Book review: Bad science and bad arguments abound in ‘Apocalypse Never’ by...
Think, if you will, of the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets in “Romeo and Juliet.” Or of the 1863-1891 classic American feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys, warring families in West...
View Article‘Can fast fashion be sustainable?’
Hello Sara, I just read “What should I do with my old clothes?” I did not know that H&M has a sustainability program. I think that H&M is a “fast fashion” manufacturer and probably generates a...
View ArticleShaped by the earth: Natural beauty in ‘geode’
This month I had the pleasure of speaking with Susan Barba, a poet and senior editor at New York Review Books. Her latest collection, geode, is a gorgeous meditation on humanity’s relation to the earth...
View ArticleMark Lynas’s ‘Final warning’ on climate: ‘It’s all on us, here, now,’ says...
Global warming first became personal for me in 2010. I was backpacking in the incomparable Wind Rivers in western Wyoming. I can’t tell you how much, over many years, I have loved those mountains, the...
View Article13 major climate change reports released so far in 2020
If measured by the number of reports put out in just the first half of this year, the coronavirus has not slowed the work of the international, national, and non-governmental organizations keeping an...
View ArticleIn memory: Paying respects to glaciologist Konrad Steffen
Many who closely follow climate change are lamenting the tragic death of Konrad Steffen, an accomplished and charismatic scientist who died August 8 in a crevasse-fall accident at his long-term...
View ArticleHope is the thing with feathers in ‘Migrations’
Climate change may be a planet-wide problem, but novels about the subject can be deeply personal. Case in point: Australian author Charlotte McConaghy’s transporting U.S. debut, “Migrations.” It tells...
View ArticleA first-hand look: What it’s like to live in a 2020 California wildfire...
It felt like 100 degrees in my in-laws’ Grass Valley, California, kitchen, but at least the lights were on and for the moment we were safely “distanced” from the Jones Fire. We’d just finished dessert,...
View ArticleShock, relief, a desire to help others: A story of life during California’s...
During a record-breaking heatwave in mid-August, thunderstorms hit Northern California. Lightning ignited dry vegetation and soon, wildfires burned out of control, including in northern Santa Cruz...
View Article12 books and reports on the COVID-19 pandemic and the long road back
Labor Day traditionally marks the end of summer. Vacations from school and work are over; time now to prepare for fall and winter and for the next stages in our lives and futures. But leaving the...
View ArticleLeah Thomas harnesses Instagram to promote a vision of anti-racist...
Environmental activist Leah Thomas is a self-professed “tree hugger,” but she says that the green movement needs to have the well-being of people, not just nature, at its core. Through social media,...
View ArticleBidding farewell to Dr. James McFadden, the longest-serving NOAA Hurricane...
The Hurricane Hunters have lost their longest-serving warrior of all-time: Dr. James McFadden, leader of NOAA’s hurricane science program at the Aircraft Operations Center. A 53-year veteran of flying...
View Article12 books to help voters think climate change through elections prism
Like the amplifying effects of climate change, which are already delivering once-in-a-century storms every four or five years, America’s increasingly divided politics have created three...
View ArticleCan nationalism save us in addressing climate crisis?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned us that this decade is our last chance. If we do not have policies in place by 2030 that are already turning greenhouse gas emissions sharply...
View ArticleInvisible lives in ‘High as the Waters Rise’
As mainstream media outlets become (slightly) better at covering climate change, their focus is often on its catastrophic effects such as the strengthening of wildfires and hurricanes. And that’s great...
View ArticleThe Ministry for the Future: A novel by Kim Stanley Robinson
In The Ministry for the Future, his twentieth novel, science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson creates something truly remarkable: a credible, very-near future in which humans effectively solve the...
View ArticleArtist and glaciologist team up to illustrate ice loss from Peru’s Quelccaya...
As the climate warms, glaciers are melting – fast. Over a 30-year period, Peru’s Quelccaya ice cap lost about a third of its area. To put that in perspective, artist Meredith Leich of Chicago worked...
View ArticleA crucial collapse in ‘The Ministry for the Future’
Called the “greatest political novelist” of our time by the New Yorker, Kim Stanley Robinson has infused his science fiction with real-life political, sociological, and ecological concerns for decades....
View ArticleBooks, reports for jump-starting U.S. climate action in 2021
In the midst of a Coronavirus-dominated Thanksgiving season, the climate-concerned find themselves scurrying for ways the incoming Biden/Harris administration can best move forward on climate action,...
View ArticleGift guide: 12 books on climate and environment for the holidays
Looking for climate-oriented gifts that can be purchased, delivered, and enjoyed under COVID-safe, socially-distanced conditions? Look no further. For this year’s holiday gift guide, Yale Climate...
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