Climate change is already shaping what the future will look like and plunging the world into crisis. Cities are adapting to more frequent and intense extreme weather events, like superstorms and heatwaves. People are already battling more destructive wildfires, salvaging flooded homes, or migrating to escape sea level rise. Policies and economies are also changing as world leaders and businesses try to cut down global greenhouse gas emissions. How energy is produced is shifting, too — from fossil fuels to carbon-free renewable alternatives like solar and wind power. New technologies, from next-generation nuclear energy to devices that capture carbon from the atmosphere, are in development as potential solutions. The Verge is following it all as the world reckons with the climate crisis.
The Trump administration notified contributors to the national climate assessment on Monday that they’ve been “dismissed” as it re-evaluates the scope of the report, the New York Times says. Since 2000, the report has been a key resource detailing how each region of the US is affected by drought, wildfire, flooding and other climate disasters.
MIT Technology Review visited the eerie tree farms Apple and other companies rely on to try to cancel out their carbon emissions. Are they really helping to fight climate change? Or are they making problems worse? It’s complicated, and controversial, and a good read.
[technologyreview.com]
A leaked memo from the Office of Management and Budget proposes drastic cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal agency that leads weather and climate research in the US.
”We’ll go back to the technical and proficiency levels we had in the 1950s,” former NOAA acting chief scientist Craig McLean tells ProPublica.
That’s more than triple the total clean energy investments canceled over the past 30 months, according to a report from nonpartisan think tank E2. Economic uncertainty and proposals to rollback tax credits for renewables under the Trump administration are already taking a toll.
Despite those headwinds, however, companies still managed to announce $1.6 billion in investments in new solar, EV, and power grid facilities this March.
[technologyreview.com]
The Environmental Protection Agency is demanding answers from controversial start up Make Sunsets about its attempts to cool the planet down by releasing reflective particles into the atmosphere. The company started launching sulfur dioxide-filled balloons in the US after Mexico banned its efforts.
Environmental advocates have also criticized solar geoengineering as a risky distraction from legitimate efforts to stop climate change by getting rid of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.
The company announced $99 million in new funding, part of its goal of transitioning its supply chain to entirely carbon pollution-free energy by 2030. This marks the second phase of the China Clean Energy Fund that Apple launched in 2018, AppleInsider reports.
[appleinsider.com]
The company that operates the pipeline sued the environmental group for $300 million, an amount 10 times Greenpeace USA’s annual budget. The outcome could make it easier to target other groups for their activism, advocates warned.
”Freedom of speech is on the line,” says Waniya Locke, a member of Standing Rock Grassroots, told The Verge recently. “This directly impacts everybody, not just Standing Rock, not just Greenpeace.”
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) placed 22 California offices for environmental protection and research on its list of leases to terminate, the Los Angeles Times reports.
That includes the L.A. office of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The federal employee union representing EPA employees told The Verge last month that the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the agency could hamper wildfire recovery efforts in the region.
The agency is axing the Office of the Chief Scientist and the the Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy.
NASA contributes significantly to research on climate, weather, air quality, and the environment. Joe Biden appointed chief scientist Katherine Calvin, who was recently stopped from joining a meeting of the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Science reports.
Trump plans to “all but eliminate” the Office of Community Planning and Development as part of widespread layoffs across the federal government, the New York Times reports. It would slash the workforce within that office by 84 percent, the Times says, citing a document it obtained.
The office oversees payments for recovery efforts after major disasters, opening up questions about how North Carolina communities rebuilding after the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene could be affected.
That includes at least 168 employees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who worked in its Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. The Trump administration is following a play out of Project 2025, which calls for “eliminating” the office.
Across the federal government, Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are targeting programs and employees that have worked to make initiatives more inclusive of communities of color and other groups that face disproportionate health and environmental risks.
[washingtonpost.com]
DeepSeek claims to use far less energy than its competitors, but there are still big questions about what that means for the environment.
The Senate confirmed his nomination today. Zeldin has been tasked by Donald Trump to “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses.” That seems to include removing roadblocks to building energy-hungry AI data centers in the US.
[politico.com]
It’s 89 seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock. Rest assured, the clock merely “visualizes humanity’s metaphorical proximity to global catastrophe,” according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that sets the time each year and updated it today.
They moved the clock forward this year, citing risks posed by nuclear weapons, climate change, “misuse of biological science,” and the potential use of artificial intelligence in warfare and to spread disinformation.
It’s “going to look a little different” as it migrates to a more general science site, according to NASA. President Donald Trump has called climate change a “hoax,” and researchers have been archiving environmental data in case it starts to disappear from federal websites.
The Biden administration’s climate and economic justice screening tool, a federal website on reproductive rights, and NASA’s diversity and inclusion pages appear to be down.
