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Asphalt Schoolyards Get a Shady Makeover - New York Times - Climate Section (Sep 19) |
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Sep 19 · Schools across the country are adding trees, tent-like structures and water to their playgrounds as temperatures soar.
The bare hot asphalt schoolyard of the American past is getting a redo.
The schoolyard of the future has trees to play under, or canvas canopies to shade a climbing gym. Some have native plants to sniff during recess or fallen logs to climb over. Instead of hard ground, some are tearing out asphalt in favor of more spongy materials to absorb heavy rains.
They are all solutions to tackle not only the hazards of extreme weather but also a growing recognition that playing in nature could be good for children.
Many of these innovations are ... | By Somini Sengupta Read more ...
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Backlash Erupts Over Europe’s Anti-Deforestation Law - New York Times - Climate Section (Sep 19) |
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Sep 19 · Leaders around the world are asking the European Union to delay rules that would require companies to police their global supply chains.
Reporting from London
The European Union has been a world leader on climate change, passing groundbreaking legislation to reduce noxious greenhouse gasses. Now the world is pushing back.
Government officials and business groups around the globe have jacked up their lobbying in recent months to persuade E.U. officials to suspend a landmark environmental law aimed at protecting the planet’s endangered forests by tracing supply chains. | By Patricia Cohen Read more ...
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Prehistoric Earth Was Very Hot. That Offers Clues About Future Earth. - New York Times - Climate Section (Sep 19) |
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Sep 19 · At times during the past half-billion years, carbon dioxide warmed our planet more than previously thought, according to a new reconstruction of Earth’s deep past.
Over the past 500 million years, our planet has gone from hot to cold to hot again. The oceans have risen and fallen. Ice caps have melted and reformed. It is a story with several acts, and sunlight and carbon dioxide are the main players. | By Raymond Zhong Read more ...
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The Hidden Environmental Costs of Food - New York Times - Climate Section (Sep 19) |
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Sep 19 · Say a pound of beef costs $5.34 at your local supermarket. That price, according to researchers, leaves out something important: beef’s heavy environmental toll.
Add in things like deforestation and water use, they say, and the price of ground beef would be a lot higher.
Damage to the natural world isn’t factored into the price of food. But some governments are experimenting with a new way of exposing the larger costs of what we eat.
As pricey as a run to the grocery store has become, our grocery bills would be considerably more expensive if environmental costs were included, researchers say. The loss of species as cropland takes over habitat. Groundwater ... | By Lydia DePillis, Manuela Andreoni and Catrin EinhornIllustrations by Allie Sullberg Read more ...
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What’s the True Price of a School Lunch? - New York Times - Climate Section (Sep 19) |
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Sep 19 · Subscriber-only Newsletter
Climate Forward
An emerging body of research aims to put dollar figures on the environmental costs of foods we eat everyday.
When government agencies are choosing how to spend tax dollars, they typically have one primary benchmark: Who can deliver goods or services at the cheapest price.
For years, economists have been developing a system of “true cost accounting” based on the growing body of evidence about the environmental damage caused by different types of agriculture. Now, emerging research aims to translate this damage to the planet into dollar figures.
In an article published today that I wrote with Manuela Andreoni and ... | By Lydia DePillis Read more ...
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Climate Change Comes to the Tetons - New York Times - Climate Section (Aug 29) |
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Aug 29 · Subscriber-only Newsletter
Climate Forward
In one of North America’s most stunning mountain ranges, melting glaciers and warmer temperatures are raising fears of ecological tipping points. Read more ...
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Parts of Canada’s Boreal Forest Are Burning Faster Than They Can Regrow - New York Times - Climate Section (Aug 12) |
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Aug 12 · These forests below the Arctic Circle are designed to burn.
But not this often.
The delicate balance of one the planet’s largest natural systems for storing carbon depends on the humble black spruce tree.
Manuela Andreoni, a climate reporter, and Bryan Denton, a photographer, traveled with researchers to Canada’s boreal forests in the Northwest Territories.
The dead black spruce looked like a collection of giant burned matchsticks standing tall above the gray landscape as far as Jennifer Baltzer could see. But here, at the edge of one of the largest areas of scorched forest that scientists have ever documented in Canada, what caught Dr. Baltzer’s attention ... | By Veronica Penney Read more ...
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How Close Are the Planet’s Climate Tipping Points? - New York Times - Climate Section (Aug 11) |
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Aug 11 · Earth’s warming could trigger sweeping changes in the natural world that would be hard, if not impossible, to reverse.
Right now, every moment of every day, we humans are reconfiguring Earth’s climate bit by bit. Hotter summers and wetter storms. Higher seas and fiercer wildfires. The steady, upward turn of the dial on a host of threats to our homes, our societies and the environment around us.
We might also be changing the climate in an even bigger way.
For the past two decades, scientists have been raising alarms about great systems in the natural world that warming, caused by carbon emissions, might be pushing toward collapse. These systems are so vast that they ... Read more ...
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Nights in Las Vegas Are Becoming Dangerously Hot - New York Times - Climate Section (Aug 11) |
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Aug 11 · Las Vegas is among the fastest-warming cities in the United States.
But this trend hides a surprising fact about the city’s warming climate.
Its nights have been getting hotter much faster than its days.
Half a century ago, only a handful of Las Vegas nights stayed above 79 degrees.
But these hot nights are now commonplace.
Ronda Kaysen interviewed residents, scientists and community leaders in Las Vegas; Aatish Bhatia analyzed decades of weather data.
Each year, heat kills far more Americans than hurricanes, floods, tornadoes or the cold. When it’s hot, our hearts work hard to cool us, redirecting blood to the surface of our skin. But when nights ... | By Ronda Kaysen and Aatish Bhatia Read more ...
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Where (and How) Americans Are Taking Advantage of Clean Energy Tax Credits - New York Times - Climate Section (Aug 8) |
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Aug 8 · Americans claimed more than $8 billion in climate-friendly tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act last year, according to new data released by the Treasury Department, a “significant” number that is higher than initially expected, officials said.
The bulk of the money, more than $6 billion, helped households install rooftop solar panels, small wind turbines and other renewable energy systems. These credits were most popular in sunny states, including much of the Southwest and Florida, the data shows.
Percent of households using tax credit in 2023
0.5%
1%
1.5%
2%
2.5%
3%
Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit
Clean ... | By Nadja Popovich Read more ...
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How Does Your State Make Electricity? - New York Times - Climate Section (Aug 2) |
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Aug 2 · America isn’t making electricity the way it did two decades ago.
Natural gas surpassed coal as the country’s top source of power in 2016, and renewables like wind and solar have grown quickly to become major players in the U.S. power system.
But every state has its own story.
In Nevada, natural gas became the top source of electricity generation in 2005, earlier than in many other places. More recently, solar power has surged there.
Wind power has taken off in Iowa over the past two decades, beating out coal in 2019 to become the state’s largest source of power generation.
Even in Wyoming, where coal still dominates electricity generation, alternative ... | By Nadja Popovich Read more ...
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Artificial Intelligence Gives Weather Forecasters a New Edge - New York Times - Climate Section (Jul 29) |
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Jul 29 · The brainy machines are predicting global weather patterns with new speed and precision, doing in minutes and seconds what once took hours.
Comparing forecasts made on July 1
with the actual path of Hurricane Beryl
Forecast generated
with A.I.
Forecast generated
with A.I.
N.C.
S.C.
GraphCast
Miss.
Ga.
Ala.
Texas
La.
Landfall in Texas
July 8
Fla.
Actual path
of Beryl
MEXICO
CUBA
European
American
5-day
Current forecast
models
250 miles
Va.
Kan.
Mo.
Ky.
Forecast generated
with ... | By William B. Davis Read more ...
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