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...