More than half the world’s population depends on rice to survive. But this year’s El Niño weather pattern and the ongoing climate crisis are intensifying dry, hot weather that could cause yields to plummet. Globally, rice production is set to fall for the first time in more than a decade,...
Here’s what supercharged the monster wildfires in Spain and France
Over the past week, hundreds of thousands of people in France and Spain fled their homes, many in the dead of night, carrying only what they could. In the coming days and weeks, as evacuation orders lift, some will come home to partially destroyed towns. Others will only find ash. ...
4 things to know about cyclospora and climate changeÂ
The looming threat of cyclospora — a parasite often found in summer produce that causes severe gastrointestinal distress in humans — has struck fear into the hearts of salad enjoyers nationwide. On July 17, shortly after beginning its investigation into the multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak, the Food and Drug Administration announced a...
These psychedelic images reveal what your weather app isn’t telling you
My weather app says it’s 80 degrees, but that’s a lie. I’m standing on a football field at Portland State University with professor Vivek Shandas, and we can feel intense heat radiating off the grass. Instead of being made of cellulose, these blades are plastic, because this field is artificial...
Wildfire prevention has always been a challenge in the West. Hotter, drier weather is making it worse.
Officials from the Trump administration and members of Congress walked along the burn scar from Utah’s devastating Cottonwood Fire last week and saw the damage from the rain and flood that followed the flames. The wildfire is among the country’s largest, charring more than 97,000 acres. It started on June...
The EU might weaken its landmark climate law — the ‘most impactful’ in the world
The European Union’s cap-and-trade system has long been considered the gold standard for market-based emissions-reduction policies, and it’s influenced similar efforts from California to South Korea. Since 2005, it’s helped reduce the EU’s industrial carbon emissions by about 50 percent, and a recent working paper called it the “most impactful...
It’s official: Data centers are slowing America’s shift away from coal
As tech companies have built hundreds of hyperscale data centers to power the artificial intelligence boom, they have triggered conflicting predictions over how these facilities will affect the nation’s power grid. Critics have argued that data centers will raise power bills and increase carbon emissions. Supporters claimed they could increase...
Next stop for California’s high-speed rail: Finding private investors
California has spent nearly two decades relying on taxpayers to finance its high-speed rail project. Now it’s looking to private investors. Whether any step up remains an open question. The search for private money was always part of the plan. When Californians approved a bond measure to fund the project...
Inside the ‘America First’ makeover of a global hunger program
Bassirou Sani Boubacar Gaoh has spent the last decade trying to figure out how the plants feeding millions across Niger can better withstand the unpredictability of a warming planet. Extreme heat waves and severe droughts that alternate with heavy rainfall and flash floods are imperiling the many millet, rice, and...
China’s solar industry is losing money. The country is doubling down anyway.
Cheap, abundant Chinese solar panels have become essential to decarbonizing the global energy system. Without them, the world’s clean energy transition would have arguably been slower and more expensive. But China’s solar manufacturing industry now faces a bizarre problem: oversupply. Chinese solar manufacturers have built far more production capacity than...