In the spring of 2021, the world’s leading authority on energy published a “roadmap” for preventing the most catastrophic climate change scenarios. One of its conclusions was particularly daunting. Getting energy-related emissions down to net zero by 2050, the International Energ … | Continue reading
The United Auto Workers’ six-week strike has won large concessions from the Big Three American automakers, including substantial wage hikes.But in order to win the war over the future of unionized labor in the auto industry, the UAW will need to do something even harder than extr … | Continue reading
The largest, longest strike among American autoworkers in decades is probably over. On Monday, the United Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement with General Motors, according to multiple outlets, meaning that the union now has a deal with all of the “Big Three” American auto … | Continue reading
When we talk about climate solutions, we often hear the word resilience. It’s the catch-all term for all the things we’re doing to prepare for the impacts of climate change — things like building seawalls and hardening homes and switching to renewable energy sources. But planning … | Continue reading
Yesterday, the National Weather Service (NWS) announced that it, like seemingly everyone else in the world, is experimenting with AI. Specifically, it’s using AI to translate its weather forecasts and warnings into Spanish and Chinese, with a plan to expand into more languages in … | Continue reading
This hasn’t been a good month for the offshore wind industry in New York, but the state is pushing ahead to try to reach its aggressive decarbonization goals. Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Tuesday contracts for three big offshore wind projects slated to go into operation in … | Continue reading
Two of the biggest companies in the wind turbine industry, General Electric and Siemens Energy, both shared disquieting news about their businesses this week. GE disclosed in its third quarter earnings that its offshore wind business had $1 billion in losses so far this year, whi … | Continue reading
Like the question of what lies beyond the universe and what happens when we die, thinking too long or too hard about the implications of what it means if the things we eat have self-awareness can drive you a little mad. Certainly, it’s deeply uncomfortable to contemplate at lengt … | Continue reading
This has not been a good week for the electric-vehicle transition. On Wednesday, General Motors scrapped a self-imposed plan of building 400,000 electric vehicles by the middle of next year. Then it jettisoned plans with Honda to build a sub-$30,000 EV. On Thursday, Mercedes Benz … | Continue reading
It is perhaps less surprising who the House elected as its new speaker than the fact that they managed to actually elect someone at all. After 22 days, 14 failed candidates, and in mounting desperation and embarrassment, Republicans finally rallied — unanimously! — around Mike Jo … | Continue reading
Last week, I spoke with researcher Andra Garner about how hurricanes are increasingly sneaking up on us. She had recently published a new study in Scientific Reports, which found that Atlantic hurricanes are “more than twice as likely to strengthen from a weak Category 1 hurrican … | Continue reading
Earlier this week, I reported on how Marco Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida, is trying to thwart the Biden administration’s plans to tighten energy efficiency standards for new buildings. But today I learned that before Rubio became an adversary of energy efficiency, he … | Continue reading
The debut of the Tesla Cybertruck in November 2019 was less a car show-and-tell and more a screaming, all-caps metaphor. The meme-able moment when Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen flung a metal orb at the war rig’s windows, shattering the shatterproof glass, felt like an o … | Continue reading
Monsters don’t only sneak up on you in horror movies. In the dark of Monday night, a storm system brewing in the Eastern Pacific still looked as if it would make landfall near Acapulco, Mexico, as nothing greater than a tropical storm. But within just 12 hours on Tuesday, Tropica … | Continue reading
Sales of electric cars have reached what some researchers believe is a “tipping point.” Now that the share of cars sold that are EVs has barreled past the 5% mark, the theory goes, they will rapidly take over the entire market. In the first quarter of this year, the Tesla Model Y … | Continue reading
BlueTriton, the company that produces Poland Spring bottled water, is quietly trying to gut a Maine bill that would limit the number of years that such businesses can ship its water out of state, The New York Times reports. The proposed legislation would reduce the length of such … | Continue reading
America and China’s increasingly acrimonious rivalry over national security is now spilling over into clean energy. On Friday, China imposed export restrictions on three high-purity forms of graphite, a mineral that is essential to making semiconductors, electronics, and — most i … | Continue reading
Thirteen miles isn’t very far: roughly the length of Manhattan or the distance you run in a half marathon. On a freeway, it takes less than 15 minutes to drive.Multiply 13 by 10, though, and it becomes 130 miles — more than the width of the state of Connecticut. Move the U.S. bor … | Continue reading
To say that concrete poses a decarbonization challenge would be an understatement. Cement production alone is responsible for somewhere between 5 and 10% of global CO2 emissions [0], roughly two to four times more than aviation, a fact that even the construction industry is final … | Continue reading
As unpredictable as world events have been recently, very few people would’ve put money on the humble Toyota Prius getting a stunning makeover for 2023. Somehow, that’s exactly what happened. Now the all-new, fifth-generation Prius hybrid boasts sleek, almost sports-car-like look … | Continue reading
Dr. Cliff Kapono sometimes still surfs the way his Indigenous Hawaiian ancestors did 1,000 years ago, on a traditional wooden board and all. But the professional surfer and molecular biologist fears his descendants might not have the same privilege. The reason is the looming scar … | Continue reading
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been a humanitarian catastrophe. Perhaps 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded, along with 30,000 dead civilians, many cruelly tortured and murdered by the invaders. Vast regions of eastern Ukraine have been utterly laid t … | Continue reading