Carbon offsetting has become a valuable tool for companies taking much-needed climate action, and yet the model has major drawbacks. It still grants companies a free pass to continue emitting. And there’s little transparency as to how much companies are actually offsetting because there are an array of carbon registries, ... read more

PFAS chemicals seemed like a good idea at first. As Teflon, they made pots easier to clean, starting in the 1940s. They made jackets waterproof and carpets stain-resistant. Food wrappers, firefighting foam, even makeup seemed better with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Then tests started detecting PFAS in people’s blood. Today, ... read more

Several major oil companies, including BP and Shell, periodically publish scenarios forecasting the future of the energy sector. In recent years, they have added visions for how climate change might be addressed, including scenarios that they claim are consistent with the international Paris climate agreement. These scenarios are hugely influential. ... read more

At a new apartment building in the Canadian city of Hamilton, near Toronto, rent for a studio will cost as little as $85 a month. The apartment building, which will begin construction this fall, is designed for the city’s most vulnerable residents, many of whom are currently homeless. For the ... read more

A typical house runs on fossil fuels: Gas or oil powers your furnace and water heater. The stove in your kitchen probably also runs on gas (that is, methane); the direct emissions from all of the gas stoves in the U.S. are equivalent to the pollution from half a million ... read more

A parking spot for a single car can hold as many as 10 bikes—but it’s often a challenge for a city to convince drivers that it’s okay to relinquish car parking space for other uses (witness battles that often ensue when cities add bike lanes next to curbs). In the ... read more

If it seems like forest fires are getting much worse, that’s because they are. The area of trees lost to fires each year is now twice as large as it was in the year 2001. In a new analysis, researchers at Global Forest Watch used satellite images to map out ... read more

When you hear about the gut microbiome, does it ever make you wonder what tiny creatures are teeming inside your own body? As a microbiologist who studies the microbiomes of plants, animals, and people, I’ve watched public interest in gut microbes grow alongside research on their possible dramatic influence on ... read more

By the 1920s, Yellowstone employees had exterminated all of the national park’s gray wolves, as directed by federal and state control programs. But in 1995, the wolves were reintroduced, and the apex predator has since reenergized the park’s ecosystems, producing positive effects that cascade down the food chain. To avoid ... read more

In Bucha, Ukraine, the Russian attacks in March that brutally killed hundreds of civilians—including children who were shot while trying to escape—also destroyed or damaged more than 2,500 homes. Now, the community is rushing to build new housing. And one new pilot project aims to demonstrate how temporary homes can ... read more

The diamonds, silver, and gold in a new collection of jewelry from Pandora, the world’s largest jewelry producer, are physically identical to stones and metals from mines. But the diamonds were grown in a lab with renewable energy, and all of the gold and silver is recycled. The shift is ... read more

The passage of the Biden Administration’s climate change package, the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” has predictably split along partisan lines, with Republicans characterizing the bill as an act of reckless government spending, certain to raise taxes and fuel further inflation. But does this act really represent reckless spending? The legislation ... read more

Right now, there are only a few pockets of the U.S. where it’s possible that the heat index might rise above 125 degrees Fahrenheit—a particularly dangerous threshold for human health. But by the middle of the century, a much larger area is at risk, sprawling from the Gulf Coast across ... read more

Rearing livestock and growing crops to feed them has destroyed more tropical forest and killed more wildlife than any other industry. Animal agriculture also produces vast quantities of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. The environmental consequences are so profound that the world cannot meet climate goals and keep ecosystems intact ... read more

The sweeping climate, energy, and healthcare bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act contains about $370 billion to foster clean-energy development and combat climate change, constituting the largest federal climate investment in history. Several studies project that its climate and energy provisions could enable the United States to reduce its ... read more