Category: Health

Have you ever listened to a recording of birdsong? Or ocean waves? The howling of wolves, or thunder and rain? If you have, did you ever wonder whether nature was getting any compensation for producing that acoustic art that found its way to your speakers? A number of musicians and...

Since 2019, the 191 countries that are party to an international agreement called the Basel Convention have agreed to classify mixed plastic trash as “hazardous waste.” This designation essentially bans the export of unsorted plastic waste from rich countries to poor countries and requires it to be disclosed in shipments...

The Miccosukee Tribe in Florida joined environmental groups on Tuesday to sue the federal and state agencies that constructed an immigrant detention center known as the “Alligator Alcatraz” and located in the Everglades National Park.  In a motion to join a lawsuit, as one of the first tribes to potentially...

For 25 years, a group of the country’s top experts has been fastidiously tracking the ways that climate change threatens every part of the United States. Their findings informed the National Climate Assessments, a series of congressionally mandated reports released every four years that translated the science into accessible warnings...

Beatriz Salazar was sifting through her usual pile of mail this spring when an envelope from the city of Chicago caught her eye. Inside, she found a letter warning her — in 10 different languages — that her drinking water was delivered to her tap through a toxic lead pipe....

Early in the morning on July 4th, as torrential rains battered Central Texas, the dangers of flash floods became imminent. In Kerr County, the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet within 45 minutes, leading to the deaths of 106 people. As the catastrophic deluge swept throughout the region, the death toll...

As temperatures across New England soared above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in recent weeks, solar panels and batteries helped keep air conditioners running while reducing fossil-fuel generation and likely saving consumers more than $20 million. “Local solar, energy efficiency, and other clean energy resources helped make the power grid more reliable and more affordable...

Camp Mystic, the private summer camp that now symbolizes the deadly Central Texas floods, sat on a tract of land known to be at high risk for a devastating flood. Nearly 1.3 million Texas homes are similarly situated in parts of the state susceptible to dangerous floodwaters, according to a state estimate. A...

In the oceans, the most widespread type of plastic pollution may be the kind you can’t see. A new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature estimates that the North Atlantic Ocean alone contains 27 million metric tons of nanoplastic — plastic particles 100 times smaller than the width of...