Living on Earth

The devastating August 2026 flash floods in Nepal and Tibet were triggered in part by a glacial collapse, a phenomenon likely to become more frequent as the Earth continues to rapidly warm due to human caused climate...

Great Britain is Europe’s third largest oil and gas producer, even with a commitment to a net-zero economy by 2050. A small group of climate activists is helping the UK meet that target by winning a Supreme Court...

The four-lane Great Highway used to run along the Pacific Ocean on the west side of San Francisco, where it was at risk of erosion from sea level rise. Now it’s been transformed into a park where visitors can bike...

North Atlantic Right whales were once so thoroughly hunted they nearly went extinct. When hunting these mammals was outlawed, they slowly started to bounce back, but today Right whales are dealing with newer deadly...

A 2025 study found that exposure to certain PFAS chemicals, which are pervasive and persistent in the environment and human bodies, can lead to changes in gene expression that are linked to cancers, autoimmune and other...

While honeybees get most of the buzz, most bees don’t produce honey, and most don’t even live in colonies. Instead, they’re solitary bees who build individual nests. A study details an astonishing finding of several...

The culture of the Yurok tribe in Northern California is deeply intertwined with the Klamath river’s salmon. So, when toxic conditions caused by the dams on the river resulted in a massive fish kill, the Yurok people...

Current climate change has been well underway for decades, but the rate of that change is now going up so fast that people are noticing things like tornados and extreme heat waves are occurring in places where they have...

Also, recent findings that peatlands are expanding northward as the Arctic warms might sound like good news, since peat has powerful carbon storage capabilities. But it takes millennia for peat to sequester large...

As we mark America’s 250th birthday, we celebrate parts of America’s enduring ecology, including our forests, national parks and other public lands. At the heart of one of Washington State’s most expansive wild...

Forest ecologist Suzanne Simard has shown through her research that the biggest and oldest ‘Mother Trees’ in the forest anchor networks of social connection among the trees, and indeed the whole forest ecosystem. Her...

Lush peonies, delicate hydrangeas, and vibrant roses burst into bloom in early summer, filling gardens and parks with color and fragrance. But flowers are more than their beauty. They’re some of the oldest beings on...

To celebrate Juneteenth we tell the story of plant biologist Beronda Montgomery. When she sat down to write what became a personal memoir mixed with a botanical history of African Americans, she found her research as a...

The National Science Foundation has announced it will begin removing most of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a collection of roughly 900 instruments in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans that gathers fixed-point data...

More than two-thirds of U.N. members recently voted in favor of a resolution affirming a landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice that countries have a legal obligation to limit global warming. While this...