Environment
Daily Comment
What Did COP28 Really Accomplish?
At the end of the day—or record-hot year—what matters is not what language countries agree to but what they actually do.
Daily Comment
Looking for a Greener Way to Fly
The Treasury Department is about to announce tax credits for sustainable aviation fuel, which raises the question: What fuels are actually “sustainable”?
Daily Comment
A Smoking Gun for Biden’s Big Climate Decision?
A new analysis suggests that L.N.G. exports may well be worse for the environment than burning coal.
Daily Comment
The Supreme Court Looks Set to Deliver Another Blow to the Environment
Two upcoming cases take aim at the government’s power to regulate.
Daily Comment
The Biden Administration’s Next Big Climate Decision
The liquefied-natural-gas buildout—and fossil-fuel exports—challenge progress on global warming.
Daily Comment
Hurricane Idalia’s Explosive Power Comes from Abnormally Hot Oceans
By burning fossil fuels, humans force the oceans to soak up the heat equivalent of a Hiroshima-size bomb, over and over again.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
“Braiding Sweetgrass,” and a Lesson in Extreme Heat
Parul Sehgal visits Robin Wall Kimmerer, who set out to bridge the gap between Western science and Indigenous teaching. Plus, Dhruv Khullar looks at extreme heat and the body.
Elements
Why It’s So Hard to Forecast Wildfire Smoke
The best available science allows for little more than a day of prediction, making the arrival of smoky skies feel sudden and unexpected.
Daily Comment
How Much Hotter Can Texas Get?
The state endures high temperatures, but not usually so early in the summer, or for so long. Something is different.
Comment
The Hazy Days of Summer
An awareness that the air around you isn’t fit to breathe can be a uniquely alarming sensation. It is also likely to become more common.
Daily Comment
What We Can Learn from London’s Smoke-Filled Skies
Hazardous health conditions in Dickensian England led to meaningful governmental reform.
Photo Booth
The Superbloom Is a Glimpse of California’s Past
This year’s rains reversed, temporarily, more than a decade of catastrophic drought. Some of the seeds that caused the bloom have lain dormant for years.
Q. & A.
A Case for Climate Optimism, and Pragmatism, from John Podesta
The veteran political operative now has one of the nation’s top climate jobs. He speaks about the Willow oil-drilling project, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Biden White House.
Daily Comment
It’s Earth Day—and the News Isn’t Good
New reports show that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster than anticipated, and other disasters loom.
Photo Booth
Who Can Save the Amazon?
Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, promises to keep miners and loggers from destroying the rain forest. On the ground, the fight is complicated.
Daily Comment
The U.N. Issues a Final Warning on the Climate—and a Plan
The I.P.C.C. report contains no new data; nevertheless, it manages to alarm in new ways.
Daily Comment
Why Did the Biden Administration Approve the Willow Project?
Drilling for more oil in the Alaskan Arctic would be, in the President’s own words, a “big disaster.”
Our Local Correspondents
Greening the Burial of the Dead, in Brooklyn
The historic Green-Wood Cemetery—the final resting place of Leonard Bernstein and half a million others—explores a cutting-edge method of processing human remains: electric cremation.
Daily Comment
Why S.U.V.s Are Still a Huge Environmental Problem
The world is moving toward heavier cars at a time when it should be doing precisely the reverse.
The Control of Nature
Phosphorus Saved Our Way of Life—and Now Threatens to End It
Fertilizers filled with the nutrient boosted our ability to feed the planet. Today, they’re creating vast and growing dead zones in our lakes and seas.