By Brad Plumer  and  Lisa Friedman , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The Trump administration on Monday outlined a coordinated plan to revive the mining and burning of coal, the largest contributor to climate change worldwide. Coal use has been declining sharply in the United States since 2005, displaced in many cases by cheaper and cleaner natural gas, wind and solar power. But in a series of steps aimed at improving the economics of coal, the Interior Department  said it would open  13.1 million acres of federal land for coal mining and reduce the royalty rates that companies would need to pay to extract coal. The Energy Department  said it would offer $625 million  to upgrade existing coal plants around the country, which have been closing at a fast clip, in order to extend their life spans. The Environmental Protection Agency said it would repeal dozens of regulations set by the Biden administration to curb carbon dioxide, mercury and other pollutant...

By Ivan Penn  and  Malika Khurana , The New York Times.  Excerpt: U.S. electric grids are increasingly under strain and utility companies are spending tens of billions of dollars on upgrades — expenses that are driving up electric bills. At the same time, power-hungry data centers, electric vehicles and heat pumps are increasing demand for electricity. ...One solution is to install more rooftop solar panels and batteries. Each such system is small, but collections of them can act like small power plants by supplying electricity to the grid when demand surges on, say, summer afternoons. ...“Putting on solar without a battery, does almost nothing to help” the energy system, Mr. Borenstein, the Berkeley professor, said....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/27/business/energy-environment/rooftop-solar-panels.html .

By Hannah Richter , Science.  Excerpt: Every time people ask ChatGPT for help, their request percolates through a whirring farm of computers kept cool inside a windowless warehouse. These facilities, known as data centers, gobbled up  more than 4% of U.S. electricity in 2023 . ...researchers reported online earlier this month in  Solar Energy  that they had come up with a clever efficiency boost. By using the Sun’s warmth to raise the temperature of vented waste heat, data center operators can  generate a significant fraction of the electricity  they need while recycling some power....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/solar-bump-could-help-data-centers-recover-wasted-energy . 

By ScienceAdviser.  Excerpt: Polyethylene terephthalate or PET is one of the most widely used plastics, and therefore, a big contributor to plastic waste. But a team of researchers  has an idea for how to beat the trash—and help tackle climate change at the same time . In a recent paper, they described a simple process that turns PET into bis-aminoamide (BAETA), a compound that chemically binds carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), effectively pulling it from the air. “ Any useful carbon capture material needs to be made in the millions of tons per year from cheap and abundant sources ,” co-author Ji-Woong Lee told  Chemical & Engineering News . “Plastic waste is a cheap and abundant source.” Lee and colleagues detailed how, simply by mixing PET with 1,2-ethylenediamine (EN) at 60°C for 24 hours or room temperature for 2 weeks, they could turn the plastic into CO 2  -absorbing BAETA. ...“ The beauty of this method is that we solve a problem without creating a new one ,” lead a...

By Tim Appenzeller , Science.  Excerpt: ...In 2018, [Ben] Jones, a polar scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, was drilling into the frozen soil outside of Utqiaġvik, the largest town on Alaska’s North Slope, to extract a core sample. ...Inspecting the hard-won core, researchers found that an unsuspected layer of salt had thawed the permafrost. Jones and other investigators now believe such saline permafrost is an accomplice to climate change, which is warming the Arctic four times faster than the rest of the planet and turning frozen landscapes into boggy morasses. Like salt sprinkled on an icy sidewalk, the buried salt layers seem to be accelerating the thaw and, with it, the vast transformation of the landscape. “It just seems like things are happening a little faster now than you might anticipate if you’re assuming permafrost thaws at 0°C,” Jones says....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/even-subzero-parts-arctic-are-thawing-ancient-salt-...

By Nature's Voice - Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).  Excerpt: America’s clean energy revolution not only stands to combat the climate crisis and drive down harmful pollution, it has the potential to reinvigorate rural communities that have been hit hard by economic disinvestment. That’s the goal of Power Your Community, a new paradigm-shifting project launched as part of a ground-breaking partnership between NRDC and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)....  Full article at https://issuu.com/nrdc/docs/nature_s_voice_fall_2025 . 

By Nature's Voice - Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).  Excerpt: Nearly $1 billion in funds unlawfully frozen by the Trump administration to support the transition to cleaner vehicles have been restored, following a lawsuit filed by a coalition of states and joined by NRDC and our allies. A federal district court issued a preliminary injunction that unfroze the funds for 14 states that had been apportioned funding under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, a 5 billion bipartisan program that seeks to build electric-vehicle charging stations every 50 miles on major highways across all 50 states. The transformative program will deliver good jobs while ensuring that drivers—from urban to rural areas, in every corner of the country—have access to high-quality charging stations. ...“The administration’s halt in funding has thrown state efforts to build charging stations into turmoil, and it will mean workers and drivers suffer,” says Atid Kimelman...

By Andrew Freedman , CNN.  Excerpt: A record-breaking and astonishingly expansive  marine heat wave  is underway in the Pacific Ocean, stretching about 5,000 miles from the water around Japan to the West Coast of the United States. The abnormally warm “blob” of ocean water, which is getting a significant boost from human-caused global warming, is affecting the weather on land and could have ripple effects on marine life. ...The sea surface temperature difference from average across the entire North Pacific  smashed an all-time record  for the month of August, with reliable data stretching back to the late 19th century. What worries scientists is the repetitive nature of these events. As climate change causes more heat to be stored in the oceans, ocean temperatures are reaching new heights that could lead to more significant impacts from these heat waves like this. ...Past Northeast Pacific Ocean blobs led to a  historic die-off of seabirds  in coastal ...

By Rebecca Owen , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: A new study reconstructs roughly 800 years of streamflow history in India’s major rivers, showing an increase in synchronous drought linked to anthropogenic climate change. ...Recent observations and modeling suggest that on the Indian subcontinent, where major  rivers  support more than 2 billion people, the likelihood of synchronous drought is increasing as summer monsoons weaken, the Indian Ocean warms, and anthropogenic emissions and excessive groundwater pumping continue. However, little is known about the long-term patterns of synchronous  drought in India , in part because streamflow data don’t offer information about the distant past. By combining several decades of streamflow measurements from 45 gauge stations along India’s major rivers with high-resolution temperature and precipitation data and data from a range of paleoclimate proxies,  Chuphal and Mishra  have now reconstructed streamflow records across mor...

By Stuart Braun, DW.  Excerpt: US President Donald Trump is an avowed  climate science skeptic  who during his second term ...gutted agencies that produce  climate information  used by millions of Americans. In February, only weeks after taking office, around 800 people were dismissed from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which  monitors  ocean and climate conditions and issues weather forecasts and warnings via its National Weather Service. The firings also impacted the agency's climate.gov website, the premier platform for  climate information  in the US that informs readers about extreme weather,  sea level  and temperature rise, and much else. ...Trump administration-appointed officials at NOAA not only terminated climate.gov staff, they redirected the homepage to a site controlled by political appointees, noted Rebecca Lindsey, the former manager of climate.gov who was also sacked in February. ...But ...

By Jack Ewing , The New York Times.  Excerpt: New electric vehicles cost thousands more than similar models that run on gasoline. But a growing number of shoppers are discovering that for used cars, often the opposite is true. Used battery-powered vehicles often sell for less than comparable cars with internal combustion engines, making them a good deal even before calculating savings in maintenance costs and fuel. That is expanding the number of people who can afford to buy such models. Sales of used electric vehicles rose 40 percent in July from a year earlier, according to Cox Automotive, a research firm....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/business/used-electric-vehicles.html .

By Reuters. Excerpt: The US Environmental Protection Agency proposed on Friday a rule to end a mandatory program requiring 8,000 facilities to report their greenhouse gas emissions – an effort the agency said was burdensome to business, but which leaves the public without transparency around the environmental impact of those sources. The agency said mandatory collection of GHG emissions data was unnecessary because it is “not directly related to a potential regulation and has no material impact on improving human health and the environment”. “The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape that does nothing to improve air quality,” said Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator. The rule responds to a day-one executive order issued by Donald Trump aimed at removing barriers to unleashing more US energy, particularly fossil fuels. ...The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program requires 47 source categories covering 8,000 facilities and suppliers to calculate and submit ...

By Nicole Blanchard , Idaho Statesman.  Excerpt: Idaho could be the next frontier in clean energy, according to a startup that recently got approval to move forward in its exploration for the commodity. Koloma, a natural hydrogen company that does business in Idaho as Cascade Exploration, is looking for naturally occurring underground hydrogen gas in Canyon County. It has submitted applications for two test well locations near Notus. Sharla Arledge, a spokesperson for the Idaho Department of Lands said if the applications are approved, the company would then need to submit applications for drilling permits. ...Underground hydrogen was discovered by chance when crews were digging a well in Mali in the 1980s, according to reporting from Science. Kristen Delano, a spokesperson for Koloma, told the Idaho Statesman in an interview that the discovery shocked scientists, many of whom thought hydrogen molecules were too small to collect underground. ...Proponents say it could be a breakthr...

By Hayley Smith , Los Angeles Times.  Excerpt: Along a rocky wharf at the Port of Los Angeles on Tuesday, seven blue steel structures bobbed in the gentle wake of a Catalina Island ferry. The bouncing floaters marked a moment for clean energy — the first onshore wave power project in the country. The floaters belong to  Eco Wave Power,  a Swedish company behind the pilot project located at AltaSea, a nonprofit  ocean institute  at the port. They harness the natural rise and fall of the ocean to create clean electricity 24 hours a day. The pilot project can generate up to a modest 100 kilowatts of power — enough for about 100 homes — but company officials said the ultimate goal is to install steel floaters along the port’s 8-mile breakwater to generate about 60 megawatts of power, or enough for about 60,000 homes. Such an achievement could be replicated along other parts of the U.S. coastline, according to Inna Braverman, Eco Wave Power’s co-founder and chief exe...

Full article at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/environment-greenhouse-gas-reporting-end . By Dharna Noor , The Guardian. Excerpt: 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. These handouts pose a massive barrier to decarbonization, says the new report, which experts have long warned is urgently necessary to avert the worst consequences of the  climate crisis . ...Another major support measure is a  tax credit for capturing carbon , which is often framed as a climate solution but is primarily used to extract hard-to-reach reserves i...

By Science Adviser.  Excerpt: The chemicals industry is one of the most carbon-intensive industries on the planet, consuming vast amounts of energy to operate production facilities and stoke necessary chemical reactions. Making the industry greener may rely on changing some of the chemistry itself. Hydrogenation, the process that splits apart molecular hydrogen (H 2 ) and adds it to other compounds, is found in a quarter of all chemical industry processes. Since it typically requires energy-intensive high heat and pressure, researchers wanted to probe a more natural energy source: light. Titanium dioxide, a common photocatalyst, was already known to absorb ultraviolet light, so the team tried irradiating it with such light to peel hydrogen molecules apart. ...The researchers used their method to produce ethylene, the world’s most-produced organic chemical and a key component of manufacturing fuels, plastics, fertilizers, and pharmaceuticals. In a related  Perspective...

By Warren Cornwall , Science.  Excerpt: The Salmon River, in remote northwestern Alaska, ...has become a symbol of Arctic climate change—and its waters are no longer clear or pure. Beginning in 2019, the river turned orange and yellow, reminiscent of acidic runoff from mining waste. It’s not just the color that’s troubling. The river and many of its tributaries are now laced with toxic metals, leached from thawing permafrost, at levels that can harm aquatic life, scientists  report today  in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/thawing-permafrost-turning-arctic-rivers-orange-spelling-trouble-fish . 

By David Gelles , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...Paul Lightfoot ...general manager of Patagonia Provisions, ..believes that Kernza, a type of wheatgrass that can be used for baking and brewing, has the potential to change the food system. [Deep} roots are what makes Kernza so unusual, allowing it to absorb more carbon dioxide than many crops, and turning it into a theoretical ally in the fight against climate change. And because Kernza is a perennial grain and doesn’t need to be replanted each year, it requires less water and fertilizer than traditional wheat, making it a boon for cost-conscious farmers....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/business/patagonia-provisions-dirtbag-billionaire.html . 

By Mohana Basu , Nature.  Excerpt: The planet’s capacity to store carbon-dioxide emissions in rock formations is much smaller than previous estimates suggest, and it could run out as early as 2200, according to a study 1  published in  Nature  today. To meet the goal of the  2015 Paris agreement  — limiting global warming to 1.5–2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures — vast amounts of CO 2  will need to be removed from the atmosphere. One way to do that is to  capture CO 2  produced by industry and store it deep underground. Researchers report that Earth can safely store around 1,460 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO₂) — a number much lower than the 10,000–40,000 GtCO₂ often cited in previous studies 2 . At present, carbon capture and storage technologies remove only 49 million tonnes of CO₂ annually, with a further 416 million tonnes per year in planned capacity, say the authors of the study. But to stay within the Paris target, annual carb...

By Taylor Mitchell Brown , Science.  Excerpt: About 1200 years ago, social strife and upheaval shook the Maya world. Sites across southern Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala saw their populations dwindle. ...Scientists have long puzzled over the precise mechanisms behind this widespread collapse, citing everything from disease and warfare to deforestation from slash-and-burn agriculture. In a new paper published earlier this month in  Science Advances , researchers studied ancient stalagmites and contemporary local rainwater records to better understand how  climate may have influenced the falling populations . They found that droughts coincided with periods of population decline and political reorganization across Maya kingdoms, including one particularly extreme drought that may have irrevocably led the Maya to abandon some of their most famous cities....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/stalagmites-reveal-devastating-droughts-helped-spur-maya-br...

By Tim McDonnell, SEMAFOR.  Excerpt: Global investment in renewable energy reached $386 billion in the first six months of 2025, a half-year record in spite of headwinds for some sectors and regions. Investors are becoming more scrupulous about onshore wind and utility-scale solar projects, ... And investment across all renewable technologies fell precipitously in the US, down 36% compared to the second half of 2024 as the Trump administration and Congress raised numerous new barriers to construction. But those dropoffs were more than offset by the still-booming global market for small-scale solar, and a particular influx of capital to renewables projects in Europe.... But China still dominates, claiming 44% of new renewables investments so far this year....  Full article at https://www.semafor.com/article/08/26/2025/global-investments-in-renewable-energy-reach-half-year-record . 

By Curtis Tate , West Virginia Public Broadcasting.  Excerpt: A titanium factory that’s powered by renewable energy is in the final months of construction in Jackson County. ...It’s the scene of construction of the first phase of a titanium smelter, powered by electricity generated from the sun. ...This is a unique project for West Virginia. A metal manufacturer, Timet, will use electricity produced across the highway at a solar facility run by Berkshire Hathaway Renewables. ...“We’re charging the batteries during the day, while we’re also consuming some of the energy, and then at night, we would be discharging the batteries,” he said. ...It’s a turnaround for an area that lost so many workers when the aluminum plant closed. ...The titanium produced here will be used in aerospace and for medical implants, he says. Across Highway 2, solar panels blanket the landscape on all sides. Not all of them have been installed yet, and Berkshire Hathaway has yet to drill under the road to get ...

By Atharva Gosavi , Interesting Engineering.  Excerpt: Rising 383.8 feet (117 meters) above Qingdao City, the innovative office tower is designed to operate entirely on green energy and stands as a model for future zero-carbon construction. ...this project integrates photovoltaic glass curtain walls across its east, south, and west facades. These transparent solar panels generate direct current electricity that supplies 25 percent of the building’s daily energy needs while minimizing energy loss. The system is expected to reduce carbon emissions by nearly 500 tons annually. ...Retired electric vehicle (EV) batteries are used for energy storage in the building. ...China’s green transition gained strong momentum in the first half of 2025, with renewable energy accounting for 91.5 percent of newly installed power capacity, according to data from the National Energy Administration. By the end of June, the country’s cumulative renewable energy capacity had reached 2.16 billion kilowatts...

By ScienceAdviser.  Excerpt: ...on a hot summer day... Concrete sidewalks and buildings practically exude heat, requiring extra powerful air conditioners on the inside while contributing to an “urban heat dome” on the outside. The warming climate is slated to make these effects even worse. Researchers may have found a solution: a special cement, a key ingredient of concrete, that stays cool. ...test their cooling cement, the researchers placed a slab on a roof for a day, finding that it stayed chill even at the toastiest temperatures. Another panel was left outside for a year and experienced minimal degradation. ...Since the cement dries in as little as 10 minutes, the authors propose that it could be applied to existing building surfaces, including concrete, metals, and ceramic tiles. The team conducted in-depth modeling of how the cooling cement could be used in seven cities around the world to help achieve net-zero or negative carbon emissions for buildings by reducing the high ...

By Jinjoo Lee , The Wallstreet Journal.  Excerpt: The government delivered a shock to the renewable energy industry when it took away subsidies for solar and wind as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It’s a shock the industry can actually absorb—and maybe even benefit from in the long term. The two main tax credits used by the wind and solar industries have been in place since 1992 and 2005, respectively. ...But the latest tax-and-spending law cuts these tax credits short. ...Yet this doesn’t portend doom and gloom for the industry. And that could mean investors might currently have an attractive entry point to the industry....  Full article at https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/why-solar-and-wind-power-can-thrive-without-subsidies-cee47663 .  See also Inside Climate News article, Despite Everything, US Solar Manufacturing Continues to Power Up Fortune article, Trump’s crusade to cripple clean energy has found its match: the free market and global finance

By Stephanie Nolen , The New York Times. Excerpt: A mosquito-borne virus that can leave infected people debilitated for years is spreading to more regions of the world, as climate change creates new habitats for the insects that carry it. More than 240,000 cases of the virus, chikungunya, have been reported around the world so far this year, including 200,000 cases in Latin America  and 8,000 in China . ...Chikungunya is not circulating in the United States or Canada, but cases have been reported in France and Italy. The disease is endemic in Mexico. The World Health Organization is warning that current transmission patterns resemble a global outbreak that infected 500,000 people 20 years ago, contributing to a surge of new disabilities. Although it is rarely fatal, chikungunya causes excruciating and prolonged joint pain and weakness. “You have people who were working, with no disabilities, and from one day to the next, they cannot even type on a phone, they can’t hold a pen, a wo...

By Michael Le Page , New Scientist. Excerpt: During the summer of 2024, six weeks of record-smashing heat led to a record-obliterating amount of ice melting on the islands of Svalbard in the Arctic. By the end of the summer, 1 per cent of all the land ice on the archipelago had been lost – enough to raise the global average sea level by 0.16 millimetres. “It was very shocking,” says  Thomas Schuler  at the University of Oslo in Norway. “It was not just a marginal record. The melt was almost twice as high as in the previous record.”.... F ull article at https://www.newscientist.com/article/2492842-unprecedented-arctic-heatwave-melted-1-per-cent-of-svalbards-ice/ . See also Washington Post article, A glacial flood was the biggest on record. But Juneau’s makeshift dirt wall held and Eos/AGU article   Glacial Lake Outburst Causes Record River Crest in Juneau .

By Paul Krugman.  Excerpt: And consumers are paying the price. ...According to S&P Global, almost 90 percent of the generating capacity added in the first 8 months of 2024 came from solar and wind . ...Why is this a problem? Because Donald Trump and his minions have a deep, irrational hatred for renewable energy. Not only have they eliminated many of the green energy subsidies introduced by the Biden administration, they have been actively  trying to block  solar and wind projects. So even as Trump promises to make America dominant in AI, he’s undermining a different cutting-edge technology — renewable energy — that is crucial to AI’s growth...  Full article at https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/ai-is-power-hungry . 

By Mary Gilbert , Allison Chinchar , Rebekah Riess , Andrew Freedman , Cindy Von Quednow, CNN. Excerpt: The powerful storm has undergone astonishingly rapid changes — a phenomenon that has become far more common in recent years as the planet warms. It quickly became a rare Category 5 for a time Saturday, before weakening and becoming a larger system on Sunday as it churns through the Atlantic Ocean north of the Caribbean. Erin went from a Category 1 hurricane with 75 mph winds at 11 a.m. Friday to a Category 5 with near 160 mph winds just over 24 hours later. It put Erin in the history books as one of the fastest-strengthening Atlantic hurricanes on record, and potentially the fastest intensification rate for any storm earlier than September 1....  Full article at https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/17/weather/hurricane-erin-tracking-atlantic-climate . 

By Aarian Marshall , Wired.  Excerpt: This week, the US Department of Transportation released new interim guidance for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program. These rules advise states on how to spend $5 billion in funding for new electric-vehicle fast chargers, with the goal of creating a nationwide highway network of some half a million public chargers. The NEVI program was first established in 2021 by the  Biden administration’s infrastructure bill , with the goal of doing away with one of  car buyers’ biggest electric-vehicle fears : that they’ll run out of charge. But the program came under fire in the first weeks of Donald Trump's administration, part of a push to nix what the president has called an “electric vehicle mandate.”  The DOT “paused” the program for months , halting some payments to the states. (The department was forced to restart funding in some states after a handful of blue ones  won cases in court .). ...The agency als...

By Patrick George , The Atlantic.  Excerpt: Last year, Ford CEO Jim Farley commuted in a car that wasn’t made by his own company. In an effort to scope out the competition, Farley spent six months driving around in a Xiaomi SU7. The Chinese-made electric sedan is one of the world’s most impressive cars: It can accelerate faster than many Porsches, has a giant touch screen that lets you turn off the lights at your house, and comes with a  built-in AI assistant —all for roughly $30,000 in China. “It’s fantastic,” Farley said about the Xiaomi SU7 on a podcast last fall. “I don’t want to give it up.” ...Chinese EVs can be so cheap and high tech that they risk outcompeting  all  cars, not just electric ones. In the rest of the world, traditional automakers are already struggling as Chinese cars hit the market. In Europe, Chinese brands  now have roughly as much share of the market as Mercedes-Benz ....  Full article at https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/arch...

By Giorgia Guglielmi , Nature.  Excerpt: Two intense heatwaves have swept across Europe, causing hundreds of heat-related deaths, fuelling wildfires and pushing power systems to their limit — and more are on the way. From mid-June to early July, Western Europe experienced its highest average temperatures for this period in decades, and the hottest June on record.... Temperatures soared above 40°C, and up to 46°C in Spain and Portugal, as a result of ‘heat domes’ — caps of high pressure that trap hot air in the atmosphere over an area, causing it to stay hotter for longer. ...Research suggests that heatwaves in the region are becoming much more frequent — London can now expect events such as this every 6 years instead of every 60, according to a  report published last month  by Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute. ...Across 12 major European cities this year, about 1,500 of 2,300 estimated heat-related deaths — 65% — were driven by the extra heat resulting from fo...

By ScienceAdviser.  Excerpt: Scientists and governments alike have spent decades chasing nuclear fusion for its potential to provide virtually limitless clean energy. Artificial intelligence may bring this power source closer by helping model the precise chemical and physical conditions needed to generate it. New research just crossed an important step toward that goal: accurately predicting the result of a fusion experiment based on the ones that came before it. At the U.S. National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world’s most energetic laser system compresses and heats a tiny nuclear capsule to spark a fusion reaction. ...researchers created a fusion model based on the outcomes of NIF experiments from 2021-2022, then combined it with generative machine learning to predict the possible outcomes of successive experiments based on the model’s previous results. ...the AI model estimated that the NIF’s next big fusion test would have a 74% chance of success— and it turned out to be right...

By ScienceAdviser.  Excerpt: NASA satellites and computers have provided us with these mesmerizing swirls that cover our planet—but this isn’t star stuff. Each color represents a different aerosol that was floating in the atmosphere above our heads from 1 August to 14 September 2024 . Sea salt from surf breaks...is represented in blue. The spirals in the Atlantic and off the coast of Japan show the salt particles from Hurricane Ernesto and Typhoon Ampil, respectively. Desert dust is depicted in purple, showing how particulates from the Sahara travel across the Atlantic, reaching as far as Florida and Texas. ...Smoke from agricultural burning and wildfires are shown as the reddish orange swirls on the globe. Both South America and Canada experienced intense fires in 2024.... Sulfates from pollution and volcanoes appear as the green clouds that cover almost every inch of the planet. ...The rest comes from the fossil fuels burned for energy. ...“ What happens in one region—whether nat...

 By Rebecca F. Elliott , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...As far back as 1977, when oil prices were a big concern in the United States, a Cadillac Seville fueled by hydrogen drove in President Jimmy Carter’s inaugural parade. More recently, a signature law under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. offered generous tax credits to companies that made hydrogen in ways that release little or no carbon dioxide. That spurred a flood of investment announcements by many businesses. But the hype around the fuel is fading fast — and not for the first time. From Arizona to Oklahoma, companies are pulling the plug on clean hydrogen projects after Congress shortened the window for them to qualify for a Biden-era tax credit by five years. Projects now must be under construction by the end of 2027 to qualify, a hurdle that three-quarters of proposals most likely will not meet,  according to Wood Mackenzie , an energy consulting firm....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11...

By Raymond Zhong , The New York Times.  Excerpt: California’s main wildfire season is starting earlier in the year, and human-caused climate change is a major reason, new research finds. The onset of summertime fire activity in large parts of the state has crept into spring by up to two months since the early 1990s, according to a study published Wednesday  in the journal Science Advances ....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/climate/california-earlier-fire-season.html . 

By Stanley Reed , The New York Times.  Excerpt: On the edge of a fjord on Norway’s rocky west coast is a massive, almost sculptural structure that represents a multibillion-dollar bet on the economic future of energy in Northern Europe. The tanks at Oygarden, near the port city of Bergen, hold thousands of tons of liquid carbon dioxide extracted from the exhaust produced by a cement plant in southern Norway. The carbon dioxide...will soon be piped about 70 miles offshore and down an 8,500-foot well in the North Sea, where it will be locked away in the spongy rock, the project’s developers say. Norway has long been Europe’s leading producer of oil and natural gas. Now, with an eye to a future when earnings from those resources may decline, Oslo wants to parlay the skills of the petroleum industry and its favorable geology into a kind of garbage disposal service for emissions from heavy industry. ...In a sign of the increasing acceptance of carbon capture, 20 financial institutions a...

By Kaja Šeruga , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: About  15% of the land area  in the Northern Hemisphere is currently covered by perennially frozen soil known as permafrost. But that has not always been the case. As global temperatures fluctuated in Earth’s past, patches of that frozen soil periodically thawed and refroze. A  recent study  in  Nature Communications  shows that the Arctic was mostly free of permafrost 8.7 million years ago, when the average global temperature was 4.5°C (8.1°F) higher than it is today. Permafrost is a huge reservoir of CO 2 , and thawing comes with repercussions because it feeds back into future warming. ...As permafrost thaws, the organic matter in the soil begins to decompose, releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates  14–175 billion tons of CO 2  could be released into the atmosphere by thawing permafrost for every 1°C of global warming ....  Fu...

By America Hernandez , Reuters.  Excerpt: French utility Engie  (ENGIE.PA) plans to move forward with its existing wind, solar and battery projects in the United States despite President Donald Trump  rolling back subsidies , its CEO said on Friday....  Full article at https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/frances-engie-optimistic-us-renewables-projects-after-lower-energy-prices-dent-2025-08-01/ . 

By Stephen Proctor, The Cool Down (TCD).  Excerpt: Two innovative companies, Solarwatt and Stiebel Eltron U.K., have collaborated on a first-of-its-kind home in the United Kingdom. According to  Solarwatt , the companies unveiled their fully integrated solar energy and  heat pump  system at a home in North Wales....  Full article at https://www.thecooldown.com/green-home/solarwatt-stiebel-eltron-uk-home-energy/ . 

By Lisa Friedman , The New York Times.  Excerpt: During the presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump gathered oil executives at his Mar-a-Lago estate and promised them a powerful return on their investment if they raised $1 billion to help him retake the White House. The industry never ponied up quite that much, but nevertheless, six months into Mr. Trump’s presidency, oil and gas companies are poised to reap multibillion-dollar windfalls from the administration’s actions so far. A sweeping domestic policy bill that Mr. Trump signed into law this month includes about $18 billion in new and expanded tax incentives for the oil and gas industry.... It also includes billions of dollars in tax breaks that aren’t specific to oil and gas but were top oil industry priorities as the law was being negotiated. It reduces the amount of money that energy companies must pay the federal government for the oil and gas they extract on public lands and waters, a change valued at about $6 billion,...

By Warren Cornwall , Science.  Excerpt: ...University of Alaska Fairbanks ecologist Ken Tape walked across the tundra on the outskirts of Nome, Alaska, to a site where a shallow stream just a few meters wide had flowed 2 years before. In its place he found an enormous pond, created by a dam made of branches bearing the distinctive marks of beaver incisors. It was a vivid illustration of how beavers are transforming the Arctic. ...Soon, the land-altering power of beavers could be felt in a region currently beyond their reach: the farthest northern parts of the Alaskan Arctic. In a 30 July paper in  Environmental Research Letters , Tape and James Speed of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology forecast that  as a warming climate eases Arctic temperatures, beaver populations will march northward , sweeping across Alaska’s North Slope this century. Their arrival could bring dramatic change...upending ecosystems in places such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge...

By Saima May Sidik , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Africa is a source of uncertainty in carbon cycle calculations. By some estimates, the continent’s landscapes emit 2.1 billion tons more carbon dioxide than they take up each year—about equal to 1.5 times the annual emissions from  coal-fired power plants . But other estimates are almost the complete opposite, suggesting that the continent’s copious plant matter takes up 2.0 billion more tons of carbon dioxide per year than it releases. This uncertainty exists in part because the amount of carbon Africa takes up and emits  varies greatly  from year to year and partly because there is a dearth of available surface observations across the continent.  Yun et al.   investigated the reason for these fluctuations by applying a suite of atmospheric transport models to data from the  Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2  (OCO-2).... By filling a critical observational gap over Africa, the OCO-...

By Paul Voosen , Science.  Excerpt: The  last assessment  of the state of climate science from the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in its final form 2 years ago, was a monumental effort, with  721 volunteer scientists  synthesizing all available published research. Yesterday, the Department of Energy (DOE)  released  its own climate assessment, as part of a campaign by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to overturn its landmark endangerment finding from 2009, which found that burning fossil fuels endangers public health and established carbon dioxide as a pollutant EPA could regulate. But the DOE  report —called  A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate —had fewer authors than IPCC’s: just five. ...Climate researchers say the authors cherry-picked evidence and highlighted uncertainties to achieve the net effect of downplaying the impacts of climate ch...

By Paul Voosen , Science.  Excerpt: The National Science Foundation (NSF) plans to abruptly end operation of the  RV Nathaniel B. Palmer , the sole U.S. research ship capable of braving the farthest reaches of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. The move...is alarming polar scientists: Today, more than 170 researchers sent NSF leaders and Congress a  letter  asking the agency to reconsider. ...For nearly 60 years...the United States has continuously operated science-dedicated icebreakers in the Southern Ocean. They have gathered foundational data illuminating how these frigid waters  ferry carbon  and heat to the abyss below and how warm currents within them  drive the melt  of the continent’s vast ice sheet. ...The  Palmer , in operation since 1992, was the latest flag bearer in this long line. Capable of hosting two helicopters and up to 45 researchers, the  Palmer  was best known recently for its daring visits to the Thwaites Glac...

By Ferris Jabr, The New York Times.  Excerpt: On a hot February morning, that ship and two smaller companion barges — nicknamed Big Daddy and the Twins — roamed a bay within the Palm Islands cluster, off the northeastern coast of Australia. Each pumped seawater aboard, pressurized it and sprayed it into the air through hundreds of tiny nozzles arrayed on metal frames. Dense plumes of fog billowed from all three vessels, forming long white strands that eventually converged into a seamless cloak. ...Since 2016, Harrison and his colleagues have been investigating whether it is possible to reduce coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef by altering the weather above it. ...Theoretically, machine-generated fog and artificially brightened clouds can shade and cool the water in which corals live, sparing them much of that stress. ...The failure to prevent the planet’s average temperature from reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial base line, and the progressively obvious an...

By Tianyun Dong et al, Science.  Editor’s summary: Ocean surface temperatures vary from year to year, experiencing heat waves like those felt on land, but 2023 saw an extraordinarily large increase in marine heat waves with no recent analog. Dong  et al . report that 2023 set new records in the duration, extent, and intensity of these events by as much as three standard deviations above the historical average of the past four decades. The increasing trends in marine heat waves present intensifying dangers to ecological, social, and economic systems. —Jesse Smith.  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adr0910 .

By Jeff Brady , National Public Radio.  Excerpt: The Trump administration wants to overturn a key  2009 Environmental Protection Agency finding  that underpins much of the federal government's actions to rein in climate change. The EPA has crafted a proposal that would undo the government's "endangerment finding," a determination that pollutants from burning fossil fuels, such as carbon dioxide and methane, can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The finding has   long served as the foundation for a host of policies and rules to address climate change. The EPA's proposal to revoke the finding is currently under review by the White House Office of Management and Budget....  Full article at https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5302162/climate-change-trump-epa . See also article in Eos/AGU, A Healthy Environment Is a Human Right, UN Court Rules .

By Cara Buckley , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Pittsburgh is replacing most of its streetlights — more than 33,000 inefficient high-pressure sodium lamps — with LED versions that are projected to save about $942,000 a year in energy costs while tackling light pollution. The old lights cast an orange glow that bathed the heavens and anything nearby in what Flore Marion, the city’s assistant director of sustainability and resilience, described as “horror-movie” lighting....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/climate/pennsylvania-pittsburgh-light-pollution.html . See also article in Eos, Artificial Light Lengthens the Urban Growing Season .

By Sarah Derouin , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: As temperatures, biodiversity losses, and sea levels rise globally, scientists are concerned about the likelihood of abrupt climatic shifts occurring, particularly within sensitive subsystems of the climate system such as the  Amazon rainforest ,  Antarctic  sea ice, and the  Tibetan Plateau.  Abrupt shifts can manifest as...large and sudden changes in the rate of precipitation in a  monsoon system ,  ice  melt in Antarctica, or  permafrost  thaw in the Northern Hemisphere. Terpstra et al.  sought to identify abrupt shifts that might occur in the future ...[examining] outputs from 57 models [that] simulated a climate change scenario over 150 years, with carbon dioxide concentration increasing by 1% annually until it reached 4 times preindustrial levels. ...48 of the 57 showed an abrupt shift in at least one subsystem over the modeled period....  Full article at https://eos.org/research...

By Robert F. Service , Science.  Excerpt: As a fuel, hydrogen has one major attraction. When it burns or powers a fuel cell, it creates only water—and no climate-warming carbon dioxide. After that, the caveats start. To ship it or store it, the gas must be crushed under intense pressures or liquefied at ultracold temperatures, which raises costs. Now, researchers report the discovery of a cheap catalyst that adds hydrogen atoms to oil-like molecules that are liquid at ambient temperature and pressure. That means hydrogen could be stored and shipped in existing tanks, trucks, and pipelines, much like gasoline....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/storing-hydrogen-oil-liquid-could-allow-easy-transport-trucks-and-ships . 

By Ione Wells, BBC.  Excerpt: Raquel Celina Rodriguez watches her step as she walks across the Vega de Tilopozo in Chile's Atacama salt flats. It's a wetland, known for its groundwater springs, but the plain is now dry and cracked with holes she explains were once pools. "Before, the Vega was all green," she says. "You couldn't see the animals through the grass. Now everything is dry." She gestures to some grazing llamas. For generations, her family raised sheep here. As the climate changed, and rain stopped falling, less grass made that much harder. But it worsened when "they" started taking the water, she explains. "They" are lithium companies. Beneath the salt flats of the Atacama Desert lie the world's largest reserves of lithium, a soft, silvery-white metal that is an essential component of the batteries that power electric cars, laptops and solar energy storage. As the world transitions to more renewable energy sources, the ...

By Benjamin L. Rice , et al.  Editor’s summary: The increasing prevalence of extreme weather events creates severe disruptions to public health, as well as to the environment. In the wake of two successive cyclones hitting Madagascar in 2022 and 2023, Rice  et al . examined the effect of these extreme weather events in a high-malaria region. In the aftermath, infection rates by the mosquito-vectored parasite increased to 10% for school-aged children within 3 months as mosquito and malaria control activities were interrupted. Modeling showed that the recently available vaccines supply prolonged protection (up to 10 months) against repeat malaria infections and offer a sustainable instrument for health resilience in the wake of climate change. —Caroline Ash.  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp5365 . 

By Hannah Richter , Science.  Excerpt: On every continent not cloaked in ice, researchers have discovered strangely barren circular depressions, tens of meters or even kilometers across and as little as a few centimeters deep. Soil probes show these sunken patches, sometimes called “fairy circles,” leak hydrogen gas that is percolating up from within the earth. They have attracted scientists and businesspeople alike for their potential to signal  reserves of clean hydrogen fuel . Now, researchers are offering one of the first geomechanical explanations for how they form: from the pressure of upwelling hydrogen gas, which causes a circular patch of land to rise and then sink. Before the  new study , which was published on 30 May in  Geology , “nobody really understood or tried seriously to understand how these fairy circles are formed,” says Alain Prinzhofer, a geologist and scientific director of Brazilian company GEO4U who reviewed the paper. ...But these circles ha...

By Bob Berwyn , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: Add to the long list of global warming concerns that melting ice caps could trigger more volcanic eruptions. Worse, researchers said Monday at a scientific conference in Prague, the increasing volcanic activity holds the potential for a range of long-term climate feedbacks, as some volcanoes in Antarctica could accelerate ice melt from below while others could be so explosive that they send climate-altering material into the upper layers of the atmosphere. The research funded by the National Science Foundation studied the chemistry of rocks at six volcanoes in the Chilean Andes, where the scientists were able to detail changes in the magma below the ice or underground over the millennia of the most recent ice age, and to document how volcanic activity increased when the ice melted. University of Wisconsin–Madison geoscientist  Brad Singer , who led the research, said there are clear signs that thick ice caps act as lids on vo...

By Jim Robbins , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Eighteen years ago, farmed oyster larvae began disappearing in mass die-offs, mystifying hatchery managers in the Pacific Northwest and threatening a thriving part of the region’s economy. Up to 90 percent of the farmed Pacific oysters — the backbone of the industry — were being wiped out. Businesses like Taylor Shellfish Farms, the country’s largest grower now run by the fifth generation of the Taylor family, stood at the brink of catastrophe. ...The culprit turned out to be an increasingly acidic ocean, and research efforts to solve the mystery have propelled Washington State to the forefront of the world’s efforts to understand and offset the shifting chemical composition of the seas. Now, the global race against ocean acidification is intensifying as carbon dioxide levels in the seas increase. A recent study  found that the world’s oceans crossed a “planetary boundary”  in 2020, and warned that things were worse than prev...

By Kimberly Hatfield , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Scientists constructed a 100-year history of acidity in the Gulf of Maine. They expected coastal variability but were surprised by what they didn’t find: a strong anthropogenic signal. ...Using ocean chemistry recorded in algae, researchers have now constructed a nearly 100-year history of acidity (pH) in the region. The  analysis, published in  Scientific Reports , shows that ocean acidification, seen around the world, has been delayed in the gulf....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/warming-gulf-of-maine-buffers-ocean-acidification-for-now . 

Size-Insensitive Vapor Diffusion Enabled by Additive Freeze-Printed Aerogels for Scalable Desalination . Paper by Xiaomeng Zhao et al, American Chemical Society (ACS).  Summary: ...[desalination] currently requires huge plants with expensive machinery that require tons of energy to separate salt from the water. But now, researchers have developed a sponge-like material that turns saltwater into freshwater using only sunlight.  To make the sponge, the team developed a so-called ‘additive freeze-printing’ technique that combines 3D printing and freeze-casting, a technique that uses ice to create a highly porous material. ...The researchers put the sponge in a cup full of seawater then covered it with a lid to collect the condensation. After six hours in the hot Hong Kong sunlight, they got around three tablespoons of drinkable water. The team notes that, unlike other evaporators which don’t work as well as they get larger, their aerogel lattice is just as effective at a lar...

By Jennifer Hiller , The Wallstreet Journal.  Excerpt: Big wind and solar projects stand to be among the biggest losers, while hydrogen and other projects get a short reprieve. ...U.S. risks a slowdown in power delivery during the global artificial-intelligence race by ending the tax credits that were part of former President Joe Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act. The U.S. is also poised to cede advances in technologies from solar panels to batteries and electric vehicles to China. .... Loser: Big wind and solar power projects ... Winner: U.S. factories, ... Winner: Rooftop solar [??]  ... Loser: Electric vehicles  ....  Full article at https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/the-renewable-energy-sectors-relative-winners-and-losers-in-the-megabill-95e7ed48 .  See also July 2 Forbes article, Red States–And AI–Are Big Losers From Trump’s Clean Energy Massacre , and July 3 article in TechCrunch, Final GOP bill kneecaps renewables and hydrogen but lifts nuclear...