Energy, Climate & Environment News

To drive through parts of the Sierra Nevada these days is to witness a morbid reminder of California’s extreme drought: Vast landscapes of standing dead trees, a brown tide sweeping across the green landscape.

Physicist Mary Ann Piette wants to address too much electricity from solar in the middle of the day and a sharp drop-off in the evenings and mornings by changing when Californians use energy.

Drones will play a key role in assessing the impact of highly variable water resources around the state thanks to a new $2.2 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

The proliferation of palm oil plantations throughout Southeast Asia has led not only to widespread deforestation but also to the proliferation of wildlife that destroy remaining forests, according to a new international study.

The planet is experiencing an unparalleled increase in greenhouse gas emissions accompanied by soaring population growth and resource extraction – almost all of it occurring within a single lifetime.

A research expedition tracked endangered tigers through the Sumatran jungles for a year and found tigers are clinging to survival in low density populations.

No place on the planet is truly isolated anymore, which means invasive species travel as easy as humans, hitchhiking on boats and planes with potentially devastating effects on the ecosystems they land in.

The first “big data” analysis of California’s native plants, using digitized information from more than 22 herbaria and botanical gardens around the state, provides some surprises about one of the most thoroughly studied and unique areas in the country.

Doctoral candidate Dan Hammer has been awarded the first-ever Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award for his work to make satellite imagery more accessible and understandable for journalists who are reporting on the environment. 

A new study suggests that many of the state’s birds are adapting to rising temperatures by breeding earlier than they did a century ago.

Dan Kammen’s experience in the developing world makes it clear that energy solutions, like politics, must be local.

Today, as an expert on water, David Sedlak says that cities may soon have to develop their own version of the stillsuit to recycle wastewater, from storm runoff to household sewage, for drinking.

Since we don’t yet know how fast and how high sea levels are going to rise because of climate change, our strategies must be ready and adaptive as conditions change, according to UC Berkeley urban designer Kristina Hill.

Visitors to Mexico and the U.S. Southwest can’t help but stand in awe of the solitary and majestic saguaro, the towering clusters of the organ pipe cactus and Baja’s cardón, the appropriately named “elephant” cactus and the largest cactus in the world.

Climate modeler Inez Fung is part of an international scientific team refining the detection skills of the new Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2.