California water budgets: a pinhole disc for the overspenders
In California's drought, the Las Virgenes Water District gave each home a water budget. Ignore five warnings and a pinhole disc cuts the supply to a trickle.
category archive
Environment.
The climate, the living world and the choices that decide what survives.
Costa Rica's forests returned once cattle stopped paying
Forest fell to 41% of Costa Rica by 1986 and now covers over half. WRI credits the end of ranching subsidies and payments to landowners who kept trees.
Direct air capture: a fan, a filter and a lot of heat
A plant blows air past a material that grabs carbon dioxide, then heats it to get the gas back out. NIST and the BBC explain both main designs.
Carbon capture buries a sliver of the CO2 the world emits
Carbon capture and storage takes about 45 million tonnes of CO2 a year, the BBC reports, against emissions above 40 billion. Britain regulates the pipes.
The first treaty every country ratified is mending the ozone
The 1987 Montreal Protocol cut the chlorine reaching the stratosphere and put the ozone layer on course to heal by mid-century, by UN assessment.
The largest mangrove forest on Earth is shrinking in Bangladesh
The Sundarbans shields millions of people in Bangladesh from cyclones and storm surges. Rising seas are swallowing parts of it, and salt adds strain.
India falls to 23rd in the Climate Change Performance Index
India dropped 13 places in the 2026 Climate Change Performance Index, from 10th to 23rd, as its emissions rose and it set no date to phase out coal.
The UK's Climate Change Act binds ministers to net zero by 2050
The 2008 Act made net zero by 2050 a legal duty for UK ministers, with five-year carbon budgets. The UK met the first three but is off track for the next two.
Rachel Carson's book set off the US fight that banned DDT
Silent Spring exposed DDT's toll on wildlife in 1962. It took a decade of research, lawsuits and a new federal agency to get the chemical banned.
Why a heat dome set all-time records in Montana and Utah
Billings reached 111F and Salt Lake City 109F in July 2026. A heat dome is high pressure that stalls for days, pushing air down until it warms.
Air conditioning harms the climate through power and gas
Air conditioning warms the planet twice, through the power it draws and the gas inside it. The UN's Mark Radka puts cooling at 7% of global emissions.
Ecuador gave nature legal rights, and its courts enforce them
Since 2008, Ecuador's constitution has given nature the right to exist. Judges have used it to block mines in the Los Cedros cloud forest and a frog's valley.
The ozone hole that took the world two years to answer
Scientists confirmed an ozone hole above Antarctica in 1985 and linked it to CFCs. In 1987, nations signed the Montreal Protocol to cut them.
Lake Chad has lost nine-tenths of its water since the 1960s
Sahel drought and rising irrigation demand cut Lake Chad to a tenth of its 1960s size. A two-year study found the shrinking stopped decades ago.
The Atlantic has had no hurricanes so far in 2026
A strong El Niño has kept the Atlantic free of hurricanes deep into its peak season, while the eastern Pacific runs unusually hot.
El Niño strength comes down to Pacific sea temperature
An El Niño is judged by how far the Pacific warms above normal. NOAA and NASA track it with buoys, floats and satellites, and 0.5C marks the start.
Bolivia's Law of Mother Earth gives nature legal rights
Bolivia's Law of Mother Earth grants nature 11 rights, including the right to exist and to remain free of pollution and genetic change.