Magazine

Jeremy Firestone, University of Delaware; Ben Hoen, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Joseph Rand, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory While most surveys suggest that the public generally supports wind and solar power, opposition from local communities and residents sometimes blocks or delays specific new projects. Consider the ill-fated Cape Wind offshore project, which was slated to […]

Theodore Endreny, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry Megacities are on the rise. There are currently 47 such areas around the globe, each housing more than 10 million residents. More than half the global population now lives in urban areas, comprising about 3 percent of the Earth. The ecological footprint

Jefferson Keith Moore, University of California, Irvine Climate change is rapidly warming the Earth and altering ecosystems on land and at sea that produce our food. In the oceans, most added heat from climate warming is still near the surface and will take centuries to work down into deeper waters. But as this happens, it

Benjamin Alexander, City University of New York Eighty-five years ago, on April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order allocating US$10 million for “Emergency Conservation Work.” This step launched one of the New Deal’s signature relief programs: the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC. Its mission was to put unemployed Americans to work

Greg Dotson, University of Oregon The Trump administration is poised to ease pollution and efficiency rules for new passenger cars and trucks, giving automakers a reprieve from more stringent Obama-era standards. But in the process, it could yield global leadership in the auto sector to the Chinese. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is expected

Eric Hittinger, Rochester Institute of Technology and Eric Williams, Rochester Institute of Technology The market for energy storage on the power grid is growing at a rapid clip, driven by declining prices and supportive government policies. Based on our research on the operation and costs of electricity grids, especially the benefits of new technologies, we

Jeffrey French, University of Wyoming and Sarah Tessendorf,  University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Water is a valuable resource that affects nearly all aspects of life on earth. It also is limited, so people use a variety of methods to ensure that supply meets demand. One such technique is cloud seeding – adding particles to the atmosphere

Naga Srujana Goteti, Rochester Institute of Technology; Eric Hittinger, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Eric Williams, Rochester Institute of Technology Carbon-free energy: Is the answer blowing in the wind? Perhaps, but the wind doesn’t always blow, nor does the sun always shine. The energy generated by wind and solar power is intermittent, meaning that the

Katherine Levine Einstein, Boston University; David Glick, Boston University, and Maxwell Palmer, Boston University Despite almost universal scientific consensus that climate change poses a growing threat, President Donald Trump’s recent infrastructure plan makes no mention of the need to build resilience to rising global temperatures. Instead, it actually seeks to weaken environmental reviews as a

Johan Hollander, Lund University It is rare to encounter a scientific fact that stirs widespread debate and distrust quite like the matter of climate change. Despite consensus among climate specialists about a theory that is supported by a mountain of facts from the physical, natural, and cultural sciences, the debate continues to be perpetrated by