Magazine

Seeking to bend the coronavirus curve, governors and mayors have told millions of Americans to stay home. If you’re pondering what to read, it’s easy to find lists featuring books about disease outbreaks, solitude and living a simpler life. But it’s much harder to find a book that combines these themes.

Military leaders believe climate change seriously threatens U.S. national security. They contend it is stirring up chaos and conflict abroad, endangering coastal bases and stressing soldiers and equipment, which undermines military readiness. But rather than debating the causes of climate change or assigning blame, they focus on how warming undermines security, and on practical steps to slow its advance and minimize damage.

Our built environment, which includes not only buildings but roads, sidewalks and public spaces, plays an important role in physical health. Researchers call cities that promote sedentary lifestyles and poor diet obesogenic. City planners are paying increasing attention to helping residents lead healthy lifestyles

The U.S. has made tremendous progress in reducing air pollution since 1990, and this has produced significant public health improvements. But air pollution still imposes a serious health burden on the U.S. population, and there are signs that past progress in improving air quality may now be leveling off. New ways of analyzing actions to control air pollution and its health impacts can help.

As California contends with drought, wildfires and other impacts of climate change, a small yet passionate group of residents are attempting to lessen these effects and reduce the state’s carbon emissions. They are ranchers – but not the kind that most people picture when they hear that term.

The world urgently needs ways to keep carbon out of the atmosphere, and to build food security for a rapidly growing global population. Soil can do both. However, current efforts to promote carbon storage in soil miss a key point: Not all soil carbon is the same.

Ask people to name the world’s largest river, and most will probably guess that it’s the Amazon, the Nile or the Mississippi. In fact, some of Earth’s largest rivers are in the sky – and they can produce powerful storms, like those currently soaking the Pacific Northwest.

Clyde Eiríkur Hull, Rochester Institute of Technology and Eric Williams, Rochester Institute of Technology Countries around the world throw away millions of tons of plastic trash every year. Finding ways to manage plastic waste is daunting even for wealthy nations, but for smaller and less-developed countries it can be overwhelming. We recently carried out a

Research shows that more often than not, Americans give up trying to sort their recyclables. Or they engage in wishful recycling, tossing nonrecyclables into the bin. Even so, most waste never gets that far. People feel intimidated by the task. A UCLA researcher has uncovered promising solutions to the recycling crisis driven by personal benefits and social connections.

Dealing with enormous quantities of debris and waste materials is one of the most significant challenges for communities in the wake of natural disasters. Often this task overwhelms local waste managers, leaving waste untouched for weeks, months or even years.