Current conditions: Wildfires are raging around the Colombian capital of Bogotá • Storm Isha is moving away from the U.K., but Storm Jocelyn is approaching • It’s 35 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy in New Hampshire, where voters will head to the polls in the first presidential prim … | Continue reading
What makes Tesla, the world’s leading automaker by market cap, so valuable? The obvious answer would be that it sells hundreds of thousands of cars every quarter, for which it can command a tidy premium because of how much the Tesla name is worth. When it rolls out something new … | Continue reading
Last September, Jeanie Ward-Waller, a deputy director at California’s state transportation department, was called into her supervisor’s office and told she was being removed from her role, no explanation given. But Ward-Waller thinks she knows what happened. A few weeks earlier, … | Continue reading
Current conditions: An ice storm has snarled traffic in parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma • Rescue teams are working in freezing temperatures to rescue victims of a landslide in China • Half of Australia's states are under heat warnings.THE TOP FIVE1. Storm Isha slams UK and Europe … | Continue reading
Whatever’s on the official agenda at Davos, a.k.a. the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, there’s always one item missing: Davos itself. As much as we love talking about what happens there, we love talking about what Davos means much, much more.Unfo … | Continue reading
The Underline in Miami is a 10-mile trail that will, over the next few years, repurpose 120 acres of unused land into an urban mobility corridor for pedestrians, dogs, bikers, and skateboarders. The route runs under the Metrorail rapid transit tracks from the financial district a … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Parts of Western Australia could see temperatures as high as 122 degrees Fahrenheit • Floods are forcing some U.K. supermarkets to sell smaller vegetables • Americans are bracing for another arctic blast. THE TOP FIVE 1. CO2 emissions could exceed 1.5 Celsius … | Continue reading
Sometimes to get what you want, all you have to do is ask. That’s what the organizations managing electricity grids across the country (and outside of it, but we’ll get to that) learned this week as plunging temperatures led to record-high electricity usage while lights (and heat … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Parts of Indonesia are under water due to heavy rainfall • Tree branches are heavy with ice in Oregon • A no-burn alert is in place for Southern California as an atmospheric “lid” locks in smog. THE TOP FIVE1. Kerry warns U.S. election stakes for climate polic … | Continue reading
America’s electric car market has a new champion. The automaking alliance of Hyundai Motor Group and Kia Motors is now the second biggest seller of electric cars in the United States, according to new data released last week by Bloomberg BNEF.The two companies sold more than 117, … | Continue reading
America’s largest public power company just set a new record. The Tennessee Valley Authority said consumers used around 34,500 megawatts of electricity on Wednesday morning, about 1,000 megawatts more than its previous all-time record of around 33,500 megawatts in August 2007.Whi … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Nashville recorded sub-zero temperatures for only the second time since 1996 • Heavy rains left at least 11 dead in Rio de Janeiro • Invasive and deadly fire ants have been spotted “rafting” on Australian flood waters. THE TOP FIVE1. Climate denial tactics are … | Continue reading
A year ago, the Toyota Prius went from bulbous to badass. The hybrid icon got its most dramatic redesign in two decades, which dispensed with the familiar friendly and rounded look for an angular, almost menacing front end. The vehicle, which once again came in traditional hybrid … | Continue reading
The Texas grid has had two close calls already this week, leading ERCOT, the electricity market that covers about 90% of the state, to ask households, businesses, and government agencies to conserve energy due to high demand. These calls for moderation are nothing new — ERCOT iss … | Continue reading
Current conditions: New York City’s Central Park has officially broken its 701-day snow-free streak • Extreme flooding from Cyclone Belal submerged cars in the ocean island nation of Mauritius • It’s 24 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy in Davos, where the 54th annual World Economic … | Continue reading
On Monday night, former PresidentDonald Trump handily won what will officially go down as the coldest caucus in Iowa’s history. The global warming jokes, naturally, wrote themselves. But in his freewheeling, name-dropping, teleprompter-free victory speech in Des Moines, Trump sho … | Continue reading
The news that Hertz is selling off one-third of its electric vehicle fleet after limited demand and costly repairs means U.S. consumers just got 20,000 more choices when shopping for a used EV. And with prices continuing to fall, now may be one of the best times to snag a pre-own … | Continue reading
“Climate change is a hoax” is soooo 2016. In recent years, Republicans have gotten more savvy in their attacks on climate change — and, by proxy, on the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark climate legislation passed in 2022. These days, it’s less the science of global warming t … | Continue reading
Impulse Labs debuted its much anticipated induction stove at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Coming to grips with this high-tech culinary wonder is a little bit like that meme of an expanding brain. At first glance, the Impulse Cooktop is just a sexy-looking … | Continue reading
Almost a third of global container traffic goes through the Suez Canal, and around 8% of the world’s oil and gas. Because of its pivotal location between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal — and thus the Red Sea, which feeds into the canal — connects the huge … | Continue reading
A year ago, before a vacation to see the eruption of the Hawaiian volcano Kīlauea, I found myself scrolling through my rental car options. A few users on the car-sharing service Turo offered up their Tesla Model 3s, and I was tempted by the idea of driving electric on holiday jus … | Continue reading
Current conditions: An “Arctic outbreak” will bring bitter cold to much of the U.S. this weekend • 109 weather stations in China have broken mid-January heat records • Nearly a quarter of humanity now lives in drought conditions. THE TOP FIVE1. Red Sea tensions hit Tesla Berlin f … | Continue reading
Edie Dillman lives in the first certified passive house in New Mexico. She and her architect husband, Jonah Stanford, are founders of a company called B.Public Prefab that builds and supplies prefabricated panels for highly energy efficient homes. So when The Curse began to air … | Continue reading
It’s not often you hear a sitting U.S. senator invite the public to sue the federal government — especially when the president is a member of their own party. But most sitting senators aren’t Joe Manchin.Manchin continued his crusade against the Biden administration’s implementat … | Continue reading
The consumer electronics show in Las Vegas formally known as CES has evolved beyond a showcase for ever-larger screens, laptops, and niche gadgets looking to make it into big box retailers. CES is now, among other things, a full-fledged auto show, with the world's largest automak … | Continue reading
Current conditions: The parade of winter storms continues today across much of the U.S. • The Congo River is at its highest level in more than 60 years after intense rains • This weekend's NFL game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins could be the coldest game in … | Continue reading
Over the past several months, in the sleepy city of Holyoke, Massachusetts, bulldozers have been tearing down a former paper mill. The newly leveled ground on the western banks of the Connecticut River is on its way to becoming the home of a big, industrial bet. If it pays off, w … | Continue reading
One of the central conceits of the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s landmark climate legislation, is that green investment will eventually lead to bipartisan support for the law. No Republican may have crossed the aisle to support the IRA in 2022, but when money flows into red di … | Continue reading
Our condolences to “woke.” It appears that Republicans have a new favorite boogeyman buzzword this election season: “green.” The word was on every Republican presidential hopeful’s lips on Wednesday, both at CNN’s debate in Iowa between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN … | Continue reading
A surface cyclone dumped rain on the Northeast overnight, leaving millions of people under flood warnings. Streets were submerged in cities including Annapolis and Baltimore, Maryland; and Alexandria, Virginia. Washington, D.C. broke its daily rain record early Tuesday evening. T … | Continue reading
Current conditions: A blizzard is slamming Turkey near Istanbul • Central and Southeast Asia are experiencing unusually high temperatures • Researchers confirmed 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded.THE TOP FIVE1. America’s carbon emissions fell for the first time since the pa … | Continue reading
For the first time since the pandemic began, both America’s economy and its carbon emissions moved in the right direction last year, according to a major annual estimate of the country’s climate pollution. America’s greenhouse gas pollution from energy and industrial activities f … | Continue reading
We’re gonna need a bigger electricity generation system. That’s what PJM Interconnection, the massive electricity market spanning 13 states on the East Coast and in the Midwest, said in a report Monday.PJM predicted that its peak electricity demand would increase every year by 1. … | Continue reading
You have almost certainly heard already that 2023 was, officially, the hottest year on record. That announcement came this morning from Copernicus, the European Union’s Earth data service. There was another figure in that announcement, however, that caught my eye: 2023 was also t … | Continue reading
President Biden’s pitch to get the American public behind the transition to clean energy is that it will bring good-paying, high-quality jobs — union jobs. But so far, that’s been more true in some areas than others. When Daniel Lozano first got hired at EmPower Solar, a rooftop … | Continue reading
Current conditions: A tornado struck the Florida panhandle • Two towns in Australia’s state of Victoria have been forced to evacuate due to severe flooding • It’s 69 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny in Tel Aviv, where Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting with Israeli official … | Continue reading
Winter has begun to arrive in Texas. In the panhandle, temperatures are expected to get as low as 22 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday, while the National Weather Service forecast office in Amarillo told residents to brace themselves for Tuesday, when “temperatures will plummet to som … | Continue reading
Hiking gear exists so that, when nature tries to kill you, it is a little less likely to succeed. Sometimes this gear’s life-saving function is obvious — a Nalgene to carry extra water so you don’t die of thirst, or a fist-sized first-aid kit so you don’t bleed to death — while o … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Parts of Arizona received more than a foot of snow over the weekend • Heavy rainfall caused flash floods in Argentina • A coastal flood watch is in effect for Washington, D.C., where Congress is back in session.THE TOP FIVE1. Insurance companies are ‘quiet qui … | Continue reading
In the last days of 2023, Judge Ann Aiken of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon ended an argument that had lasted eight years and three presidential administrations. Juliana v. United States, a groundbreaking climate case filed by a group of twenty one young plain … | Continue reading
If one were to go looking for a Permian Basin of wind — a wind energy superregion waiting to be born — the actual Permian Basin wouldn’t be a bad place to start.Wind potential is everywhere in the U.S., off the coasts and in the Mountain West especially, and the Inflation Reducti … | Continue reading
Current conditions: More than 300 flood warnings are in place across England • Hazardous waves up to 16 feet tall are slamming into the California coast • Rain and snow is expected this weekend in Japan's Ishikawa Prefecture, where rescuers are racing against time to find earthqu … | Continue reading
Last year showed that renewables are not fated to always and everywhere get steadily cheaper. But if 2023 was a year when the industry was hampered by inflation, high interest rates, and lingering supply chain issues, then maybe 2024 could be a year of normalization — when govern … | Continue reading
Although Canada has developed a reputation as a responsible steward of its massive — and environmentally crucial — boreal forests, a new study published in the journal Land calls that reputation into question. The analysis, by researchers at Australia’s Griffith University, found … | Continue reading
Sunnova and Solyndra are about to have more in common than just being solar companies with Pokémon-sounding names. More than 12 years after conservatives targeted Solyndra — a scandal-plagued, now-defunct solar company that received a $535 million loan from the Energy Department’ … | Continue reading
Current conditions: The western U.S. is in the midst of a severe “snow drought” • The Great Lakes began 2024 with their smallest amount of ice cover in 50 years • Finland’s Enontekiö airport recorded the country’s coldest January temperature since 2006: -44 degrees Fahrenheit.THE … | Continue reading
If President Biden chose to sit on his hands for the remainder of his term, he would already have done far more to address climate change than any of his predecessors. But he still has a bunch of unfinished business — half-completed rules that will need to be finalized — that cou … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Parts of northern France are flooded after Storm Henk • China confirmed 2023 broke extreme heat records • A California-bound ship carrying 800 metric tons of lithium batteries is stuck in Alaska, riding out a major winter storm.THE TOP FIVE1. Tesla and Rivian … | Continue reading