• U.S. Power Sector is Halfway to Zero Carbon Emissions

    Concerns about climate change are driving a growing number of states, utilities, and corporations to set the goal of zeroing out power-sector carbon emissions. To date 17 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico have adopted laws or executive orders to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity in the next couple of decades. Additionally, 46 U.S. utilities have pledged to go carbon free no later than 2050. Altogether, these goals cover about half of the U.S. population and economy.

  • The U.S. Water and Wastewater Crisis – How Many Wake-up Calls Are Enough?

    In February, much of Texas plunged into darkness when the state’s electricity grid failed due to extreme cold weather conditions. What started as a foreseeable blackout quickly became a life-threatening calamity. “This catastrophe illustrates what happens when aging and inadequate infrastructure is hit by extreme rain or snow—an increasingly regular occurrence due to climate change,” Lucía Falcón Palomar, Obinna Maduka, and JoAnn Kamuf Ward write. “And, the matter extends well beyond Texas. It is easy to forget that, within U.S. borders, communities have long endured the conditions seen in Texas in February.”

  • Could South African Mine Wastes Provide a Feasible Storage Method for Millions of Tons of CO2?

    Mine sites are literally well-oiled machines, and it is easy to witness both the pros and cons that sites have on our society. However, hidden in plain sight among the hectic operations is perhaps the biggest untapped source of material that could help us in our ongoing battle with climate change. A material often perceived as having a negative effect on the environment – mine wastes known as tailings.

  • How Microorganisms Can Help Us Get to Net Negative Emissions

    To reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, society has increasingly tried turning to plants to make the everyday products we need. But what if plants could be removed from the picture, eliminating the need for water, fertilizer, and land? What if microbes could instead be harnessed to make fuels and other products? And what if these microbes could grow on carbon dioxide, thus simultaneously producing valuable goods while also removing a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, all in one reactor?

  • The Promise of Forecasting Meteotsunamis

    Scientists have, for the first time, documented meteotsunami in the Great Lakes caused by an atmospheric inertia-gravity wave. An atmospheric inertia-gravity wave is a wave of air that can run from 6 to 60 miles long that is created when a mass of stable air is displaced by an air mass with significantly different pressure. This sets in motion a wave of air with rising and falling pressure that can influence the water below, as it synchronizes with water movement on the lake’s surface like two singers harmonizing.

  • Climate Change Has Cost 7 years of Ag Productivity Growth

    Despite important agricultural advancements to feed the world in the last 60 years, a Cornell-led study shows that global farming productivity is 21 percent lower than it could have been without climate change. This is the equivalent of losing about seven years of farm productivity increases since the 1960s.

  • Climate Change Significantly Increases Population Displacement Risk

    The risk of people being forced from their homes by flooding increases by half for each additional degree of global warming, as an international research team led by the Weather and Climate Risks Group at ETH Zurich demonstrate.

  • The Cost of a Key Climate Solution

    Perhaps the best hope for slowing climate change – capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions underground – has remained elusive due in part to uncertainty about its economic feasibility. Researchers have estimated the energy demands involved with a critical stage of the process.

  • A Sponge to Soak Up Carbon Dioxide in the Air

    Human activity is now leading to the equivalent of 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere each year, putting us on track to increase the planet’s temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels by 2040. Increasingly, scientists are recognizing that negative emissions technologies (NETs) to remove and sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will be an essential component in the strategy to mitigate climate change.

  • Responding to Climate Change: U.S. Should Cautiously Pursue Solar Geoengineering

    Given the urgency of the risks posed by climate change, the U.S. should pursue a research program for solar geoengineering — in coordination with other nations, subject to governance, and alongside a robust portfolio of climate mitigation and adaptation policies, says a new report. The report emphasizes that solar geoengineering is not a substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

  • Tsunamis It Comes in Waves

    Tsunamis pose a real threat to the California coast, even if the triggering earthquakes occur elsewhere. And it doesn’t take a 50-foot tsunami out of a science-fiction film to inflict severe damage. Researchers are helping ensure coastal cities are ready.

  • Sea Levels Are Rising Fastest in Big Cities – Here’s Why

    It is well known that climate-induced sea level rise is a major threat. What is less well know is the threat of sinking land. And in many of the most populated coastal areas, the land is sinking even faster than the sea is rising.

  • Post-wildfire Landslides Becoming More Frequent in Southern California

    Southern California can now expect to see post-wildfire landslides occurring almost every year, with major events expected roughly every ten years, a new study led by U.S. Geological Survey researchers finds.

  • Sustainable Water Management Key to Scaling Up Bioenergy Production

    To avoid a substantial increase in water scarcity, biomass plantations for energy production need sustainable water management, a new study shows.

  • Sea-Level Rise up to Four Times Global Average for Coastal Communities

    Coastal populations are experiencing relative sea-level rise up to four times faster than the global average – according to new research. is the first to analyze global sea-level rise combined with measurements of sinking land.