By Science Advisor.  Excerpt: Researchers have declared  southern Florida’s  Acropora  coral colonies functionally extinct . The death knell for two reef-building species, elkhorn and staghorn, was the 2023 marine heatwave that brought temperatures above 31°C for almost 6 weeks. The event was the ninth mass coral mortality event for the region since 1987. “ This ecosystem is forever transformed ,” lead author Ross Cunning told  Nature . Conservation for these species “needs to fundamentally change.” Acropora  have made Florida and the Caribbean their home for the past 250,000 to 500,000 years. During the heatwave, they bleached in 98% to 100% of their southern Florida range, a process whereby the corals lose the symbiotic algae that feed them and give them color. Previously, scientists had attempted to reintroduce the corals in areas where they had declined. But with the reintroduced organisms now dead, the authors say that efforts must turn to breeding mor...

By Kate Saxton, The Cool Down.  Excerpt: The United Nations recently  announced  that more than $1 trillion has been invested in its Energy Compact...an initiative by countries, companies, and organizations under the UN to invest in clean energy, improve electricity access, and promote  clean cooking . The latest Energy Compacts Annual Progress Report showed that $1.6 trillion has been invested, with $284 billion put to action since 2021, according to Power Technology.  The report revealed that approximately 285 million people have benefited from the agreement, with better access to clean energy. ...Additionally, 2.8 million  electric vehicles  were added, along with more than 300,000  EV charging stations . However, the report also stated that more than $4 trillion is needed annually to cover global needs for electricity and clean cooking. It showed that 660 million people have no access to electricity and that more than 2 billion rely on polluti...

By Prabhat Ranjan Mishra , Interesting Engineering.  Excerpt: A new energy storage system for high-rise buildings has been introduced in Canada. Designed by University of Waterloo researchers, the solid gravity energy storage system is claimed to be suitable for storing renewable energy. The system combines façade-mounted PV panels, small rooftop wind turbines, Li-Ion batteries, and a rope-hoist-based gravity energy storage (GS)....  Full article at https://interestingengineering.com/energy/canada-solid-gravity-energy-storage-buildings .

By Raymond Zhong  and  Sachi Kitajima Mulkey , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The average level of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere climbed by the largest amount on record between 2023 and 2024, the World Meteorological Organization said on Thursday. ...Last year was  Earth’s hottest year  in recorded history. ...In 2024, the atmosphere’s average concentration of the gas reached 423.9 parts per million, an increase of 3.5 parts per million from the year before. That edged out a 3.3 parts per million increase in 2016 that was previously the largest ever measured. Year-to-year rises in carbon dioxide concentrations have accelerated since the 1960s, when the average pace of increase was 0.8 parts per million....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/climate/carbon-dioxide-emissions-record-jump.html . 

By Michelle Lewis , Elektrek.  Excerpt: Rondo Energy has begun commercial operations of what it says is the world’s largest industrial heat battery – a 100 MWh system now operating at a Holmes Western Oil facility in California. Powered entirely by an onsite solar array, the system supplies constant high-pressure steam and heat to the plant, demonstrating how renewable energy can directly power heavy industry. ...During the day, the off-grid solar array charges the Rondo Heat Battery, and the battery delivers stored heat 24/7. After 10 weeks of daily operation, Rondo says the system has met every performance target, achieving over 97% round-trip efficiency and operating at temperatures above 1,000 °C (1,832 °F). The 100 MWh unit provides the same volume of heat as 10,000 household heating systems....  Full article at https://electrek.co/2025/10/16/worlds-largest-industrial-heat-battery-is-online-and-solar-powered/ .

By John Surico  and  Nick Underwood , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The waters surrounding New York allowed it to grow into an economic powerhouse. But what has been a blessing is increasingly a threat, as flooding becomes one of the city’s greatest challenges. Projections that model future flooding in the city show that it will only get worse. By 2080, many areas will face an increased risk of  tidal flooding  because of rising sea levels. At the same time, more neighborhoods will become vulnerable to  extreme rainfall . And wide swaths of the city face increasing peril in the event of  storm surge  from a hurricane. By 2080, nearly 30 percent of the city’s land mass could be  at risk of significant flooding . Some 1.4 million New Yorkers currently live in these areas — 17 percent of the city’s population. New York’s adaptation is a matter of survival. Climate experts have recommended several strategies. The city could increase its ability t...

By Science Advisor.  Excerpt: According to 160 researchers from around the world, the planet has reached the first climate ‘tipping point’: Warmed waters have resulted in mass coral bleaching. “Already … coral reefs are crossing their thermal tipping point and experiencing unprecedented dieback,” the authors of the report noted. “We can no longer talk about tipping points as a future risk,” said one of the report’s lead authors. “This is our new reality.”...  See GLOBAL TIPPING POINTS  REPORT  |  READ MORE AT  NATURE . See also Eos article, As Seas Rise, Corals Can’t Keep Up . 

By Dharna Noor , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The  Trump administration  has killed a massive proposed  solar power project  in  Nevada  that would have been one of the largest in the world, indicating that the White House plans to attack not only wind power but all renewable energy. On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) changed the status of the  Esmeralda 7  project to say its environmental review has been “ cancelled ”, .... The super project in southern Nevada was set to cover set to cover 185 sq miles – a footprint close to the size of Las Vegas ...the network of solar panels and batteries was set to produce 6.2 gigawatts of energy, or enough to power nearly 2m homes....  Full article at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/trump-officials-drop-major-solar-power-project-in-another-renewable-energy-attack .  Related article from Los Angeles Times has this headline: "Leaked list shows Trump administration conside...

By Dharna Noor , The Guardian.  Excerpt: Donald Trump has placed dozens of people with ties to the fossil fuel sector in his  administration , including more than 40 who have directly worked for oil, gas or coal companies, according to a  new analysis . The report from Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy and ethics non-profit that has been critical of the  Trump administration , alongside the Revolving Door Project, a corporate watchdog, analyzed the backgrounds of nominees and appointees within the White House and eight agencies dictating energy, environmental and climate policy. That includes the Environmental Protection Agency, the interior and energy departments and others....  Full article at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/08/trump-administration-fossil-fuels-climate . 

By Robert Sanders , UC Berkeley News.  Excerpt: Omar Yaghi, a Jordanian-American chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry today, sharing it with Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University, Japan. The  scientists were cited  for creating “molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow. These constructions, metal-organic frameworks, can be used to harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalyze chemical reactions.”...  Full article at https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/10/08/uc-berkeleys-omar-yaghi-shares-2025-nobel-prize-in-chemistry/ .

By By Raymond Zhong , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Fifty miles off the Tuscan coast, in a sparkling blue expanse broken only by rocky, forbidding islets, including the real-life Island of Montecristo, ancient creatures are roosting beneath the waves. They spend their days feasting on an unlikely source of nourishment: methane, a potent greenhouse gas that leaks out of cracks in the seafloor. Lately, researchers have been trying to put these microorganisms to work on an urgent task. If their appetites can be redirected to other sources of their favorite gas — namely, the hundreds of millions of tons of planet-warming methane emitted each year from oil and gas sites, livestock and wetlands — then they might just help slow climate change. First, though, researchers need to better understand these microbes, which have been on this planet for billions of years but remain enigmatic in many ways....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/climate/methane-eating-microbes-...

By Shelby Conn , SFGate.  Excerpt: ...11% of  Siskiyou County  households [are] on the  California FAIR Plan  — a fire-only insurance policy no homeowner wants to turn to. ...the reality for many residents and business owners living in California’s rural, high-fire risk areas, where costly insurance rates are forcing homeowners who own their properties outright to forgo insurance altogether. ...“The FAIR Plan is not intended to compete with or replace insurers in the voluntary market.” Rather, it is meant to provide “basic fire insurance coverage for high-risk properties when traditional insurance companies will not,” she said.  The state’s escalating wildfire risk has driven more and more insurers  out of the market  in California. A study funded by the  National Integrated Drought Information System  estimated that, between 1971 and 2021, the number of acres burned in California rose by 172%. That number is only expected to grow, with...

By   MICHAEL HILL . Associated Press (AP).  Excerpt: ...Battery energy storage systems that suck up cheap power during periods of low demand, then discharge it at a profit during periods of high demand, are considered critical with the rise of intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar. ...the systems can make grids more reliable and have been credited with reducing blackouts. ...China and the United States lead the world in rapidly adding battery storage energy systems. ...In the U.S., California and Texas have been leaders in battery storage. ...While the Trump administration has been unsupportive or even hostile to renewable energy, key tax credits for energy storage projects were maintained in the recently approved federal budget.... Developers added 4,908 megawatts of battery storage capacity in the second quarter of 2025, with Arizona, California and Texas accounting for about three-quarters of that new capacity, according to a report from American Clean Power As...

By Antonio Piemontese , Wired.  Excerpt: Speaking by video  at the UN Climate Summit in New York last week,  China's  president Xi Jinping laid out his country's  climate  ambitions. While the stated goals may not have been aggressive as some environmentalists would like, Xi at least reaffirmed China's green commitment. “Despite some countries going against the trend, the international community should stay on the right track, maintain unwavering confidence, unwavering action, and undiminished efforts,” he said. Any reference to Donald Trump and the United States was surely intended (though not explicit). ...Xi Jinping's speech included a commitment to reach 3,600 gigawatts (GW) of installed wind and solar capacity by 2035, six times the country's 2020 figures. This is already the leading country in terms of installed renewable power, and a giant on the technology front as well, with universities churning out environmental and climate tech research at full ...

By Daniel Gala, The Cool Down (TCD).  Excerpt: An initiative that tracks progress in the fight against  rising global temperatures  has  downgraded  the United States from "insufficient" to "critically insufficient" based on a new report. The Climate Action Tracker...  announced  in late September that it had downgraded the U.S. in light of the current administration's drastic U-turn on climate policy.  "The Trump administration's massive support for expanding fossil fuels and unwinding clean energy rollout means the U.S. is being left behind, particularly as China ramps up production of renewable energy,  electric vehicles  and other clean  technology ," Bill Hare, the chief executive officer of Climate Analytics, a nonprofit partnering on the Climate Action Tracker,  said  in a CAT press release....  Full article at https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/climate-action-tracker-us-carbon-emission-reduction/ ....

By Michael Booth  and  Mark Jaffe , The Colorado Sun.  Excerpt: Colorado is losing $550 million in federal clean energy grants as Trump administration officials slash awards to primarily Democratic-controlled states during the budget shutdown,  including a highly-touted $326 million block to Colorado State University  intended to create methane-cutting technologies to combat climate change.  The Colorado Energy Office struggled Thursday to understand the magnitude of the cuts, which are part of a $7.5 billion reversal of Biden-era clean energy grants announced Wednesday night by the U.S. Department of Energy.  ...The Department of Energy list that emerged Thursday “specifically targets states where a majority of Americans cast their votes in favor of the Democratic nominee for President,” a Colorado Energy Office statement said....  Full article at https://coloradosun.com/2025/10/03/colorado-federal-energy-grant-cancellation-550-million/ . 

By Sachi Kitajima Mulkey , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The Trump administration is emphasizing defense concerns instead of climate research in the rapidly warming Arctic region. ...The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet and is one of the most rapidly changing places on Earth....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/climate/arctic-research-security.html . 

By Gaea Cabico , Science.  Excerpt: As government websites go dark, some nonprofits are trying to fill the void. When news broke that climate.gov was about to go dark in June, Jeffrey Grant scrambled to download as many graphs and data tables from the website as he could. The high school biology teacher had relied heavily on the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website to teach students about climate change, showing data on carbon dioxide levels and asking the students to analyze trends and make connections like real climatologists....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/science-teachers-scramble-u-s-climate-resources-vanish .

By Kaja Šeruga , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: 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. ...The resulting study, published in  Nature Ecology and Evolution , measured the regional net aging of forests around the world across all age classes between 2010 and 2020, as well as the impact of these changes on aboveground carbon. ...On average, forests that are at least 200 years old store 77.8 tons of carbon per hectare, compared to 23.8 tons per hectare in the case of forests younger than 20 years old. The implications for carbon sequestration are more nuanced, however. Fast-growing young forests, for instance, can absorb carbon much more quickly than old ones, especially in the tropics, where the difference is 20-fold. But even this rate of sequestration is not enough to replace the old fo...

By Nicolás Rivero  and  Jake Spring , Washington Post.  Excerpt: The Energy Department on Wednesday canceled $7.56 billion in funding for 223 projects aimed at research and deployment of clean energy and other climate-friendly technology mainly in Democratic-led states. The cuts are the latest in President Donald Trump’s efforts to undercut renewable energy and other efforts to reduce the emissions driving climate change. The administration has already sought to claw back funding allotted under President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. That includes  $20 billion from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund , which supported investments in green technology like heat pumps and electric vehicles, and  $7 billion in the Solar for All program  to help low- and middle-income families install rooftop solar. The latest cuts include a  $1.2 billion award for ARCHES H2 , ...aimed at kick-starting the hydrogen industry in California.... ...

By Calum X. Cunningham et al, Science.  Excerpt: As climate warms and humans build in more undeveloped environments, the threat of costly wildfire disasters is thought to be increasing. Cunningham  et al . examined data about the global distribution, frequency, and associated climate conditions of the most lethal and costly wildfire disasters from 1980 to 2023, finding that disaster risk was highest in regions near relatively affluent, populated areas, and that the frequency of economically disastrous wildfires increased sharply after 2015. They also found that major disasters coincided with extreme climatic conditions. —Jesse Smith...  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adr5127 . 

By effrey Mervis , Science.  Excerpt: NSF-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research fears worse in coming months. ...Anticipating steep cuts to its budget, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), one of the world’s leading climate research centers, this week laid off 29 employees and decided not to fill 21 vacant positions. The job actions...coincide with the start of a partial U.S. government shutdown. NCAR, which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has so far been able to maintain normal operations and avoid furloughs of its 830 employees. But NCAR officials fear what could happen next: a $50 million cut to the center’s current $123 million budget....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/renowned-u-s-climate-center-trims-staff-ahead-expected-budget-cuts . 

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 Callie Patteson , Washington Examiner.  Excerpt: Just below the Earth’s surface, there is an abundant source of heat that can be used to generate highly reliable and emissions-free geothermal  energy . ...technology developed by the  oil and gas  industries over the past two decades is now making it possible to tap into geothermal energy all across the globe. ...Geothermal energy can provide electricity, heating, and cooling, and store excess energy under the surface, just from extracting heat from underground reservoirs of hot, typically porous, rocks saturated with water. To generate energy, the heat is used to produce steam, which travels through piping and turbines to create electricity. ...Roughly 20 years ago, the United States saw what is most commonly described as the “shale boom” or “shale revolution.” This was driven by technological developments in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, which made it easier for producers to drill deeper and...

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...