Meet the Hunters Trying to Fix Florida's Python Invasion

Anne Gorden-Vega notices a yellowish glint in the brush and slams on the brakes. She’s out of her Chevy Colorado pickup before I can even process what’s happening. The 62-year-old art teacher is basically operating on muscle memory as she dives into the brush with a flashlight, searching for the Burmese python she knows is there.

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Electric robotaxis may not be the climate solution we were led to believe

Self-driving EVs could increase energy consumption.

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Single-use plastic plates and cutlery to be banned in England

Polystyrene cups will also be banned but campaigners say action to cut plastic waste is ‘snail-paced’

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Street lighting has detrimental impacts on local insect populations

Reported declines in insect populations have sparked global concern, with artificial light at night (ALAN) identified as a potential contributing factor. Despite strong evidence that lighting disrupts a range of insect behaviors, the empirical evidence that ALAN diminishes wild insect abundance is limited. Using a matched-pairs design, we found that street lighting strongly reduced moth caterpillar abundance compared with unlit sites (47% reduction in hedgerows and 33% reduction in grass margins) and affected caterpillar development. A separate experiment in habitats with no history of lighting revealed that ALAN disrupted the feeding...

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We could power our homes with kitchen scraps. Here’s what has to happen first

The technology is there, but public perception needs to change.

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Floating wind turbines could open up vast ocean tracts for renewable power

In the stormy waters of the North Sea, 15 miles off the coast of Aberdeenshire, in Scotland, five floating offshore wind turbines stretch 574 feet (175 metres) above the water. The world’s first floating windfarm, a 30 megawatt facility run by the Norwegian company Equinor, has only been in operation since 2017 but has already broken UK records for energy output.

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Government to ban single-use plastic cutlery

The government has announced plans to ban single-use plastic cutlery, plates and polystyrene cups in England as part of what it calls a "war on plastic". Ministers said the move would help to reduce litter and cut the amount of plastic waste in oceans. A consultation on the policy will launch in the autumn - although the government has not ruled out including other items in the ban.

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Ecological Amnesia: Life Without Wild Things

We have forgotten the primeval forests and expansive grasslands where wildlife thrived, an ecological amnesia. We must work to remember, regenerate, and restore

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It’s time to rethink air conditioning

What if the most American symbol of unsustainable consumption isn’t the automobile, but the air conditioner? In cool indoor spaces, it’s easy to forget that billions of people around the world don’t have cooling — and that air conditioning is worsening the warming that it’s supposed to protect us from.

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An incredibly resilient coral in the Great Barrier Reef offers hope for the future

A coral the size of a carousel is the widest known in the Great Barrier Reef. Found just off the coast of Goolboodi Island in Northeast Australia, this reef-building Porites measures 10.4 meters in diameter — earning it the nickname Muga dhambi, or “big coral,” from the Indigenous custodians of the island, the Manbarra people.

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Wildfire Smoke Linked to Covid-19 Cases and Deaths in the West

Thousands of coronavirus cases and hundreds of deaths may be attributable to the particulate matter in wildfire smoke

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China to pursue bigger ocean carbon sinks to help meet climate goals

China will explore ways to increase its ocean "carbon sink" and enhance climate resilience in its marine ecological system as part of its pledge to reduce greenhouse gases to net zero by 2060, officials said.

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How to fight microplastic pollution with magnets

Huge amounts of plastic ends up rivers and oceans every year, harming the environment and potentially also human health. But what if we could pull it out of water with magnets?

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New Study Shows Dogs Adore Human Smiles (and Vice Versa!) Because of the 'Love Hormone'

You’re not imagining it: Your dog loves looking deeply into your eyes while you smile just as much as you love your pup’s sweet doggie grin. It’s clearly a mutual admiration between the two of you, but it’s also science.

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UN criticised over statement on overuse of antibiotics in farming

Animal health experts and UN leaders have called for a significant reduction in antimicrobial drug usage in food animals, which is already causing a “silent pandemic”. But critics say the statement is “a real missed opportunity”, pointing to its failure to set reduction targets or even call for a ban on the use of antibiotics for animal growth promotion.

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Female octopuses throw things at males that are harassing them

An analysis of footage of octopuses off the coast of Australia “throwing” shells and silt suggests that they intentionally target – and often hit – other octopuses. In most cases, it is females that do the throwing, often at males that are harassing them. In 2015, Peter Godfrey-Smith at the University of Sydney and his colleagues filmed several common Sydney octopuses (Octopus tetricus) interacting at a site in Jervis Bay dubbed “Octopolis”. It is one of the few places in the otherwise sandy sea bottom where octopuses can make dens, so there are an unusual number of the animals in a small area.

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Madagascar on the brink of climate change-induced famine

The country is on the brink of experiencing the world's first "climate change famine", the UN says.

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The evidence that the world has passed 'peak car'

Cars aren’t what they used to be. Sure, they have more horsepower, more features, and require less fuel — but they are losing their power over humanity. At least that’s the argument in a new book on the history of transportation by journalist Tom Standage, deputy editor of The Economist. In A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next, Standage argues the world may have already passed what he calls “peak car” — the point at which car ownership and use level off and start to decline.

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How Sweden Delivered The World’s First Fossil Fuel-Free Steel

Sweden has delivered the world’s first shipment of steel produced without the use of fossil fuels, a major milestone on the road towards cutting carbon emissions from industry. A shipment of the steel was delivered to Swedish truck maker Volvo AB, but industrial quantities of the stuff won’t be available until 2026.

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Who were the Toaleans? Ancient woman's DNA provides first evidence for the origin of a mysterious lost culture

The first ancient human DNA from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi — and the wider Wallacea islands group — sheds light on the early human history of the region.

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From 1m trees to a tree graveyard: how Dubai’s conservation plans went awry

It all began so beautifully, with the ruler of Dubai photographed planting the first tree of his ambitious environmental initiative, as smiling officials applauded around him. In 2010, the One Million Trees initiative was announced by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai. The aim of the launch was to increase green areas in Dubai through afforestation, while contributing to overall beautification of the city.

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With nothing able to eat them, cane toads are eating each other

It's creating an evolutionary pressure to grow fast.

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IKEA starts selling renewable energy to households in Sweden

IKEA, the world's biggest furniture brand, is branching out into selling renewable energy to households, starting with home market Sweden in September.

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So much ice is melting that Earth’s crust is moving

As the continents’ frozen burden dissipates, the ground deforms — not only in the immediate area, but also in far-flung locations.

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Houses Built Into Earth Might Be the Perfect Response to Global Warming

Houses built into the earth were all the rage during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Now, with global warming, they might be the ideal solution.

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Greece plans to name heatwaves in the same way as storms

Spurred on by this summer’s record temperatures, Greek scientists have begun discussing the need to name and rank heatwaves, better known for their invisibility, before rampant wildfires made the realities of the climate crisis increasingly stark.

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Biden supports end to wolf protections — here's why activists are worried

Last year, the Trump administration announced that the gray wolf would be removed from the list of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act. Before gray wolves were protected by the act, the species was considered near extinction after a combination of hunting, trapping, and loss of habitat decimated its numbers.

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The Colorado River is shrinking. Hard choices lie ahead, this scientist warns

On a spring morning in 1996, then–Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt stood at Glen Canyon Dam, a concrete bulwark in Arizona that holds back the Colorado River to form Lake Powell. During a live broadcast on the Today show, a popular national TV program, Babbitt opened valves to unleash an unprecedented experimental flood into the Grand Canyon just downstream.

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Top law firms taking on more fossil fuel work as planet warms - report

Despite mounting concerns over climate change, U.S. law firms are handling ever more deals and litigation for the fossil fuel industry, according to a law student group that aims to name and shame firms for their work on behalf of polluting companies.

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The Middle East is running out of water

The ferries that once shuttled tourists to and from the little islets in Iran's Lake Urmia sit rusty, unable to move, on what is rapidly becoming a salt plain. Just two decades ago, Urmia was the Middle East's biggest lake, its local economy a thriving tourist center of hotels and restaurants.

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How the world’s smelliest fruit could power your phone

The lithium-ion batteries in our devices degrade over time and come with a large environmental cost. Are there better ways to store and carry energy that are kinder to the planet?

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‘So fluffy they’re like teddy bears’: thousands of native bees emerge in Western Australia

Higher than average rainfall and growth of the bees’ two favourite flowers could account for the larger than usual colony

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The US city that has raised $100m to climate-proof its buildings

Ithaca, New York, has turned to private investors to help it decarbonize thousands of residential and commercial buildings

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‘Green steel’: Swedish company ships first batch made without using coal

The world’s first customer delivery of “green steel” produced without using coal is taking place in Sweden, according to its manufacturer. The Swedish venture Hybrit said it was delivering the steel to truck-maker Volvo AB as a trial run before full commercial production in 2026. Volvo has said it will start production in 2021 of prototype vehicles and components from the green steel.

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Facebook pledges to restore more water than it uses by 2030 as part of effort to combat climate change

Facebook announced plans Thursday to restore more water than it consumes by the year 2030, the company’s latest initiative targeting climate change. The company mostly uses water for cooling the banks of computers that run in its data centers. In 2020, Facebook said, it withdrew 3.7 million cubic meters of water — a volume equivalent to nearly 1,500 Olympic-size swimming pools — or a total consumption of 2.2 million cubic meters.

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A billion children at ‘extreme risk’ from climate impacts

Almost half the world’s 2.2 billion children are already at “extremely high risk” from the impacts of the climate crisis and pollution, according to a report from Unicef. The UN agency’s head called the situation “unimaginably dire”. Nearly every child around the world was at risk from at least one of these impacts today, including heatwaves, floods, cyclones, disease, drought, and air pollution, the report said. But 1 billion children live in 33 countries facing three or four impacts simultaneously. The countries include India, Nigeria and the Philippines, and much of sub-Saharan Africa.

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Economists: A US carbon tax would be progressive

Environmental justice concerns have been at the forefront in discussions of U.S. environmental policy. They have been central, in particular, to discussions of proposals for a nationwide carbon tax to address climate change. While economists tend to favor a carbon tax as the most cost-effective way to promote reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases, progressives and EJ groups often oppose this option on the grounds that it is regressive — that it would disproportionately burden low-income households.

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When hotter and drier means more – but eventually less – wildfire

There is abundant evidence that changes in the climate, both increased temperature and reduced precipitation, are making wildfires worse in the western U.S. The relationship between climate and wildfire seems obvious and universal: hotter + drier = more and worse wildfire. Yet the diversity of wildland areas in the western U.S. means that not all ecosystems respond in the same way to a hotter and drier climate. Understanding how and why climate change has different effects on wildfire is essential for effective management of our natural areas.

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It Rained at the Summit of Greenland’s Ice Sheet for the First Time Ever Recorded

Last week, the Greenland ice sheet underwent a major melting event—its second in two weeks. This time around, the melting was quickened by a wholly unexpected and unwelcome visitor: rain.

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Nature: Rattlesnakes' sound 'trick' fools human ears

Rattlesnakes have evolved a clever method of convincing humans that danger is closer than you think.

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Two-thirds of voters support taking $500bn in climate damages from Big Oil, poll finds

New polling has revealed that nearly two-thirds of voters would support legislation to take $500bn from fossil fuel corporations to pay damages for their role in causing the climate crisis – currently playing out in deadly wildfires, heatwaves, and more frequent and intense storms.

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How extreme heat from climate change distorts human behavior

On a sweltering summer afternoon almost a decade ago, Meenu Tewari was visiting a weaving company in Surat in western India. Tewari, an urban planner, frequently makes such visits to understand how manufacturing companies operate. On that day, though, her tour of the factory floor left her puzzled.

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'Worst year I've ever witnessed': Drought withers Western Canada's spring wheat

'Some are harvesting about 25 per cent of what they would typically expect. The conditions are terrible'

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Why are rivers turning blue in Africa?

Fast fashion is ‘killing’ Africa’s rivers by polluting them with chemicals and dyes.

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With climate change, seemingly small shifts have big consequences

Climate change has been accumulating slowly but relentlessly for decades. The changes might sound small when you hear about them—another tenth of a degree warmer, another centimeter of sea level rise—but seemingly small changes can have big effects on the world around us, especially regionally.

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Siberian wildfires now bigger than all other fires in world combined

Huge fires have been fueled by the historic drought.

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Broken tech is causing a mounting environmental disaster. It's time for tech companies to give us the right to repair our stuff instead of needing to throw it away.

Companies are making it impossible to fix their devices, so we end up throwing away perfectly good tech. This is causing billions of tons in e-waste.

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Retrofitting: why carbon-reducing renovations are going to be big business

When Boris Afinogenov moved to Liverpool from Lithuania in 2011, he knew that most Britons preferred to live in houses rather than the Soviet-era tower block he had left behind. But in a rambling Georgian property, he quickly found himself missing his cosy old flat.

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Trump let this pesticide stay on the market. Under Biden, EPA is banning it on food.

For the past decade, environmental, labor and public health groups have clamored for phasing out the pesticide that can lead to headaches or blurred vision when inhaled or ingested.

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Molecular Farming Means the Next Vaccine Could Be Edible and Grown in a Plant

Using genetic engineering and synthetic biology, we can introduce new biochemical pathways into plant cells, turning them into single-use bioreactors.

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