Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) The numbers are startling. We know roughly how much more carbon dioxide we can put into the atmosphere before we exceed our climate goals—limiting warming to 1.5° to 2° C above preindustrial temperatures. From that, we can figure out how much more fossil fuel we can burn before […]
Enlarge (credit: De Agostini Picture Library | Getty Images) Lake Whillans is a strange body of water, starting with the fact that there is liquid to fill it at all. Though buried under more than 2,000 feet of Antarctic ice, its temperatures climb to just shy of 0° Celsius, thanks to a combination of geothermal […]
Produced and directed by Corey Eisenstein. Transcript coming soon. (video link) Our previous episode of Edge of Knowledge peeped back in time a few billion years to explore the particular origins of life on Earth , but now we aim our lens in a different direction. Rather than looking at the distant past to see […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) An unfortunate byproduct of the arguments over climate change has been the publication of some truly awful books. Think tank staff members, disgruntled scientists, and self-appointed experts have produced page after page of arguments we knew were wrong decades ago, framing them as earth-shattering revelations that will cause […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) The US looks set to use so-called “E15” gasoline throughout the summer. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden will announce that the US Environmental Protection Agency will issue a national emergency waiver allowing the use of the ethanol-gasoline blend between June 1 and September 15 as Americans complain about high […]
Enlarge (credit: Tony Armstrong-Sly / Flickr) The urgency of action on climate change is a complicated thing. On the one hand, the harm of inaction is real and growing every year. On the other hand, there’s no such thing as “too late.” Plug in some numbers, and you can define a corresponding deadline to hit […]
Enlarge / Firefighters from Stockton, California, put out flames off of Hidden Valley Rd. while fighting a wildfire, Friday, May 3, 2013 in Hidden Valley. (credit: Daria Devyatkina / Flickr) In the western United States, summer 2018 was a bad time for wildfires. In all, according to the government of California, 7,948 separate fires saw […]
Enlarge / A technician inspects the backside of bitcoin mining at Bitfarms in Saint Hyacinthe, Quebec, on March 19, 2018. (credit: Lars Hagberg / AFP) Bitcoin has a voracious appetite for energy, a foundational characteristic of the cryptocurrency that some environmental groups say they are hoping to change. A new pressure campaign, called Change the […]
Enlarge / Koch Industries Inc. headquarters in Wichita, Kansas. (credit: Larry W. Smith/Bloomberg) Koch Industries—the conglomerate owned by Charles Koch and the heirs of David Koch, men who donated heavily to groups that helped politicize the science of climate change—is reportedly investing hundreds of millions of dollars in battery companies. The privately held company has […]
Enlarge / It can be tough to run a business when your loading dock is under water. (credit: Getty Images) On Monday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced new rules about disclosing climate risks for companies listed on US-based stock exchanges. The rules are meant to give investors a clearer sense of how […]