Five years after embarking on an ambitious investigation into fracking’s impact on the environment, the Environmental Protection Agency has drastically reduced the scope and significance of its research. The reason? The oil and gas industry got to participate in the process. In over 3,000 pages of documents obtained by Greenpeace via an open records request Read More

(This article, written by Danielle Castle, originally appeared on Made. It has been reprinted here with permission.) When people think of timber harvest, Paul Bunyon in SCUBA gear is not the first image that comes to mind. However, in recent years, some companies have turned their attention toward the bounty of underwater timber that’s been Read More

The town of Jackson, Wyoming will soon be on the cusp of agricultural engineering with a space-saving, sustainable and vertical farm built on a section of parking garage. The initiative has been undertaken by Vertical Harvest, a Wyoming-based agri-business that wants to enhance the local economy with fresh, locally grown produce that is available 365 Read More

WASHINGTON— More than half a million people called on the government to protect the monarch butterfly today, as the public comment period on protecting monarchs under the Endangered Species Act closed. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now has nine months to determine whether to propose protections for the iconic orange-and-black butterfly, which has declined Read More

This is the first of a short blog series in which I will write about our 2014 expedition to the Indian Ocean. I will briefly report what it was all about, adding special focus on Switzerland’s impact on plastic pollution. In September 2014, I set off on an expedition to investigate the plastic pollution in the Indian Ocean. I wanted to get form my own image Read More

The CEO of SolarCity, Lyndon Rive, has accused a major Arizona utility of punishing new solar customers with an unjustifiable pricing plan in order to maintain its conventional energy monopoly. Beginning in April, Arizona residents that install solar panels will be hit with a “demand charge” based on their peak power demand during the month. According Read More

Researchers from the University of Southampton and New York University Abu Dhabi have discovered a species of algae in the Persian Gulf that could protect coral reefs from global warming. Their report, recently published in the journal Scientific Reports, examines a “thermotolerant” species of algae known as Symbiodinium thermophilum. This algae can survive maximum temperatures Read More

Earlier this month, the San Francisco Chronicle dropped a bombshell on Californians: In the midst of a severe four-year drought, oil companies have been dumping fracking wastewater into clean drinking water sources – with approval from state regulators! But it turns out the bad news doesn’t stop there. The Center for Biological Diversity recently announced Read More

(This article, written by Andrew Miller, originally appeared on Amazon Watch. It has been reprinted here with permission.) “Today, once more following a long period of silence as we awaited the Colombian government’s compliance with agreements signed on May 1st, 2014, the U’wa people would like to inform national and international public opinion that the Read More

On Thursday, Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) brought a snowball onto the Senate floor as part of a show-and-tell demonstration. “Do you know what this is?” asked the Senator, who is 80-years-old. “It’s a snowball.” Mr. Inhofe has long held the contention that global warming is a sham, though he still ranks it as the second-worst Read More

(This post originally appeared on RealClimate. It has been reprinted here with permission.) No, climate change is not experiencing a hiatus. No, there is not currently a “pause” in global warming. Despite widespread such claims in contrarian circles, human-caused warming of the globe proceeds unabated. Indeed, the most recent year (2014) was likely the warmest Read More

In a 90-second video from PETA, Joaquin Phoenix warns viewers that the footage they’re about to watch “is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.” The footage comes from a PETA investigator who infiltrated a Chinese dog-skinning facility. In the video, dogs are rounded up into overstuffed cages, beaten, bludgeoned, and then skinned. Their Read More