Our need for metals runs deep. How deep, you might ask? Why, up to 16,000 feet deep, in the form of potato-sized lumps of metal lying on the seafloor in some of the deepest parts of the oceans. We’ve been making sci-fi movies and writing books about it for decades, but commercial deep-sea mining might…
Vice President Mike Pence was on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, and things got … heated. “Do you think human-induced climate emergency is a threat to the United States?” host Jake Tapper asked Pence. Over the course of the next two minutes, Pence used every ounce of creativity in his person to avoid…
This story was originally published by Yale E360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Some 30 miles north of San Diego, along the Pacific Coast, sits the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, the largest effort to turn saltwater into freshwater in North America. Each day 100 million gallons of…
People of color are among the biggest advocates for the environment — after all, many of them live in areas disproportionately impacted by pollution and climate change. So why are so many green organizations failing to retain racially diverse staff? It’s no secret that environmental science and advocacy have struggled with racial equity problems. Diversifying…
It’s the first day of summer. In case you haven’t gotten the memo: You don’t want to be caught dead in carbon-intensive fashion right now. (Reformation canceled carbon months ago.) And, look, at the rate we’re going, you will be caught dead, by 2075 or so. The only thing I can think of that’s worse…
It’s a daunting task, keeping a bunch of 12-year-olds interested in something for an entire school year. The cutest, whiniest boy bands barely manage it. After all, middle schoolers have so much to think about — how to get their parents to drop them off a full five blocks from the movie theater, whether their…
In the run-up to the 2016 election, a small group of climate activists were busy devising a strategy to catapult climate change to the forefront of American politics under what they assumed would be a Clinton administration. When Trump won the presidency, the group had to rethink its entire strategy. Now, the group is betting…
Boaty McBoatface, our favorite British research submersible, is back in the news — not, this time, for its amazing name, but as a result of its recent contribution to climate science. The yellow sub’s maiden voyage led to a major discovery about the way Antarctic winds contribute to sea-level rise. In case you’ve forgotten, the…
Natalie Rubio pushes through the glass revolving doors of Tuft’s Science and Technology Center. Her feet take her on autopilot through the atrium and up a flight of stairs to the culture lab to check on her current project: T175 cell culture flasks of insect muscle cells growing on a mushroom chitosan scaffolding. In layman’s…
This story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For the past two decades, seafaring scientists from Oregon State University have set out from the Newport, Oregon, harbor to collect data. Tracing ocean trenches and undersea mountains, their heavy equipment dips into the water…
