Earth Wise

New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently announced that $35 million has been made available for public sector entities to install and operate Level 2 electric vehicle chargers in the state. The funding will reduce the purchase and installation costs of chargers thereby expanding consumer access to charging at public sites and reducing air pollution in communities across New York.

Cultivating flowering plants for gardens, farms, and landscapes commonly involves the use of herbicides to control weeds. Honeybees are drawn to these flowering areas and play an important role in their success. So what happens when bees encounter weedkillers?

Solar panels produced 51% of California’s electricity during the month of May. This was the first time the clean energy source produced more than half the state’s power for an entire month. But it wasn’t just a milestone for California; it was a milestone for the whole world. California was the first major economy to cross the 50% threshold for an entire month. In June 2025, Hungary produced 47% of its power with solar, but Hungary’s GDP is far smaller than that of California.

El Niño is a natural climate pattern during which sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become significantly warmer than average. This drives hotter weather around the world. Since the world is already warming, El Niño only amplifies that warming. The El Niño of 2023 and 2024 resulted in the hottest years ever recorded. The strong El Niño currently taking place is shattering temperature records from Europe to Asia.

Coal-fired power plants emit large amounts of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and toxic heavy metals like mercury. The plants drive global climate change, create smog and acid rain, and produce millions of tons of toxic ash that can pollute local water supplies.

The largest solar energy project in the United States is under construction in Arkansas. The Steel River Energy Center will eventually include 2.5 GW of solar and 2.9 GWh of battery energy storage.

Fusion power is how the sun works. Light atomic nuclei (like hydrogen) fuse together at super high temperatures to form heavier nuclei (like helium). The process releases massive amounts of energy without producing radioactive waste or greenhouse gases. Fusion is considered to be the holy grail of clean energy. But even after many decades of intensive research, there is not yet a way to maintain the temperature, density, and confinement to have a fusion reaction go on long enough to produce continuous net-positive energy output.

During the past year, there has been growing interest in the U.S. in balcony solar: small solar panel systems that are hung up outside and send power straight into wall sockets to partially offset people’s utility bills. These systems first appeared in Germany in the late 2010s and spread through Europe when energy prices spiked because of the war in Ukraine. German households had installed more than four million systems as of last year.

The water covering most of our planet is slowly losing something essential to life: oxygen. Scientists are raising the alarm about declining oxygen levels in lakes, rivers, and oceans around the world.

July saw dangerously hot and humid temperatures over much of the eastern United States. Two offshore wind projects near New England delivered hundreds of megawatts of electric power to the grid as residents cranked up their air conditioners. Thanks to the recently added wind power, utilities did not need to rely as much on dirty, expensive oil-burning peaker plants – the kind that only operate when electricity demand is very high.