Environment + Energy - The Conversation - Climate change, environmental health, biodiversity, extreme weather

A person wrapped in a blanket sits next to a radiator, with her hand on the heating element.

Just because the bill is low doesn’t mean energy is affordable

Destenie Nock, Carnegie Mellon University

An office building and two houses partially filled with flood water with a mountain in the background.

Severe flooding raises deadly overdose risk in rural Appalachia, study finds – and the harm lasts for years

Kristina P. Brant, Penn State

A large cylinder covered in marine debris is hosed off while sitting on a barge.

AI companies look to the ocean as a place to put more data centers

Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro

Dealing with disasters increasingly requires a smartphone – losing access can be a nightmare, but there are ways to prepare

Lee Ann Rawlins Williams, University of North Dakota

A woman standing knee-deep in flood water puts a hand to her forehead while trying to make a call.

Ancient forests took 100,000 years to recover from past global warming – Wyoming fossils reveal what happened

Regan E. Dunn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Paving paradise: Dismantling the Roadless Rule threatens to disrupt wildlife, water and peace in the last quiet places in America

Mariah Meek, Michigan State University and Travis Belote, Montana State University

Controlling wild pigs can work if it’s a group effort

Chris Boyer, University of Tennessee; Aaron Smith, University of Tennessee, and Eunchun Park, University of Arkansas

Several pigs have their snouts toward the ground in a wooded area.

A stone chapel on a hillside with wildfire smoke around it.

Wildfire-damaged historic buildings may not be as ruined as they appear, but saving them means acting fast

Rebecca Napolitano, Penn State; Giorgia Giardina, Delft University of Technology, and Tiago Miguel Ferreira, Universidade de Lisboa

As oil profits skyrocket, calls for windfall taxes rise

Tibor Besedeš, Georgia Institute of Technology

An illustration of a person in a business suit celebrating amid a shower of money.

Green roofs can help cool cities in the summer heat, but building them is only the first step – many don’t survive

Taylor Wishart, University of Tennessee

Vegetables and plants grow on a rooftop under a blue sky with tall buildings in the background.

A row of homes stands behind the debris remaining of blocks of houses that burned.

Wildfires can leave surviving homes and their water unsafe – what Spokane residents need to know as they return

Andrew J. Whelton, Purdue University

Chronic pain is missing from America’s heat warnings

Feinuo Sun, University of Texas at Arlington

A woman reaches for tomatoes with a fan in the background.

Cyclospora spreads through human waste – so how did it get on food?

Joan Rose, Michigan State University

A sign reads 'reclaimed water being used for irrigation, do not drink or swim.'

Oil shortages escalate from wars in Iran and Ukraine, with few signs of relief

Amy Myers Jaffe, New York University; Tufts University

People stand on a street next to many metal cylinders.

Just weeks before devastating wildfires hit, Spokane practiced a mass evacuation – the drill paid off

Ashley Bosa, Boise State University

A police car with a long line of vehicles.

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War in the Middle East

A Mexican ranch worker, on a horse, drives cattle into a corral for inspection for New World screwworm in Chiapas, Mexico, in July 2025.

Soaring US beef prices likely to rise further thanks to trade tensions and disease outbreaks

Andrew Muhammad, University of Tennessee and Charles Martinez, University of Tennessee

Suspending federal gas tax wouldn’t save drivers as much as they might hope – here’s what goes into the price of a gallon of gas

Robert I. Harris, Georgia Institute of Technology

A gas station sign displays a price of $5.53 per gallon of regular gas.

When oil prices spike, where does the money go?

Matthew E. Oliver, Georgia Institute of Technology and Tibor Besedeš, Georgia Institute of Technology

A shadow of an oil pump jack over a spread of hundred-dollar bills.

Why the Persian Gulf has more oil and gas than anywhere else on Earth

Scott L. Montgomery, University of Washington

Hormuz closure threatens the global food supply – why grocery price hikes are coming

Aya S. Chacar, Florida International University

A tractor spreads fertilizer on a field.

Extreme weather + disasters

A man watches a fire burn in his neighborhood in the distance.

Why the Spokane wildfires became so catastrophic

Mojtaba Sadegh, Boise State University; United Nations University and John Abatzoglou, University of California, Merced

Wildfires can generate tornadoes, lightning and other extreme weather, sometimes miles from the flames

Yunyao Li, University of Texas at Arlington

A fire truck near flames and a fire whirl looking like a small tornado.

Why 78 degrees isn’t the right thermostat setting for everyone during a heat wave

Destenie Nock, Carnegie Mellon University

A person lying on a bed reaches toward a machine installed in the window.

Yes, breathing wildfire smoke can harm your health – here’s what you can do to protect yourself

Colleen E. Reid, University of Colorado Boulder

A woman rides a bike through city air tinted orange by wildfire smoke. Neither she nor a woman walking in the background is wearing a protective mask.

Heat waves can leave homes dangerously hot – even for young, healthy adults

Zoltan Nagy, Eindhoven University of Technology

A family sits outside in the shade on a hot day

Energy + infrastructure

A neighborhood of homes, all with very similar green lawns.

HOAs are often barriers to sustainable landscaping and solar energy – here’s how they could be bridges instead

Daniel Kramer, Michigan State University and Madeline Carr, Michigan State University

Leaving vehicle engines idling is unhealthy, expensive – and often illegal

Richard Marcantonio, University of Notre Dame

A cloud of exhaust emerges from a vehicle tailpipe.

Electric companies don’t need to black out customers to prevent wildfires – here are 3 relatively fast, affordable solutions

Jasmine Garland, University of Colorado Boulder

Energy costs are high and unaffordable – what utilities, governments, communities and you can do to help save consumers money

Sanya Carley, University of Pennsylvania; Alexandra Klass, University of Michigan; Alison L. Knasin, University of Pennsylvania; David Konisky, Indiana University, and Shelley Welton, University of Pennsylvania

A hand holds an electric plug as its wire forms the shape of a rising-trend graph.

Blackout risks are rising – why neighboring power grids can’t just send extra electricity where it’s needed

Sufan Jiang, University of Tennessee; Nanyang Technological University and Fangxing Fran Li, University of Tennessee

The silhouettes of a series of large transmission towers loom in the photo with the glow of the setting sun behind them.

AI's energy demand

It may be almost impossible to make data centers pay their ‘fair share’ of electricity costs

Theodore J. Kury, University of Florida

Data center fights pit social values, democracy and capitalism against each other

Lauren Mullenbach, University of Michigan

A view of open grassland with a barn and a sign reading 'No data center.'

How local communities are challenging Big Tech data centers’ noise, pollution and rising electricity bills

Rachel Mural, Harvard Kennedy School

A man stands at a lectern, speaking and gesturing, while a group of people stand and sit nearby, watching and listening.

5 ways data centers endanger their local communities and the country as a whole

Neha Gour, George Mason University; Ed Maibach, George Mason University, and Luis Ortiz, George Mason University

Large commercial or industrial buildings sit in rows near homes that line residential roads.

When can a power company take your land for data center infrastructure?

Aaron Walayat, University of Dayton

Transmission towers and power lines above a hillside neighborhood

Biodiversity + environment

A bird with unique spoon-shaped bill stands in water on the sand.

More than half of Earth’s migratory bird species are declining – here’s how we can still save them

Peter P. Marra, Georgetown University and Nathan W. Cooper, Smithsonian Institution

Beyond birds and mice, free-ranging cats eat a surprising number of insects

Christopher A. Lepczyk, Auburn University; Daniel Rubinoff, University of Hawaii, and Jean E. Fantle-Lepczyk, Auburn University

The world agreed to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030 – but marine protection can’t be judged by area alone

Kirsten Grorud-Colvert, Oregon State University and Ana K. Spalding, Smithsonian Institution

Life after death: From burned trees to bleached corals, how dead organisms live on as the building blocks of new life

Kai Kopecky, University of Colorado Boulder and John Kominoski, Florida International University

A new seedling grows at base of a burned tree.

Bison restoration efforts and grazing rights hinge on one question: Are bison wildlife?

Madison Stevens, Montana State University and Elizabeth (Libby) Lunstrum, Boise State University

A group of large hairy animals with horns stand in a grassy area with snow-covered mountains in the background.

Climate change

A person lies on a bed drinking water from a bottle with a box fan in front of them.

Climate change may be making us lonelier: How heat waves and extreme weather disrupt social connections everyone relies on

Fiona Doherty, University of Tennessee

French climate lawsuit offers a window into the next round of the global legal fight

Aminta Ossom, Harvard University; Harvard Kennedy School

A person in a helmet and protective equipment stands on a paved area between two massive industrial buildings covered with tubes, wires and staircases.

How do scientists know if climate change made a heat wave, extreme storm or wildfire worse?

Kevin T. Smiley, Louisiana State University ; Deepti Singh, Washington State University; Jennifer Marlon, Yale University, and Jim Hurrell, Colorado State University

Two people walk in opposite directions on a city street, one carrying an umbrella for shade and the other wiping his face with a handkerchief.

The National Climate Assessment is broken – appointing Matthew Wielicki to lead it won’t help

Joe Árvai, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

A city flooded by muddy, swollen river. Water spreads around houses several blocks from the river.

You’ve never heard of these glaciers, but they’re becoming critical climate havens as America’s iconic mountain glaciers and their water fade

Dan McGrath, Colorado State University; Ashlesha Khatiwada, Colorado State University, and Scott Hotaling, Utah State University

An image of the Teton Mountains and a large rock glacier.

Laws + regulations

A view of a large industrial building complex.

Trump administration moves to block public from enforcing environmental protection laws

Sarah J. Morath, Wake Forest University

Why Trump’s move to gut the Endangered Species Act likely won’t hold up in court

Patrick Parenteau, Vermont Law & Graduate School

Most Americans support conservation – here’s how the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative got politicians from both parties on board too

Mike Shriberg, University of Michigan

A silhouetted figure walks along a body of water with a Ferris wheel visible in the distance.

Supreme Court bars states from protecting consumers if federal agencies won’t

Sarah J. Morath, Wake Forest University

Plastic containers of the Roundup weed killer sit on a store shelf.

Research about global fishing shows value of detailed environmental data, which the Trump administration seeks to limit

Mark Axelrod, Michigan State University

People stand in a parking lot, while behind them a large pile of metal and junk looms.

Environmental health

Microscopy image of cylindrical blobs clumped together and filling a surface

Flesh-eating bacteria are devouring limbs in warming waters worldwide − here’s how to protect yourself

Bill Sullivan, Indiana University

Sargassum, the smelly nemesis of beach vacations, has become a self-sustaining disaster that will keep coming back

Xing Zhou, Georgia Institute of Technology; Annalisa Bracco, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Joseph Montoya, Georgia Institute of Technology

Women carrying boogie boards walk along the shoreline, which is lined with brown seaweed for as far as the eye can see.

How to avoid tick bites in your yard or while hiking in the woods, and what to do if one starts feasting on you

Amanda Roome, Binghamton University, State University of New York

A person uses tweezers to pull a tick out of skin.

Replacing gas stoves with electric stoves greatly reduces asthma symptoms

Ashwini Sehgal, Case Western Reserve University

Fishing for DNA – how a cup of river water can reveal secrets about human health, pollution and biodiversity

Jenny Whilde, University of Florida

Trees and other greenery lining a river, a small cooler set on rocks in the foreground

Agriculture + water

Rows of avocados sliced open showing the seed.

Better guacamole? How avocado import rules helped cut Mexico’s water pollution – it holds lessons for future US trade deals

Jayash Paudel, University of Oklahoma

Bird droppings were a foundation of modern agriculture and American empire

Edward D. Melillo, Amherst College

A drawing of a seabird perched on a mound, with other birds in the air and a large island in the background.

Fertilizers carry a hidden cost for soil’s crucial microbes – using less as prices rise might pay off for farms in unexpected ways

Esther Ndumi Ngumbi, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

A cross section of soybean plants in soils show their roots.

When your local reflecting pool or pond turns green with algae, don’t reach for chemicals – nature has better solutions

Eric Palkovacs, University of California, Santa Cruz

A man using an underwater vacuum stands knee-deep in the Reflecting Pool with the Washington Monument in the background.

War-induced fertilizer shortage may be reducing US soil and water pollution

Kimberly Van Meter, Penn State and Nandita Basu, University of Waterloo

A large green vehicle with tracks instead of wheels pulls additional equipment, including sprayers and tanks, across an open, level dirt area.

Lands of ice and snow

Lakes the color of turquoise gem stones stand out against the white glaciers that send meltwater into them.

Alaska’s glacial lakes are expanding, increasing the risk of destructive outburst floods

Dan McGrath, Colorado State University

A walk across Alaska’s Arctic sea ice brings to life the losses that appear in climate data

Alexandra Jahn, University of Colorado Boulder

A white landscape with blocky ridges extends under a blue sky.

US military has a long history in Greenland, from mining during WWII to a nuclear-powered Army base built into the ice

Paul Bierman, University of Vermont

A view of a mountain with dozens of rusted fuel drams left on the ground in the foreground.

West Antarctica’s history of rapid melting foretells sudden shifts in continent’s ‘catastrophic’ geology

Christine Siddoway, Colorado College; Anna Ruth (Ruthie) Halberstadt, The University of Texas at Austin, and Keiji Horikawa, University of Toyama

A graphic shows the outline of the modern area of the Antarctic continent, most of which is not covered by ice.

From record warming to rusting rivers, 2025 Arctic Report Card shows a region transforming faster than expected

Matthew L. Druckenmiller, University of Colorado Boulder; Rick Thoman, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Twila A. Moon, University of Colorado Boulder

Two people walk across snow and ice with areas of water evident and mountains in the background.

Critical minerals

The missing link in America’s critical minerals push isn’t mining – it’s processing expertise

Hélène Nguemgaing, University of Maryland and Alan Collins, West Virginia University

The race to mine critical minerals for AI and clean energy is creating ‘sacrifice zones’ that harm water and health of world’s poor

Abraham Nunbogu, United Nations University and Kaveh Madani, United Nations University

A man in a muddy tanktop holds a large chunk of greenish stone.

In its hunt for critical minerals, the US is misconstruing what is and is not America’s

Coalter G Lathrop, Duke University

A photo of a mechanical claw from a submersible and surrounding seafloor that appears almost paved in nodules.

Mining the ocean floor: 5 deep-sea sources of critical minerals essential to technology, and the fragile marine life at risk

Leonardo Macelloni, University of Mississippi

A mechanical claw holds a polymetallic nodule underwater

America’s next big critical minerals source could be coal mine pollution – if we can agree on who owns it