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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:
Oct. 12, 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

• • A Push For ‘Global Energy Dominance’

  Puts Alaskan Wildlands at Risk
  
  
  

  Oct. 11, 2025 -This is the Western Arctic of Alaska, America’s Arctic. Much of it was set aside as a petroleum reserve by President Warren G. Harding in 1923. Congress in 1976 set limits on drilling here, intended to protect the land’s spectacular ecological value. The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), at 23 million acres, is the largest sweep of public land in the country, and it has remained largely undeveloped.

  Now Trump in his second term, just as in his first, is calling for full-on extraction of oil and gas here. The Trump plan would open about 82 percent of the NPR-A to oil and gas extraction, including 13 million acres in five designated Special Areas, where protections against drilling were strengthened under the Biden administration.

• • China’s Green Push for the Global South

  Domestic Overproduction of Green Technologies Means New Markets Need to Be Found
  
  {GEO POLITICAL FUTURES}
  
  

  Oct. 10, 2025 -As the world transitions from hydrocarbons to renewables, Washington and Beijing are pursuing diverging paths that will have important implications for global leadership and geoeconomic power in the 21st century. Under President Donald Trump, the United States has rolled back green energy policies, doubled down on fossil fuels and questioned the viability of green technology. China, meanwhile, has set its sights on eliminating its reliance on foreign oil and natural gas to become the first global electro-state. In this global reordering, Africa – home to 60 percent of the world’s best solar resources and chronic energy deficits – has become the proving ground for Beijing’s ambitions.

  Click now to learn more.

• • 2025 Chemistry Nobel Goes to Molecular Sponges

  They Purify Water, Store Energy and Clean Up the Environment
  
  
  

  Oct. 8, 2025 -The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded for a versatile technology that can be used for an astonishing variety of purposes, from environmental remediation to drug delivery and energy storage.

  Metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, are molecular sponges that are already in clinical trials for use in cancer radiation treatment and are being sold as a way to contain carbon dioxide taken from cement and to fuel hydrogen production. They are also being explored as methods of pulling water out of air in arid places, cleaning up wastewater, and removing perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from the environment and for providing targeted drug delivery. The researchers behind MOFs—Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi—will share the Nobel Prize and divide the award of 11 million Swedish kronor, or about $1 million.

• • How a City Awash in Garbage Is Trying to Take Out the Trash

  Illegal Dumping has Inundated Oakland, Calif., a City With More Garbage Than Almost Anywhere Else
  
  
  

  Oct. 8, 2025 -It’s hard to stay calm when it’s your job to rid Oakland, Calif., of trash.

  Josh Rowan, the city’s acting public works director, becomes irate when he drives through the canyons of cardboard boxes, mattresses and busted appliances in Oakland.

  “I stay furious, piping mad, dropping F-bombs kind of furious,” he said on a recent morning as he sifted through sour-smelling garbage beside a road. He said his anger fueled his work.

  “I love this city, but what’s up with all of the trash?”

• • The Link Between Air Pollution and Infertility

  A Harvard Researcher, Investigated the Fertility Risks Women Face From Air Pollution
  
  
  

  Oct. 8, 2025 -Shruthi Mahalingaiah: I am a physician scientist, which means I am a doctor who does research, specializing in environmental exposure and women’s reproductive health.

  Several years ago, I received a nearly $3 million federal research grant to start asking questions about air pollution exposures and reproductive health. No one was asking this.

• • Vulture Nests Serve as 600-Year Archives
  of Human and Environmental Change

  How Scavenger Behavior Can Provide New Data for Archaeology, Toxicology, and Ecosystem Studies
  
  
  

  Oct. 8, 2025 -Endangered bearded vultures disappeared from the cliffs of southern Spain decades ago. But a peculiar legacy remains, one that offers a glimpse back in time more than 600 years.

  The massive nests these vultures built are also a sort of guano-stained archive, full of human bric-a-brac dating as early as the 13th century. Scientists studying the vultures uncovered a trove of more than 200 human-made odds and ends when they picked through 12 abandoned nests.

• • Nestle Bows Out of Initiative to Reduce Dairy’s Climate Impact

  The Food Giant Has Left the Dairy Methane Action Alliance, an Effort to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Herds of Cattle
  
  {Bloomberg}
  
  

  Oct. 8, 2025 -Less than two years ago, a group of the world’s biggest food companies, including Nestle SA, Danone SA and Kraft Heinz Co., announced a major alliance to cut methane emissions from their hundreds of thousands of dairy suppliers.

  Last month, however, Nestle’s logo vanished from the initiative’s website. Officials at the Swiss food giant confirmed that they’ve withdrawn from the effort, known as the Dairy Methane Action Alliance.

• • Scientists Seek to Turbocharge a
  Natural Process That Cools the Earth

  Terradot, a Carbon Removal Company, is Using “Enhanced Rock Weathering” to Sequester Carbon
  
  
  

  Oct. 8, 2025 -Across vast stretches of farmland in southern Brazil, researchers at a carbon removal company are attempting to accelerate a natural process that normally unfolds over thousands or millions of years.

  The company, Terradot, is spreading tons of volcanic rock crushed into a fine dust over land where soybeans, sugar cane and other crops are grown. As rain percolates through the soil, chemical reactions pull carbon from the air and convert it into bicarbonate ions that eventually wash into the ocean, where the carbon remains stored.

• • South Africa’s Coast Is Rising

  And Scientists Have a New Explanation Why
  
  
  

  Oct. 7, 2025 -For decades geologists thought the slow rise of South Africa’s southern coast was driven by forces deep below—buoyant plumes of molten rock ascending through Earth’s mantle and heaving the crust upward over millions of years. But now satellite data and precise GPS measurements are tilting such assumptions off their axis. A study in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth suggests this land rise may have less to do with deep tectonic forces and more to do with missing groundwater just under our feet.

  Click now for the rest of the story.

• • In a Toxic World, Pets Could Be Vital Health Watchdogs

  A Better Understanding of How Pollution Affects Pets Could Benefit Humans and Animals Alike
  
  
  

  Oct. 7, 2025 -On a frigid February night in 2023, a freight train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. For days, the train’s hazardous contents spilled into the surrounding soil, water and air. It was an environmental and public health catastrophe, and efforts are underway to monitor the long-term health effects on the people of East Palestine.

  But one team of scientists is focused on a different group of local residents: the dogs. After the derailment, the researchers recruited dog owners in and around East Palestine, asking them to attach chemical-absorbing silicone tags to their pets’ collars.

• • Snowstorm Traps Hundreds on Mount Everest

  Some 350 Hikers Were Rescued and 200 Remained Stranded
  
  
  

  Oct. 6, 2025 -Hundreds of hikers were stranded on the lower slopes of the world’s tallest mountain and the surrounding area during a weekend of heavy snowfall, as a holiday week brought many Chinese tourists to the area.

  At least 350 hikers had been rescued from the Mount Everest snowstorm by noon Monday, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported. The outlet posted photos of bundled hikers eating hot meals at a pickup point in the small Tibetan town of Qudang. About 200 more were still stuck on the mountain.

• • China's Electrotech Exports Surge

  China’s Clean Tech Exports Hit a Record $20B in August, Led By Batteries and EVs
  
  {energy central}
  
  

  Oct. 6, 2025 -By the numbers: Battery exports reached $7.6B, EVs hit $6.5B, and both jumped north of 20% from last year. Over half of exports went to non-OECD countries, with shipments to Southeast Asia up 75% and new demand rising fast in Africa.

  Why it matters: Analysts warn the world is splitting into “electro-states” (countries exporting clean technology) and “petro-states” (still tied to fossil fuels). China’s clearly leading the first group, while US policy under President Donald Trump is steering toward the latter.

• • This New Bamboo Plastic Is Just as Tough as Oil-Based Plastic

  But Disappears After
  50 days in the Soil
  
  
  

  Oct. 7, 2025 -Most plastic forks, bottles, and shopping bags ever made still exist somewhere. Most are buried in a landfill or drifting in the oceans. Petrochemical plastics have been perhaps humanity’s greatest industrial triumph—but also one of our biggest ecological blunders.

  But now, scientists in China may have found a way out, and it starts with bamboo.

  In a study published in Nature Communications in October 2025, researchers from Northeast Forestry University and the Shenyang University of Chemical Technology report a new kind of bamboo molecular plastic, or BM-plastic, that could rival oil-

• • Earth Has Crossed 7 of 9 Limits Keeping It Safe for Humans.

  Humanity Is Pushing Beyond the Limits of a Safe Operating Space
  
  
  

  Oct. 7, 2025 -For thousands of years, Earth operated within a stable, forgiving range of conditions that allowed human civilizations to flourish. That stability might soon be a thing of the past.

  A new scientific assessment reveals that humanity has pushed seven of nine critical planetary boundaries past their safe limits, entering a danger zone where the risk of triggering irreversible, large-scale environmental damage is rapidly increasing. The health of the planet, the report concludes, is deteriorating.

• • Trump Signs Order to Approve Mining
  Road Through Alaskan Wilderness

  The Executive Order Also Made the Federal Government a 10% Shareholder in the Mining Company Trilogy Metals
  
  
  

  Oct. 6, 2025 -President Trump signed an executive order on Monday directing the government to approve a 211-mile industrial road that would cut through pristine Alaskan wilderness to reach a proposed copper and zinc mine.

  The president ordered the Interior Department and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to issue all necessary permits for the road, known as the Ambler Access Project, which was blocked last year by the Biden administration.

• • Alarm Raised Over PFAS Pollution from Datacenters Amid AI Boom

  Tech companies’ Use of Pfas Gas at Facilities May Mean Datacenters’ Climate Impact is Worse Than Previously Thought
  
  
  

  Oct. 4, 2025 -Data centers’ electricity demands have been accused of delaying the US’s transition to clean energy and requiring fossil fuel plants to stay online, while their high level of water consumption has also raised alarm. Now public health advocates fear another environmental problem could be linked to them – Pfas “forever chemical” pollution.

  Big tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon often need data centers to store servers and networking equipment that process the world’s digital traffic, and the artificial intelligence boom is driving demand for more facilities.

• • Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ Show Up
  in Most Tested Reusable Menstrual Products

  Reusable Menstrual Underwear and Pads Promise Sustainability—But Hidden PFAS Raise Troubling Questions
  
  
  

  Oct. 3, 2025 -The promise of reusable period products seems simple: less waste, lower costs, and a better deal for the planet. But tucked inside those layers of fabric, scientists keep finding something that doesn’t belong: toxic “forever chemicals.”

  It started with a hunch. Back in 2019, Sierra magazine asked Graham Peaslee, a physicist at the University of Notre Dame, to test samples of menstrual underwear. His lab uncovered measurable levels of PFAS—per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. That revelation snowballed into a $5 million lawsuit against the brand b>Thinx.

• • World’s Tropical Forests are Getting Younger

  That’s Actually a Major Problem for the Climate
  
  
  

  Oct. 3, 2025 -The towering trees of old forests store massive amounts of carbon in their trunks, branches, and leaves. When these ancient giants are replaced by a younger cohort after logging, wildfire, or other disturbances, much of this carbon stock is lost.

  “We’ve known for a long time that forest age is a key component of the carbon cycle,” said Simon Besnard, a remote sensing expert at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany. “We wanted to actually quantify what it means if an old forest becomes young.”

• • Researchers Compare the Footprint
  of Meat vs. Plant-Based Dog Foods

  The Differences Were Staggering
  
  
  

  Oct. 3, 2025 -Researchers have identified a novel way to reduce the carbon footprint of your household: change what you feed your pets. In a new study, they show that as with people, pets who consume a primarily plant-based diet have a much lower carbon footprint than those fed pet food rich in red meat.

  In one striking example from the study, they showed that feeding a dog a meat-heavy diet over the course of its adult life would need 57 football-fields’ worth of land to grow the required food, versus just 1.4 fields for a plant-based diet.

• • What’s the Most Sustainable Drinking Straw?

  Scientists Say One Surprising Option Beats the Rest
  
  
  

  Oct. 3, 2025 -Environmentally friendly and even carbon-negative drinking straws exist, according to a new study. But the analysis also lays bare the potential for greenwashing, littering, and improper disposal to erode these benefits.

  More than 50 billion disposable drinking straws are used each year in the United States alone. Small and lightweight, straws often escape from waste disposal streams and find their way to the sea, where they last for years and can harm marine life.

  These cheap, quotidian objects have thus become the object of surprisingly intense environmentalist ire—and even bans on non-degradable straws in various jursidictions. In turn, this situation has spawned efforts to develop more sustainable straws.

• • How to Choose More Eco-Friendly Fabrics

  And Avoid Greenwashing
  
  
  

  Oct. 3, 2025 -Do you know your EcoVero from your eco-polyester? Can you spot fabric greenwashing? I spoke with sustainable fashion experts to find out which fabrics to avoid, what to embrace, and whether polyester really is the root of all evil.

  Disclaimer: if you read this and realise you already own fabrics I’ve put on the naughty step, don’t throw them out. Wear and enjoy them for as long as you can, then recycle them if possible.

• • California Governor Under Pressure Over
  Bill to Ban Cookware Made With Pfas

  Industry Pressure is Part of a Broader Attack That Aims to Derail Similar Bans on Pfas in Cookware in Other States
  
  
  

  Oct. 3, 2025 -Gavin Newsom, the California governor, is facing intense pressure from industry, and even some celebrity chefs, as he weighs whether or not to sign a bill that bans the sale of cookware made with Pfas or “forever chemicals”.

  The legislation, approved by the California legislature on 12 September, comes as Newsom contemplates a run for the Democratic presidential nomination, heightening the scrutiny of his decision.

• • UK Fifth-Worst Country in Europe For
  Loss of Green Space to Development

  Exclusive: 1,680 Football Pitches of Protected Natural Land in England, Wales and Northern Ireland Lost in Five Years
  
  
  

  Oct. 2, 2025 -Nature and farmland equivalent in size to that of the New Forest – 604 sq km – was lost to concrete and bricks and mortar in the UK between 2018 and 2023, according to an investigation by the Guardian and European partners.

  In the same period the loss of some of the most protected and special natural areas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, known as national landscapes, reached 12 sq km; equivalent to 1,680 football pitches worth of natural land.

• • Jane Goodall’s Last Message to the World

  Her Final Words Were for the Youth, Urging Them to Lead With Hope
  
  
  

  Oct. 2, 2025 -On Wednesday, October 1, 2025, Jane Goodall—one of the most beloved scientists of our time—died peacefully in her sleep at 91. Her death was announced at a student event in California, where she had been scheduled to speak. Instead of walking onstage, the famed primatologist appeared in a pre-recorded video, sharing what became her last public message to the world.

  “I’ve been working on trying to make this a better world for animals, people, and the environment, flat out, since 1986,” Goodall said in the video, played to more than a thousand students gathered in Pasadena. “And one of my greatest reasons for hope in this battered world is the youth.”

• • AI Can Design Toxic Proteins

  They’re Escaping Through Biosecurity Cracks
  
  
  

  Oct. 2, 2025 -In October 2023, two scientists at Microsoft discovered a startling vulnerability in a safety net intended to prevent bad actors from using artificial intelligence tools to concoct hazardous proteins for warfare or terrorism.

  Those gaping security holes and how they were discovered were kept confidential until Thursday, when a report in the journal Science detailed how researchers generated thousands of AI-engineered versions of 72 toxins that escaped detection.

• • Making It Easier for Companies to
  Spread Drilling Fluids on Pennsylvania Roadways

  PA Regulators Have Tried to Clamp Down On Roadway Spreading of Millions of Gallons High-Salt Liquids That Can Be Laced With Toxic Metals and Radioactive Material
  
  
  

  Oct. 1, 2025 -In rural Western Pennsylvania, communities routinely spray briny fluids on unpaved backroads to control dust in the warmer months and ice in the winter. Often, those liquids are drilling byproducts from nearby conventional oil and gas wells.

  That mostly comes courtesy of a loophole in state law that opponents say poses a risk to human and environmental health, and that they fear may soon become larger.

• • California Sanctions Stark Disparities
  in Pesticide Exposure During Pregnancy

  If You’re Young, Pregnant and Latina, You're at Greater Risk
  
  
  

  Oct. 1, 2025 -A baby in the womb has few defenses against industrial petrochemicals designed to kill.

  Unborn babies’ nascent metabolic and detox systems lack the means to neutralize toxic exposures. And the placenta, which doctors once thought protected the fetus from most harmful substances, in fact admits hundreds of toxic chemicals. That leaves the fetal brain, which undergoes rapid changes as billions of cells acquire specialized roles and form trillions of connections, particularly vulnerable to neurotoxic pesticides.

• • Europe Losing 600 Football Pitches of Nature and Crop Land a Day

  Investigation Shows Extent of Green Land Lost Across UK and Mainland Europe to Development From 2018 to 2023
  
  
  

  Oct. 1, 2025 -Europe is losing green space that once harboured wildlife, captured carbon and supplied food at the rate of 600 football pitches a day, an investigation by the Guardian and partners has revealed.

  Analysis of satellite imagery across the UK and mainland Europe over a five-year period shows the speed and scale with which green land is turning grey, consumed by tarmac for roads, bricks and mortar for luxury golf courses and housing developments.

• • UK Fracking Ban to Be Brought Forward
  as Labour Counters Reform Promise

  Ed Miliband Announces Government Will Speed Up Plans to Ban Controversial Practice Supported by Nigel Farage
  
  
  

  Oct. 1, 2025 -Ed Miliband has announced that the government is to speed up its plans to permanently ban fracking in the UK, in order to counter the Reform party’s promises to bring back the controversial practice.

  The energy secretary said he would put forward legislation as part of the North Sea transition plan which is to be published this autumn. This means that in order to allow fracking, a future government would have to repeal the legislation with a parliamentary vote.

• • How Expanding Tourism Ate into Lapland’s Green Space

  The Santa Claus Effect
  
  
  

  Oct. 1, 2025 -Once upon a time, Lapland was a word that conjured up the home of Santa Claus in the imagination of British children, but increasingly it has become a tourist destination.

  Last year, more than 700,000 people came to the region, with 100,000 of them coming from Britain. That number is up 160% compared with 30 years ago.

  Soaring tourism is making a substantial footprint on Lapland’s environment. Exclusive analysis shows that around tourist hotspots in Finnish Lapland, green areas equivalent in size to London’s Hyde Park were developed for the purposes of tourism in the five years to 2023.

• • The Amazon Rainforest is Showing Signs of Plastic Pollution

  in Ways We Still Don’t Fully Understand
  
  
  

  Sept. 30, 2025 -Plastic pollution is widespread across the Amazon Rainforest’s rivers, plants and animals, according to a recent study.

  Previous research suggests up to 10% of total plastics in the ocean arrive there via the vast network of waterways that’s the Amazon Basin. To understand how and where plastic pollution is present within the basin itself, researchers looked at 52 field studies dating back to 2000 that reported on plastic within the biome across all nine Amazonian countries.

• • The Rise of ‘Glocal’ Partnerships

  The European Union Has Unveiled a €545 Million ($638 Million) Package to Scale Up African Renewables Investment
  
  {Factor This}
  
  

  Sept. 30, 2025 -Geopolitical instability has fundamentally disrupted the era of seamless global supply chains. In turn, governments and enterprises are restructuring their operations, shortening supply lines and diversifying regional capabilities to mitigate systemic risks. But even the strongest supply networks depend on reliable energy, a vulnerability exposed repeatedly in recent years.

  State-level energy disruptions and challenges highlight the vulnerability of supply networks across the U.S. In California, rolling blackouts tied to wildfire risks have accelerated investment in community microgrids and on-site solar to give businesses a way to keep operations running when the larger grid falters. Heat waves trigger more widespread outages in Texas than anywhere else in the country, with its isolated grid under ERCOT making it especially vulnerable. In Florida, extreme weather regularly leaves millions without power. Hurricane Milton alone left over three million homes and businesses in the dark.

• • Trump Administration Moves to
  Relax Rules on Climate Super Pollutants

  The E.P.A. Plan Would Allow Companies to Phase Out Hydrofluorocarbons in Cooling Equipment More Slowly
  
  
  

  Sept. 30, 2025 -The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it planned to relax a Biden-era rule that requires grocery stores, air-conditioning companies, semiconductor plants and others to sharply and rapidly reduce some powerful greenhouse gases used in cooling equipment.

  The Environmental Protection Agency plan would unravel what many industry leaders and environmentalists view as a rare success for the climate: a bipartisan agreement that those man-made chemicals, known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, should be rapidly phased down.

• • Trump’s USAID Pause Stranded Lifesaving Drugs

  Children died waiting
  
  
  

  Sept. 30, 2025 -Fever ravaged the body of 5-year-old Suza Kenyaba as she sweated and shivered on a thin mattress in a two-room clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The pigtailed girl who liked pretty dresses was battling malaria and desperately needed medication that could save her life.

  That medication, already purchased by a U.S.-taxpayer-funded program, was tantalizingly close — a little more than seven miles away. But it hadn’t reached the clinic where Suza was being treated because President Donald Trump’s suspension of foreign aid had thrown supply chains into chaos.

• • UK Claims 38% of Its Seas are Protected- But...

  Thousands of Hours of Apparent Trawling and Dredging Suggest Otherwise
  
  
  

  Sept. 29, 2025 -The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) is running a consultation on banning bottom trawling and dredging in 43 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), covering 30,000 km² of seabed.

  Despite over 38% of UK waters being designated as MPAs, many remain open to potentially harmful fishing.

  Using Global Fishing Watch (GFW) data, ZME Science found 43,056 hours of harmful trawling and dredging in 2024 across 39 MPAs under review — the equivalent of one vessel fishing non-stop for nearly five years.

• • Octopuses Invade the English Coast

  Eating Anything in Their Path
  
  
  

  Sept. 29, 2025 -Expecting his normal catch of plaice, turbot and Dover sole, Arthur Dewhirst was surprised when his nets spilled their contents onto his ship’s deck earlier this year. Instead of shiny, flapping fish, hundreds of octopuses wriggled and writhed.

  His first thought? “Dollar signs! Dollar signs! Dollar signs!” he recalled with a laugh, sitting in his trawler last month in the harbor at Brixham in Devon, England.

• • Scientists Use Bacteria to Produce Stronger
  and Eco-Friendly Plastic Without Any Byproducts

  Eco-friendly Plastics May Finally Be Coming
  
  

  Sept. 27, 2025 -Plastic is everywhere on Earth. Inside me, inside you, in the deepest ocean trenches and the highest mountain peaks. We’ve produced billions of tons of the stuff and we keep making more and more of it. We also can’t seem to get rid of plastic. Unexpectedly, the main advantage of plastic (its durability) has turned out to be its biggest problem.

  Now, a team of scientists in Japan may start turning the tide. They’ve hijacked the metabolism of a common bacterium, Escherichia coli, turning it into a microscopic factory that brews a key ingredient for high-performance, biodegradable plastics directly from simple sugar.

• • Are Vertical Farms Really the Answer?

  A New Study Reveals Their Surprisingly Large Footprint
  
  
  

  Sept. 26, 2025 -Space-saving, low-input, pest-free: vertical farming is often regarded as a solution to many of conventional agriculture’s woes. But the findings of a new study draw a question mark over its prospects, showing in lettuce farm experiments that vertical agriculture had higher environmental impacts than conventional in all but one category.

  Even when it came to land-use where high-rising vertical farms would appear to have the edge, the study found that in fact these farms had twice the impact of lettuces farmed on conventional fields.

• • How to Make Water Conservation a Habit

  Small, Everyday Actions to Minimize Water Use Add Up the More People Do Them
  
  
  

  Sept. 25, 2025 -Michael Kimmelman’s recent story on Los Angeles’s water needs included a surprising fact: The city has been using less water, even as its population has grown.

  Part of this success, Michael reported, came from adopting a culture of conservation after a series of severe droughts, starting in the 1970s, prompted “some simple, practical, boring fixes, like better plumbing, alongside larger transformations in social norms, policies and politics.” In a 2024 survey from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, 90 percent of respondents said they considered it important to conserve water daily, even when the region is not in a drought.

• • Air Pollution Could Be Worsening Children’s Vision

  The Research Found That Extended Exposure to Air Pollutants Could Be Contributing to High Rates of Myopia
  
  
  

  Sept. 24, 2025 -It’s well established that air pollution causes a wide variety of harms to the human body, raising the risk of heart disease, respiratory diseases and strokes. But new research has highlighted yet another damaging impact: to our vision.

  The research found that extended exposure to air pollutants, specifically nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter, could be contributing to high rates of myopia, also known as short- or nearsightedness, in schoolchildren in China.

• • Al Gore’s Satellite and AI System is
  Now Tracking Sources of Deadly Soot Pollution

  Gore’s Coalition Uses 300 Satellites, 30,000 Ground-Tracking Sensors and Artificial Intelligence to Track 137,095 Sources of Particle Pollution
  
  {Associated Press}
  
  

  Sept. 24, 2025 - Soon people will be able to use satellite technology and artificial intelligence to track dangerous soot pollution in their neighborhoods — and where it comes from — in a way not so different from monitoring approaching storms under plans by a nonprofit coalition led by former Vice President Al Gore.

  Gore, who co-founded Climate TRACE, which uses satellites to monitor the location of heat-trapping methane sources, on Wednesday expanded his system to track the source and plume of pollution from tiny particles, often referred to as soot, on a neighborhood basis for 2,500 cities across the world. Particle pollution kills millions of people worldwide each year — and tens of thousands in the United States — according to scientific studies and reports./p>

• • China’s Climate Target Would Reduce
  Emissions From Its Immense Economy

  Mr. Xi’s Remarks Came as World Leaders Gathered at the U.N. Wednesday to Detail Their Latest Plans to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions By 2035
  
  
  

  Sept. 24, 2025 -For the first time, China has announced a detailed target for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from its immense economy, saying on Wednesday that it would cut carbon dioxide and other pollution by at least 7 to 10 percent by 2035.

  The plan was detailed by President Xi Jinping, speaking by video link at a United Nations climate summit.

• • China Can Decarbonize the World – But...

  Even That Won’t Fix Its Overcapacity Problem
  
  {energy central}
  
  

  Sept. 25, 2025 -China can already cover global demand through 2050, yet factories keep churning. Prices are crashing, profits have evaporated, and manufacturers are slashing investment.

  Beijing added 900 GW of renewables in just four years, but much of it sits idle. Weak transmission lines, storage shortages, and curtailment rates north of 30% in some provinces mean coal still carries the load.

• • China Vows to Cut Greenhouse
  Gas Emissions 7% to 10% by 2035

  China Accounts for the Largest Share of Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions
  
  {Bloomberg}
  
  

  Sept. 25, 2025 -China, the world’s largest polluter, set a target to cut economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 7% to 10% over the next decade, a strategy that’s seen as too modest to put the nation on a path to net zero and galvanize global climate action.

  The promised reduction from China’s peak levels — while “striving to do better” — follows President Xi Jinping’s pledge in April to pursue more stringent curbs and to set policies that cover the entire economy, addressing pollutants beyond carbon dioxide. It follows a tradition of Chinese leaders setting relatively modest climate targets, only to surpass them later.

• • China’s Plans to Cut Emissions Too Weak
  to Stave Off Global Catastrophe, Say Experts

  Critics Say New Cuts Fall ‘Far Short’ of What's Necessary
  
  
  

  Sept. 24, 2025 -China announced its plans for future cuts to greenhouse gas emissions on Wednesday, producing a scathing response from experts who said they were much too weak to stave off global catastrophe.

  The world’s second-biggest economy is also the biggest source of carbon dioxide by far, and its decisions on how far and how fast to shift to a low-carbon model will determine whether the world can stay within relatively safe temperature bounds.

• • Pesticides in Your Produce?

  Most Probably, Yes
  
  
  

  Sept. 24, 2025 -If you eat a daily serving of fruits and vegetables, critical components of a healthy diet, you’re likely ingesting a hefty dose of pesticides too, new peer-reviewed research shows.

  U.S. farmers apply hundreds of millions of pounds of harmful pesticides to kill insects, pathogens and other agricultural pests every year. Consumers can be exposed to these chemicals if they drink contaminated water, live or work around treated fields or eat tainted food.

• • Most of an Earthquake’s Energy Is
  Released as Heat, Not Shaking

  The Finding Could Help Yield Better Earthquake Forecasts
  
  
  

  Sept. 24, 2025 -The shaking produced by an earthquake can crack the ground, bring down buildings and cause massive rockfalls. All this destructive power is, astoundingly, just a fraction of a quake’s overall energy.

  A new laboratory study in AGU Advances finds that shaking accounts for only 1 to 8 percent of the energy released in an earthquake, while up to a whopping 98 percent of that energy dissipates as heat. The friction of huge rock chunks sliding against one another can spike the temperature of the ground to more than 1,700 degrees Celsius—hot enough to melt quartz and other minerals.

• • CDC Warns of Surge In Dangerous,
  Highly Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

  Infections From Ndm-Cre Bacteria, Which Are Resistant to “Some of the Strongest Antibiotics Available,” Are Very Hard to Treat and Can Be Deadly
  
  
  

  Sept. 24, 2025 -Infections from dangerous bacteria that are resistant to “some of the strongest antibiotics available” have surged in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

  Citing a CDC study published Tuesday, the agency said in a news release that infections from NDM-CRE bacteria rose by more than 460 percent in the U.S. between 2019 and 2023.

  “These infections — including pneumonia, bloodstream infections, urinary tract infections, and wound infections — are extremely hard to treat and can be deadly,” the CDC said.

• • Defense Department Delays Cleanup
  of ‘Forever Chemicals’ Nationwide

  The Chemicals, Widely Used in the Military, Are Linked to Cancers and Other Health Risks
  
  
  

  Sept. 23, 2025 -The Department of Defense has quietly delayed its cleanup of harmful “forever chemicals” at nearly 140 military installations across the country, according to a list of sites analyzed by The New York Times.

  The Pentagon has been one of the most intensive users of these chemicals, which are also known as PFAS and are a key ingredient in firefighting foam. For decades, crews at U.S. military bases would train to battle flames by lighting jet-fuel fires, then putting them out with large amounts of foam, which would leach into the soil and groundwater.

• • Utilities and Fossil Fuel Industry Support
  Proposed Trump Administration Air Pollution Rollbacks

  Utilities and Coal Interests Lined Up Behind Trump's Proposals to Repeal Power Plant Air Pollution Rules
  
  {energy central}
  
  

  Sept. 23, 2025 The administration wants to roll back Biden-era Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) and eliminate greenhouse gas limits on fossil fuel plants. That would mean looser monitoring of mercury, arsenic, and lead emissions, and no federal GHG standards for coal plants.

  Who’s backing it: Trade groups like EEI, NRECA, APPA, and newer coalitions such as PGen and AFFORD filed in support, echoing long-standing arguments about grid reliability and CCS costs. Coal companies and Koch-aligned think tanks also urged repeal. Some utilities, including Ameren, AEP, and Duke, weighed in directly.

• • More Than 10 Million Fish Devoured In Just a Few Hours

  It’s the World’s Largest Predation Event
  
  
  

  Sept. 23, 2025 -Off the frigid coast of Norway, a gruesome spectacle unfolded that scientists had only imagined. In the early hours of a February morning in 2024, millions of capelin, small Arctic fish, came together to spawn. But instead of peacefully laying their eggs, they found themselves at the center of a predatory onslaught. Within hours, the swarming capelin had become a feast for their relentless pursuers — Atlantic cod.

  The dramatic encounter, reported by researchers from MIT in the USA and Norway, marks the largest recorded instance of marine predation. Using advanced acoustic imaging technology, scientists watched as capelin formed a massive shoal stretching over ten kilometers. In response, cod converged to form their own enormous group, devouring more than 10 million capelin in just a few hours.

• • Blue Light Makes Even the Toughest
  Underarm Yellow Stains Vanish Without Damage

  A New Light-Powered Method Could Save Your Favorite Shirts and Help the Planet
  
  
  

  Sept. 23, 2025 -A white shirt, once stained with yellow underarm blotches or splashes of tomato juice, usually meets one of two fates: a punishing chemical bath or a slow exile to the back of the closet. But scientists in Japan have found a surprisingly gentle alternative in the form of a beam of blue light.

  It’s not just any light. At 445 nanometers, a visible wavelength near the indigo end of the spectrum, high-intensity blue LED light has shown remarkable stain-fighting powers, capable of degrading the compounds that cause yellowing without damaging even the most delicate of fabrics.

• • Chicago Has Hundreds of Thousands of Toxic Lead Pipes

  And Millions of Unspent Dollars to Replace Them
  
  
  

  Sept. 22, 2025 -No U.S. city has more toxic lead pipes pumping water into people’s homes. And millions of federal and city dollars earmarked to replace them remain unused, a city official said Monday, at the same time that the city is struggling to keep up with deadlines to warn people of the risks.

  Replacements of Chicago’s more than 412,000 confirmed and suspected lead service lines are lagging. The city doesn’t anticipate replacing all its pipes until 2076, some 30 years after a federal deadline. Lead plumbing can leach the toxic metal into drinking water, causing brain damage, developmental delays and other harms.

• • The World’s Largest Flowers Smell Like Death

  And They’re About to Go Extinct
  
  
  

  Sept. 22, 2025 -The stench of decay announces death—but Rafflesia plants turn it on like a neon sign. Forty-two parasitic species exude the smell of rot to lure insects, thriving under the guise of death. From a distance, the flowers could be mistaken for something long past its prime, their massive blooms draped across the forest floor.

  Up close, the effect is even more striking: a putrid, almost tangible odor that seems to hang in the air, signaling that something is very, very wrong. This foul aroma isn’t accidental—Rafflesia cranks out the scent of rotting flesh like a siren call, drawing in carrion flies to carry out the plant’s reproductive work. “The flowers of Rafflesia are known to emit a putrid odor. The scent resembles the smell of rotting flesh, which attracts pollinating carrion flies (e.g., Calliphora, Chrysomya, Hypopygiopsis, Lucilia, and Sarcophaga),” according to an article by researchers in the Philippines published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution in 2019.

• • Chinese Mining Firm Downplays Toxic Waste Spill

  Residents Reel From Impacts
  
  
  

  Sept. 22, 2025 -A Chinese mining company is denying that its toxic waste spill, one of this year’s worst environmental disasters, had a “significant impact” on the environment or local communities.

  In a statement filed Thursday with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, China Nonferrous Mining Corp. said the February collapse of its waste pit, known as a tailings dam, at a copper mine in Zambia resulted in only “partial tailings leakage.”

• • Scientists Find “Masterkey” for
  Enhancing Pathogen Resistance in Crops

  An Engineering Playbook for Creating Disease-Resistant Crops is Finally Here
  
  
  

  Sept. 22, 2025 -In the unending war between plants and pathogens, our crops are usually on the defensive. The ubiquitous armies of bacteria, fungi, and viruses are constantly laying siege to the fields that feed the world, threatening global food security in the process. The fact that we’ve basically eliminated the vast majority of cultivars and only kept the ones that produce the biggest yields only makes our crops more vulnerable.

  For decades, scientists have worked to give plants more defenses against such pathogens. This often means engineering their immune systems to be smarter, faster, and more effective, whether through selection or editing. Now, a team of international researchers has developed a revolutionary strategy that not only discovers novel immune sensors in plants but provides a blueprint for redesigning them.

• • Climate Tech Leaders Form New Coalition
  to Map Out the Future of Decarbonization

  A Coalition of Investors, Nonprofits, and Academics Has Launched the Climate Tech Atlas, a Roadmap to Highlight the Most Promising Innovation Areas For Decarbonization
  
  {Energy Central}
  
  

  Sept. 22, 2025 -The Atlas maps 24 opportunity areas across buildings, manufacturing, transport, food and ag, electricity, and carbon removal, with 39 “moonshot” technologies flagged for long-term potential.

  The initiative is designed to guide entrepreneurs, investors, and researchers toward the most investable solutions as federal support wanes and offers an open-source tool for prioritizing innovation and capital.

• • Fracking’s Broken Promise to Pennsylvania

  Fracking Was Supposed to Lower Pennsylvanians’ Electric Bills. Instead, They’re Higher Than Ever
  
  
  

  Sept. 21, 2025 -In 2013, when the Appalachian fracking rush was still in its early days, then President Barack Obama extolled its benefits in his State of the Union address. Not only had natural gas already helped to lower America’s carbon emissions, it could protect Americans from the fluctuations of the global oil market, Obama said. And there was one more important benefit: “Nearly everyone’s energy bill is lower because of it.”

  Obama’s words echoed fracking’s champions in politics, business and government, who boasted that natural gas would save Americans money—perhaps nowhere more fervently than in Pennsylvania, the epicenter of the boom.

• • Chicagoans Avoided Their ‘Filthy’ River for Years

  On Sunday, They Swam in It
  
  
  

  Sept. 21, 2025 -Early Sunday morning, spectators jostled for a glimpse of the Chicago River to witness something that hadn’t happened there in nearly a century.

  People were swimming in it.

  In the heart of the Loop downtown, surrounded by Modernist skyscrapers, hundreds of swimmers peeled off identical white terry cloth robes, one by one. As the crowds above them whooped and a D.J. played, the swimmers adjusted their caps and goggles and nervously tugged at knee-length black wet suits and briefs emblazoned with the Chicago flag.

• • 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.

• • 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.

• • Chemists Turn Plastic Waste Into Carbon Capture Material

  Check Out How It's Done
  
  
  

  Sept. 18, 2025 -The method works with polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the ubiquitous clear plastic that beverage bottles and clothing fibers are made of. The plastic is recyclable, but it has little value so most of the discarded plastic ends up in landfills, incinerators, or as pollution in waterways and oceans.

  The new method shows that “plastic waste can be upcycled into a high-value carbon-capture material, addressing two environmental challenges at once: plastic pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions,” says Ji-Woong Lee, a chemist at the University of Copenhagen and Aarhus University. Lee and his colleagues reported their work in the journal Science Advances.

• • 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.

• • Grazing Expansion in Grizzly
  Habitat Near Yellowstone Violated Law

  The Court Remanded the Matter Back to the Forest Service to Prepare a New Analysis
  
  
  

  Sept. 17, 2025 -A federal court today found that the U.S. Forest Service violated the law when it authorized expanded livestock grazing on six allotments on the east side of Montana’s Paradise Valley in occupied grizzly bear habitat. The allotments lie just north of Yellowstone National Park in the Absaroka Mountains.

  The U.S. District Court for the District of Montana found that the Forest Service failed to analyze the effects of authorizing greater livestock grazing on public lands in the area — specifically, allowing more grazing in more areas and a longer grazing season.

• • 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 Landslide Lurking in Your Backyard

  As Warming Temperatures Bring More Extreme Rain to the Mountains, Debris Flows Are On the Rise
  
  
  

  Sept. 16, 2025 -The landslide behind my neighbor’s backyard doesn’t exist—not according to the New York State landslide map or Greene County’s hazard-mitigation plan or the federal inventory managed by the U.S. Geological Survey. But when you’re standing in the middle of the debris field, the violence of the event is still evident 14 years after it occurred. The fan of the landslide, where a surge of boulders and mud blasted the forest open after rushing down the steeper slopes of Arizona Mountain in the Catskills, is about 100 feet wide—an undulating plane of rocks, mangled tree trunks, and invasive plants such as Japanese stiltgrass that thrive in disturbed areas.

  Click now to learn more.

• • Trump Administration Starts Building
  Destructive New Arizona Border Wall

  The Planned 27-Mile Border Wall Would Block Migration for Dozens of Imperiled Species Who Roam Freely Between Arizona and the Mexican State of Sonora
  
  
  

  Sept. 16, 2025 -Staff from the Center for Biological Diversity documented Monday that construction has begun on a new segment of border wall through the San Rafael Valley in Arizona’s Sky Island region. This biodiversity hotspot includes the most significant wildlife corridor remaining along the Arizona-Mexico border.

  “I felt sick seeing the first 250 feet of this catastrophic wall rip through the San Rafael Valley,” said Russ McSpadden at the Center. “This is cruel political theater straight out of the Trump playbook, but with very real consequences. It’s an ecological disaster in the making that will cut off the country’s most important jaguar corridor.”

• • Fast Fashion Is a Bad Look for the Environment

  A More Circular Economy in Textiles is a Good Look for the Planet
  
  
  

  Sept. 16, 2025 -People in the U.S. throw away at least 17 million tons of textiles every year—about 100 pounds of clothing per person. At the same time, unsold blouses, jackets, and other fashion-industry leftovers end up in dumps such as the one in Chile’s Atacama Desert, so vast as to be visible from space. Many of these items are fast fashion—made quickly, sold cheaply, and in style for too short a time because the industry relies on novelty to keep consumers buying.

  Fashion poses more than an aesthetic problem, however. Every year the global garment industry emits up to 10 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas output and uses enough water to fill at least 37 million Olympic-size swimming pools.

• • 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.