Earth Wise

In recent years, climate advocates have pushed for the use of more dramatic language to describe ‘climate change.’  The notion was that phrases like ‘climate crisis’ and ‘climate emergency’ better convey the urgency of the planet’s plight, while terms like ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ are too gentle and vague.  However, it turns out that […]

Battery-powered electric vehicles have historically faced the challenges of limited driving range and long charging time.  In recent years, both of these limitations have been largely overcome for many if not most drivers.  Popular EVs on the market can go 300 miles and more on a charge and today’s fastest charging networks can add 200 […]

There are people who oppose the installation of wind turbines for a variety of reasons. It is true that wind turbines can be dangerous to birds.  Estimates are that about 250,000 birds are killed flying into wind turbines each year in the U.S.   However, this data needs to be looked at in comparison to bird […]

The industrial sector accounts for nearly a third of greenhouse gas emissions in the US, which is more than the annual emissions from cars, trucks, and airplanes combined.  These emissions primarily come from burning fossil fuels to produce goods from raw materials as well as from the chemical reactions associated with production.  Many industrial processes […]

Agrivoltaics is the combination of solar power generation with agriculture.  Generally, this has involved growing crops under and around solar panels harvesting both food and electricity.  More recently, there has been increasing interest in grazing animals to manage lands used for solar power. Enel North America, a large operator of solar farms and utility-scale battery […]

Estuaries and their surrounding wetlands are bodies of water where freshwater from rivers and streams mixes with salt water from the ocean to create brackish water.  These brackish ecosystems support many unique plant and animal communities around the world.  But ocean water temperature around the world continues to warm.  In fact, from 1901 to 2023, […]

The U.S. used to get more of its electricity from burning coal than by any other means.  It wasn’t all that long ago; coal produced 51% of our electricity in 2001. But as of 2022, it was less than 20%. In March and April, the U.S. generated more electricity from wind power than from coal.  […]

There have already been all sorts of extreme weather this year in many parts of the world and undoubtedly there will be more to talk about in the coming months.  But the American Meteorological Society has recently published its State of the Climate report for 2023 and it was a year for the record books. […]

Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It is one of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas and is a popular attraction for tourists.  Svalbard is famous for rugged, remote terrain of glaciers and frozen tundra sheltering polar bears, Svalbard reindeer, and Arctic foxes. The Northern Lights are visible during winter, […]

Hydrogen has great potential as a fuel and an energy carrier for many applications.  Burning it or consuming it in fuel cells does not produce carbon emissions.  As a result, there has long been the vision for a future hydrogen economy.  Whether the hydrogen economy would ever come about given how various other technologies have […]