Need a Reminder That All the Glaciers Are Melting? There's a Twitter Bot for That
Climate change and ice, they do not mix. I know it. You know it.
FEMA Deletes Information About Lack of Water and Electricity in Puerto Rico
The FEMA website has been an important tool for keeping Americans up to date on disaster recovery efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. But yesterday, the agency deleted statistics about how many people have access to electricity and clean water on the island. The FEMA website now only displays information…
House Republicans and the Trump Administration Are Waging a War on Wildlife
The war on wildlife is fast becoming a thing. This week, the U.S. government unleashed a flurry of activity that puts furry friends along with plants, fish, insects and a host of other species at risk.
A Disturbing Amount of the World's Honey Is Laced With Insecticides
We all know that bees are dying at a globally alarming rate, and that our rampant use of pesticides is part of the problem. In a disturbing but wholly unsurprising update this week, scientists have now determined that much of the world’s honey appears to be laced with neonicotinoids, a class of insecticides tied to…
Indigenous Activists Win a Major Victory as Two Canadian Pipeline Projects Are Canceled
Transcanada, the company behind the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, announced on Thursday that it was canceling two upcoming construction projects—the Energy East pipeline and the Eastern Mainline gas pipeline—that had been set to snake across Canada, carrying oil and gas from Alberta to several eastern…
Elon Musk Wants to Help Puerto Rico Rebuild Its Grid Using Tesla Batteries [Updated]
Elon Musk, your friendly neighborhood billionaire, has said Tesla has the ability to remake Puerto Rico’s grid if the government is interested. And, well, it sounds like they’re very interested.
Nervous Gulf Coast States Brace for Yet Another Hurricane (Updated)
In what has become a numbing succession of severe storms, tropical storm Nate has emerged in the southwest Caribbean. The storm, which has already produced deadly flash flooding and mudslides in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras, is expected to intensify into a Category 1 Hurricane and reach the US Gulf Coast early…
Rare Appalachian Salamanders Are Reclaiming Abandoned Coal Mines
Green salamanders have always been a bit weird. The only eastern member of the genus Aneides, a group of arboreal salamanders found on the West Coast, they’re long and flat, with googly eyes and tree frog toes. Found in the moist fissures of rock shelves from Northern Mississippi to Southern Pennsylvania, they’re the…
Which Is Better for the Environment: Meatless Mondays or #NoRedOctober?
As a decade-long vegetarian, I support just about any initiatives that might reduce Americans’ reliance on animal products. And while I come at my choice primarily from an animal welfare position, I also recognize that the impact of livestock, and red meat in particular, is taking a toll on our environment.
The Trump Administration Considers the Walrus and Decides It’s Fine
On World Animal Day, October 4, the Trump administration declined to list the Pacific walrus as endangered. In its determination, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that while the walruses “will experience a future reduction in availability of sea ice” they are unable to reliably predict the magnitude of the…
More Evidence That Air Travel Will Be Miserable in a Hotter Future
Air travel is awful, and it’s only going to get worse in the future. But it’s not just that airlines are going to keep jacking up fees, canceling your flights at the last minute, and passing out bags of sand-flavored pretzels that exacerbate your dehydration-fueled headache. Rising global temperatures could make…
Why Tasmanian Tiger Trackers Refuse to Bow to Extinction
What if an animal extinct for nearly 100 years could suddenly be brought back to life with the click of a camera? That is what Greg Booth and his father George Booth hoped to do when they set up 14 trail cameras in a semi-remote area of Tasmania, where the younger Booth claims to have come face to face with the…
Scientists Genetically Engineered Moss to Smell Like Patchouli and It's Amazing
Moss, in case you were not already aware, is a pretty freaking amazing plant. It does not have roots, allowing it to grow in unlikely places like bits of rock at the top of a glacier or on lifeless, barren fields of lava. It provides a habitat for an entire community of microscopic critters. Its leaves are only one…
The World Keeps Installing Renewable Energy at Record Rates
The Trump administration may be doing everything in its power quell the tide of renewable energy, but the world is ready to ride the wave. According to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), a combination of falling prices, rising investments and stronger government support outside the U.S. have sent…
Scientific Community Mobilizes to Restore Famous Undersea Lab Damaged by Irma
Undersea laboratories feel more like a science fiction trope than a real thing, but the world is home to one such fantastical structure, a marine science laboratory called Aquarius located 3.5 miles off Key Largo, an island in the Florida Keys, and 62 feet underwater. It was badly damaged by Hurricane Irma, but in the…
Citing 'Inadequate' Response From US Government, Oxfam Will Step in to Aid Puerto Rico
Two weeks after Hurricane Maria, as Donald Trump heads to a devastated Puerto Rico whose residents he claimed “want everything to be done for them,” there is still very little cell phone service, only 5 percent of the electrical grid is back up, roads and bridges are destroyed, and over half the island lacks running…
Puerto Rico Has a Once In a Lifetime Opportunity to Rethink How It Gets Electricity
Alina Saenz’s house on the outskirts of San Juan glows warmly in the pitch black nights that have plagued Puerto Rico in the two weeks since Category 4 Hurricane Maria devastated the island. The imperceptible hum of the refrigerator, fans to circulate the humid tropical air and nightly news on the television were all…
Parisians Say 'Non et Non!' at Unleashing Birds of Prey on Local Pigeons
Pigeons are a statue-shitting urban nuisance with the brash confidence of a local and the sidewalk-clogging unhurried stroll of a tourist, and a Parisian politician has an unlikely scheme to run them off: bring in some birds of prey and let them pick the pigeons off like a pigeon would peck bits of baguette off the…
Congress Wants to Ban the Shark Fin Trade, But Conservationists Say It Could Backfire
In recent decades, many shark populations have been decimated by overfishing. Often this is the result of those looking to make a buck off the gruesome process of shark finning—which involves bringing a shark on board a boat, slicing off its fins, and tossing it back into the sea and to certain death. But according to…
Puerto Rico Is on the Brink of a Terrifying Public Health Crisis
When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands as a Category 4 storm this past month, it immediately brought devastation from winds, flooding, and storm surge to many Americans. The entire island lost electricity. While there’s been some recovery to the power grid and shorter gas lines, the next…
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