Spanish Farmers Fight Forest Fires With Agroforestry (and Many Sheep)
The forest fire stopped just before arriving at Nieves Fernández Vidueira’s farm, but it burned all day in the area surrounding Quintela do Pando in Galicia, northwestern Spain. “I will never forget the terror that I felt,” Fernández said. “When we woke up we couldn’t even breathe, everything was covered with smoke, it seemed like […]
The Good News About Climate Change: There’s Still Hope
With warming environments, landscapes are shifting. But life is still abundant. When ecologist Craig Allen looks across the brown, grassy shrublands on the east flank of the Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico, he feels no satisfaction that he was right. Right that the world was warming. Right that warming would spur such large, severe fires […]
What Is Environmental Racism? 10 Facts About How It Works
Lingering sunlight and suggestions of swelter are lifting spirits across the United States. For many, the spring air marks a transition out of the seasonal depression that comes with winter. For others, however, rising temperatures mean it’s time to find a cooling center. These centers, which are used by cities like New York to provide air-conditioning […]
The 9 Boundaries Humanity Must Respect to Keep the Planet Habitable
All life on Earth, and human civilization, are sustained by vital biogeochemical systems, which are in delicate balance. However, our species — due largely to rapid population growth and explosive consumption — is destabilizing these Earth processes, endangering the stability of the “safe operating space for humanity.” Advanced human societies emerged during an unprecedented period […]
Racist Slurs in Place-Names Have to Go, Say Geoscientists
An open letter from geoscientists supports a bill to remove racist slurs from federally recognized lakes, creeks, canyons, and other small landforms. Content warning: This article contains examples of racist slurs used in federally recognized place-names. This language has been used to harass and discriminate against people of color. More than a thousand geographic features in […]
I’m a Climate Scientist — Here Are 3 Key Things I Have Learned Over a Year of COVID
The planet had already warmed by around 1.2℃ since pre-industrial times when the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic on March 11 2020. This began a sudden and unprecedented drop in human activity, as much of the world went into lockdown and factories stopped operating, cars kept their engines off and planes were grounded. There have […]
Europe Targets 100 Climate-Neutral Cities by 2030
Europe is launching an ambitious mission to decarbonize many of its urban areas within a decade. But is it realistic? More people are moving to cities. Some forecasts predict that two thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas by the middle of the century, and in Europe that figure may be 84%. Recognizing the […]
Finding Value in the Margins to Build a Bioeconomy
Monetizing environmental services of biofuel feedstocks could incentivize farmers to take advantage of marginal agricultural lands while also benefiting the landscape. Transitioning from the use of fossil fuels to biofuels—particularly in the transportation sector, which is a major source of direct greenhouse gas emissions—is one of the key means envisioned to reach emissions reduction targets outlined in […]
“Teaching People About Climate Change is the First Step in Fighting it.” — Pakistani Activist Iqbal Badruddin
All too often, the conversations around climate change erase the voices of the people who are most affected by it. In this series of interviews, we talk to climate activists from throughout the Global South about the fight for climate justice and their visions for a sustainable future. Do an internet search for “climate activist” […]
Why Can’t The Media Visualize Climate Solutions?
The hunger for images that show new and existing solutions to the climate crisis continues to grow exponentially as our collective awareness deepens. But relevant and engaging imagery is hard, or even impossible, to source. As a career photojournalist focused on environmental stories – researching, finding, chasing and shooting climate solutions is a provocation and frustration […]
