As the sun came up on Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria, it was clear life would be forever different. Weak, old electric grids reliant on outdated infrastructure were basically wiped out by Category 4 winds, and the replacement process dragged on to the point that it became the worst…
The world continued to double down on renewable power in 2017. Or at least, China did. Certain wealthy nations (ahem, U.S.) could stand to step up their game.
On Friday, Congress passed a 1.3 trillion dollar spending bill that, among other things, will continue to enshrine the controversial notion that biomass fuels are carbon neutral. The day before, a prominent ecologist penned an article in a prestigious journal explaining why that’s baloney.
House Science, Space and Technology Committee chairman and man who calls hearings to challenge basic climate science Lamar Smith struck an unusual tune in a hearing that garnered little attention earlier this week. Apparently, despite all evidence to the contrary, Smith is concerned about reducing carbon emissions and…
The Trump era is unlikely to be known for aggressive climate action, but there is one front on which scientists, engineers, and policymakers may yet make a little progress over the next few years: carbon capture technology.
America’s solar industry lost nearly 10,000 jobs in 2017, the non-profit research firm The Solar Foundation announced on Wednesday. It’s the first time solar jobs have dipped in the United States since the foundation began tracking the fledgling industry in 2010.
Coal is dying. Long live renewables.
In August 2016, fewer coal miners were employed in the US than anytime in modern history: just 48,600. A year later, little more than 50,000 miners are working, but the industry is still in dire straits—layoffs and mine shutdowns have led to rampant unemployment in West Virginia, Kentucky and Montana. President Trump…
On the climate and energy front, 2016 was a year of contradictions. Again and again, our planet smashed global temperature records. The fingerprints of climate change were visible in extreme weather from the North Pole to Louisiana. But the clean energy sector also hit some major milestones. Wind and solar power…
Good news, Earthlings: the Paris climate agreement had passed a critical milestone toward adoption. At a UN General Assembly meeting in New York this morning, 31 nations officially signed onto the accord, making it very likely that the deal will enter legal force this year.
Drought and bark beetle infestations have not been kind to western forests in recent years. California alone has an estimated 66 million dead trees speckling its landscapes and waiting to become wildfire fuel. To prevent that from happening and help us kick our coal habit at the same time, a pair of scientists has put…
Last December, world leaders made an unprecedented pact to wean their countries off fossil fuels this century. The oil lobby says such a transition would be an economic death sentence. But a new study paints a sharply different picture: Working toward the Paris goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius…
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott seems determined to push his country back decades on environmental policy. In his latest scheme, Abbott has ordered Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation to stop investing in wind and small-scale solar energy.
