By Valerie Volcovici , Reuters.  Excerpt: WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - The Department of Energy will retain funding for major carbon direct air capture awarded under the Biden administration after targeting them for ​fund cancellation last year, according to a list of projects identified ‌by the agency that it sent to Congress this week seen by Reuters. Last October, the DOE considered cancelling billions of dollars in funding for clean energy programs, including awards for auto ​manufacturing, hydrogen and carbon capture. Projects slated for cancellation included two major direct ​air capture hubs that received $1.2 billion awards from former President Joe ⁠Biden's administration, including one that involves oil company Occidental (OXY.N) in Texas and another ​in Louisiana. ...The DOE confirmed that the South Texas DAC Hub and Louisiana's Project Cypress were on the list of nearly 2,000 projects that would ​retain their funding....  Full article at https://www.reuters.com...

By Jasper Jolly , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The price of new battery electric cars has fallen below petrol cars in the UK for the first time, according to the car sales website Autotrader, in a significant milestone in Britain’s transition away from fossil fuels. The average price of a new electric car listed on the website was £42,620, compared with £43,405 for a new petrol model – making the former £785 cheaper based on advertised prices after discounts. The higher upfront cost of electric vehicles has long been one of the big sticking points preventing some drivers from switching away from cars with polluting petrol and diesel engines towards those with battery motors, which  do not emit carbon dioxide directly . Total running costs for electric cars have been  lower for some time . UK battery electric car sales accounted for 22% of new car sales in the first three months of the year....  Full article at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/17/new-uk-ele...

By Hannah Richter , Science.  Excerpt: Each summer in California’s Central Valley, the land bakes as temperatures climb past an oppressive 35°C. And then, a wall of fog rolls in from the ocean, cooling the air and moistening the ground with tiny water droplets. For millions living in the most populous U.S. state, the fog spawned where a cold ocean meets a Sun-warmed coast is like “natural air conditioning,” says Peter Weiss-Penzias, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz. It also delivers critical water for agriculture and ecosystems. Yet scientists don’t know what makes some years foggier than others, how fog might change in a warming world, or what pollutants it carries. ...This month, Weiss-Penzias, [Sara] Baguskas, and their colleagues will begin fieldwork on the $3.65 million  Pacific Coastal Fog Research project , funded over 5 years by the Heising-Simons Foundation. Using fog collectors and climate models, the project will for the first ...

By Johnny Sturgeon , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: Consumers in the U.K. are being warned to “completely avoid” all home-caught cod by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). The nation’s cod stocks have declined over the last decade, driven by overfishing and sea temperature changes, warns the environmental charity.  ...In September, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) issued scientific  findings  to the U.K. and European Union calling for a zero catch of North Sea cod in 2026... any commercial fishing could threaten reproduction rates. The Denmark-based fishery board warned fishermen to avoid catching off the west coast of Scotland, in the North Sea and in the English Channel. ...With  97 percent  of UK households eating fish, the MCS has recommended consumers choose more sustainable alternatives such as Icelandic cod or European hake. ...However, this is not the first reckoning for British fisheries in recent months....

By Elena Giordano , Politico.  Excerpt: Public enthusiasm for clean energy comes as the Iran war exposes Europe’s vulnerability to global oil and gas markets....  Full article at https://www.politico.eu/article/poll-europeans-back-renewables-despite-higher-energy-costs/ . 

By Leonard O. Ohenhen et al, Science.  Abstract: Rising sea levels and land subsidence combine to determine relative sea level (RSL) rise, which is intensifying coastal hazards. However, many densely populated regions lack the observational infrastructure to identify and quantify land subsidence contribution to RSL, hindering effective planning of responses. Here, we used satellite radar observations to generate a high-resolution assessment of land subsidence across Java Island, Indonesia, and evaluate its contribution to 21st-century RSL change. We identify widespread and temporally evolving subsidence with rates ranging from 1 to 15 cm/year in multiple coastal cities. ...we attribute the dominant subsidence mechanisms to resource extraction across various geographic and geological settings. ...contemporary subsidence will dominate RSL budgets over the next 25 years along >75% of the coast. These findings underscore the urgent need to integrate subsidence into sea le...

By Dharna Noor , The Guardian.  Excerpt: Lee Zeldin opens conference for Heartland Institute, which once compared climate advocates to the Unabomber. ...He derided previous administrations’ heeding of climate scientists’ warnings about the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions, and for ignoring “what’s good and necessary about carbon dioxide for the life of the planet”....  Full article at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/08/epa-chief-zeldin-climate-denying-group-event .

By Rachel Nuwer , Science.  Excerpt: Last week in the  International Journal of Biometeorology , researchers reported that cherry trees are not only blooming earlier in the year, but in some parts of Japan, they are  failing to reach full bloom at all . Although the problem is currently confined to southern Japan, the authors warn that in a matter of decades, milder winters may start to take a toll on major cherry blossom–viewing hot spots in Kyoto, Tokyo, and Osaka, as well as around the world....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/japan-warms-cherry-blossom-displays-are-fading . 

By Deema Zein , PBS.  Excerpt: Cocoa prices have swung sharply in recent years, driven by climate change and production issues in West Africa, where most cocoa is grown. Prices hit a record high at the end of 2024. And although they have fallen since, candymakers, who buy months ahead, are still feeling the impact....  Full article at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/candy-makers-quietly-change-recipes-as-climate-change-hits-cocoa-industry . 

By Christopher Helman , Forbes.  Excerpt: Liz Muller convinced her dad Richard to forego retirement and become an entrepreneur...a revolutionary approach to making atomic energy cheaper and safer. F or  more than a decade, Elizabeth Muller and her father have taken a three-mile hike...through the hills of Berkeley, California.... ...Richard A. Muller, who devised the modern carbon dating method used to determine the age of ancient plant and animal remains before he was 33 and won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award at 38..., after 40 years of teaching at the University of California at Berkeley, the 82-year-old physicist is on the verge of having his greatest commercial impact,.... ...says Liz, 47... “As a kid growing up in Berkeley, all my teachers and friends were anti-nuclear....” She too leaned anti-nuke, .... ...she moved to Paris in 1999 to earn a master’s at ESCP Business School.... In France, she explains, everyone supported nuclear power as a “clean, reliable global...

By Arcelia Martin , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: Texas state officials have led a successful and concerted effort to prevent offshore wind developments in the Gulf. ...even as five offshore wind projects resume construction this month after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s stop-work order for the developments, Texas has none in the mix. The U.S. has a small number of projects operating off the East Coast, totalling some 40 gigawatts. Texas leads the nation in wind energy, producing more than a fifth of the country’s wind-sourced electricity. Studies show the region could have similar success offshore, especially given the state’s experience building oil and gas rigs in the Gulf. Yet an auction of federal seabed leases nearly three years ago saw no bids. ...chief among [the reasons] is the political hostility from state leaders, and, more recently, the federal government, toward this type of renewable energy....  Full article at https://insideclima...

By Karen Zraick , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Thomas Jorling, adviser to Republicans who cosponsored the 1970 law, disputes the Trump administration’s claim that it shouldn’t apply to planet-warming greenhouse gases. ...When the Trump administration took the extraordinary step this year of killing the government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, it made a simple argument: The Clean Air Act doesn’t allow it. Thomas Jorling, who helped write the Clean Air Act, disagrees. The 1970 Clean Air Act became law ...when climate change wasn’t as widely recognized a threat. But Mr. Jorling said in a recent interview that he and the other authors of the legislation had known that scientists would continue learning about new pollutants, and so the bill was meant to be flexible enough to encompass them. Regulating planet-warming emissions is “perfectly consistent with the Clean Air Act,” he said. ...In February, the Environmental Protection Agency revoked what is known as the “endangerm...

By Jackie Flynn Mogensen , Scientific American.  Excerpt: A Wisconsin-sized region of frozen soil is thawing fast, releasing three trillion more gallons of water per year than it did just four decades ago. Thawing permafrost  is among climate science’s worst “positive feedback loops”: As the world warms, permafrost—essentially frozen soil—thaws, releasing fresh water and carbon  into the environment . That release further fuels climate change, driving more warming. (Thawing permafrost has also  raised concerns  about unleashing new pathogens on humanity.) ...And in Alaska, the loop seems to be speeding up....  Full article at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-alaskan-permafrost-is-thawing-heres-why-thats-so-worrying/ . 

By Emily Gardner , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: A chapter on climate science has been removed from a manual designed to be an independent, neutral source of scientific information for judges. Judges aren’t always scientific experts, but they are responsible for determining whether scientific evidence is admissible and for making rulings in scientific cases. That’s why the  Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence , jointly produced by the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), was introduced more than 30 years ago: to inform judges about fundamental truths of various areas of science. ...In December 2025, the manual was updated for the first time in 15 years to include new chapters on computer science, artificial intelligence, and climate science. The chapter on climate science  met   with   backlash  almost immediately. In late January, 27 Republican state attorneys general  wrote a letter  t...

By Dennis Pillion , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: Despite a sunny climate, Alabama ranks 49th among U.S. states in residential solar installations—lower than Alaska. Advocates say the steep solar fee is part of the reason why. ...A federal judge ruled last week that Alabama Power can continue charging its small solar customers one of the highest standby charges in the nation, dismissing a lawsuit that argued the fee was illegal under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act....  Full article at https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31032026/alabama-power-solar-fee-ruling/ . 

By Grace van Deelen , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: A warming climate could expose a Pennsylvania-sized chunk of ice-free land in Antarctica by 2300, which could drastically reshape Antarctic geopolitics as well as the continent’s geography. A study published in  Nature Climate Change  is the first to incorporate glacial isostatic adjustment—how land beneath heavy ice sheets uplifts after the ice retreats—into projections of ice-free land emergence in Antarctica. ...Within the area that Lucas and the research team projected would be ice-free by 2300 lie known or suspected deposits of copper, gold, silver, iron, and platinum— critical minerals  used in manufacturing and valuable metals in and of themselves. In particular, the study found the largest land emergence in Antarctica is likely to occur over territories claimed by Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom and contains a range of mineral deposits, including copper, gold, silver, and iron. ...Currently, commercial mineral...

By Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Clean energy isn’t dead in the Trump era. But it does look different these days. Since returning to office, President Trump  has dismantled federal efforts  to fight climate change and vowed to stop new wind turbines from going up. His administration  has canceled billions of dollars in funding  for technologies that might one day help reduce planet-warming emissions, and it has instead pushed to expand domestic oil and gas drilling. Those moves have taken a brutal toll on America’s budding clean energy industry, including  canceled offshore wind farms ,  shuttered electric-car factories  and  layoffs  at climate technology start-ups. Yet many clean energy executives say they are finding ways to adapt, and some promising technologies that might help slow global warming are moving forward. Some industries, such as geothermal energy or nuclear power, still receive support from the Trump admini...

202By Oliver Milman , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The US has caused an eye-watering $10tn in global damages to the world over the past three decades through its vast planet-heating  emissions , with a quarter of this economic pain inflicted upon itself, new research has found. By being the largest carbon emitter in history, the US has  caused greater harm  to worldwide economic growth than any other country, ahead of China, now the world’s largest emitter that is responsible for $9tn in GDP damage since 1990, according to the findings of the paper. About 25% of this GDP dampening has occurred in the US itself, although other countries have borne a heavy toll, with economic losses disproportionately felt in the poorest countries. Since 1990, US emissions have caused an estimated $500bn of economic damage to India and $330bn in damage to Brazil, the research finds. ...The  new study , published in Nature on Wednesday, attempts to attach dollar amounts to “loss and dam...

By Karen Zraick , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The Maryland Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt a major blow to cities and other local governments looking to sue oil companies over climate change. The court ruled against reviving climate lawsuits brought by Baltimore, Annapolis and Anne Arundel County that were struck down by lower courts. Those governments had sued 26 multinational oil and gas companies to recover damages caused by the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, accusing them of deceiving the public about the dangers of using their products. Some three dozen similar lawsuits have been filed nationwide in the past decade....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/climate/baltimore-climate-lawsuit.html . 

By Maxine Joselow  and  Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The Trump administration will pay the French energy giant TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion to abandon its plans to build wind farms off the East Coast, the Interior Department said on Monday at an energy conference in Houston. ...In exchange, TotalEnergies would invest that money in oil and gas projects in the United States, including a facility in Texas that would export liquefied natural gas to global markets. The company would also commit to producing more oil in the Gulf of Mexico and said it was developing some additional gas-burning power plants to meet rising electricity demand from data centers....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/climate/offshore-wind-gas-trump-total.html . 

By Alan Blinder  and  Sonia A. Rao , The New York Times.  Excerpt: San Francisco hit 90 degrees on Friday, the first day of spring. ...As these kind of spikes have become more common, there has been a rush to add air conditioning in the region. More than half of the San Francisco area’s homes now have air-conditioning, a first for the famously cool region.... It is not just the Bay Area: The United States has become a lot more air-conditioned in recent years, both fueling climate change and taming its day-to-day consequences. About 93 percent of occupied American housing units had primary air-conditioning in 2023, according to the most recently published federal data. Eight years earlier, about 89 percent did. ...Compared to other countries...the United States was “oddly obsessed with air-conditioning.” ...one issue is that relatively few American buildings, especially in places historically unaccustomed to intense heat, were designed to embrace alternate cooling me...

By Eric Niiler , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The Earth is out of balance. That’s the message from a United Nations report released late Sunday that looked at how much energy from the sun is absorbed by the Earth or reflected back into space. Researchers found the gap between the two is the biggest since measurements began in 1960, meaning more of the sun’s heat energy is now staying on Earth. And that energy imbalance is heating up the oceans, atmosphere, and frozen regions of the world, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s  State of the Global Climate report . ...said Dr. Deoras, who was not associated with the report... “...all these greenhouse gases, they are just trapping more and more heat. The planet is just not getting a chance to cool down.”...  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/climate/energy-imbalance-un-report.html .  See also Inside Climate News article Report Shows Earth’s Climate is Out of Balance, as Indicators Hit Ne...

By Ajit Niranjan , The Guardian.  Excerpt: In one telling of the story, the golden fields of a proud farming nation are under attack. Besieged by an industrial sprawl of solar panels, they are being smothered at the behest of an urban elite. That narrative has failed to thrive in conservative heartlands such as Texas and Hungary, which have embraced solar power while lambasting green rules. But it is taking root in  Denmark , the most climate-ambitious nation on Earth. “We say yes to fields of wheat,” said Inger Støjberg, the leader of the rightwing populist Denmark Democrats in a speech in 2024. “And we say no to fields of iron!” ...in Denmark, which generates 90% of its electricity from renewables and aims to  cut planet-heating pollution  faster than any other wealthy country, the spread of solar power has alarmed some regions in which construction is concentrated. Solar tripled from 4% of Danish power production in 2021 to 13% in 2025. And a handful of villages h...

By Emily Gardner , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: In 2019, researchers collected a 9.5-meter ice core from Austria’s Weißseespitze ice cap, which covers the top sections of Gepatschferner Glacier in the eastern Alps, near the Austrian-Italian border. They analyzed 18 trace elements and organic acids in the core to paint a picture of Earth’s climate and atmosphere over more than a thousand years. But Weißseespitze Glacier is melting quickly: As of 2025, the ice was only 5.5 meters thick in the area where scientists collected the core. “When this glacier disappears, we don’t lose only the ice: We’ll lose irreplaceable knowledge about the Earth’s climate history and how it has evolved and how human activity has influenced it,” said  Azzurra Spagnesi , a paleoclimatologist at Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia and lead author of the new research  published  in  Frontiers in Earth Science ....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/earths-climate-records-are-melting . 

By UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. Excerpt: BERKELEY, Calif.  A new study, “ An Analysis of Japan’s Carbon Neutral Port Initiative and Yokohama Port and Harbor Decarbonization Plan ,” ( download the Japanese version here ) from the University of California, Berkeley examines Japan's innovative approach to decarbonizing maritime ports. Japan’s Carbon Neutral Port (CNP) certification framework and the City of Yokohama’s port decarbonization initiatives represent serious and forward-looking efforts to address the complex challenge of maritime emissions reduction. The study comes as momentum builds for decarbonization of the international shipping industry,....  Full article at https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/news/recent-news/new-analysis-by-uc-berkeley-highlights-japans-port-decarbonization-leadership . 

By Saugat Bolakhe , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Zoom out from Earth and take a satellite view of the planet in time-lapse: One of the most obvious and notable changes would be the surge of greenness sweeping seasonally across the globe. Scientists call this [the “green wave”, a] seasonal pulse of vegetation growth, which intensifies in the Northern Hemisphere during boreal summer and in the Southern Hemisphere during austral summer, Now, in a  study published in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , researchers analyzed 40 years of this green wave data and tracked the center of mass of global greenness [that] has been shifting northward and eastward and that this movement has accelerated over the past decade....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/earths-green-wave-is-on-the-move . 

By Nicholas Kusnetz ,  Georgina Gustin , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: As countries scramble to secure oil, gas and fertilizer, China’s bets on clean energy and coal are cushioning its dependence on oil and gas imports. ...In an  essay in Foreign Policy  written with Jason Bordoff, the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy, Downs argued that while the war has exposed China’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil, “it also underscores how deliberately Beijing has sought to prepare for a world in which energy security is inseparable from geopolitics—by electrifying its economy, securing domestic sources of energy, amassing stockpiles, and dominating clean technology supply chains.” Last year more than half of new cars sold in China were electric,  according to the energy think tank Ember , while the country is a leader in electrifying heavy-duty vehicles and high-speed rail, too. Meanwhile, a rapidly growing portion of its electricity is being genera...

By Maxine Joselow  and  Lisa Friedman , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The Trump administration on Thursday filed  a new lawsuit  against California over its strict limits on planet-warming pollution from cars, arguing that the restrictions would unlawfully force a rapid transition to electric vehicles in the state. ...Across the country, 17 states representing more than a third of the American automobile market follow California’s lead on clean car standards. “Gavin Newsom is determined to continue pushing Democrats’ radical E.V. fantasy — even if doing so is illegal,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement.... Anthony Martinez, a spokesman for Governor Newsom, called the lawsuit “meritless.” “While the Trump administration surrenders the future of the auto industry to China, California will continue competing globally to win the clean vehicle market,” Mr. Martinez said, adding, “This lawsuit is meritless, and we’re not backing down from this fi...

By Nature's Voice Spring 2026 (Natural Resources Defense Council—NRDC).  Excerpt: It’s been one legal blow after another against the Trump administration’s war on wind energy. In December, a federal court ruled that the administration’s blanket ban on new wind projects is illegal. That was followed in quick succession by five separate court rulings preliminarily halting the administration’s attempt to stop construction on five multibillion-dollar wind projects off the East Coast. Says Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at NRDC: “The administration should use this string of court losses as a wake-up call and get out of the way of the expansion of renewable energy.”...  Source at https://issuu.com/nrdc/docs/nature_s_voice_spring_2026 (page 2).

By Erik Stokstad , Science.  Excerpt: Insects living in the lowland tropics have evolved to deal with brutal heat. But many of them are close to their limit, according to a massive study that assessed the heat tolerance of hundreds of species. The findings, published today in  Nature , provide  an unprecedented view of what temperatures tropical insects can deal with —and reinforce concerns about the risk that climate change poses for insect biodiversity....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/many-heat-stressed-tropical-insects-are-reaching-their-limits . 

By Grace van Deelen , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: A new study of  Antarctica  has found that since 1996, its ice sheet has lost 12,820 square kilometers (nearly 5,000 square miles) of ice—nearly enough to cover the state of Connecticut, or 10 cities the size of Greater Los Angeles. The study, published today in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ,  evaluated the retreat of the ice sheet’s grounding line over the past 30 years. A grounding line is the point at which continental ice (grounded on bedrock) meets a floating ice shelf, and as such serves as a good measure of the advance and retreat of ocean-terminating glaciers....  Full article at https://eos.org/research-and-developments/antarctic-ice-sheet-has-lost-a-connecticut-sized-amount-of-ice-over-the-past-30-years .

By Dan Charles , NPR.  Excerpt: A  mammoth solar farm  is moving forward in the heart of California. If built, which seems increasingly likely, it would cover 200 square miles of land and generate 21,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power entire cities. Huge batteries will store some of that power until it's needed most. Farmers are among the project's backers. They don't have enough water to grow crops on big chunks of their land, and they're looking for new uses for it. "We're farmers, and we would rather farm the ground," says Ross Franson, president of Woolf Farming and Processing, his family's business. "If we had the water to do it, we would farm it. But the reality is, you don't. You have to deal with the cards you're dealt."...  Full article at https://www.npr.org/2026/02/26/nx-s1-5726411/farmers-california-san-joaquin-valley-solar-farm-westlands-water-district-golden-state-clean-energy . 

By Science Advisor.  Excerpt: About 2.7 million years ago, Earth’s climate had a personality crisis. Before then, ice ages waxed and waned in long, predictable cycles tied to Earth’s orbit, tens of thousands of years at a time. But new research in  Science  suggests that  as Northern Hemisphere ice sheets grew larger, the planet’s climate system began behaving very differently . And ice ages started “flickering,” swinging abruptly every couple thousand years. To understand when and why this shift occurred, researchers analyzed sediment cores drilled from the seafloor off the Iberian margin, near Portugal. ...For most of the Pliocene, from about 5.3 to 2.7 million years ago, the record shows only slow orbital cycles, with little to no sign of any rapid swings. But after 2.7million years ago, during the intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation, the first isolated cold events begin to appear. Within 200,000 years, rapid oscillations became freque...

By John Timmer  , arstechnica.  Excerpt: On Tuesday, the US Energy Information Administration released full-year data on how the country generated electricity in 2025. It’s a bit of a good news/bad news situation. The bad news is that overall demand rose appreciably, and a fair chunk of that was met by additional coal use. On the good side, solar continued its run of astonishing growth, generating 35 percent more power than a year earlier and surpassing hydroelectric power for the first time. Overall, electrical consumption in the US rose by 2.8 percent, or about 121 terawatt-hours. Consumption had been largely flat for several decades, with efficiency and the decline of industry offsetting the effects of population and economic growth. There were plenty of year-to-year changes, however, driven by factors ranging from heating and cooling demand to a global pandemic. Given that history, the growth in demand in 2025 is a bit concerning, but it’s not yet a clear signal that ...

By Rachel Nuwer , Science.  Excerpt: A new study finds that as climate changes, dewdrops are forming on plants’ leaves earlier in the spring, triggering a chemical cascade that hastens flowering. ...According to findings published last week in the  Proceedings of the   National Academy of Sciences , tiny water droplets that come into contact with the surface of leaves set off a cascade of chemical signals that  tell a plant it’s time to bloom ....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/could-dewdrops-explain-why-plants-are-flowering-earlier . 

By Dr. Juliet Lamont, Ecesis — the News Journal of SERCAL California Society for Ecological Restoration .  This is a story about an urban creek, degraded by decades of short-sighted engineering decisions, that was brought back to health. Bringing nature back into our cities is essential not only for climate resilience, but also for generating support for biodiversity. Direct engagement can reconnect us to the natural world in our backyards and on our streets, to foster a deeper environmental ethic that spreads beyond city borders and across future generations....  Full article at https://sercal.org/s/ecesis-25iv-yes-backyards.pdf . 

By Kenny Torrella, Vox.  Excerpt: More than one in 10 Americans rely on the Colorado River to take showers and drink clean water. But with no end in sight to the decades-long drought in the western US and rapidly decreasing river levels, this essential resource is fueling bitter disputes over who, exactly, should be cutting back on water. This fight has been coming to a head especially among the seven states that make up the Colorado River Compact — California, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming — as well as a sliver of Mexico and over 20 tribal nations that rely on the 1.9 trillion gallons of water pulled from the Colorado River for use each year. ...Farming accounts for about 75 percent of annual Colorado River water usage, according to a 2024  paper  published in the journal  Nature Communications Earth & Environment . But not all agricultural sectors are equally thirsty. While a small share of the Colorado River water is used on far...

By Raeanne Raccagno , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: Standing inside the New Jersey Statehouse last month, Claudia Mutzus wore a T-shirt from the Service Employees International Union ...gathered with other union members to mark the start of a new organized labor coalition,  Climate Jobs New Jersey , with lofty ambitions: to secure energy independence through solar construction and, in the process, address the state’s electrical affordability crisis.  New Jersey residents have been facing increasingly high electrical bills since they began to spike as much as  20 percent  in June 2025. With large electricity demands from data centers and the state’s need to purchase off-grid power to meet energy requests, costs have surged, leaving many residents baffled with no relief.   One of Climate Jobs New Jersey’s priorities is a statewide solar and battery storage program that coalition leaders say will enable the state to take back control of planning its own ...

By Katie Myers  &  Rebecca Egan McCarthy , Grist.  Excerpt: The Tennessee Valley Authority’s quarterly meeting in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, opened with a triumphant video homage to its work during Winter Storm Fern. Energy had come through, yet again, to defeat extreme cold. The montage credited this to the utility’s “coal workhorses,” then noted that nuclear provided “uninterrupted power” and “hydro responded instantly.” The list ended there, despite years of promises that the agency would bolster renewables and battery storage. The message was clear: Solar had been unceremoniously dropped from the mix, and coal, which the agency had been phasing out, was back. What the video hinted at, the board made official. Its seven members unanimously dropped renewable energy as a priority, ended diversity programs, and granted two of the agency’s  four remaining coal plants  a reprieve. The decision followed the seating of four members selected by President Trump,...

By ScienceAdvisor.  Excerpt: Every day, aerosols form in clouds and swirl throughout the turbulent atmosphere. Aerosols, especially those under 10 nanometers, can be dangerous to humans when inhaled because of how easily they enter body tissues; estimates suggest exposure to fine aerosols causes around seven million premature deaths annually. Researchers wanted to see if climate change may alter how aerosol production occurs. Scientists have generally assumed that hot temperatures should hinder the formation of new aerosols.... To check, a team took measurements of nanoparticles and trace gases during a heat wave in central Texas. ...To their surprise, the researchers reported this week in  Science  that  at conditions nearing 40ºC, new particles formed in droves . ...gaseous organic acids, an important precursor to new particle formation, which come from industry sources like traffic and biological sources like oak and pine trees. ...fatty acids in nanoparticle form...

By Jim Robbins , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Officials are designing new ways to protect the shorelines from sudden flooding and longer storm seasons....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/science/lake-erie-storm-surges.html . 

By Saima May Sidik , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Drained peatlands in Finland can become carbon sinks within just 15 years of restoration, suggests a study published in  Restoration Ecology .  The findings  are a stark contrast to another recent publication that suggests the switch from source to sink can take  hundreds of years . Finland will submit a biodiversity restoration plan to the European Commission this September, and what to do about the country’s  5 million hectares  of drained peatland will likely be a hot topic.  Teemu Tahvanainen , the author of the new study and a plant ecologist at the University of Eastern Finland (Itä-Suomen Yliopisto), said the upcoming deadline motivated him to add to the conversation....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/restored-peatlands-could-become-carbon-sinks-within-decades . 

By Amanda Holpuch , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Manufacturers will no longer get a credit toward vehicle emissions standards by installing engines that automatically stop at red lights. ...The start-stop feature is meant to save fuel and reduce emissions, but the Trump administration rejected the scientific finding that the government used to support vehicle emission reduction regulations, making it possible to eliminate the credit. ...Research shows that start-stop reduces fuel use and cuts emissions. Depending on driving conditions, stop-start improved fuel economy between 7.27 and 26.4 percent during testing, according to a  2023 technical paper  by SAE International, an organization formerly known as the Society of Automotive Engineers....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/15/business/energy-environment/epa-tax-credits-stop-start-ignition-cars.html . 

By Tom Chivers , SEMAFOR.  Excerpt: Renewables are being deployed aggressively across much of the world even as the US, historically the world’s biggest emitter, overturned a landmark domestic climate ruling. ...Elsewhere in the world, however, green technology is being implemented at pace: Africa’s solar capacity expanded 17% last year, with 20 of the continent’s nations  setting import records , and data this week showed that China’s emissions  may already be falling  thanks in large part to its huge outlay on clean power. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency said renewables and nuclear will account by  half of global power supply by 2030 ....  Full article at https://www.semafor.com/article/02/13/2026/renewables-soar-globally-despite-us-climate-pullback . 

By Eric Niiler , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The U.S. National Science Foundation said on Thursday that the management and operations of a supercomputer used by more than 4,000 climate and weather scientists across the country would be transferred from a leading research lab to an undisclosed third party. ...Science foundation officials said stewardship of the supercomputer, located at a National Center for Atmospheric Research [NCAR] facility in Cheyenne, Wyo., would “transition to a third-party operator” but declined to give details about the new operator or the timeline. The national center...at its headquarters in Boulder, Colo., and has managed the Cheyenne facility since it opened in 2012. The announcement took many scientists by surprise. ...The center, founded in 1960, is responsible for many of the biggest scientific advances in humanity’s understanding of weather and climate. Its research aircraft and sophisticated computer models of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans ar...

By Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: President Trump on Wednesday directed the Pentagon to start buying more electricity from coal-burning power plants as part of his efforts to revive the declining coal industry....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/climate/trump-coal-pentagon-electricity.html . 

By Grace van Deelen , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Earth systems may be on the brink of long-term, irreversible destabilization, sending our planet on a “hothouse Earth” trajectory, a scenario in which long-term temperatures remain about 5°C (9°F) higher than preindustrial temperatures, according to a new paper...published in  One Earth ,  ...Earth system components could be at a higher risk than we think of reaching crucial tipping points such as the melting of the  Greenland Ice Sheet  and the thawing of the world’s permafrost—points of destabilization that, once breached, are irreversible. “As we move to higher temperatures, we go into higher risk zones,” said  Nico Wunderling , a coauthor of the new paper and a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Goethe University Frankfurt, both in Germany. Scientists know higher temperatures will activate interactions between tipping elements, he said. The new paper “strongly builds” on...

By Karen Zraick , The New York Times.  Excerpt: In a new attack on the science of climate change, a federal agency has stripped a chapter on global warming from a manual written to help judges understand important scientific questions they may face in their courtrooms....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/climate/judge-manual-climate-change-chapter.html . 

By Valerie Volcovici  and  David Shepardson , Reuters.  Excerpt: The administration of President Donald Trump is set this week to overturn an Obama-era scientific finding that carbon dioxide endangers human health, removing the legal basis for federal greenhouse gas emissions regulations. The move, which the administration formally proposed in July, would mark the Republican administration's most sweeping climate change policy rollback to date, and follows a string of regulatory cuts and other moves intended to unfetter fossil fuel development and stymie the rollout of clean energy....  Full article at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-repeal-landmark-climate-finding-huge-regulatory-rollback-wsj-reports-2026-02-10/ .  See also New York Times articles, Trump Administration Erases the Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change and What to Know About the E.P.A.’s Big Attack on Climate Regulation . Also from the American Geophysical Union, AGU Denounces Trump ...

By Phil McKenna , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.—The discussions started roughly a decade ago, when an account manager at Xcel Energy, the electricity and gas utility provider, expressed confusion, officials at Colorado Mesa University recalled. A public school on the state’s remote western slope, Colorado Mesa had recently doubled in size, but its energy usage had hardly budged as it began installing an advanced geothermal heating and cooling system. Since its geothermal buildout began in 2008, the university has saved more than $15 million in energy costs, money it has passed on to students through lower tuition and more scholarship funding.  Hundreds of boreholes drilled approximately 500 feet beneath athletic fields and parking lots tap low-temperature thermal energy to help heat and cool campus buildings in what is now one of the largest such networks in the nation. ...A boiler that provides backup heat is rarely used. A bigger challenge is...

By Brad Plumer  and  Rebecca F. Elliott , The New York Times.  Excerpt: A week before the 2024 election, Idaho’s largest electric utility struck a 35-year deal to buy power from a wind farm under development in Wyoming. The Jackalope Wind project would span an area the size of Chicago, with hundreds of wind turbines generating clean electricity by 2027. But the wind farm soon became a casualty of President Trump’s efforts to slow — and sometimes revoke — federal approvals for wind and solar projects. A key  environmental review  of Jackalope by the Interior Department was stalled for months, and the project is now effectively dead. Similar stories are unfolding nationwide. While Mr. Trump’s  attacks on offshore wind  have been highly visible, his administration has also been hobbling solar and wind energy projects on land by halting or delaying federal approvals that were once routine....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/climate...

By Hannah Richter , Science.  Excerpt: Over the weekend of 24–25 January, a major winter storm blanketed the eastern United States in soft snow. ...in many places, the powder gave way to freezing rain, glazing trees and roads in heavy, dangerous ice, bringing down power lines, and depriving 1 million people of light and heat. Freezing rain is a stealth winter hazard, says Zong-Liang Yang, an earth systems scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. ...“...[freezing rain is] relatively understudied.” ...a handful of scientists are studying how this rare but destructive form of precipitation might be changing in a warming world, drawing on long-term records, new measurements, and computer modeling. One early result: Freezing rain isn’t vanishing—but it is shifting in location and timing. “We want to make an urgent warning that these kinds of winter hazards won’t be less frequent under a warmer climate,” says postdoctoral researcher Chenxi Hu, who works with Yang. Instead, in the ...

By KEN MORITSUGU Associated Press.  Excerpt: BEIJING -- Even as China's expansion of solar and wind power raced ahead in 2025, the Asian giant opened many more coal power plants than it had in recent years — raising concern about whether the world's largest emitter will  reduce carbon emissions enough  to limit climate change. ...At the same time, even larger  additions of wind and solar  capacity nudged down the share of coal in total power generation last year. Power from coal fell about 1% as growth in cleaner energy sources covered all the increase in electricity demand last year. ...If more of the nation's  1.4 billion people  climb into the middle class, more will be able to afford air conditioners and washing machines. ...The government position is that coal provides a stable backup to sources such as wind and solar, which are affected by weather and the time of day. The shortages in 2022 resulted partly from  a drought  that hit ...

By Bakar institute of Digital Materials for the Planet. Excerpt: A new material developed by BIDMaP researchers captures CO₂ from outdoor air with unprecedented speed, marking a critical leap toward practical direct air capture technology. As atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to climb, the scientific consensus is clear: reducing emissions alone is no longer enough. To avert the worst effects of climate change, scientists must also figure out a way to actively remove vast quantities of CO₂ that are already lingering in the sky. One of the most promising technologies for this task is Direct Air Capture (DAC), machines that filter carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. ...a team of researchers from Omar M. Yaghi’s Lab —whose pioneering work on reticular chemistry was recognized with the  Nobel Prize in 2025 —has reported a major breakthrough. In a study published today in  Nature Sustainability , the team unveils COF-1000, a new material that captures carbon dioxid...

By UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design.  Excerpt: Drawing on research developed by Paul Mayencourt’s team at the  UC Berkeley Wood Lab , Mad River Mass Timber has emerged as California’s first producer of dowel-laminated mass timber, which has the potential to improve forest health, mitigate wildfire risk, and accelerate the production of affordable housing — while also contributing toward the long-term goal of decarbonizing the environment. ...With guidance from Assistant Professor  Paul Mayencourt  and the  UC Berkeley Wood Lab , Humboldt County’s  Mad River Mass Timber  is pioneering the commercial manufacture of dowel-laminated timber (DLT) in the state. The first vertically integrated producer of mass timber in California, MRMT transforms waste wood from our forests into construction-ready building panels. ...Weak or small-diameter trees that cannot otherwise be used for construction, such as red fir, hemlock, and Ponderosa pine, can be jo...

By Karen Zraick , The New York Times.  Excerpt: A Dutch court ruled on Wednesday that the Netherlands violated the human rights of residents of the tiny Caribbean island of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, by failing to protect them from the effects of climate change. ...In a  statement  accompanying  Wednesday’s decision , the court said, “There is no good reason why measures for the inhabitants of Bonaire, who will be affected by climate change sooner and more severely, should be taken later and less systematically than for the inhabitants of the European part of the Netherlands.”...  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/climate/netherlands-bonaire-climate-ruling.html . 

By  Carlos Martinez , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Five ways dismantling NCAR will cost the American people, and two ways to save it. ...the Trump administration  plans to dismantle  the  National Science Foundation’s (NSF)   National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR),  a federally funded institution that underpins critical science that Americans rely on. ...1. Air Travelers Will Lose Protection. ...2. Food Security and the U.S. Agricultural Economy Will Be Put at Risk. ...3. U.S. National Security and Military Readiness Will Be Weakened. ...4. Americans in Disaster-Prone Areas Will Have Less Time to Prepare for, and Evacuate from, Extreme Weather. ...5. Americans Lose a Unique Source of National Pride. ...What We Must Do Now. ...This moment demands more than concern—it requires action. First, NSF is requesting feedback regarding its intent to restructure NCAR. ... Respond, and inform NSF  about the value and benefits of  all  of NCAR, n...

By Emily Gardner , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: A study of 25 million Medicare participants adds to a body of evidence suggesting that prolonged exposure to wildfire smoke is more harmful to human health than other forms of air pollution....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/wildfire-smoke-linked-to-17000-strokes-annually-in-the-united-states . 

By Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Many of the cancellations had been known for months, but the announcement underscored the drastic change in the energy landscape under President Trump. The Energy Department said on Thursday that  it was in the process of revising or canceling more than $83 billion in loans  for clean energy technologies that had been approved under the Biden administration. The announcement came from the agency’s loan programs office, which  played a central role  in the Biden administration’s efforts to develop new technologies to fight climate change. Under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., that office finalized or issued conditional commitments for roughly $104 billion in lending for battery factories, transmission lines, hydrogen plants and many other projects. The Trump administration has sought to reshape the agency and renamed it the Office of Energy Dominance Financing. Last year, the energy secretary, Chris Wright, announced ...

By Evan Howell , Science.  Excerpt: Seas will rise this century—but not uniformly.... In the very places where glaciers are melting and shrinking, the land beneath will rebound as the burden eases, meaning seas may fall even as the meltwater causes them to rise elsewhere. A new study shows that in Greenland—whose rapidly melting ice sheet accounts for about one-fifth of current sea level rise—this paradox will mean expanding coastlines, dried-up fjords, and future complications. Published today in  Nature Communications , the research  shows portions of Greenland’s coast will rebound far more sharply than expected , causing seas to fall by anywhere from 1 to nearly 4 meters by 2100. Western and southern Greenland...will likely bear the brunt of the retreat, posing major problems for shipping and food security. ...Changes in the mass of Greenland’s enormous ice sheet, which is roughly three times the size of Texas and in some places more than 3 kilometers thick, ...

By Ryan Craggs , Travel + Leisure.  Excerpt: In Norway, the Havila Polaris is sailing on liquefied biogas and battery power, making it the world’s first climate-neutral cruise. ...Norway built the world’s largest  sovereign wealth fund  by selling oil; Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, a  $2 trillion nest egg , was built almost entirely on North Sea oil and gas revenues. Now it's spending that money to prove you don't need oil at all. As of Jan. 1, 2026, Norwegian regulations require  zero emissions for passenger ships under 10,000 gross tons  operating in the country's five UNESCO World Heritage fjords, with larger vessels facing the same mandate in 2032....  Full article at https://www.travelandleisure.com/worlds-first-climate-neutral-cruise-powered-by-garbage-havila-polaris-11885603 . 

By Somini Sengupta , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...the fate of the world’s largest island has outsize importance for billions of people on the planet. That’s because of the one thing that Greenland is quickly losing: ice. Most of Greenland’s landmass...is covered in ice. That ice is melting rapidly because the polar regions of the world are warming rapidly, with wide-ranging consequences for the stability of the Earth’s climate. Blame the burning of coal, oil and gas. Their emissions have driven up global temperatures, most strikingly in the Arctic, which is  warming at least twice as fast  as the rest of the planet. As the Arctic warms, potential new trading routes open up, as well as access to mineral riches, including those that are vital for clean energy technologies useful for slowing climate change.... ...In the 12 months ending on Aug. 31, 2025, Greenland lost 105 billion metric tons of ice, according to scientists at the Danish Meteorological Institute, who...

By Rachel Berkowitz , Science.  Excerpt: Plugged with the world’s oldest and thickest sea ice, the fjords of the Queen Elizabeth Islands (QEI), in the northernmost Canadian Arctic, have long been impenetrable to icebreaker ships. But even here, in a place where climate models predict ice will persist the longest, global warming is taking its toll. Last summer, when the Canadian Coast Guard ship  Amundsen  conducted the first comprehensive oceanographic research mission through the QEI archipelago, the ice “was much easier to go through than we expected,” says  Amundsen  Capt. Pascal Pellerin. Floes once several meters thick were broken and soft....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/arctic-s-last-ice-area-showing-signs-weakness . 

By Associated Press/The Guardian.  Excerpt: In a reversal from previous years’ pollution reductions, the United States spewed 2.4% more heat-trapping gases from the burning of fossil fuels in 2025 than in the year before, researchers calculated in a study released on Tuesday. The increase in greenhouse gas emissions is attributable to a combination of a cool winter, the explosive growth of datacenters and cryptocurrency mining, and higher natural gas prices, according to the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm. Environmental policy rollbacks by Donald Trump’s administration were not significant factors in the increase because they were only put in place this year, the study authors said. Heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas are the major cause of worsening global warming, scientists say. US emissions of carbon dioxide and methane had dropped 20% from 2005 to 2024, with a few one- or two-year increases in the overall downward trend. Traditionally...