By Michael Muir, The Cool Down.  Excerpt: Renewable energy received a major boost in Texas with the opening of a 1.6-gigawatt solar module factory in Brookshire. Waaree Solar Americas, a subdivision of Indian conglomerate Waaree Energies, began production in January 2025. The manufacturer told  PV Magazine , "The launch of commercial production marks a critical step in localizing solar manufacturing in the United States, contributing to job creation and economic growth while reducing reliance on imported solar products." The company plans to ramp up production in 2026 to three gigawatts and five gigawatts by the end of 2027. For reference, one gigawatt is enough energy to power around  876,000 homes  for a year, per Carbon Collective. ...Solar power is incredibly popular across the political spectrum in the United States, with a recent poll finding that almost  90% of citizens  support federal incentives to install it. ...As a clean energy source, it a...

By Eshe Nelson , The New York Times.  Excerpt: In the past few months, some of the largest banks and asset managers in the United States have  quit net zero networks , the climate groups that encourage their members to set ambitious carbon reduction targets and collaborate internationally on sustainability efforts. But ...in November, NYCERS, a pension fund for New York City employees, went in the opposite direction. It joined a United Nations-affiliated climate action group for long-term investors, the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance. ...At a time of growing backlash to environmental, social and governance goals and investment strategies, pension funds,  particularly in blue states and Europe , have emerged as a bulwark against efforts to sideline climate-related risks....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/business/dealbook/pension-funds-climate-esg.html . 

By Sebastiaan J. van de Velde et al, Science.  Excerpt: Fishers for bottom-loving species like flounder sometimes use a controversial method called bottom trawling, dragging nets along the seafloor to scoop the animals up. Critics point out that this dragging can kill sensitive animals like turtles and marine mammals, plus it causes extensive damage to the delicate habitats on the seabed. Now, they have another reason to gripe about the practice:  It worsens climate change . Researchers had already found that the act of stirring up sediment brings organic matter to the surface, where  microbes can digest it and release its carbon into the atmosphere . The team behind a new paper wanted to quantify other effects, including how stirring up sediment affects water chemistry. Sure enough, they found that messing with the seabed introduces more oxygen and acidifies the water, which in turn decreases its ability to dissolve carbon dioxide. ...trawling could be reduced with...

By Ki-Weon Seo et al, Science.  Excerpt: When hydrologists Dongryeol Ryu and Ki-Weon Seo saw their results, they were stunned. “ At first we thought, ‘That’s an error in the model,’ ” Ryu told  The Associated Press . But their findings held up to scrutiny:  The water stored on land has been disappearing  . In the last two decades, more than 2600 Gt (billion metric tons) of water that used to be stored in soil, snow, and freshwaters has permanently moved into the ocean, they report in  Science . ...“How climate warming affects Earth’s hydrological cycle—the continuous water movement between Earth and the atmosphere— is a key question for managing water resources and making weather predictions  ,” writes hydrologist Luis Samaniego in an accompanying Perspective. To get a figure they could trust, Ryu, Seo, and their colleagues had to integrate three long-term, global datasets—ones that track water storage anomalies, sea level changes, and the movement of the E...

By Austyn Gaffney , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Earth is missing a lot of sea ice this year. Enough to cover the entire United States east of the Mississippi. That was announced by researchers at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center on Thursday, who said the amount of sea ice on the planet had reached the  lowest level ever recorded in March . The record comes days after the World Meteorological Organization reported that  the past 10 years have been the 10 hottest on record , with 2024 the hottest year. The global rise in temperatures is tied to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/climate/global-sea-ice-record-low.html . 

By Sujita Sinha , Interesting Engineering.  Excerpt: Scientists in France have made a groundbreaking discovery that could transform clean energy production. Beneath the soil of Folschviller, in the Moselle region, researchers have uncovered an astonishing 46 million tons of natural hydrogen ...providing a new source of carbon-free fuel. The discovery was made by scientists from the GeoRessources laboratory and the CNRS while they were searching for methane. Instead, at a depth of 4,101 feet (1,250 meters), they found an enormous deposit of white hydrogen. This form of  hydrogen  is naturally occurring and does not require industrial production, unlike green hydrogen, which is made using renewable energy, or gray hydrogen, which is derived from fossil fuels. To put this discovery into perspective, the newly found deposit represents more than half of the world’s annual gray hydrogen production—but without the environmental costs. If extracted efficiently, this resource coul...