Hot Mess

Over the past few centuries, a handful of countries reaped the benefits of fossil fuels and developed their economies, emitting a lot of greenhouse gases along the way. We now know these gases have changed the climate. But since the mid-2000s, an interesting shift has occurred. The majority of greenhouse gas emissions are now coming from large developing countries.

Beef production emits more greenhouse gases than basically anything else we eat, so let’s look at the scale and impact of our bovine pals - and importantly, what we can actually do to make beef less bad.

We have enough fossil fuels to make Earth intolerably hot & wet, so we’ll have to choose to not burn them all.

We don’t hear much about the hole in the ozone layer anymore. That’s because we’ve all but fixed it, thanks to consumer choices and a massive international agreement called the Montreal Protocol. Can we learn anything from this environmental success story that will help us fix climate change?

Climate change is amplifying extreme weather events like hurricanes, heatwaves and other disasters. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of how best to prepare for this stuff? Moving inland? Buying flood insurance? Stockpiling water? Building stronger relationships might not be high on that list, but maybe it should be.

Climate change is affecting lots of living things, including the fluffy, cute ones. What can the adorable pika teach humans about adapting to global warming?

The average carbon footprint of a person in the US is 16.5 tons –TONS. So, what can you actually do decrease this number and make a meaningful difference?

Weather and climate are very different. But our experience of weather can have a big effect on how we view climate change. Why is that?

What do you think of when you hear the words “climate change?” Chances are, you might think of sad nature, somewhere far away. But climate change also affects humans, in every corner of the world, including the corner where you live, and where I live. It impacts the people and places we see everyday, and it will impact some of us more than others.

Splitting the atom once promised to be the carbon-free energy source of the future. But today, nuclear power plants are aging and retiring worldwide. What happened?

We’ve known about the greenhouse effect for nearly 200 years and about climate change for more than a century, but we’ve had a hard time acting because our brains aren’t a good match for a problem this big.