For years, oil companies have dug canals through Louisiana’s wetlands, changing the landscape forever. One parish took Chevron to court, arguing the company harmed the environment long ago. A jury agreed, ordering Chevron to pay $745 million. But the company fought back, saying much of its work happ
For years, the Kichwa Indigenous community in Ecuador’s Napo province lived quietly along the Napo River. But now, their peaceful life has been disrupted by a new kind of invasion—not soldiers or settlers, but illegal gold miners tearing through their land. The miners aren’t just digging for treasur
Western Wisconsin’s rivers and streams are facing growing problems, and experts warn the situation could get worse. Heavy rains and melting snow don’t just fill up creeks—they carry pollution, dirt, and even salt from roads straight into the Mississippi River. That extra water isn’t always harmless.
Rising sea levels aren’t just flooding beaches—they’re quietly changing what comes out of your faucet. In coastal towns worldwide, fresh water supplies are getting saltier as ocean water mixes with underground reservoirs. Scientists found that people drinking this slightly saltier water tend to have
In a quiet corner of Longmeadow, a simple wooden post now doubles as a window into the past and future of a wildlife refuge. A sign invites hikers to snap a picture with their phones, send it by email, and instantly add a new frame to a growing archive that tracks the area’s changes since 2020. T
The quick review looked at how scientists catch tiny plastic particles in city air and then figure out what they are. They pulled data from 35 research papers that used active sampling—devices that pull air through filters—to measure how much plastic people might breathe. The papers showed that ac
Every year, Colorado Mountain College gives its students a big stage to showcase their work on sustainability. This year, their free online conference on April 24 will run from 9 AM to noon, focusing on how local research can help mountain communities tackle environmental challenges. The event isn’t
Scientists have found over two dozen times when Earth’s temperature jumped fast during the last ice age. Between 110, 000 and 12, 000 years ago, Greenland’s air could warm by as much as 16. 5 °C in just decades. These weren’t small, local changes; they reshaped global weather patterns. Tropical rain
Nothing we flush ever really disappears. Most of it ends up in a treatment plant where armies of bacteria quietly get to work, breaking down what we send down the pipes. In cities with advanced systems like the A2O process, wastewater passes through three stages—first without oxygen, then with limit
California's Salton Sea used to be a vacation hotspot in the mid-1900s with its sandy beaches and celebrity visitors. But decades of water mismanagement have turned this 340-square-mile lake into a drying disaster zone. As water disappears, it leaves behind a toxic mix of old pesticides, heavy metal
