Anthropause, ghost flights, spillover: Only a pandemic could bring words like these Birth strike, flygskam, Pyrocene: And we thought things couldn’t get worse Firenado, hothouse, smokestorm: The year fires went wild Hotumn, meatmares, ecoanxiety: Oh, how young we all were then...
Pipelines might be going the way of toilets, death, and sex — that is, best talked about discreetly. Just as ordinary folks might use a euphemism like “the birds and the bees,” a natural gas company is now awkwardly calling its...
The signs of climate change are hard to miss. The apocalyptic sight of a hazy, red-orange sky has become all too familiar as forests go up in flames. Mountains just don’t look the same after a summer of heat waves has...
On July 6, lightning sparked a fast-spreading wildfire in southern Oregon that’s now the largest in the country and the state’s third-largest on record. The Bootleg Fire, only recently getting contained after a period of cooler weather, has led more than...
You know a heat wave when you feel it — oppressively hot weather that makes you desperate for an ice-cold drink, or better yet, air conditioning. But nailing down what counts as a heat wave is surprisingly tricky. Temperatures vary widely...
ExxonMobil is known for pumping cars full of gas. But according to a new study, it may have also pumped our language full of BS. Using machine learning, researchers at Harvard University scrutinized 50 years’ worth of the oil giant’s memos,...
Faith Kearns thought she knew how to talk about science. In 2008, she was getting a doctorate in environmental science from the University of California, Berkeley, and had worked in communications for years. Then she spoke at a community fire safety...
Tropical Depression Imelda turned southeast Texas into a disaster zone last week, dumping more than 40 inches of rain east of Houston and bringing back memories of the monster storm Hurricane Harvey in 2016. Hundreds of homes have been flooded and...
Forget “climate change” and “global warming”: Environmental advocates are increasingly using phrases that emphasize the urgency of our planetary pickle, such as “climate crisis,” “climate emergency,” and “existential threat.” But do-gooders aren’t the only ones with savvy messaging techniques. Over the...
