Last year, global electric-car sales more than doubled compared to the year before. Solar and wind power are cheaper in most countries than fossil fuels. The world is now spending record amounts on clean energy. New technology is emerging to cut emissions in hard-to-decarbonize industries like steel and cement and ... read more

The billions of tons of cement made each year have an enormous carbon footprint: 8% of global emissions, or four times more than the airline industry. That’s both because of the energy used to make cement—a process that involves heating up crushed rocks to as much as 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit—and ... read more

When Jane Goodall was growing up, she never played with dolls. But the primatologist, now 88 years old and the world’s leading expert on chimpanzees, has a new Barbie doll in her image, complete with a tiny set of binoculars and a miniature version of David Greybeard, a chimp Goodall ... read more

Last year, on a dairy farm at Point Reyes, north of San Francisco, the startup, Fyto, temporarily installed a greenhouse that could automatically grow and harvest bright green aquatic plants, such as duckweed that normally grow in lakes or ponds. The pilot was designed to show that the crop could begin ... read more

Products derived from the cotton plant show up in many items that people use daily, including blue jeans, bedsheets, paper, candles, and peanut butter. In the U.S., cotton is a $7 billion annual crop grown in 17 states from Virginia to California. Today, however, it’s at risk. Cotton plants from ... read more

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is considering requiring publicly traded U.S. companies to disclose the climate-related risks they face. Republican state officials, emboldened by a recent Supreme Court ruling, are already threatening to sue, claiming regulators don’t have the authority. While the debate heats up, what’s surprisingly missing ... read more

Heat waves are becoming supercharged as the climate changes—lasting longer, becoming more frequent and getting just plain hotter. One question a lot of people are asking is: “When will it get too hot for normal daily activity as we know it, even for young, healthy adults?” The answer goes beyond ... read more

On the edge of a small town in Western Finland, a startup called Polar Night Energy worked with a local utility to pioneer something that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world: a giant sand battery. It’s what it sounds like: A tower filled with 100 tons of sand, designed ... read more

Net-zero homes—ultra-efficient houses or apartments that produce as much energy as they use—are cheaper to own than standard houses since they save on energy bills. But they can be quite expensive to build, since they require advanced building and engineering. A startup called Vantem aims to change that. The company, ... read more

The world we live in today—with the pandemic, climate change, growing inequality, and additional challenges—”is the result of decisions that were made decades ago,” says Marina Gorbis, executive director of the nonprofit Institute for the Future. But policymakers often aren’t thinking that far ahead. How can we better prepare for ... read more

The latest Supreme Court case made it harder for the EPA to regulate climate pollution from power plants, which could drastically limit the country’s ability to hit its climate goals. But there’s more that the government can do now to push for reduced emission, including passing new climate legislation—and there’s a ... read more

Instead of sewing or knitting, scientists at the startup Simplifyber are fundamentally rethinking how clothing and shoes are made. To make their products, the team pours liquid cellulose into a single 3D printed mold. What comes out is a fully completed shirt or sneaker. The final products are biodegradable, and ... read more

This week, Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown told attendees at the Wall Street Journal Global Food Forum that the company plans to launch a plant-based steak in retail stores later this year. The vegan sliced steak is meant to replicate the taste and texture of its animal-based counterpart. But will ... read more

Tampons have become the latest household product to fall foul of supply chain issues. Reports of a scarcity of the menstrual product, used by millions of women in the U.S., have combined with general inflationary pressure on the price of goods to create cost and access barriers. The Conversation asked ... read more

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here. Despite being “yucky” according to some picky eaters, broccoli is well-suited to grow alongside solar panels, according to a new study. The research from Chonnam National University in South Korea ... read more