High-resolution images from satellite company Planet are revealing glimpses of some of the fires currently devastating the Amazon rainforest. While many of the images currently being shared on social media and by news outlets are from past fires — some from as long as 15 years ago — satellites can provide a near real-time view…
Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced the end of his campaign to seek the presidency on Wednesday night since he hadn’t polled high enough to participate in the second round of debates. But he went out with a bang — at least in terms of climate policy. Earlier that same day, he’d released one final policy…
Hold your horses, because presidential candidate Julián Castro just came out with an animal welfare plan on Tuesday. The former housing secretary’s proposal may be the first policy proposed by a presidential candidate to highlight the connection between animals, climate change, and extinction (if only because we just learned how bad the extinction situation is…
This story was originally published by WIRED and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Full-tilt chaos has descended on the Arctic, a region that’s now warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. This summer it’s been sweltering under unprecedented heat, and wildfires have so far consumed 2.4 million…
Some 100 people gathered at the top of a volcano in Iceland on Sunday for an unusual funeral. The victim: A 700-year-old, six-mile glacier. Cause of death: climate change. The Okjokull glacier actually died a decade ago. But Iceland decided to hold the funeral for the deceased ice mass — it’s first to go extinct…
This story was originally published by Undark Magazine and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Much of Detroit is in ruins. The city spreads over 139 square miles, but about 20 square miles of that — an area just under the size of Manhattan — is vacant. Home in 1950 to…
For the first time in history, low water levels on the Colorado River have forced Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico to cut back the amount of water they use. It’s the latest example of climate change affecting daily life, but also an encouraging sign that people can handle a world with less: These orderly cutbacks are…
Greenland is sooo hot right now. And we’re not just talking literally (though, yeah, that’s also true). In the last week, the gigantic Arctic island has been the focus of several news stories. Here’s a quick round-up of why Greenland is blowing up your Twitter feed: #1: President Trump expressed interest in buying Greenland Let’s…
Most of us know ozone as that benevolent stratospheric layer that absorbs the sun’s harmful UV light and keeps us safe. In the 1980s, scientists found a “hole” in the ozone layer — really just a large section that was getting precariously thin — caused by the use of potent chemicals called CFCs. The world…
This story was originally published by Yale Environment 360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For cities in the United States, the price of infrastructure projects to combat rising seas and intensifying storms is coming into focus — and so is the sticker shock. In Boston, where many neighborhoods have…
