Earth Wise

Texas and oil have been an inexorable combination for well over a century. The oil and gas industry is the state’s largest economic engine, generating billions of dollars and supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs. But these days, Texas is meeting much of its rising electricity demand with renewable energy.

In 1978, green sea turtles were placed on the endangered species list primarily due to human activities like bycatch in fisheries, habitat loss from coastal development, pollution, commercial hunting for their meat, and harvesting of their eggs. Other threats include entanglement in marine debris, being struck by boats, and climate change. For more than 40 years, they teetered on the brink of extinction around the world.

Data centers consume large amounts of energy. In 2023, they consumed 4.4% of the nation’s electricity and that percentage is projected to double or triple by 2028, in part due to the proliferation of AI. Much of that power is used to operate computing equipment like servers but nearly half of it is used for cooling systems for the equipment.

The Department of Energy's mission is to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States through scientific and technological innovation. Its aim has been to ensure affordable and reliable energy, address environmental and nuclear challenges, and conduct basic research. Under the Trump administration, its focus has changed dramatically, reflecting the political and economic focus of the agency’s new leadership.

Wastewater treatment plants in the U.S. clean trillions of gallons of water each year. Whatever water gets drained down sinks or flushed down toilets goes through these plants to be rendered clean enough to return to the environment.

In the 1990s, the Greenland Ice Sheet as well as the rest of the Arctic region were observed to be measurably thawing as a result of human-caused global warming. At that time, most of Antarctica’s vast ice cap seemed to be securely frozen. Conventional wisdom was that Antarctica’s ice sheets were going to remain stable and were not going to melt much.

Most of us make frequent use of GPS technology to find our way around in our cars. There are increasing numbers of self-driving cars, and they are even more dependent on GPS technology in order to know where they are located. We tend to take for granted that the position shown by the GPS system is correct, but that isn’t always the case.

The world’s largest meat and dairy companies are responsible for emitting more methane than all the countries in the EU and the UK combined. The biggest meat company in the world, the Brazilian company JBS, accounts for nearly a quarter of the industry’s emissions and is more than the methane emissions from ExxonMobil and Shell combined.

The average level of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere had its largest one-year increase on record between 2023 and 2024. In 2024, the level reached 423.9 parts per million, an increase of 3.5 parts per million over the year before. The previous record jump was 3.3 parts per million in 2016. Modern measurements of carbon dioxide levels began in 1957.

The 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP30, took place in Belèm, Brazil in November. One hundred ninety three countries plus the European Union registered delegations for the summit. The only countries not officially attending were Afghanistan, Myanmar, San Marino, and the United States.

There are over 3,500 species of mosquitoes. It’s nearly impossible to estimate how many individual mosquitoes there are worldwide. Estimates range from 110 trillion to over a quadrillion. Mosquitoes are found literally everywhere on Earth with only two exceptions: Antarctica and Iceland. Except now they have been sighted in Iceland.

Hotter and drier conditions driven by climate change are leading to an increasing number of wildfires in North America and around the world. These fires are growing larger and burning longer, spreading into biodiversity-rich regions once considered too wet and humid to sustain them.

The Merrimack Station, located in Bow, New Hampshire, officially ceased operations on September 12th. It was the last coal-fired power plant in New England.

What we eat has a profound impact on the planet. According to a new study led by scientists from the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota, our dietary choices - and where we make them - strongly influence our contribution to climate change. The study, which was recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found meat consumption in the U.S. generates a massive and often overlooked source of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Environmental Protection Agency under the Trump administration has proposed a new rule that would dramatically weaken safety reviews for some of the most toxic chemicals that are already on the market.

On October 2nd, the Trump Administration announced the termination of 321 awards, claiming to achieve $7.5 billion in savings from clean energy projects. In reality, many of these awards were already past their end date and the money had already been spent. However, the cuts still amount to nearly $5 billion.

Anyone who has flown out of cold places in the winter has experienced airplane deicing. The process, which must be performed just before takeoff to ensure safety, involves spraying a heated, glycol-based fluid onto aircraft surfaces to remove existing ice, snow, or frost. These frozen coatings can dangerously reduce lift and control during flight. They are often removed with electrical heating before deicing fluid is applied. The effectiveness of the deicing lasts for only a limited amount of time. If there are delays in takeoff, deicing may need to be repeated. Deicing is expensive and can lead to major delays in air travel during the winter.

Switzerland has over 1,400 glaciers. Some of them are world famous, including the largest one, the Aletsch Glacier, which is a World Heritage Site located in the Barnese Alps. At its deepest point, it is about 3,000 feet thick. But like other glaciers in Switzerland, the Aletsch is shrinking – by more than 150 feet per year due to global warming. In total, more than 1,000 small glaciers have melted away entirely since the 1970s.

The Trump administration decided this year to stop updating a federal database that tracked the cost of extreme weather, compiling an annual list of hurricanes, wildfires, and other disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage. The government had maintained that database since the 1990s, with data going back to 1980. Evidently, this information was deemed to be unimportant, or at least inconvenient.

Coal has historically been the largest source of global electricity generation. For the first half of the 20th century, more than half of the world’s electricity came from coal power plants. Until the 1950s, most of the rest came from hydroelectric plants. Nuclear power grew rapidly from the 1950s up until a decline that began at the turn of the new century. Natural gas assumed a growing role that has continued to increase since then. Only in the past two decades have renewables like solar and wind power become significant contributors.