Category: Climate

Few individual animals have ever been more important to their species than 2323M — a red wolf, dubbed Airplane Ears by advocates for his prominent extremities, who spent his brief but fruitful life on North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. Red wolves, smaller, rust-tinged cousins to gray wolves, are among the world’s rarest mammals,…

In the 1970s, acid rain was one of the most serious environmental threats in North America and Europe. The air was so laden with pollution from coal power plants and cars at the time that it turned the rain toxic. Downpours killed fish, destroyed forests, eroded statues, and damaged buildings, sparking public outcry.  “Acid rain…

The past few years have violated many of my assumptions about human progress. Twenty-year-olds are going MAGA. More and more Americans say that women should return to their “traditional” roles in society. For some reason, we have decided to gamble with bringing back once-eradicated deadly diseases.  And now, add to the list: Cow’s milk is…

NOAA is slated for 880 layoffs of probationary workers. | Kendall Warner/Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service via Getty Images More layoffs have hit the federal government, this time at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States’s main weather forecaster and the world’s premier research agency for the seas and the skies.  CBS News reports that…

NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson helps map the ocean floor to find hazards to shipping. Editor’s note, February 27, 4:50 pm ET: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has begun to lay off probationary employees, according to a source inside the agency not authorized to speak to the press. Laid-off staffers were told that “you are not…

Demonstrators gather in front of the White House on Tuesday, March 28, 2017, during a rally against President Donald Trump’s executive order about energy independence. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that…

Keepers at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Virginia prepare to send black-footed ferrets to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Black-Footed Ferret Conservation Center in 2011. | Cliff Owen/Associated Press In the open grasslands of South Dakota, not far from the dramatic rock formations of Badlands National Park, lives one of the continent’s cutest,…

Illustration of thick-walled arthroconidia and arthrospores from the fungus Coccidioides immitis. | Kateryna Kon/Science Photo Library/Getty Images As our planet gets increasingly warmer, we’re seeing in real-time the myriad of ways our climate is changing: unbearably hot summers, extreme cold snaps, and more dangerous natural disasters. And when our environment changes, so do we —…

Once a year, typically after sunset in the late summer, the coral baby-making process begins. Large colonies of coral spawn, spewing out sperm and eggs, often in pea-size bundles, that drift around until they encounter the spawn of other corals. Fertilized eggs turn into coral larvae — tiny and squishy free-swimming organisms — which eventually…

Shreya Vinodh, a habitat intern, collects plankton samples during a research cruise to study right whales with the Center for Coastal Studies in Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts on April 1, 2024. | Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired recently, and more may be in danger of being let go….