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/ .