The company’s rapid downfall raises questions about how it can supply its annual 6 million metric tons of wood pellets to the UK, EU and Asia, and how nations relying on biomass to meet energy and climate commitments will cope.
As oil and gas production surge, shifting the global economy to a circular model is essential to charting a path away from fossil fuels, petroleum-based nitrogen fertilizers and petrochemicals such as plastics. Part 3 of a three-part miniseries.
This story is the second in a three-part mini-series surveying the range of impacts by the fossil fuel industry on the global environment. Part one and part two review harm…
Fossil fuels have done great good for humanity, but they are now not only threatening our planet’s climate, but also taking a terrible toll on the global environment, putting at risk Earth systems vital to life as we know it. Part 1 of a three-part miniseries.
Protests are arising in South American communities as Google, Microsoft and other tech giants build water-hungry computer data centers in increasingly drought-besieged nations, including Uruguay and Chile.
Pope Francis is calling on policymakers, corporations and the world’s people to act decisively on climate. His plea comes as the faith-based climate movement — which built momentum after the 2015 Paris agreement — is lagging.
The construction industry, with its intensive use of cement, is a climate killer. But an innovator in Mexico has found one solution: combining traditional adobe construction in a state-of-the art solar-powered public building.
Japan is home to two rare subspecies of leopard cat, one found only on Iriomote Island and the other on Tsushima Island. Neither larger than a housecat, each subspecies has…
With plastic pollution littering the planet, certification organizations are popping up to sell “plastic credits” to companies, allowing them to offset the plastic they make and use with equivalent plastic waste collected and reused. Critics are skeptical.
Meet the rural farmers in southeastern Spain fighting the encroaching Sahara Desert through regenerative agriculture and landscape restoration.
Scientists were shocked by the high degree of warming in the North Atlantic Ocean this summer, and are concerned about effects on phytoplankton and fish. Intensifying and lengthening marine heatwaves around the globe are also worrying.
Research finds impacts by tiny plastic particles on marine plankton and microbes could disrupt carbon and nitrogen cycling in the world’s oceans, possibly putting Earth’s operating system and the planet’s habitability at risk.
In the runup to the COP28 climate conference in December, which critics say has been largely co-opted by fossil fuel interests, Pope Francis has issued a strongly worded document critical of world leaders who make bold climate promises then fail to act.
The more we learn about plastic, the more we find it everywhere. Research has shown that tiny microplastic particles litter the world’s oceans and rivers, from the Arctic and Antarctic.…
An experiment in Malaysian Borneo found that the more species of tree seedlings planted in a previously logged plot, the more the result later resembles an old-growth forest, with greater biomass and forest complexity.
While PFAS impacts on human health are well known, scientists are also finding severe impacts on wildlife, including hawksbill turtles, American alligators, Arctic kittiwakes, hooded seals, striped bass, bottlenose dolphins and other species.
A bid by global beef-processing giant JBS for a listing on the New York Stock Exchange, giving it access to an influx of global investments, may be under threat following…
The planet’s Indigenous peoples are valued as Earth’s best stewards, protecting forests and other ecosystems holding vast carbon stores. But governments offer insufficient aid to meet the extreme climate threats now buffeting traditional communities.
Escalating geopolitical tensions, a weakening dollar, and growing distrust in financial markets has triggered a tropical rush for gold, diamonds and precious metals that’s doing serious ecological damage to Earth’s rivers.
A billion tires enter landfills, are burned, or litter the landscape every year, and more will be dumped as auto use surges planetwide. Industry analysts and entrepreneurs are pressing for circular economy solutions.
SINGAPORE — If you didn’t know better, you might think Edwin Beng is heading home after buying a new appliance. It’s a muggy Sunday morning in Singapore, and Beng, carrying…
Stephanie Fennessy and her husband have been tagging giraffes in Africa since the early 2000s. The couple initially started out by using modified elephant collars. They later switched to using…
While electric vehicles can cut direct emissions, their production supply chain needs to be decarbonized and other environmental impacts addressed. EVs have a long road to travel before being truly sustainable, say experts.
When powered by renewables, EVs can greatly reduce a vehicle’s direct carbon emissions. But experts warn that we need to gauge environmental impacts across the entire automotive supply chain to ensure sustainability.
In 2020, 282 containers full of mixed waste bales sailed from Salerno, Italy, to Sousse, Tunisia, in four shipments. Italian customs did not raise any flags. Customs classified them as…
SINGAPORE — For a while now, researchers and policy experts have touted the transition to a circular economy as a way to sustainably handle the world’s growing waste and pollution…
The world’s linear economy, critically labeled as “take-make-waste,” is blamed for many global environmental problems, including climate change. The circular economy — focused on conserving resources and material reuse — is a proposed alternative.
Top tropical ecologists have spent two decades studying the impact of climate change on a single transect in the Peruvian Andes, an area unparalleled in its biodiversity. They find that every species studied there is struggling against warming temperatures.
Research has found that drought and declining water availability are increasingly impeding the ability of tropical ecosystems to soak up carbon dioxide, making the tropics a less effective carbon sink.…
Sustainable aviation fuels aren’t enough to drastically cut commercial aviation’s carbon footprint soon. Nor are redesigned planes or carbon-smart airports. Reducing demand for air travel may be the best answer.