The Earth; It's the only one we have
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 18 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02382-2
Land stores vast amounts of carbon, and how much of it is released as temperatures rise could accelerate climate change. Now research shows ecosystems are more adaptable to climate warming than previously thought, potentially reducing future carbon–climate feedbacks.
Nature Climate Change…
For the fewer than a hundred people that make up the entire population of Port Heiden, Alaska, fishing provides both a paycheck and a full dinner plate. Every summer, residents of the Alutiiq village set out on commercial boats to catch salmon swimming upstream in the nearby rivers of Bristol Bay.
John Christensen, Port Heiden’s tribal president, is currently making preparations for the annual trek. In a week’s time, he and his 17-year-old son will charter Queen Ann, the family’s 32-foot boat, eight hours north to brave some of the planet’s highest tides, extreme weather risks, and other treacherous conditions. The two will keep at it until August, hauling in thousands of pounds of fish each day that they later sell to seafood processing companies. It’s grueling work that burns a considerable amount of costly fossil fuel energy, and there …
Abigail Lindsey worries the days of peace and quiet might be nearing an end at the rural, wooded property where she lives with her son. On the old ranch across the street, developers want to build an expansive complex of supercomputers for artificial intelligence, plus a large, private power plant to run it.
The plant would be big enough to power a major city, with 1,200 megawatts of planned generation capacity fueled by West Texas shale gas. It will only supply the new data center, and possibly other large data centers recently proposed down the road.
“It just sucks,” Lindsey said, sitting on her deck in the shade of tall oak trees outside the city of New Braunfels. “They’ve come in and will completely destroy our way of life: dark skies, quiet and peaceful.”
The project is one of many …
On January 15, a group of utility companies wrote a letter to Lee Zeldin, then president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. “We provide the electricity for millions of homes, businesses, and institutions across the U.S., create thousands of good-paying jobs, and drive economic progress and American prosperity,” the letter stated.
After the polite opening, they got right to their main request: “Two matters in particular call for immediate action: (1) regulations on greenhouse gas (‘GHG’) emissions from existing coal-fired and new natural-gas power plants that mandate a carbon capture technology that has not been adequately demonstrated and (2) the unprecedented expansion of the federal regulation of coal combustion residuals (‘CCR’).”
The companies contend that the federal government has overstepped its authority in its enforcement of these two areas of regulation. The letter asked Zeldin to go …
For a decade, wind farm companies had been eyeing Molok Luyuk — a mountain ridge of religious importance to tribes in northern California, whose people have worked for years to protect it. It’s also widely biodiverse with elk, mountain lions, and black bears, as well as 40 rare plants such as the pink adobe lily.
Mia Durham is the secretary for the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, a tribe that has been in a relationship with Molok Luyuk for thousands of years. In response to petitions filed by wind energy companies that wanted to develop the area, the tribe and its allies asked President Biden to protect it in 2019.
“That’s what heightened it for us and put us on track of moving forward as quickly as possible,” Durham said. “We wanted to protect sacred sites that are there. They were …
This coverage is made possible through a partnership with WABE and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
Georgia is enjoying an economic boom. Lured by tax breaks, high-tech data centers and manufacturers are flooding the state. It’s a trend state leaders are celebrating at every opportunity.
“We have seen over 171,000 new jobs come to our communities, we brought in over $ 74.5 billion of investment to the state,” Governor Brian Kemp told a gathering of lawmakers, business leaders, and other Georgia bigwigs earlier this year.
But that growth has created a problem: all the new businesses need lots of electricity.
The state’s largest electric utility, Georgia Power, now says it needs significantly more energy, significantly sooner than planned to meet the spike in demand. So the company is …
This story was originally published by the Star Tribune.
During the 2021 drought, nearly 800 Minnesota farmers with high-capacity wells pumped 6.5 billion more gallons of water than their permits allowed, state records show.
Farms on land owned or operated by R.D. Offutt Co., a potato-growing giant that has become one of the biggest water users in the state, were responsible for 23 percent of the excessive pumping.
“That’s quite a bit of overuse,” said Randall Doneen, a section manager for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “We’re trying to get people back into compliance.”
The overpumping in 2021 put more stress on already depleted aquifers, lakes, and streams and raised the risk that neighboring wells would run dry.
A Star Tribune review of water permit data reported each year to the DNR found more than three of four water …
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 17 November 2022; doi:10.1038/s41558-022-01547-7
Author Correction: Climate change reshuffles northern species within their niches
Nature Climate Change…