• Solar Geoengineering to Cool the Planet: Is It Worth the Risks?

    By Renée Cho

    There is no international, national or state framework that currently governs geoengineering. As a result, one worrisome future scenario is that climate impacts in a particularly vulnerable country will be so severe that it resorts to deploying stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI, also called solar radiation management or SRM) on its own before the world is ready for it. This could cause political instability or provoke retribution from other countries that suffer its effects.

  • Texas Flooding Brings New Urgency to Houston Home Buyout Program

    By Jake Bittle

    The San Jacinto River is a national hotspot for ‘managed retreat,’ but recent floods show how far local officials still have to go.

  • Decayed Power Pole Sparked the Largest Wildfire in State History, Texas House Committee Confirms

    By Jayme Lozano Carver

    A decayed utility pole that broke, causing power wires to fall on dry grass in the Texas Panhandle, sparked the state’s largest wildfire in history. A lack of air support and ineffective coordination hurt efforts to contain this year’s Panhandle fires, the committee said.

  • Resilient Power Systems in the Context of Climate Change

    As extreme weather events increase in frequency and society’s dependence on electricity grows, scientists are focusing on issues at the nexus of water and energy, recognizing that water and energy systems are strongly coupled and already stressed.

  • Transporting Hazardous Materials Across the Country Isn’t Easy − That’s Why There’s a Host of Regulations in Place

    By Michael F. Gorman

    Transporting hazardous materials such as dangerous gases, poisons, harmful chemicals, corrosives and radioactive material across the country is risky. But because approximately 3 billion pounds of hazardous material needs to go from place to place in the U.S. each year, it’s unavoidable.

  • Sinking Land Increases Risk for Thousands of Coastal Residents

    By Travis Williams

    One in 50 people living in two dozen coastal cities in the United States could experience significant flooding by 2050, according to new research. The study projects that in the next three decades as many as 500,000 people could be affected as well as a potential 1 in 35 privately owned properties damaged by flooding.

  • From Florida Floods to Idaho Desert: Understanding Impacts of Flood Damage on Vehicle Batteries

    By Michelle Goff

    Electric vehicles offer some clear advantages over gasoline-power cars including zero emissions and lower operation and maintenance costs. But they also present some new challenges. Recent storms have revealed that seawater-flooded EVs can pose safety concerns for passengers, emergency responders and recovery personnel.

  • FEMA Is Making an Example of This Florida Boomtown. Locals call it “Revenge Politics.”

    By Jake Bittle

    When U.S. homeowners buy subsidized flood insurance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, they make a commitment to build back better after flood disasters, even if it costs them. The Biden administration is trying to punish Lee County for rebuilding flood-prone homes. The state’s Republican politicians are fighting back.

  • The Flooding Will Come “No Matter What”

    By Abrahm Lustgarten

    Another great American migration is now underway, this time forced by the warming that is altering how and where people can live. For now, it’s just a trickle. But in the corners of the country’s most vulnerable landscapes —on the shores of its sinking bayous and on the eroding bluffs of its coastal defenses —populations are already in disarray. The complex, contradictory, and heartbreaking process of American climate migration is underway.

  • Artificial Intelligence and Critical Infrastructure

    What is the technology availability for AI applications in critical infrastructure in the next ten years? What risks and scenarios (consisting of threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences) is AI likely to present for critical infrastructure applications in the next ten years?

  • How Prepared Is Taiwan for Earthquakes?

    Taiwan sits on a boundary of tectonic plates, and its long history of catastrophic quakes has forced the island to improve its building construction and design-related technologies. Newly constructed buildings in Taiwan have become “increasingly earthquake-resistant.”

  • Balancing Act: Can Precariously Perched Boulders Signal New York’s Earthquake Risk?

    By Kevin Krajick

    The trouble with big earthquakes is that their subterranean root systems can lurk for centuries or millennia before building enough energy to explode. Among many places, this is true of the New York City area, where scientists believe big quakes are possible—but probably so rare, it is hard to say exactly how often they come, or how big they could be.

  • 4.8 Magnitude Earthquake Rattles U.S. North-East

    With its epicenter in in New Jersey, a 4.8 magnitude tremor and was felt across the eastern seaboard, in what scientists say is a relatively rare event for the region. Earthquakes in the eastern United States are felt across broader areas that earthquakes in other parts of the United States because the bedrock is much older and harder, transferring seismic energy more easily.

  • How Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations

    By Doug Irving

    “People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”

  • Artificial Reef Could Protect Marine life, Reduce Storm Damage

    By Jennifer Chu

    MIT engineers designed a sustainable and cost-saving structure which aims to dissipate more than 95 percent of incoming wave energy using a small fraction of the material normally needed.