electrifying cement plants, making low-carbon cement, and bio-architecture could offer relief.
Few researchers have ever seen this elusive wildcat and it is known primarily from a few camera trap photos. Which raises the question: How do you conserve an endangered species about which we know almost nothing?
In 2024, Latin America’s tiger cat, previously recognized as two species, was determined by scientists to be three species — a taxonomic reshuffling that has major conservation implications for these small cats.
With the bankruptcy of the world’s biggest wood pellet maker, Enviva and the forestry industry are reaching out to the Biden Administration for subsidies that could offer it a lifeline, but environmentalists are pushing back.
While four-wheeled EVs get most of the media attention, electric bicycles are an economical, environmentally friendly mode of transportation being chosen by millions of consumers, commuters and businesses the world over. But barriers exist.
With exponential AI energy demand threatening to soon overwhelm the U.S. electric grid, analysts fear that AI’s rapid entry into Latin America could bring massive energy and water consumption, putting communities at risk.
A paper generated by the Merz Institute, an Aotearoa New Zealand-based research institute, and published in the journal Science Progress in 2023, hypothesizes that the environmental crises our planet faces…
A machine learning model of ammonia emissions from the world’s rice, wheat and corn crops shows that optimal fertilizer management could slash ammonia air pollution from these crops by 38%.
Most used in China, North America, Europe and Australia, TP causes deforestation, needs lots of energy and water to make, and is hard to dispose of. Solutions abound, from the bidet, to recycled paper, bamboo and other alternatives.
Nitrogen pollution from agriculture and human waste, along with other pollutants including plastics, could make clean water scarce in many watersheds worldwide, potentially contributing to declines in public health.
45.6 million hectares of old-growth and mature forest on U.S. federal lands store huge amounts of carbon, but less than a quarter is safe from logging; Two hundred scientists have asked President Biden to fully protect them now.
A new report strongly links endocrine disruptors to diseases, from the devastating, like infertility, to the deadly, like cancer and heart disease. The report calls for global treaties to restrict and ban their production and use.
The 2024 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement has gone to Johan Rockström who led the team of international researchers who originated the planetary boundary framework in 2009.
As the Biden administration pauses to ponder licenses for 12 new LNG export facilities, it is investing billions in natural gas infrastructure abroad. Critics warn U.S. gas expansion poses a direct threat to Earth’s ecosystems and people.
Over millennia, animals including walruses, seals, lemmings, muskox and migratory birds evolved to survive the polar north’s extreme cold. But on land and at sea, wildlife are struggling to adapt to a rapidly warming climate and altered ecosystems.
Historically, the leather industry has created large amounts of pollution and waste, while using huge amounts of water. But some companies are cleaning up their act, even as synthetic and biobased alternatives multiply.
Human actions are rapidly changing the world’s oceans, whether through overfishing, pollution or coastal development. But among the most intense pressures placed on the seas right now is humanity’s ongoing…
As the world grapples with escalating climate change, policymakers remain laser-focused on CO2, with humanity striving to decarbonize energy systems, capture carbon, issue carbon credits, and plant millions of trees…
Studies of Pacific salmon find that they, and other migratory fish, play a key role moving nutrients from oceans, up rivers and into terrestrial ecosystems. But dams, climate change and other human interference has greatly diminished that role.
Scientists have found many plastics are toxic, but activists say two ubiquitous polymers are the worst of all: polystyrene and PVC. Some are calling for not only a national ban on these two, but for a global ban enshrined in a plastics treaty.
Study finds Earth could reach 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels by 2040 and shows regional climate variables in fine detail. These findings, along with others, are very worrying for the Brazilian Amazon.
The world’s two worst nuclear accidents, in Ukraine and Japan, along with the human exclusion zones around them, are informing scientists about radiation effects, and how ecosystems evolve with less pressure from people.
Negotiators at the UN climate summit in Dubai have agreed to "transitioning away from fossil fuels," but the deal isn't legally binding and can't force nations to act. Environmental lawyers around the globe are working to force countries to follow through.
A new report suggests that the rapid acceleration of climate change has pushed the Earth systems humanity relies upon to the brink of collapse, placing the world on a “devastating…
The sand cat is small, elusive and adapted to life in some of Earth’s most inhospitable deserts — that makes it hard to study and conserve, with lots of unknowns about its behaviors and populations across its range.
MRN, a mining company and aluminum producer, denied consultation rights to long-established Amazon riverine communities when it launched a new mine, impacting their way of life, say local people.
In today’s industrialized world, avoiding plastic is virtually impossible. Every trip to the grocery store likely means coming home with food and household items packaged in plastic bottles, tubs and…
The early optimism that launched plastic treaty negotiations in 2022 was stymied at talks this month in Nairobi at which large petrostates stonewalled against creating a binding international treaty that would regulate cradle-to-grave plastics production.
With dwindling U.S. ocelot populations facing little hope for expansion, an innovative public-private alliance is gearing up to breed and reintroduce a new population. They’ll face uniquely Texan conservation challenges and opportunities.