Writing
Selected news, features and investigations
Beer, luck and robots: How scientists rescued a map to Earth’s past
How a neglected post-war photography archive was rediscovered, saved, meticulously digitized — all 1.7 million physical prints! — and is now informing ground-breaking new research on Earth’s past (and future).
Carbon removal isn’t weird anymore. That worries scientists
The global carbon removal industry is taking off. Concerns that it could become another excuse to keep burning fossil fuels are sowing a growing division among scientists about how much attention and money the world should devote to it.
The summer from hell was just a warning
This season of heat deaths, burn-inducing sidewalks and coast-to-coast tropical cyclones is a sign of the havoc to come as humans keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
How NSF uses ‘absurd’ health reasons to block scientists from polar missions
Scientists are raising the alarm about what they say is an unfair medical clearance process required by the National Science Foundation for polar expeditions.
How ‘spurious science’ threatens Antarctica
Experts say some members of the Antarctic Treaty System are increasingly using bad-faith arguments as justification to block conservation measures that most other parties support.
The world will likely miss 1.5 C. Why isn’t anyone saying so?
Experts largely agree that the while the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious target is still technically feasible, it’s likely politically impossible. That opens up a thorny debate about when, exactly, it’s appropriate to declare the target dead — and what happens next.
‘Dangerous trap’: How the world adopted net zero
Over the last two years, there’s been an explosion of net zero pledges around the world. In theory, it’s one of the clearest, most actionable climate targets the world has yet embraced. But is it enough?
Nominees for a science award were all white men. Nobody won
A reckoning for a prestigious science honor has reignited conversations about the lack of diversity in science awards – and how to address it.
Space has better internet than Antarctica. That might change
The push to bring fiber internet to McMurdo Station – and beyond.
Disasters everywhere. Did scientists see them coming?
Extreme weather and climate-related disasters are shaking the world. Can science predict them?
8 states are tweaking the weather (and it might not work)
An investigation into the murky science and history of cloud seeding in the U.S. Interest is growing as drought grips the western states – but does it actually work?
No ‘hot pants’: Sexist rules for women on Arctic expedition
A widely resented dress code, harassment reports & complaints of unequal work assignments plagued an Arctic research ship. Experts say these issues illustrate wider challenges women still face in polar science & field research across the board.
Tree ‘boneyards’ measure lost land at wildlife refuges
National Wildlife Refuges often get less public attention than the National Park System – but they’re struggling with climate change, too. A story on coastal NWRs and the strategies they’re building to adapt to their changing environments.
Red spruce sprout atop coal mines that helped kill them
The red spruce, an icon of Central Appalachia, has stood for more than a century at the intersection of the nation’s most pressing environmental issues and the industries historically linked to the region’s prosperity. Today, reforestation efforts may help heal the highlands from the impacts of mountaintop mining and buffer the region against the impacts of climate change – but that’s if the spruce can weather the warming, itself.
Researchers can now blame warming for individual disasters
Just 15 years ago, this research field essentially didn’t exist. Now, it’s one of the most significant, and rapidly growing, areas of climate science. On the history and future of extreme event attribution, which links individual weather events to climate change.