Science - Inside Climate News

Petrochemicals Are Killing Us, a New Report Warns in the New England Journal of Medicine

By Liza Gross — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 18:45:00 +0000

It’s well known that fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change. A dirty secret is that they’re also the source of toxic chemicals linked to rising rates of chronic and deadly diseases.

By Liza Gross

Use of petroleum-based chemicals skyrocketed during the postwar era, most of them entering the market with little concern for safety. Now, mounting evidence links petrochemicals to the rapidly rising prevalence of a slew of chronic and deadly conditions, a review published in the New England Journal of Medicine warned earlier this month.

Rewilding Japan With Clearings in the Forest and Crowdfunding Campaigns

Photos and story by James Whitlow Delano — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Preserving the nation’s biodiversity requires opening up meadows in its vast cedar plantations. Conservationists are making headway, but progress depends on reconnecting youth with nature.

Photos and story by James Whitlow Delano

“Atta!” shouts Seiichi Dejima, of the Nature Conservation Society of Japan (NCSJ), as he raises binoculars to his eyes. He’s spotted one of a breeding pair of endangered Japanese golden eagles on a perch, high above, in the 10,000 hectare (25,000 acre) Akaya Forest in Japan’s Gunma Prefecture.

Q&A: What’s So Special About a New ‘Eye in the Sky’ to Track Methane Emissions

Interview by Aynsley O’Neill, Living on Earth — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Though its data collection is stealth, that data is public.

Interview by Aynsley O’Neill, Living on Earth

From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Producer Aynsley O’Neill with Dr. Stephen Conley, an atmospheric scientist and the founder of Scientific Aviation.

MIT’s Sloan School Launches Ambitious Climate Center to Aid Policymakers

By Phil McKenna — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 09:05:00 +0000

Environmentalists welcome the new initiative, but worry about potential funding and influence from fossil companies.

By Phil McKenna

An ambitious new climate change initiative at MIT’s Sloan School of Management seeks to harness the collective knowledge of the university to help tackle the climate crisis by connecting current and future climate research to policy.

New Study Shows Planting Trees May Not Be as Good for the Climate as Previously Believed

By Moriah McDonald — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The climate benefits of trees storing carbon dioxide is partially offset by dark forests’ absorption of more heat from the sun, and compounds they release that slow the destruction of methane in the atmosphere, the research shows.

By Moriah McDonald

Most climate-concerned people know that trees can help slow global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but a recent study published in the journal Science shows the climate cooling benefits of planting trees may be overestimated.

Q&A: California Nurse and Environmental Health Pioneer Barbara Sattler on Climate Change as a Medical Emergency

By Liza Gross — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Sattler is revolutionizing the way health professionals think about how climate disruption is harming human health. “We can't have healthy people on a sick planet.”

By Liza Gross

Barbara Sattler is on a mission to transform the way nurses, physicians and the general public think about threats to health. For Sattler, a registered nurse, emerita professor of public health at the University of San Francisco and founding member of the international Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, it starts with being able to describe what climate change is.

Alabamians Want Public Officials to Mitigate Landslide Risk as Climate Change Makes Extreme Precipitation More Frequent

By Lee Hedgepeth — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 09:05:00 +0000

In Birmingham, residents want two properties shielded from development and turned into parkland. Councilors decided to protect one parcel years ago. The vote never stuck.

By Lee Hedgepeth

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.— Gary Bostany said it was like lava flowing down from above.

The Livestock Industry’s Secret Weapons: Expert Academics

By Georgina Gustin — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

A new paper traces the financial ties between the livestock industry and academic research. The researchers say their job is to help the industry reduce emissions.

By Georgina Gustin

When researchers at the United Nations published a bombshell report in 2006 called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” the livestock industry soon realized it had a major public relations challenge on its hands.

In Florida, Skyrocketing Insurance Rates Test Resolve of Homeowners in Risky Areas

By Amy Green — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 10:05:00 +0000

Research shows the soaring costs hint at widespread, unpriced risk as the global climate warms, with states like California, Florida and Louisiana hit hardest.

By Amy Green

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla.—For most of his life, Cory Infinger has lived down a hill and along a bend in the Little Wekiva River, a gentle stream meandering northwest of Orlando. During Hurricane Ian, in September 2022, the stream swelled, inundating the homes of his family and his neighbors and also the street where they live, making it impassable.

Could ‘Microfactories’ Pave a New Path Forward for Plastic Recycling?

By Wyatt Myskow — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 10:10:00 +0000

As new research reveals how little plastic is recycled and how that waste is affecting human health, Arizona State University and Phoenix are offering what they hope will be a new solution.

By Wyatt Myskow

PHOENIX—Dozens gathered in an industrial area of the nation’s fifth-largest city in early February to tour a recycling facility billed as a potential solution to the world’s plastic crisis. As the visitors listened, a wall of bins 100 feet long and 30 feet wide stood behind them, filled with just a week’s worth of plastics from local Goodwills.