Enlarge / An image of the Bay Area at night shows why protecting some regions will likely lead to damaging floods elsewhere. (credit: NASA) Protecting the coasts in the United States from the impacts of climate change comes with a hefty price tag. But new research shows that using sea walls to safeguard land can […]
Enlarge / Industrial climber Torsten Kuehne repairs a wind turbine about 60 meters high in Wulkow, Germany. (credit: Patrick Pleul/picture alliance ) The European Union today unveiled a dozen pieces of legislation that would overhaul the bloc’s economy in an effort to slash carbon emissions. The sweeping “ Green Deal ” proposal would cut carbon […]
Enlarge / A warning sign for an underground natural gas pipeline stands near Sunray, Texas. (credit: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg via Getty Images ) While Texans froze and natural gas-fired power plants tripped offline during a February cold snap, natural gas traders and pipeline companies made up to $11 billion in just nine days. The handsome profits […]
Enlarge / As the world continues to warm, scenes like this will occur for a smaller fraction of the year. (credit: Alexander Ryumin / Getty Images ) Traveling by boat through Canada’s Arctic waters is no easy feat. Beyond the ice and the cold, the particular region is one of typically the most complex geographies […]
Enlarge / After thawing out, these tiny creatures started making clones of themselves. (credit: Michael Plewka) Rotifers are microscopic freshwater-dwelling multicellular organisms. They’re already known to withstand freezing (even in liquid nitrogen), boiling, desiccation, and radiation, and the group has persisted for millions of years without having sex. The humble yet remarkably hardy bdelloid rotifer […]
Enlarge Our warming planet is melting lots of ice and heating the waters of the oceans, creating a clear trend of rising oceans. In some areas of the US, this is starting to cause what’s called nuisance flooding, where high tides cause coastal flooding even in the absence of storms. As the oceans continue to […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Humanity is struggling to contain two compounding crises: skyrocketing global temperatures and plummeting biodiversity. But people tend to tackle each problem on its own, for instance by deploying green energies and carbon-eating machines while roping off ecosystems to preserve them. But in a new report, 50 scientists from around the world argue […]
Enlarge / Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump’s executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York on January 24, 2017. (credit: AFP | Getty) Construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline was officially terminated on Wednesday, handing a big […]
Ethiopians carrying jerrycans of water. (credit: UNICEF Ethiopia/2011/Lemma) As people around the world escape poverty, you might expect their energy use to increase. But my research in Nepal, Vietnam, and Zambia found the opposite: lower levels of deprivation were linked to lower levels of energy demand. What is behind this counter-intuitive finding? After all, the […]
Enlarge (credit: Crevecoeur and Antoine 2021) When archaeologists in the 1960s unearthed a 13,400-year-old cemetery at Jebel Sahaba in Sudan, it looked like they’d stumbled across the aftermath of a large-scale battle fought during the Pleistocene. At least half the people buried at the site, which straddles the banks of the Upper Nile, bore the […]