Read the full story at Inside Climate News.
Launched three decades ago, the Great Backyard Bird Count mobilizes citizen scientists to monitor bird populations and advance research.
Month: April 2026
More trees where they matter, please
Read the full story from MIT. See also Gu, X., Beuster, L., Liu, X., Van Leeuwen, E., Venverloo, T., & Duarte, F. (2026). Global patterns of inequality in pedestrian shade provision. Nature Communications, 17(1), 2563. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69190-w
One of the best forms of heat relief is pretty simple: trees. In cities, as studies have documented, more tree cover lowers surface temperatures and heat-related health risks.
However, as a new study led by MIT researchers shows, the amount of tree cover varies widely within cities, and is generally connected to wealth levels. After examining a cross-section of cities on four continents at different latitudes, the research finds a consistent link between wealth and neighborhood tree abundance within a city, with better-off residents usually enjoying much more shade on nearby sidewalks.
Why data centers need renewables to match the clock
Read the full story at Latitude Media.
For years, corporate carbon accounting has relied on the idea that a megawatt-hour of clean electricity bought at any point in the year could offset a megawatt-hour used elsewhere. While this approach supported the early build-out of renewables, annual “100% carbon-free” claims are no longer enough if we aim to reach net zero.
With the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Scope 2 update now through its first public consultation, companies are starting to plan for what the outcome could mean as the annual claims era is drawing to a close. The direction of travel for several regulatory and voluntary frameworks points unambiguously toward hour-by-hour, region-by-region accuracy. If a company makes claims about net-zero operations, it will soon need to back them up by demonstrating the precise hours when those electrons were drawn from the grid.
For data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence, with their constant load and five-nines reliability requirements, the updated Protocol heralds a fundamental rethink about procurement strategy.
The farming industry has embraced ‘precision agriculture’ and AI, but critics question its environmental benefits
Read the full story at Inside Climate News.
Why have tech heavyweights, including Google and Microsoft, become so deeply integrated in agriculture? And who benefits from their involvement?
Climate models may be missing massive carbon emissions from boreal wildfires
Read the full story from the University of California Berkeley. See also Johan A. Eckdahl, Lars Nieradzik, Louise Rütting. Reassessing boreal wildfire drivers enables high-resolution mapping of emissions for climate adaptation. Science Advances, 2026; 12 (9) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adw5226
Northern wildfires may be more dangerous for the climate than they appear. Researchers found that fires in boreal forests can burn deep into peat soils, releasing ancient carbon stored for hundreds or thousands of years. These slow, smoldering fires often look small from space, causing climate models to underestimate their emissions.
The future of geothermal energy may depend on fossil fuel workers
Read the full story at Grist.
The next generation of geothermal energy is drawing on decades of talent and technical expertise developed in the oil and gas industries.
Amid cuts to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, species like the Florida panther languish
Read the full story at Inside Climate News.
Florida conservation groups say they plan to sue after the federal government greenlit another development that threatens the habitat of the panther, the official state animal.
The Black Death holds a surprising lesson: Humans and biodiversity can go hand in hand
Read the full story at Anthropocene Magazine. See also Gordon, J. D., Fagan, B., Finch, J., Gillson, L., Milner, N., & Thomas, C. D. (2026). Black Death land abandonment drove European diversity losses. Ecology Letters, 29(3), e70325. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70325
It’s a familiar trope that when humans move into a place, biodiversity suffers. And there’s some evidence supporting that view. For example, a number of massive mammals disappeared from the Americas around the time when humans are thought to have arrived, though the link is hotly debated.
More recently, people have remarked on the signs of nature rebounding when everyone was stuck in their houses at the height of the COVID pandemic—what’s become known as the “Anthropause.”
But a more devastating pandemic centuries ago suggests that the relationship between humans and biodiversity is more nuanced. A certain amount of human presence can be a boon for other species.
That’s the lesson emerging from pollen samples collected in Europe that span the disease-induced population crisis of the 14th century. Plant biodiversity fell dramatically after around the time the bubonic plague—also known as the Black Death—swept across the continent, killing every third person (or more), according to research published this month in Ecology Letters.
Easy-to-use solar panels are coming, but utilities are trying to delay them
Read the full story from NPR.
Easy-to-install solar panels that plug into a regular outlet are getting attention just as Americans are worried about rising energy costs. That’s because these plug-in or balcony solar panels start shaving off part of a homeowner’s or renter’s utility bill right away.
“A year ago, nobody was talking about this,” says Cora Stryker, co-founder of Bright Saver, a California nonprofit group that advocates for plug-in solar. The panels are already popular in Germany, where more than 1.2 million of the small plug-in systems are registered with the German government.
For the panels to become more widely available in the U.S., state lawmakers are proposing bills that eliminate complicated utility connection agreements, which are required for larger rooftop solar installations and, most utilities say, should apply to plug-in solar too. Those agreements, along with permitting and other installation costs, can double the price of solar panels.
High pesticide-use counties often have higher-than-average late-stage cancer rates
Read the full story at Investigate Midwest. See also Glyphosate Use and Cancer Clusters from Food & Water Watch.
Seventy-one percent of counties that spray the most glyphosate have late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma incidence rates above the national average, according to a new data analysis from the advocacy group Food and Water Watch.
Last month, Investigate Midwest, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship, published an investigation that found 60% of the top 500 counties for pesticide use had overall cancer rates above the national average.
Food and Water Watch’s data analysis, which also found that most high-pesticide-use counties had cancer rates above the national average, included late-stage diagnosis, the stage of many plaintiffs who have sued large agricultural companies over cancer diagnoses.
Oil regulators found hundreds of wells violating Oklahoma rules. Then they ignored their findings.
Read the full story at ProPublica.
Five years ago, Oklahoma oil regulators took on a project with an impressive name: the Source of Truth. State officials wanted a comprehensive database capturing all vital information about the more than 11,000 wells in Oklahoma that shoot the toxic byproduct of oil production back underground.
I’d heard about this project from several people during the 18 months I had spent reporting on the growing number of cases where oilfield wastewater blasted out of old wells, known as purges, after being injected underground at high pressures. State employees also referenced the project in internal communications that I received after filing nearly a dozen public records requests to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry.
Just before the new year, the Source of Truth itself landed in my inbox in response to an unrelated records request. And it was explosive, revealing a pattern of rule violations by oil and gas companies that state regulators allowed to continue.
The project was supposed to clean up or fix state data regarding how much wastewater was being injected and the pressures at which it was being pushed underground. The agency’s databases, many of which were based on decades-old paper records, were riddled with contradictory or missing information. In many cases, the agency failed to update its records. More than 1,300 errors were identified.
But the Source of Truth found more than just messy data. It also allowed regulators to pinpoint nearly 600 wells that were operating illegally: injecting wastewater above their permitted pressures or volumes.
Excessively high injection pressures and volumes can lead to purges and groundwater pollution.
That wasn’t all. The report also showed that regulators had allowed more than 1,400 other older injection wells to operate for decades without any limits whatsoever on injection pressures or volumes — grandfathered in from an earlier era of permissive oversight.
In the course of my reporting on oil and gas pollution in Oklahoma, I’ve uncovered systemic underregulation by the state — as well as a few crucial fork-in-the-road moments, instances when state regulators could have taken action to bring the industry into compliance with their own rules.
The completion of the Source of Truth was one of them.
Ocean bacteria team up to break down biodegradable plastic
Read the full story from MIT. See also Foster, M. J., Becker, C., Madden, D. J., Wasson, P. A., Sichert, A., Hayden, M. G., Subhas, A. V., Gross, S., McRose, D. L., Cordero, O. X., & Plata, D. L. (2026). Complementary bacterial functions enhance mineralization of aromatic aliphatic copolyesters within a marine microbial consortium. Environmental Science & Technology, 60(10), 8133–8144. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c14910
Biodegradable plastics could help alleviate the plastic waste crisis that is polluting the environment and harming our health. But how long plastics take to degrade and how environmental bacteria work together to break them down is still largely unknown.
Understanding how plastics are broken down by microbes could help scientists create more sustainable materials and even new microbial recycling systems that convert plastic waste into useful materials.
Now MIT researchers have taken an important first step toward understanding how bacteria work together to break down plastic. In a new paper, the researchers uncovered the role of individual ocean bacteria in the breakdown of a widely used biodegradable plastic. They also showed the complementary processes microbes use to fully consume the plastic, with one microbe cleaving the plastic into its component chemicals and others consuming each chemical.
The researchers say it’s one of the first studies illuminating specific bacterial species’ role in the breakdown of plastic and indicates the speed of plastic degradation can vary widely depending on a few key factors.
Does curbside food scraps collection access increase household food waste?
Read the full story at Biocycle. See also Somers, J., Li, M., & Chowdhury, S. (2025). Reducing waste, changing habits: The effect of U.S. organics diversion programs on food purchases. AgEcon Search. https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.360757
A new working paper presented at the 2025 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) and Western Agricultural Economics Association (WAEA) Joint Annual Meeting is raising important questions for municipalities and organics recycling operators about how curbside composting programs may influence household food purchasing behavior. In Reducing Waste, Changing Habits: The Effect of U.S. Organics Diversion Programs on Food Purchases, the authors analyze whether residential organics diversion programs affect how much food households buy and, by extension, how much food they waste.
Climate Resilient Development Framework series from the GreenLaw blog
The Climate Resilient Development Framework was created by Professor John Nolon, Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, alongside Research Scholars at the Land Use Law Center. The Framework is a compilation of land use policies from across the United States that advance Climate Resilient Development (CRD).
CRD is relied upon by the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a primary method of managing climate change.” CRD incorporates adaptation, mitigation, resilience, enabling conditions, and equity to promote climate change-friendly land use planning.
The CRD GreenLaw series highlights case studies from the Framework and is led by Land Use Law Center Research Scholars.
The series includes:
- Bringing life back to vacant infrastructure
- Preparation measures for sea level rise in Bainbridge Island, Washington
- Supporting public health through urban agriculture
- Overlay zones and water resource protection
- Climate action planning and tree protection in Dobbs Ferry, NY
- How parking policy fuels urban climate risk and how cities are fighting back
- Mitigating wildfires through animal grazing
Oklahoma: How a solar energy developer lobbied for and won a reduced state permit fee amidst farmer pushback
Read the full story at Investigate Midwest.
Emails show how NextEra Energy secured a big break on permitting fees for its Skeleton Creek solar farm as renewable energy projects multiply across Oklahoma, including separate developments tied to AI data centers.
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