"The Commerce Department has indefinitely suspended work on a tool to help communities predict how rising global temperatures will alter the frequency of extreme rainfall, according to three current and former federal officials familiar with the decision, a move that experts said will make the country more vulnerable to storms supercharged by climate change."
A project begun to explore ways to protect the Amazon seemed to end with the murder of the journalist who conceived it, along with his guide and research partner. But others picked up the mantle and completed a volume exploring ways to save this precious and rapidly disappearing ecosystem. BookShelf reviewer Elyse Hauser on how this unusual book tries to meet that promise.
Wildfire’s immensely destructive power is not just about what it burns. The smoke from more frequent fires, too, has real potential to harm human health, the new Backgrounder explains, releasing particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and worse. Learn more about the hazards and historical perspective, along with what journalists should tell their communities can be done.
"Bord na Móna, which was once a peat extraction company, has now committed to one of the largest peatland restoration projects ever undertaken, targeting 33,000 hectares in over 80 bogs with the hope of reducing carbon emissions and increasing biodiversity. But many households still continue to cut turf, relying on it for heating as have previous generations."
"Planned programs to protect dunes and beaches on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens are eroded by broken promises from Trump’s EPA."
"The “SuperAdobe” homes of CalEarth are receiving plenty of attention after wildfires devastated parts of Los Angeles. Why aren’t we building them everywhere?"
"“Sunny day” flooding is now a thing down the shore, where the tides have risen at twice the global average. Sooner or later, “we’re not going to be able to protect everything everywhere,” one state official says."
When an ecologist and a cartoonist team up to explore the realities of colonizing Mars, the result is a humorous and highly informative book on whether humans are truly up to settling space. They detour into the intimacies of zero-gravity intimacy and the challenges of ensuring a food supply. From BookShelf contributing editor Melody Kemp, a review of “A City on Mars.”
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