Our Neighborhood

Earth

Keeping It Green

Atmospheric CO2 Levels

(Monthly Averages)

Sept 1, 2025: 4.24.8 ppm
10 years ago: 396 ppm
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350 ppm

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Page Updated:
Sept. 21, 2025

• The 2024 Clean 15 (Safe Foods)
• Get the Lead Out Toolkit
• Oil Spill History
• World Air Quality Report
• Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act

• US Emissions by Sector Chart

  
  

  Where is all that CO2 coming from? This graph breaks it down by economic sector.

• Greenest U.S. Cities
• Safe Water in Pictures
• U.S. WEA Grassroots Accelerator
• Safer Habitats

• • Uraguay: He Got An Entire Country Running On Clean Energy

  Can He Do It Again?
  
  
  

  Sept. 21, 2025 -When Ramón Méndez Galain’s phone rang in 2008, he could hardly believe who was on the other end of the line.

  It was the president of Uruguay, Tabaré Vázquez, and he was calling with an offer: Would Galain, a self-described simple university professor, be interested in serving as the country’s energy secretary?

• • One of the First to Benefit From
  Trump’s Cuts to Environmental Review

  A Nevada Gold Mine
  
  
  

  Sept. 19, 2025 -A proposed gold and silver mine in northern Nevada is slated to be the first open-pit mine to go through accelerated permitting from the Bureau of Land Management, which provides far less opportunity for the public to engage with the process and help avert later problems.

  The move follows the Trump administration’s actions this summer to roll back procedures in a foundational U.S. environmental law.

• • China Now Uses 80% Artificial Sand

  Here’s Why That’s a Bigger Deal Than It Sounds
  
  
  

  Sept. 18, 2025 -The world is running out of sand.

  About 50 billion tons of sand and gravel are extracted annually, most of which is used for construction activities. This is a problem for two reasons. First of all, it’s not sustainable. Secondly, if we continue to extract sand at this rate, it will end up causing irreversible damage to the environment.

  For instance, loss of sand from oceans, rivers, and beaches can lead to excessive flooding and degradation of marine ecosystems. It threatens coastal communities, and infrastructure. Plus, sand mining near aquifers can lower water tables, affecting water availability for humans, land animals, and agriculture.

• • Snohomish PUD Implements Advanced Grid
  Technologies for Enhanced Reliability and Wildfire Safety

  The Company's Deploying Smart Grid Tech With Eaton to Cut Outages and Reduce Wildfire Risk Across Its Washington Service Territory
  
  {energy central}
  
  

  Sept. 18, 2025 -Over the next four years, the utility will deploy intelligent controls and Nova NX-STS reclosers on its 6K-mile system as part of the $60M SnoSMART initiative supported by DOE funding.

  Reclosers can reduce outage duration by 50–90% while limiting fault energy that can spark wildfires, according to Eaton. Snohomish aims to cut outage times by 25%.

  Wireless communications will allow remote monitoring and faster response in high-risk areas, giving operators new tools for reliability and resilience.

• • E.P.A. Keeps Polluters on the Hook
  to Clean Up ‘Forever Chemicals’

  The Decision Came Despite an Effort By a Former Industry Lawyer Who's Now At the E.P.A. to Reverse the Regulation
  
  
  

  Sept. 18, 2025 -The Environmental Protection Agency will keep polluters on the hook to clean up “forever chemicals” linked to serious health risks, upholding a major rule despite chemical industry opposition.

  The decision, which was announced late Wednesday, came despite an effort by a former industry lawyer, who now holds a top post at the agency, to reverse the regulation.

• • Chinese Miners Accused of Gold Pillage,
  Environmental Destruction in DRC

  A New Report Says Illegal, Semi-Industrial Gold Mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Wrecking Havoc on Congolese People and the Environment.
  
  
  

  Sept. 17, 2025 -Chinese miners are illegally extracting Congolese gold on a vast scale, according to a new report from the nonprofit PAX, which also accuses the Democratic Republic of the Congo of weak and ineffective governance.

  The report, published Wednesday by the Netherlands-based Peace Advocacy Group, said that semi-industrial gold mining operations have devastated at least 155 miles of rivers and streams in Haut-Uélé, a province where poverty is widespread and where armed conflict and violence have roiled the population for decades.

• • The Ozone Hole Is Steadily Shrinking Due to Global Efforts

  After Nearly 40 Years of Global Efforts, the Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Continues to Heal
  
  
  

  Sept. 16, 2025 -Forty years after global policymakers began grappling with the crisis posed by a gaping hole in Earth’s protective ozone layer over Antarctica, the damage is continuing to heal, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization.

  Found between about nine and 19 miles above Earth’s surface, the ozone layer is a broad region of the stratosphere where the molecule, which contains three oxygen atoms, is particularly concentrated. Here, ozone plays a vital role in blocking the sun’s ultraviolet radiation—essentially acting as a planetary sunscreen of a sort.

• • Per Capita Energy-Related CO2 Emissions
  Decreased in Every State Between 2005 and 2023

  A State By State Report
  
  {energy cerntral}
  
  

  Sept. 15, 2025 -Nationwide, total energy-related CO? emissions dropped 20% while population grew 14%, driving a 30% decline in per-person emissions. The shift was driven mainly by coal plant retirements and a surge in natural gas and renewables generation.

  Transportation is the top source of CO? emissions from energy consumption in 28 states, overtaking power generation in many coastal regions as coal use declined. In coal-heavy states, the electric power sector remains the dominant source.

• • How the UK’s Largest Lake Became an Ecological Disaster

  Pollution From Over-Farming Has Left Northern Ireland’s Lough Neagh Choked By Toxic Algae
  
  
  

  Sept. 14, 2025 -The bright, cheery signs dot the shoreline like epistles from another era, a time before the calamity.

  “Ballyronan marina is a picturesque boating and tourist facility on the shores of Lough Neagh,” says one. “Contours of its historical past embrace the virginal shoreline.”

  Another sign boasts that the “rich ecological diversity and abundance of salmon and eels” has sustained communities there for thousands of years, since the stone age.

• • Google’s Huge New Essex Datacenter
  to Emit 570,000 Tons of CO2 a Year

  Planning Documents Show Impact of Thurrock ‘Hyperscale’ Unit as UK Attempts to Ramp Up AI Capacity
  
  
  

  Sept. 12, 2025 -A new Google datacenter in Essex is expected to emit more than half a million tons of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to about 500 short-haul flights a week, planning documents show.

  Spread across 52 hectares (128 acres), the Thurrock “hyperscale datacenter” will be part of a wave of mammoth computer and AI power houses if it secures planning consent.

• • Engineers Turn Fish Biology into a
  Breakthrough Microplastic Laundry Filter

  Inspired By the Filter Feeding Mechanisms of Basking Sharks and Manta Rays, a Startup Called Cleanr Has Developed a Filter That Traps Over 90% of Microplastics Released In Each Wash Cycle
  
  
  

  Sept. 15, 2025 - Max Pennington’s epiphany happened in the laundry room. As an engineering student at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio, Pennington became deeply concerned about microplastic pollution—particularly microfibers pouring into waterways via washing machines. He wanted to see the problem for himself, so he teamed up with some classmates and created a filter from household products: a bit of mesh, an old cup, and some duct tape.

  After one load of laundry, the filter was chock full of microfibers—debris from the breakdown of synthetic clothing. “Once we saw what came out of the washer hose, we knew it was something that needed to change,” said Pennington. .

• • The Crystal Behind Next Gen Solar Panels May
  Transform Cancer and Heart Disease Scans

  Tiny Pixels Can Save Millions of Lives and Make Nuclear Medicine Scans Affordable For Both Hospitals and Patients
  
  
  

  Sept. 15, 2025 - Imagine a medical scan that gives doctors razor-sharp images of your heart or brain in just minutes, while exposing you to less radiation and costing hospitals far less money. That vision may soon become reality, thanks to a new detector technology.

  A team of researchers from Northwestern University (NWU) and Soochow University? has built the first perovskite-based gamma-ray detector for nuclear medicine scans. The newly developed device captures signals with record-breaking clarity and has the potential to transform how doctors detect heart disease, cancer, and other hidden illnesses deep inside the body.

• • The Moon Is Drifting 1.5 Inches Farther From Earth Every Year

  It’s Slowly Making Our Days Longer
  
  
  

  Sept. 15, 2025 - So, why is the Moon getting farther away? It’s all because of tides.

  Tides come from a difference in gravity across an object. The force of gravity exerted by the Moon is about 4% stronger on the side of Earth that faces toward the Moon, compared to the opposite side of the Earth facing away, because gravity gets weaker with distance.

  This tidal force causes the oceans to slosh around in two bulges that point toward and away from the Moon. They do this because the gravitational force pulling on Earth by the Moon isn’t just an average force that’s the same strength everywhere..

• • ‘Prolific Alien Invaders’ Threaten Waters in the West

  Zebra Mussels Are Now in the Upper Colorado River System, and the Minuscule Mollusks Can Wreak Massive Damage
  
  
  

  Sept. 14, 2025 - Water is a driving force in the American West, and today it’s at risk more than ever. Not just from overuse, not just from megadrought, but from minuscule invaders that pose a nearly unstoppable threat to the region’s rivers, lakes, dams and reservoirs.

  Typically smaller than a nickel, zebra and quagga mussels have spread across Europe and the eastern United States, doing billions of dollars in damage by clogging infrastructure, wreaking havoc on ecosystems and eating food on which native fish and other animals rely.

• • At the Bus Stop, a Living Ad For Nature

  It's No Ordinary Bus Stop
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 14, 2025 - Bus shelters tend to be practical, utility-oriented, no-frills structures. They offer protection from the elements. Seating for while you wait. Maybe an ad to grab your attention.

  But a green bus stop movement is seeking to make them something more: Antidotes to the heat-island effect. Habitats for native pollinators. Living advertisements for incorporating nature into the built environment.

• • Can Bipartisan Support in Congress
  Save NOAA From White House Cuts?

  Both House and Senate Lawmakers Have Advanced Bills Rejecting the Trump Administration’s Proposal to Eliminate Climate Research
  
  
  

  Sept. 13, 2025 -To understand the bipartisan support that has emerged in Congress for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it only takes a glance at the list of stakeholders who have been lobbying to save the embattled agency from the Trump administration’s budget knife.

  Those who fish the oceans and those who ship goods over their waves, officials who maintain dams and those who manage drinking water systems, the insurance industry and a slew of universities from red and blue states alike have all made the case for maintaining NOAA funding this year.

• • California Wants to Ban ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Pans

  These Chefs Say "Don’t Do It."
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 12, 2025 - These celebrity chefs are joining forces, but not for a new restaurant or cooking show. They are teaming up to defend the use of “forever chemicals” in pots and pans.

  The chefs, all of whom sell or endorse cookware lines, are opposing a California bill that would phase out the contentious chemicals from a range of products they’re used in, like nonstick cookware, food packaging and dental floss. Late on Friday, the measure passed both houses of the California Legislature.

• • EPA Says Companies Shouldn’t Have
  to Report Planet-Warming Emissions

  The Announcement Amounts to a Major Rollback That Would Eliminate the Primary Means of Tracking Climate Goals
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 12, 2025 -The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed eliminating a requirement that businesses report their greenhouse gas emissions, ending a program that has tracked the climate impact of major polluters since 2010.

  The program has required more than 8,000 facilities to report their emissions annually, including major oil refineries, power plants, steel mills and other industrial sites. Businesses that are not major emitters were not required to report.

• • Researchers Say Sealing Old Oil Wells With Bio-Oil
  From Crop Waste Is a Dual Carbon-Removal Solution

  Oil Made From Corn Husks, Wood Chips, and Other Waste Could Plug Greenhouse Gas-Belching Abandoned Oil Wells While Sequestering Carbon For About $152 Per Ton
  
  
  

  Sept. 11, 2025 -There are hundreds of thousands of abandoned oil and natural gas wells in the U.S. These orphaned wells, most of them uncapped, create significant emissions and pose safety risks.

  Plugging the wells with oil made from plant-based waste such as corn husks, wood chips, and switchgrass could be a cost-effective way to reduce well emissions and storing carbon. Researchers from Iowa State University presented a detailed analysis of this two-for-one solution in a paper published in the journal Energy Conversion and Management.

• • Deforestation Threatens Public Health

  Securing Indigenous Land Rights Can Help
  
  
  

  Sept. 11, 2025 - Indigenous territories are a crucial bulwark against the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. A new peer-reviewed study shows they also safeguard the health of millions living there.

  The study, published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, examined the impact Indigenous territories have on human health across the Amazon biome, a region that’s home to 33 million people.

• • Can This Tree Still Save Us?

  In Some Places
  It’s Barely Hanging On
  
  {Honolulu Civil Beat}
  
  

  Sept. 11, 2025 -A breadfruit tree stands in the middle of Randon Jother’s property, its lanky trunks feeding a network of sinewy limbs. The remnants of this season’s harvest weigh heavy on its branches. Its vibrant leaves and football-sized fruit may appear enormous to the untrained eye, but Jother is concerned.

  They used to be longer than his hand and forearm combined. He points to his bicep, to show how fat they once were. Now they’re small and malformed by most people’s standards here in the Marshall Islands. M?, the Marshallese term for breadfruit, used to ripen in May. Now they come in June, sometimes July.

• • How New York Turns Millions of Pounds
  of Food Waste Into 'Black Gold'

  The Program is Good News for the Circular Economy
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 11, 2025 -Watermelon rinds, greasy pizza boxes, and yard trimmings. In many cities, these items would head straight to a landfill. But in New York, they are the raw ingredients for something surprisingly valuable: "black gold."

  "We're making this awesome compost that we can use throughout the city and improve soil health," said Jennifer McDonnell, Deputy Commissioner for Solid Waste Management at the New York City Department of Sanitation.

• • So Many Spotted Lanternflies Are
  Out Right Now, You Can See it On Radar

  So Many Have Descended Across The Mid-Atlantic
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 11, 2025 -All across the region, weather radars were lighting up Thursday with shades of blue, green and yellow. The signals would ordinarily suggest rain — but no precipitation was in the forecast.

  Instead, radars have been capturing a massive swarm of spotted lanternflies descending on the Mid-Atlantic.

  The insects are native to Southeast Asia, and are known as a plant hopper species. They can surf air currents — sometimes as high as 3,000 feet. Like other invasive species, they pose a threat to key crops.

• • A Street-Level Look at New York City’s Air Quality

  ‘It’s Never Good!’
  
  
  

  Sept. 10, 2025 - George Thurston stood at a bus stop on Manhattan’s east side, just a block from his office and the FDR Drive, a major highway in the city. He looked down at his large air monitor—a plastic tube jutted out of it, sucking in the surrounding air and measuring the amount of invisible particle pollution that surrounded him.

  Fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, is among the most harmful pollutants, a nasty brew of chemicals and heavy metals with health impacts ranging from childhood asthma to cancer and heart disease. According to city data, long-term exposure to the pollutant contributes to an estimated 2,000 premature deaths a year, or 1 in 25 deaths in New York City.

• • RNA Could Transform Real-Time Environmental Surveillance

  It’s Not All About DNA
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 10, 2025 -DNA is the darling of the high-tech detective world, whether it’s used to solve murders or track what animals are nearby.

  But what about it’s less famous relative, RNA? It turns out, this type of genetic material can also be a powerful tool for monitoring biodiversity, one that can do some things DNA can’t.

  Its strength might be in what had previously been seen as a weakness: It breaks down much more quickly than DNA.

• • A Massive Seaweed Belt Stretching From
  Africa to the Caribbean is Changing the Ocean

  The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt Hit a Record 37.5 Million Tons This May
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 10, 2025 -In May of this year, satellites captured a staggering view from space: 37.5 million metric tons of floating brown seaweed stretched across the Atlantic Ocean, from the coast of West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. This is the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt (GASB), a recurring mass of pelagic algae that didn’t even exist 15 years ago.

  And it’s growing.

  “Floating Sargassum, though intriguing in its own right, is no more than a surface outcrop of a great oceanic phenomenon,” wrote oceanographer John Ryther in 1956. At the time, sargassum was largely seen as an ecological curiosity, confined to the nutrient-poor gyre of the Sargasso Sea, adrift in a blue desert.

• • Fossil-Fuel Firms Receive US Subsidies Worth $31bn Annually

  It's More Than Doubled Since 2017 But Is Likely a Vast Understatement
  
  
  

  Sept. 9, 2025 - The US currently subsidizes the fossil-fuel industry to the tune of nearly $31bn per year, according to a new analysis.

  That figure, calculated by the environmental campaign group Oil Change International, has more than doubled since 2017. And it is likely a vast understatement, due to the difficulty of quantifying the financial gains from some government supports, and to a lack of transparency and reliable data from government sources, the group says.

• • Utilities Rebuild Smarter After a Year of Wildfire Challenges

  Turning the Heat into Hope
  
  {Energy Central}
  
  

  Sept. 9, 2025 -Following the devastating Eaton Fire that cut power to 414K customers in January, the utility is investing $6.2B over 3 years to underground 150+ miles of lines, expand covered conductor use, restore substations, and establish Community Resiliency Zones.

  The New Mexico utility is deploying GIS-based dashboards and machine learning to manage PSPS events, giving real-time visibility into weather and grid conditions.

• • Fossil Fuel Use Falls in China As Clean Energy Booms

  China’s Growing Investments in Clean Energy Are Pushing Its Use of Fossil Fuels Into Decline
  
  {E&E NEWS}
  
  

  Sept. 9, 2025 -Renewable forms of electricity provided more than 80 percent of new demand in China last year, according to new research by Ember, a global energy think tank. Then, in the first half of this year, it met all new demand for power in the country, pushing fossil fuel use down 2 percent compared to the first half of 2024.

  As the world’s largest emitter of planet-warming pollution, China has poured money into the production of solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and other clean energy technology. That has helped drive down the price of those goods and boosted exports to other fast-growing economies, the analysis said.

• • Fire Researchers Burn Down Homes to Show How to Save Them

  How to Protect Your Home From Wildfires? It Comes Down to Three Simple, Affordable Things
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 9, 2025 - On a concrete pad in San Diego, firefighters dab flaming drops of fuel outside two nearly identical sheds. As the mulch around them burns, a row of fans starts to blow, simulating how a windstorm intensifies wildfires. Once the flames approach the huts, something remarkable happens: One structure is quickly consumed in a tower of flames, leaving little but ashes. The other hut emerges unscathed.

  Why do some homes burn in wildfires while others do not? Researchers, insurers and government officials have been scrambling to answer this question, made urgent by a decade of deadly conflagrations: the Western fires in 2015, Paradise in 2018, Lahaina in 2023 and Los Angeles this year.

  Continue reading to find out.

• • ‘Prolific Alien Invaders’ Threaten Waters in the West

  Zebra Mussels Are Now In the Upper Colorado River System, and the Minuscule Mollusks Can Wreak Massive Damage
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 9, 2025 - Water is a driving force in the American West, and today it’s at risk more than ever. Not just from overuse, not just from megadrought, but from minuscule invaders that pose a nearly unstoppable threat to the region’s rivers, lakes, dams and reservoirs.

  Typically smaller than a nickel, zebra and quagga mussels have spread across Europe and the eastern United States, doing billions of dollars in damage by clogging infrastructure, wreaking havoc on ecosystems and eating food on which native fish and other animals rely.

• • California’s Blackout Dilemma:

  Fire Safety is Colliding With Grid Reliability
  
  {Energy Central}
  
  

  Sept. 8, 2025 -By the numbers: SCE has cut service to 526K customers in safety outages this year, compared with 137K in 2024 and 34K in 2023.

  Expanded fire-risk maps and heavy vegetation growth after two wet years drove the surge, with many rural communities experiencing their first PSPSs—leading to frustration over multiday outages.

• • Can Utilities Replace Power Lines With
  Solar and Batteries in Remote Areas?

  Utilities Like PG&E are Testing Out Microgrids Using Solar, Batteries, and Generators
  
  {CANARY MEDIA}
  
  

  Sept. 8, 2025 -Michael Gillogly, manager of the Pepperwood Preserve, understands the wildfire risk that power lines pose firsthand. The 3,200-acre nature reserve in Sonoma County, California, burned in 2017 when a privately owned electrical system sparked a fire. It burned again in 2019 during a conflagration started by power lines operated by utility Pacific Gas & Electric.

  So when PG&E approached Gillogly about installing a solar- and battery-powered microgrid to replace the single power line serving a guest house on the property, he was relieved. ?“We do a lot of wildfire research here,” he noted. Getting rid of ?“the line up to the Bechtel House is part of PG&E’s work on eliminating the risk of fire.”

• • Can Filtering Seawater Provide For a Thirsty World?

  Desalination is Spreading Beyond the Wealthy Persian Gulf to Poorer Nations Sapped By Water Shortages
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 8, 2025 -The drought has held its grip for seven years and counting. Scorched vegetation crinkles underfoot. The color has drained almost entirely from Morocco’s agricultural heartland, with one exception: inside vast mesh-covered agricultural enclosures, where lush tomatoes grow on vines, destined for supermarkets in Europe.

  These man-made oases are being sustained not by rainfall but by seawater — filtered of salt and piped in from a plant on the coast.

  For decades, the process known as desalination had been the purview of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. But as droughts intensify, it is booming as a last-ditch solution for countries that had once depended on — and built civilizations with — natural rainfall. The coastal plant here, the first in a wave of megaprojects, is Morocco’s bet that desalination can help preserve a way of life, including water-hungry activities like large-scale agriculture.

• • Fishermen in Southwest Louisiana Say LNG
  Terminals Are to Blame for Shrimp Harvest Decline

  Commercial Fishermen Are Leaving What Was Once the Seafood Capital of America in Search of Shrimp As LNG Export Terminals Move In
  
  
  

  Sept. 7, 2025 - Ray Mallett started fishing near the mouth of the Calcasieu River more than half a century ago as part of the “mosquito fleet,” a ragtag group of kids that plied the surrounding rivers and bayous in small motorboats in search of crabs.

  A Gulf Coast fisherman like his father before him, Mallett harvested shrimp for decades from an estuary in Southwest Louisiana that was once the seafood capital of America.

  Now, he can hardly catch enough shrimp to pay for fuel.

• • Patagonia Changed the Apparel Business

  Can It Change Food, Too?
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 7, 2025 -On a sweltering summer afternoon in Minnesota, Paul Lightfoot clambered into a deep ditch to inspect the root structure of a plant called Kernza.

  Mr. Lightfoot is the general manager of Patagonia Provisions, the nascent food business operated by Patagonia, the outdoor apparel retailer from Ventura, Calif. And he believes that Kernza, a type of wheatgrass that can be used for baking and brewing, has the potential to change the food system.

• • Unhealthy Air Quality Closes Areas
  in Mount Rainier, Other WA Parks

  National Parks are Issuing Warnings and Closing Some Trails Due to Air Quality
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 5, 2025 -Air quality in Seattle and much of the metropolitan area was good to moderate on the Air Quality Index for most of Thursday, even as a warm glow settled over the city. Air quality dropped to “unhealthy for sensitive groups” in parts of the city Friday evening, with some parts of North Seattle dropping to unhealthy levels.

  Much of the wildfire smoke had been aloft thousands of feet above the ground in Western Washington.

• • Hurricane Kiko is Slowly Churning Toward Hawaii

  Here are the Possibilities
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 5, 2025 -Hurricane Kiko is ambling toward Hawaii. The major hurricane remained at a strong Category 3 strength as of Friday morning, with 125 mph winds. The system had rapidly intensified in recent days, becoming a 145 mph Category 4 monster before fluctuating in strength as it continues to track westward.

  It’s still too early to pin down specific impacts the storm will have on Hawaii, but Kiko will likely make a close pass to the archipelago toward the middle of next week — albeit in a weakened state. Heavy rains, strong winds and very large waves are anticipated sometime in the Tuesday-into-Wednesday time frame.

• • Greener Steel Through Chemistry

  Engineers Are Reinventing One of the Dirtiest Industrial Processes on Earth—By Swapping Fire for Modern Alchemy
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 4, 2025 -In a business park in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, across a road from a popular swimming lake and surrounded by craft breweries, a startup called Electra is making iron for the production of steel—but you’d never know it. There is no smoke billowing from industrial chimneys. No railyards of coal waiting to be shoveled into orange infernos. The skies over Boulder, Colorado are not impenetrably ashen; they are bluebird.

  That’s because instead of coal and fire, Electra uses chemical solvents and electricity to extract high-grade iron from low-quality ore. It’s the latest—and a massive—step for a dirty industry that’s transitioning into a cleaner future.

• • A High-Tech Spin On an Old Cooling Method

  Cracking the Code of Ice Batteries
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 4, 2025 -Before refrigerators were invented, people used ice boxes to keep food cold. A large block of ice in a top compartment of the box—typically made of wood and packed with insulating straw or sawdust—would slowly melt, sending cool air to the shelves below.

  Just like ice has for decades kept food and drinks cold, it could also help to cool down buildings. And in a new paper published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, researchers advance the concept of such “ice batteries.” Their research could help to improve the materials used in such systems, making them more efficient and long-lasting.

• • Humans Are Altering the Seas

  What the Future Ocean Might Look Like
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 4, 2025 -Working from a dock on St. Helena Island, S.C., on a sweltering day this summer, Ed Atkins pulled in a five-foot cast net from the water and dumped out a few glossy white shrimp from the salt marsh.

  Mr. Atkins, a Gullah Geechee fisherman, sells live bait to anglers in a shop his parents opened in 1957. “When they passed, they made sure I tapped into it and keep it going,” he said. “I’ve been doing it myself now for 40 years.”

  These marshes, which underpin Mr. Atkins’s way of life, are where the line between land and sea blurs. They provide a crucial nursery habitat for many marine species, including commercial and recreational fisheries.

• • At 85, She Leads A Squad of Women
  Who Dive Deep in Ponds For Litter

  “Why Does Diving for Trash in a Pond Make People So Happy?”
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 4, 2025 -On an overcast chilly morning in late August, a group of women gather in a sandy parking lot, nearly all of them sporting a bright orange hat with the letters OLAUG — Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage.

  Founder Susan Baur gets the group’s attention to go over the plan: Two groups of swimmers with masks and snorkels will be dropped off by a pontoon boat in different sections of Johns Pond in Mashpee, Massachusetts.

• • The Health Risks From Plastics Almost Nobody Knows About

  Phthalates, Chemicals Found in Plastics, are Linked to an Array of Problems, Especially in Pregnancy
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 4, 2025 - When Marya Zlatnik meets with women in the early stages of pregnancy, she gives them the standard advice: take prenatal vitamins; avoid alcohol, smoking and eating raw fish. But for certain patients, the maternal fetal medicine specialist at the University of California at San Francisco, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, adds another warning: "Avoid plastic."

  That’s easier said than done. Plastic permeates Americans’ lives — it’s in furniture, food packaging, clothing, electronics and even the air. Zlatnik starts with the low-hanging fruit: Try not to eat or drink from plastic containers. Avoid heating plastic in the microwave. Stay away from highly processed foods.

• • The Doctor Trying to Cure Medicine’s Addiction to Disposables

  The Global Healthcare System is Built on Throwaway Gowns, Plastic and Instruments
  
  {Bloomberg}
  
  

  Sept. 4, 2025 -Just steps from the operating theaters at Melbourne’s Footscray Hospital, a storeroom holds a quiet rebellion against medical waste. Stacked neatly on wire racks are bundles of surgical gowns and drapes — some wrapped in pale blue disposable plastic, others in washable fabric that’s made to last.

  The difference seems small, but to critical-care doctor and anesthesiologist Forbes McGain, the latter pile signals a hospital daring to push back against the tide of single-use items pervasive in healthcare.

• • Trump Says America’s Oil Industry
  Is Cleaner Than Other Countries’, But...

  New Data Shows Massive Emissions From Texas Wells
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 3, 2025 -While working to expand the nation’s oil and gas production, the Trump administration has maintained that drilling in the U.S. is cleaner than in other countries due to tighter environmental oversight. To mark Earth Day, for example, the White House boasted in a statement that increased natural gas exports meant the U.S. would be “sharing cleaner energy with allies” and “reducing global emissions.”

  But Texas, the heart of America’s oil and gas industry, tells a different story.

  Texas regulators tout their efforts to curtail oil field emissions by requiring drillers to obtain permits to release or burn gas from their wells.

• • Carbon Storage Potential Seen at Just 10th of Industry Estimates

  There's "a Prudent Global Limit" of Around 1.46 Trillion Tons of CO2 that Can Be Safely Stored in Geologic Formations
  
  {Bloomberg Green}
  
  

  Sept. 3, 2025 -The amount of carbon emissions that the world can safely store is just a 10th of industry estimates, something that would cut warming by much less than expected, a study published in the journal Nature shows.

  Capturing CO2 and storing it underground has been considered by many nations as a critical technology for both meeting climate targets and extending the life of fossil fuel-infrastructure. But the potential to practically do that is far more limited than previously thought, according to the study led by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis with Imperial College London scientists.

• • House Votes to Advance a Mining
  Road Through the Alaskan Wilderness

  Critics Say It Would Destroy a Fragile Environment
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 3, 2025 -The House voted late on Wednesday to advance a 211-mile industrial road that would cut through pristine Alaskan wilderness to reach a proposed copper and zinc mine, handing a victory to the company behind the contentious mining venture.

  The 215-210 vote was the latest twist in a long-running battle over the road, known as the Ambler Access Project, that has reverberated across Alaska and the nation’s capital.

• • Yellowstone’s Bison Revival Shows
  the Power and Complexity of Rewilding

  The Comeback of America’s Largest Land Mammal is Boosting Soil Health and Plant Nutrition
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 3, 2025 -In the 1870s, one observer saw a bison herd along the Arkansas River estimated at 3 million, blanketing nearly 1,000 square kilometers. Such massive movements of these animals through the heart of North America rivaled the vast migrations that swarm across Africa’s Serengeti today.

  But mass slaughter sanctioned by the U.S. government reduced these vast herds to just a handful of creatures confined to private ranches and places like Yellowstone National Park.

• • Thousands of Lightning Strikes Spark Wildfires in California

  Dozens of Fires Broke Out in the Central and Northern Areas of the State, Including Near Yosemite National Park
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 3, 2025 -Numerous wildfires erupted in the central and northern regions of California on Tuesday during an outbreak of thunderstorms and dry lightning that some meteorologists had warned would spark new fires and intensify existing blazes.

  The blazes spread quickly on Tuesday, while several large, intense forest fires have been burning in Northern California and in the Sierra Nevada over the past week.

  The hazardous weather arrives after a hot Labor Day weekend that has further dried out a parched landscape during what is typically the peak of fire season in the state.

• • AI has a Hidden Water Cost

  Here’s How to Calculate Yours
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 3, 2025 -Artificial intelligence systems are thirsty, consuming as much as 500 milliliters of water – a single-serving water bottle – for each short conversation a user has with the GPT-3 version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT system. They use roughly the same amount of water to draft a 100-word email message.

  That figure includes the water used to cool the data center’s servers and the water consumed at the power plants generating the electricity to run them.

  But the study that calculated those estimates also pointed out that AI systems’ water usage can vary widely, depending on where and when the computer answering the query is running.

• • Which Direction Should We Be Looking
  for the Next Source of Low-Carbon Energy?

  It Depends: Which Story Would You Like?
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 2, 2025 -There’s no telling how low or how high humanity will go in its quest for more energy. The deepest oil well to date, the Z-44 well in Sakhalin Island, Russia (just north of Japan), for example, reaches an astounding depth, drilling through more than 12 kilometers of rock.

  But green energy promises to go even deeper. The next generation of geothermal companies are looking to drill an amazing twelve miles underground.

• • In a Mammoth Wildfire’s Remains,
  Clues to Tame Future Blazes

  Deforestation is Playing a Greater Role Than Researchers Expected
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 1, 2025 -Wildfire all but erased vast parts of Jasper National Park in Alberta, one of Canada’s most majestic destinations.

  A year later, the devastation left behind is being mined by researchers seeking lessons to fight future fires.

  Last summer, walls of flame and ferocious winds ripped up trees, roots and all, which now lie scattered in a charred valley like straw. The fire incinerated the soil, exposed dark bedrock and stripped the bark off trees.

• • Trump is Cutting Climate Satellites

  That Could Affect Weather Prediction
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 1, 2025 -Two satellite instruments that track Earth’s carbon dioxide levels will soon go offline, deemed “beyond their primary mission.” Two others meant to monitor water contamination and air pollution, including from greenhouse gases, will be removed from a future satellite mission based on orders to “deliver a weather-only instrument manifest.”

  The Trump administration is scrapping satellite observations of Earth that officials say go beyond the essential task of predicting the weather, according to budget documents that outline plans to reshape government research.

• • Afghanistan Earthquake Kills 800, Injures 2,800

  Taliban Asks World For Help
  
  
  
  

  Sept. 1, 2025 - One of Afghanistan's worst earthquakes killed more than 800 people and injured at least 2,800, authorities said on Monday, as rescuers struggled to reach remote areas due to rough mountainous terrain and inclement weather.

  The disaster will further stretch the resources of the war-torn nation's Taliban administration, already grappling with crises ranging from a sharp drop in foreign aid to deportations of hundreds of thousands of Afghans by neighbouring countries.

• • How Smashing 5.6m Urchins Saved a California Kelp Paradise

  ‘The Forgotten Forest’
  
  
  
  

  Aug. 31, 2025 -Led by the Bay Foundation, divers in the Santa Monica Bay have spent 15,575 hours underwater over the past 13 years. To bring the kelp back, they focus on minimizing the impact of one voracious eater: the purple urchin. The effort has been successful, smashing 5.8 million purple urchins and clearing 80.7 acres (32.7 hectares, the size of 61 football fields), and allowing the kelp to return.

  Tom Ford, is chief executive officer of the Bay Foundation. But with the results contained far offshore and underwater, has anyone noticed? Ford wonders the same thing. “We call it the forgotten forest,” he says.

• • Huge Cracks in the Earth Are Slicing through Cities

  Swallowing Houses and Displacing Thousands of People
  
  {Scientific American}
  
  

  Aug. 31, 2025 -Gigantic trenches known as gullies are opening up in cities in Africa, swallowing up homes and businesses, sometimes in an instant, a study has found.

  About 118,600 people, on average, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) alone were displaced between 2004 and 2023, according to researchers reporting their findings in Nature.

• • Pakistan’s Punjab Province Battered by its Biggest Flood

  There 2 million People at Risk
  
  {Associated Press}
  
  

  August 31, 2025 - Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province is dealing with the biggest flood in its history, a senior official said Sunday, as water levels of rivers rise to all-time highs.

  Global warming has worsened monsoon rains this year in Pakistan, one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, according to a new study. Downpours and cloudbursts have triggered flash floods and landslides across the mountainous north and northwest in recent months.

  Residents in eastern Punjab have also experienced abnormal amounts of rain, as well as cross-border flooding after India released water from swollen rivers and its overflowing dams into Pakistan’s low-lying regions.

• • Alaska Produces a Town of Gas, But...

  Soon, Its Biggest City Might Run Short
  
  
  
  

  Aug. 30, 2025 -For almost as long as it has been a state, Alaska has been powered by the natural gas buried beneath Cook Inlet, an estuary on its southern coast.

  The gas used to be so plentiful that Alaska not only used it to heat homes and make electricity, it shipped tankers of the fuel overseas.

  Now, most of the drilling companies have gone, and the Cook Inlet gas is dwindling. Officials expect that, in the next several years, they may not have enough of the fuel to keep all the lights on in Anchorage, the state’s biggest city.

• • Hospital Food, Bad For Patients, Worse For the Earth

  First, Do No Harm?
  
  
  
  

  Aug. 29, 2025 -A recent survey of German hospitals and nursing homes has found that the very institutions tasked with protecting human health may in fact be harming it—alongside the planet’s.

  The new work is the first to do a deep-dive into the impacts of the catering at care institutions, and showed that they scored concerningly low on nutritional value, and strikingly high on environmental impact.

• • California Updates Pesticide Alert System

  Regulators Say They Tweaked the Notification System Based on Community Feedback
  
  
  
  

  August 29, 2025 -Farmworkers and their families have long demanded the right to know when and where growers plan to spray dangerous pesticides in their communities. The California Department of Pesticide Regulation finally debuted a system in March that does just that.

  Now regulators have added new features to the pesticide notification system, called SprayDays California, which they described in a public briefing Friday. The updated version allows users to see where growers applied pesticides over the previous four days, in addition to planned applications. It also allows people to subscribe to alerts by choosing square-mile sections on a map, the unit in which pesticide applications are reported, rather than using their addresses. This change was intended to allow people whose addresses aren’t recognized by DPR’s system to access the warnings.

• • Warming Waters Bring a Stinging Sea Slug to Spain’s Coasts

  The Blue Dragons, Which Pack a Ferocious Sting, Have Led to Several Beach Closures
  
  
  
  

  Aug. 28, 2025 -When a pair of curious-looking sea slugs were found this month on the beach near Guardamar del Segura, few in the resort town in southern Spain noticed.

  But then, last week, the tiny blue creatures — capable of delivering one of the most ferocious stings in the animal world — began washing ashore in droves.

  “They kept appearing, one after the other, after the other, and at times on a massive scale,” said José Luis Sáez, the town’s mayor.

• • Chicago Has a Huge Lead Pipe Problem—and We Mapped It

  Lead Water Service Lines Plague the Whole City, Hitting Black and Latino Neighborhoods Hardest
  
  
  
  

  August 28, 2025 -As Gina Ramirez buckled her 11-year-old son into her car last month for their daily drive to school, she handed him a plastic water bottle.

  “I would love to be able to have him put a cup under the tap if he was thirsty,” Ramirez said.

  She can’t.

  Ramirez lives in a home on Chicago’s Southeast Side that’s serviced by a lead water pipe, a toxic relic found in most old homes in the city and many across the country. Exposure to lead can cause serious health harms, including neurological, kidney and reproductive issues. Infants and young children are particularly susceptible.

• • Streetlights are Quietly Rewriting the Rules of Birdsong

  Light Pollution Is Making Many Birds Sing Nearly An Hour Longer at Dawn Or Dusk
  
  
  
  

  August 27, 2025 -It seems like every day there’s a new warning about how looking at brightly-lit screens before bed can mess with our sleep.

  It turns out humans aren’t the only ones.

  Birds in brightly-lit areas are also extending their singing hours, researchers just reported in Science Advances.

  The findings are one more piece of evidence for the myriad ways light pollution is messing with the behavior of birds and other animals. It’s also an illustration of how cheap audio recorders and powerful computers are giving scientists new insights into ecosystems.

• • Mining the Deep Sea Could Threaten a Source of Ocean Oxygen

  Deep-sea Rocks Packed With Valuable Metals May Also Be Making Oxygen In The Deep, Dark Ocean—Raising New Questions About the Cost of Mining Them
  
  
  
  

  August 27, 2025 -Scattered across the deep ocean floor are trillions of potato-sized black rocks packed with valuable metals such cobalt and copper. Mining companies want to harvest these nodules to get materials for electric vehicle batteries and other clean energy tech. But recent research suggests the rocks might be producing oxygen in the darkness of the deep sea—potentially supporting marine life in ways we’re just beginning to understand.

  Click now to learn more.

• • Twenty Years After Hurricane Katrina, Experts
  Fear Trump’s Cuts Will End in a Repeat Catastrophe

  Two Decades After Hurricane Katrina Devastated New Orleans, Trump is on a Mission to Defund the Agency Dedicated to Disaster Response and Recovery
  
  
  
  

  Aug. 26, 2025 -Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, slamming directly into Louisiana before pummeling Mississippi and surrounding states. New Orleans saw the worst of the damage. Deadly floods inundated 80 percent of the city as levees and flood walls failed against torrential rain and storm surge.

  The destruction was harrowing: More than 1,800 people died. Total damages, accounting for inflation, exceeded $200 billion.

  Katrina’s impacts still linger today. The hurricane reshaped the South, fueling a widespread diaspora of disaster survivors into new areas that altered the economy and community connectedness. It also triggered a shift in disaster policy, prompting a reorganization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and a more hands-on approach to preparation and resilience in the face of extreme weather.

  However, experts say the Trump administration’s recent push to defund FEMA threatens to undo decades of progress—and they fear what could happen if another storm like Katrina hits soon.

• • Towering Dust Storm, Known as
  a Haboob, Plunges Phoenix Into Darkness

  A Wall of Sand and Fine Dust Raced From the Arizona Desert
  
  
  
  

  August 26, 2025 -A massive dust storm swept through Phoenix and other parts of Arizona on Monday, casting an apocalyptic pall over the region as the towering wall sank the city into darkness and caused heavy rain and lightning.

  The haboob — an intense, fast-moving wall of dust kicked up by thunderstorm winds — hit the state during the evening commute. The National Weather Service urged drivers to “pull aside stay alive” as visibility shrank to as short as 50 feet.

• • New Tool Maps the Health Impacts of Toxic Air
  Pollutants Released With Methane in Super-Emitter Events

  When Oil And Gas Infrastructure Leaks the Potent Greenhouse Gas Methane, It Also Releases Toxic Air Contaminants That Have Escaped Notice, Until Now
  
  
  
  

  August 26, 2025 -On a breezy late summer day in the small Colorado town of Fort Lupton, a massive plume of methane escaped from a hydrocarbon storage tank about 200 feet from an RV park. The leak, the second over four days in September 2023, released enough of the potent climate-warming gas per hour to fit the Environmental Protection Agency’s definition of a methane super-emitter.

  Fort Lupton is in Weld County, which produces more oil and gas than any other Colorado county. Yet no alert system exists to warn people about the fugitive emissions or whether they posed a health risk.

  A new tool from an independent science research institute working on climate solutions that protect health and the environment aims to change that.

• • Microplastics Could Be Turning Bacteria
  into Drug-Resistant Superbugs

  Growing Research Suggests They Could Be Breeding Grounds For Drug-Resistant Bacteria
  
  
  
  

  August 26, 2025 -For bacteria, microplastics are the perfect meetup spot—tiny, intimate surfaces where microbes can cling, huddle close and swap genes. And these crowded bacterial breeding grounds may pose a threat to human health.

  A growing body of new research shows that microplastics may fuel antimicrobial resistance—the phenomenon in which pathogens adapt to withstand drugs, making it challenging to treat infections. The growing antimicrobial resistance crisis claimed about five million lives in 2019, a number projected to double by 2050. In an August research review, scientists called attention to the “silent tsunami” of plastics-driven antibiotic resistance. Several other recent papers suggest microplastics serve as better homes for pathogens than some natural substances do, although the mechanisms are not fully understood.

• • ‘Prolific Alien Invaders’ Threaten Waters in the West

  Zebra Mussels Are Now In the Upper Colorado River System, and the Minuscule Mollusks Can Wreak Massive Damage
  
  
  
  

  Aug. 25, 2025 - Water is a driving force in the American West, and today it’s at risk more than ever. Not just from overuse, not just from megadrought, but from minuscule invaders that pose a nearly unstoppable threat to the region’s rivers, lakes, dams and reservoirs.

  Typically smaller than a nickel, zebra and quagga mussels have spread across Europe and the eastern United States, doing billions of dollars in damage by clogging infrastructure, wreaking havoc on ecosystems and eating food on which native fish and other animals rely.

• • Seattle Weather: Heat Wave Continues, But...

  Don’t Swim At These Beaches
  
  
  
  

  Aug. 25, 2025 -On a hot day, not much sounds better than whipping on some sunscreen, sunglasses and a swimsuit and heading to the beach for a dip in the cool water.

  That sweaty weather might make the lake look real enticing, but beware: bacteria.

  Seattle is in the throes of an extreme heat warning across Western Washington through early Wednesday morning. Sunday’s temperatures broke records set in 1982, the Seattle National Weather Service noted. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport saw a high of 90, surpassing its record of 88, and Olympia reached 95 degrees, passing its previous record of 94.

• • European Energy Giants Claim CO2 Storage Milestone

  Europe Just Hit a Carbon Capture Milestone in the North Sea.
  
  
  
  

  August 24, 2025 - • Northern Lights—a JV from Shell, Equinor, and TotalEnergies—has begun injecting CO2 from a Norwegian cement plant into offshore storage sites. Phase 1 can hold 1.5M metric tons annually, and a second phase planned for 2028 would more than 3X capacity.

  The big picture: Carbon capture and storage still tackles only a sliver of global emissions, but the IEA says projects like this signal “renewed momentum.”

• • Parked Dark-Colored Cars Are Like Mini Heat
  Islands That Make City Streets Several Degrees Hotter

  The Color of Your Car May Be Heating Your Street—and Your City
  
  
  
  

  August 25, 2025 -On a hot summer day in Lisbon, two cars—a black one and a white one—sat parked under the sun for hours. When geographer Márcia Matias measured the air around them, she found something surprising: the black car was heating the nearby air by as much as 3.8°C more than the asphalt beneath it. The white car had a much smaller effect.

  “You know when you walk past a parked car on a hot day and feel the heat radiating off it?” said Matias, as per New Scientist. “That’s real! It’s not your imagination.”

  In a new study published in City and Environment Interactions, Matias and her colleagues show that parked cars—especially dark-colored ones—can make city streets noticeably hotter. This effect, when multiplied across tens or hundreds of thousands of parked vehicles, could shift air temperatures in entire neighborhoods.

• • Heatwaves Don’t Just kill People

  They Also Make Us Older
  
  
  
  

  August 25, 2025 -Over the past decade, heatwaves have rewritten the record books with deadly consequences. In 2021, the Pacific Northwest, a region famed for its cool, damp climate, endured a “heat dome” that pushed temperatures above 49 °C (121 °F) in Canada, killing hundreds in just a few days. In 2022, India and Pakistan sweltered through weeks of extreme heat that scorched crops and endangered hundreds of millions of people. And this year, southern Europe’s heatwave sent temperatures soaring past 45 °C in several countries, overwhelming hospitals and prompting widespread warnings from health agencies.

  Each of these events would be a rare occurrence in previous times. But with climate change, they become more likely and more intense. Heatwaves come and go, but they also leave lasting scars on communities and economies alike. This new study shows the damage may be even deeper than we thought.

• • Sewage Taints Canadian Oysters. Then Americans Eat Them

  Canada is a Major Oyster Supplier to the U.S. Both Diners and Oystermen are Harmed By Inaction on Pollution
  
  
  
  

  August 24, 2025 -Mark Kapczynski had been looking forward to it for weeks.

  He had VIP tickets for him and his wife to attend an upscale seafood festival in Los Angeles last December, where they would feast on the food he grew up eating as a kid in Boston.

  Surrounded by shellfish presented raw on ice by some of the city’s best chefs, Kapczynski said he chose to sample a few “Fanny Bay” oysters harvested from the southern British Columbia coastline.

  “After three or four hours, I wished I was dead, it hurt so much,” said Kapczynski, who was hit with severe abdominal pain, vomiting every 30 minutes for five hours. “It was the most painful thing I’ve ever felt.”

• • The Woman Holding Chinese Mining Giants Accountable

  Jingjing Zhang has Fought Polluting Chinese Companies for Decades...
  
  
  
  

  August 24, 2025 -When Jingjing Zhang saw a string of urgent texts light up her phone, she knew something had gone wrong.

  Photo and video messages showed a tidal wave of brown sludge rushing into the Zambian countryside with horrifying speed.

  “Can you do something?” one message asked.

  Zhang sat in her Maryland home in February, scrolling through the images. She learned that for half a day, 50 million liters of waste had surged from a Chinese copper mine in sub-Saharan Africa, flooding farms and wiping out crops.

• • Inside the Fight to Slow Down Wa’s Roller Coaster Bear Gulch Fire

  Chain Saw. Gas Can. Pulaski Ax. Pack
  
  
  
  

  August 24, 2025 -The gear clanged onto the boat one by one as the Zigzag Hotshots prepared to ferry into the smoke Thursday.

  This firefighting team was headed in to clear fuels around homes on the northwest side of the lake. Things were heating up on the Olympic Peninsula’s Bear Gulch fire, the state’s largest active wildland blaze.

  The fire has been riding the changes in weather this summer, including heat waves and rainfall. It burns in one of the country’s wettest forests, something that might become more frequent with drought and warming.

• • Idaho Poisoned Snake River For Invasive Mussels

  Was it Worth ‘Heartbreaking’ Loss?
  
  
  
  

  August 24, 2025 -The invasive quagga mussels found in an Idaho river in 2023 were microscopic. But to state officials, their presence was enormous.

  Though the mussels couldn’t grow much larger than a nickel, state officials said an infestation would devastate Idaho’s economy and ecosystem, clogging water pipes and stealing food from native species. Biologists typically kill off the mussels with chemicals, adding just enough of a lethal dose to infested waters. But treating mussels in a river had never been done before. Moving water would let the toxic chemicals travel beyond the treatment area.

  State officials took the risk.

• • How Methane-Zapping Technology Could
  Finally Solve the Cow Burp Problem

  Ambient Carbon is Doing the Methane Equivalent of Point Source Carbon Capture in Dairy Barns
  
  
  
  

  August 22, 2025 -In the world of climate and energy, “emissions” is often shorthand for carbon dioxide, the most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas in the world. Similarly, talk of emissions capture and removal usually centers on the growing swath of technologies that either prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere or pull it back out after the fact.

  Discussions and frameworks for reducing methane, which is magnitudes more potent than CO2 in the short-term, have been far less common — but the potential impact could be huge.

• • If Farmers Play the Long Game,
  Biochar Will Pay Off For Crops and Climate

  Turning 70% of Waste Straw Into Biochar Could Lock Away an Amount of Carbon Equivalent To Almost 5% of Global Emissions
  
  
  
  

  August 22, 2025 -Several studies now show the sustainability benefits of biochar. But a new meta analysis reveals how much more could be gained for crops and climate, if farmers keep applying biochar to their land over the long term.

  Farmers who keep up this habit for years can increase crop yields by on average 10%, and cut farming-associated emissions by 20%, the new analysis finds, drawing on evidence from over 400 studies.

  In fact on a global scale, its sustained use could offset 4.6% of global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, the PNAS paper showed.

• • Environmental Impact: 50 States - 50 Fixes

  A State By State Report
  
  
  
  

  August 22, 2025 -Now more than ever, environmental solutions may seem out of reach. But they’re happening all over the country. This year, we’ll be highlighting one thing that’s working in every state.