The Covid-19 coronavirus has officially become a global pandemic. Since it began spreading, scientists have been gaining and sharing knowledge at an unprecedented pace. But there’s still so much they don’t know, particularly about how the human body fights off the infection and whether people can become immune to the virus.
Pay your way into heaven
Offsets for greenhouse gas emissions are a wildly popular, but controversial way to fight climate change. In this explainer, I go into how they work, the problems they face, and why some argue they are a necessary part of the solution.
Fire Down Under
Australia ended 2019 with devastating bushfires that torched huge swaths of the country. Such fires are common in Australia, but the scale of the blazes this year was startling. The conditions fueling the flames built up for years, including Australia’s notoriously volatile weather, a prolonged drought, and climate change.
Unintended Consequences
India’s capital region has some of the worst air pollution in the world, and it gets especially bad in November. Farmers outside the city often burn crop stubble to clear their fields for the next planting, sending choking smoke over millions of people. But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, the spike in air pollution can be traced back to a water conservation law implemented more than a decade ago.
Save the Trees, Save Ourselves
Fighting climate change isn’t all about wind turbines and electric cars; protecting and restoring nature is a key component of reducing greenhouse gas emssions. Ecosystems like forests take in and store huge amounts of carbon. The question is whether countries can come up with a way to encourage people to keep nature as it is.
All Talk, No action
Representatives from around the world gathered at the United Nations in a last-ditch effort to spur countries to do more to fight climate change. And many countries did announce new commitments to curb their emissions. But the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world barely budged.
Hot enough
Phoenix, Arizona is a hot city that’s only getting hotter. I spoke to several researchers and scientists about what a heat wave of the future would look like and how it would play out across the city. This is part of a series of articles looking at the potential worst case scenarios in store as the climate changes.