Tag Archives: Greenhouse Gas Emissions

How Fungi Move Among Us

How Fungi Move Among Us

Mycorrhizal fungi are the supply chains of the soil. With filaments thinner than hair, they shuttle vital nutrients to plants and tree roots. In return, the fungi receive carbon to grow their networks. In this way, 13 billion tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide — one-third of fossil-fuel emissions worldwide — enter the soil each year. These fungi cannot live on …

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Trump’s Cuts Come With Risks. Including From Volcanoes.

Trump’s Cuts Come With Risks. Including From Volcanoes.

When the fuming and rumbling at Mount Spurr, a giant volcano northwest of Anchorage, started picking up in October, Alaska’s volcano monitoring agency raised its alert level to ensure that nearby communities and passing airplanes would have ample warning of any eruption. The Trump administration’s cost-cutting campaign has put this work in jeopardy. The credit cards that employees at the …

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‘Day of Reckoning’: Trial Over Greenpeace’s Role in Pipeline Protest Begins

‘Day of Reckoning’: Trial Over Greenpeace’s Role in Pipeline Protest Begins

Lawyers for the pipeline company Energy Transfer and Greenpeace fired their opening salvos in a North Dakota courtroom Wednesday morning in a civil trial that could bankrupt the storied environmental group. The suit revolves around the role Greenpeace played in massive protests against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline nearly a decade ago. The pipeline, which carries crude oil from …

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The World Bank Pivoted to Climate. That Now May Be a Problem.

The World Bank Pivoted to Climate. That Now May Be a Problem.

As the Trump administration imposes deep cuts on foreign aid and renewable energy programs, the World Bank, one of the most important financiers of energy projects in developing countries, is facing doubts over whether its biggest shareholder, the United States, will stay on board. While the Trump administration has voiced neither support nor antipathy for the bank, it has issued …

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Greenpeace Is Going to Trial in $300 Million Suit That Poses Bankruptcy Risk

Greenpeace Is Going to Trial in 0 Million Suit That Poses Bankruptcy Risk

Greenpeace is set to go on trial on Monday before a North Dakota jury in a bombshell lawsuit that, if successful, could bankrupt the storied group. The Dallas-based company Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace in 2017, accusing it of masterminding raucous protests over the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation nearly a decade ago. The …

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USAID Climate Programs Fighting Extremism and Unrest Are Closing Down

USAID Climate Programs Fighting Extremism and Unrest Are Closing Down

Numerous programs aimed at averting violence, instability and extremism worsened by global warming are ensnared in the effort to dismantle the main American aid agency, U.S.A.I.D. One such project helped communities manage water stations in Niger, a hotbed of Islamist extremist groups where conflicts over scarce water are common. Another helped repair water-treatment plants in the strategic port city of …

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Trump’s Funding Freeze Raises a New Question: Is the Government’s Word Good?

Trump’s Funding Freeze Raises a New Question: Is the Government’s Word Good?

As the Trump administration continues to withhold billions of dollars for climate and clean energy spending — despite two federal judges ordering the money released — concerns are growing that the United States government could skip out on its legal commitments. Typically, when the federal government spends money through a grant or a loan program approved by Congress, it signs …

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Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway.

Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway.

The draft was almost ready for submission, due in less than a month. More than 150 scientists and other experts had collectively spent thousands of hours working on the report, a first-of-its-kind assessment of nature across the United States. But President Trump ended the effort, started under the Biden administration, by executive order. So, on Jan. 30, the project’s director, …

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Trump Is Freezing Money for Clean Energy. Republican States Have the Most to Lose.

Trump Is Freezing Money for Clean Energy. Republican States Have the Most to Lose.

In less than three weeks, President Trump has thrown the U.S. clean energy industry into chaos, with much of the economic damage hitting Republican states and districts. In a quest to eliminate any funding linked to climate change, the Trump administration has frozen federal grants for everything from battery factories to electric school buses and issued executive orders that have …

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In Greenland, the Ice Doesn’t Just Flow, It Quivers and Quakes

In Greenland, the Ice Doesn’t Just Flow, It Quivers and Quakes

When Andreas Fichtner unspooled a fiber-optic cable into a deep hole in Greenland’s ice, he wasn’t expecting to discover a whole new way that glaciers move. Even when the cable started sending back data, his first reaction was skeptical. “Rubbish,” Dr. Fichtner, a professor of seismology and wave physics at the Swiss university ETH Zurich, remembers thinking. “Just some electronic …

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