Category: Climate

A hummingbird in Long Island, New York. | Bruce Bennett/Getty Images Support independent journalism that matters — become a Vox Member today. For a limited time, you can get more than 30% your membership. Hummingbirds run on sugar. Sweet nectar powers their tiny, furious bodies and super-fast wings, which beat as many as 80 to 90…

The Silver Peak lithium mine in Clayton Valley, Nevada. The world is hungry for more stuff: televisions, phones, motors, container ships, solar panels, satellites. That means the stuff required to make stuff is in high demand, and none more so than what are known as “critical minerals.”  These are a handful of elements and minerals…

President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, during better days. Elon Musk and President Donald Trump — two of the most powerful, outspoken billionaires in America — are still tangled up in a messy breakup over a variety of issues. It’s no shock that these two men with huge egos would have friction, but…

Smoke from Canadian wildfires dims Chicago’s skyline on June 3, 2025. Smoke from wildfires in Canada is once again shrouding parts of the United States — cities like Chicago and Milwaukee — with unhealthy air, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Parts of the plume have reached as far as Europe. The bulk of…

Hurricane Helene, after moving inland and weakening into a post-tropical cyclone, on September 27, 2024. | NOAA via AP Hurricane season in the Atlantic has officially begun.  And while this year will likely be less extreme than in 2024 — one of the most destructive seasons ever, with the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record…

President Donald Trump stands on the South Lawn of the White House on May 22. | Samuel Corum/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images Nearly two decades ago, scientists made an alarming discovery in upstate New York: Bats, the world’s only flying mammal, were becoming infected with a new, deadly fungal disease that, in some cases, could wipe…

Here’s a selection of recent headlines about artificial intelligence, picked more or less at random: For some recent graduates, the AI job apocalypse may already be here Artificial intelligence threatens to raid the water reserves of Europe’s driest regions Top AI CEO foresees white-collar bloodbath Okay, not exactly at random — I did look for…

The common tailorbird, a species famous for its ability to sew its nest together — hence its name. | MD Iqbal Hossain/Getty Images Vox reader Stefanos Nasiopoulos asks: How do instincts work in animals? Do they use the same mechanism as memories? How are they different from learned behavior? For example, when the tailorbird is actually…

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, left, shares a laugh with Chief Justice John Roberts after inauguration ceremonies on January 20, 2025. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images The Supreme Court handed down an opinion on Thursday that reads like it was written by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, the authors of an influential book arguing that excessive regulation of…

EPA administrator Lee Zeldin says the agency is “driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.” The Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that it’s starting the process of undoing 31 environmental regulations, including a ruling that’s foundational to US climate policy. But undoing any regulation is a cumbersome process, and with the climate…