The beeping of old dialysis machines at the National Kidney Center in Kathmandu never stops. Nurses in dark blue scrubs rush around tending to the 55 people having their blood cleaned at any given time while cleaners squeeze by carrying stained sheets and buckets of bloody catheters. The facility, located...
Illinois has few remaining wetlands. A Trump administration proposal could decimate what’s left.
The Environmental Protection Agency calls wetlands “biological supermarkets” for the sheer abundance of food they supply to a broad range of species. Roughly 40 percent of all plants and animals rely on wetlands for some part of their lifecycle. These ecosystems also filter drinking water, blunt the force of flooding,...
How to make data centers less thirsty
Data centers are notoriously thirsty. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have found that, in 2023, the facilities consumed roughly 17 billion gallons of water for their operations in the U.S. alone. But that’s only a small part of the picture: A much, much larger share of data center water-intensity...
How gas stations can become the best place to charge your EV
Phillip Stafford has been converted. After two years driving a Tesla, he says there’s no going back to gasoline — the money he saves on fuel alone makes that clear. And since his work as a crisis counselor takes him all over Richmond, Virginia, he charges often. That’s made him...
Scorching Saturdays: The rising heat threat inside football stadiums
When Vanderbilt University football fan Douglas Dill set out with his son the morning of October 4 to watch their team play rival University of Alabama, he didn’t expect his game-day experience to include a gurney ride to a medical facility inside Bryant-Denny Stadium. But by the fourth quarter in...
10 years after the Paris Agreement, world leaders are letting go of its most famous goal
On the first day of this year’s United Nations climate summit, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva promised attendees that this conference would be different. The 30th annual Conference of the Parties, or COP30, would be the “COP of truth,” he said. The Brazilian president’s forceful remarks at the...
Tehran’s water crisis is a warning for every thirsty city
Tehran is running out of water. Rationing has begun in Iran’s capital city, with some of the approximately 10 million residents experiencing “nightly pressure cuts” between midnight and 5 a.m. The entire country is in an unprecedented drought, facing its driest — and hottest — autumn in nearly 60 years. Tehran has received no rain at...
Violent ‘storms’ hidden under Antarctica’s ice could be speeding its decline
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet covers some 760,000 square miles and is up to 1.2 miles thick. If it were to ever melt away entirely, it would add 10 feet to global sea levels. Even considering how quickly humans are heating the planet, such a change would likely unfold over...
‘Climate smart’ beef? After a lawsuit, Tyson agrees to drop the label.
Shoppers have long sought ways to make more sustainable choices at the supermarket — and for good reason: Our food system is responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. The vast majority of emissions from agriculture come from raising cows on industrial farms in order to sell burgers, steak,...
COP30’s biofuel gamble could cost the global food supply — and the planet
First the plant stalk is harvested, shredded, and crushed. The extracted juice is then combined with bacteria and yeast in large bioreactors, where the sugars are metabolized and converted into ethanol and carbon dioxide. From there, the liquid is typically distilled to maximize ethanol concentration, before it is blended with...