Page Updated: Friday, September 11, 2026 8:03 PM ET

The Conversation - Environment

How soybeans took over the American diet – without anyone noticing - Edward D. Melillo, Amherst College

11 hours ago

2026's El Niño is shaping up to be a doozy – it's already affecting global shipping, fish behavior and heat -- Steven Paton, Smithsonian Institution

11 hours ago

To control weeds in your garden, late summer and early fall is the best time to make a difference -- Manjot Kaur Sidhu, University of Maine

1 day ago

How heat on the Tibetan Plateau fuels powerful storms in California, half a world away -- Yongkang Xue, University of California, Los Angeles

1 day ago

Farmer-poet Wendell Berry's environmental ethics were deeply rooted in his Christian faith and belief in caring for creation -- Kristy Nabhan-Warren, University of Iowa

7 days ago

Hiking canyons can be dangerous when storms hit – what you need to know to stay safe -- Anner Paldor, University of Tennessee

2 days ago

Satellite images show how penguins' diets are changing in response to Antarctic climate change -- Casey Youngflesh, Clemson University

8 days ago

Another hurricane just sideswiped Hawaii – why the islands' usual force field seems to be down in 2026 -- Nicholas Grondin, University of Tampa

1 day ago

Pyrograzing turns ordinary livestock into fire prevention heroes, so why isn't it used on public lands more often? -- Briana Swette, Boise State University and Kelly Hopping, Boise State University

9 days ago

Yosemite, again in corporate crosshairs, embodies the long war over US national park privatization -- Michael Childers, Colorado State University

8 days ago

When a mountain falls: How ice and rock triggered Nepal's catastrophic flood – and why climate change is raising the risks -- Umesh Haritashya, University of Dayton

9 days ago

Extreme heat is taking a toll on firefighters as wildfires stretch crews to the limit -- Julian L. Gallegos, Purdue University

15 days ago

The greenest building is the one still standing after a disaster -- Fernanda Cruz Rios, Drexel University

10 days ago

Could you survive The Oregon Trail? An emergency medicine doctor offers tips on how to not die in the great outdoors -- Elaine Reno, University of Colorado Anschutz

2 days ago

Why the US-Canada trade war could change how American farmers grow their crops for years -- Jayash Paudel, University of Oklahoma

14 days ago

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1 year ago

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2 years ago

As oil profits skyrocket, calls for windfall taxes rise -- Tibor Besedeš, Georgia Institute of Technology

30 days ago

Oil shortages escalate from wars in Iran and Ukraine, with few signs of relief -- Amy Myers Jaffe, New York University; Tufts University

1 month ago

Soaring US beef prices likely to rise further thanks to trade tensions and disease outbreaks -- Andrew Muhammad, University of Tennessee and Charles Martinez, University of Tennessee

2 months ago

Suspending federal gas tax wouldn't save drivers as much as they might hope – here's what goes into the price of a gallon of gas -- Robert I. Harris, Georgia Institute of Technology

3 months ago

When oil prices spike, where does the money go? -- Matthew E. Oliver, Georgia Institute of Technology and Tibor Besedeš, Georgia Institute of Technology

4 months ago

Read more about war and energy

5 months ago

Galápagos corals show El Niño events are more extreme now than in past 1,000 years – here's how my team made the discovery -- Julia Cole, University of Michigan

13 days ago

Puerto Rico is rationing water, but many residents stopped trusting the tap long before the drought -- Ivis García, Texas A&M University

22 days ago

Colorado River water conservation efforts get only halfway to a solution -- Sarah Porter, Arizona State University

21 days ago

Wildfires can leave surviving homes and their water unsafe – what residents need to know as they return -- Andrew J. Whelton, Purdue University

16 days ago

Dealing with disasters increasingly requires a smartphone – losing access can be a nightmare, but there are ways to prepare -- Lee Ann Rawlins Williams, University of North Dakota

24 days ago

Read more about extreme weather

1 year ago

Just because the bill is low doesn't mean energy is affordable -- Destenie Nock, Carnegie Mellon University

22 days ago

Green roofs can help cool cities in the summer heat, but building them is only the first step – many don't survive -- Taylor Wishart, University of Tennessee

29 days ago

Leaving vehicle engines idling is unhealthy, expensive – and often illegal -- Richard Marcantonio, University of Notre Dame

1 month ago

Electric companies don't need to black out customers to prevent wildfires – here are 3 relatively fast, affordable solutions -- Jasmine Garland, University of Colorado Boulder

2 months ago

Energy costs are high and unaffordable – what utilities, governments, communities and you can do to help save consumers money -- Sanya Carley, University of Pennsylvania; Alexandra Klass, University of Michigan; Alison L. Knasin, University of Pennsylvania; David Konisky, Indiana University, and Shelley Welton, University of Pennsylvania

2 months ago

Read more about energy

8 months ago

AI companies look to the ocean as a place to put more data centers -- Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro

24 days ago

It may be almost impossible to make data centers pay their 'fair share' of electricity costs -- Theodore J. Kury, University of Florida

2 months ago

Data center fights pit social values, democracy and capitalism against each other -- Lauren Mullenbach, University of Michigan

2 months ago

How local communities are challenging Big Tech data centers' noise, pollution and rising electricity bills -- Rachel Mural, Harvard Kennedy School

2 months ago

5 WAYS DATA CENTERS ENDANGER THEIR LOCAL COMMUNITIES AND THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE -- Neha Gour, George Mason University; Ed Maibach, George Mason University, and Luis Ortiz, George Mason University

3 months ago

Read more stories about AI

9 months ago

Fish DNA in Ozark streams reveals region's complex geologic history -- David Duvernell, Missouri University of Science and Technology

17 days ago

More than half of Earth's migratory bird species are declining – here's how we can still save them -- Peter P. Marra, Georgetown University and Nathan W. Cooper, Smithsonian Institution

1 month ago

Beyond birds and mice, free-ranging cats eat a surprising number of insects -- Christopher A. Lepczyk, Auburn University; Daniel Rubinoff, University of Hawaii, and Jean E. Fantle-Lepczyk, Auburn University

1 month ago

Life after death: From burned trees to bleached corals, how dead organisms live on as the building blocks of new life -- Kai Kopecky, University of Colorado Boulder and John Kominoski, Florida International University

3 months ago

Using thunderquakes to X-ray Earth – a new study shows urban seismology in action -- Nolan Roth, The Ohio State University and Tieyuan Zhu, Penn State

18 days ago

Read more about environmental issues

1 year ago

Ancient forests took 100,000 years to recover from past global warming – Wyoming fossils reveal what happened -- Regan E. Dunn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

24 days ago

Disappearing lakes and AI are helping scientists map Arctic permafrost thaw in near-real time -- Anna Liljedahl, University of Alaska Fairbanks and Ingmar Nitze, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research

15 days ago

Climate change may be making us lonelier: How heat waves and extreme weather disrupt social connections everyone relies on -- Fiona Doherty, University of Tennessee

1 month ago

French climate lawsuit offers a window into the next round of the global legal fight -- Aminta Ossom, Harvard University; Harvard Kennedy School

1 month ago

How do scientists know if climate change made a heat wave, extreme storm or wildfire worse? -- Kevin T. Smiley, Louisiana State University ; Deepti Singh, Washington State University; Jennifer Marlon, Yale University, and Jim Hurrell, Colorado State University

1 month ago

Read more about climate change

1 year ago

Why Trump's plan to rescind the Roadless Rule protecting national forests will struggle in court -- Patrick Parenteau, Vermont Law & Graduate School

15 days ago

HOAs are often barriers to sustainable landscaping and solar energy – here's how they could be bridges instead -- Daniel Kramer, Michigan State University and Madeline Carr, Michigan State University

1 month ago

Paving paradise: Dismantling the Roadless Rule threatens to disrupt wildlife, water and peace in the last quiet places in America -- Mariah Meek, Montana State University and Travis Belote, Montana State University

19 days ago

Trump administration moves to block public from enforcing environmental protection laws -- Sarah J. Morath, Wake Forest University

1 month ago

Why Trump's move to gut the Endangered Species Act likely won't hold up in court -- Patrick Parenteau, Vermont Law & Graduate School

1 month ago

Read more about environmental regulation

1 year ago

Relentless heat and drought take a toll on herders' physical and mental health, in Kenya and the US -- Anne Pisor, Penn State and Bonface Osindi, Washington State University

17 days ago

From flames to haze, wildfire smoke transforms as it travels, and it can harm your health in different ways -- Michael A. Robinson, University of Colorado Boulder

16 days ago

Cyclospora spreads through human waste – so how did it get on food? -- Joan Rose, Michigan State University

1 month ago

Flesh-eating bacteria are devouring limbs in warming waters worldwide − here's how to protect yourself -- Bill Sullivan, Indiana University

30 days ago

Sargassum, the smelly nemesis of beach vacations, has become a self-sustaining disaster that will keep coming back -- Xing Zhou, Georgia Institute of Technology; Annalisa Bracco, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Joseph Montoya, Georgia Institute of Technology

1 month ago

Read more about environmental health

1 year ago

Controlling wild pigs can work if it's a group effort -- Chris Boyer, University of Tennessee; Aaron Smith, University of Tennessee, and Eunchun Park, University of Arkansas

29 days ago

Better guacamole? How avocado import rules helped cut Mexico's water pollution – it holds lessons for future US trade deals -- Jayash Paudel, University of Oklahoma

1 month ago

Bird droppings were a foundation of modern agriculture and American empire -- Edward D. Melillo, Amherst College

1 month ago

Fertilizers carry a hidden cost for soil's crucial microbes – using less as prices rise might pay off for farms in unexpected ways -- Esther Ndumi Ngumbi, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

2 months ago

When your local reflecting pool or pond turns green with algae, don't reach for chemicals – nature has better solutions -- Eric Palkovacs, University of California, Santa Cruz

2 months ago

Read more about food and agriculture

9 months ago

Antarctic krill fishing is now concentrated in the exact pattern conservation rules were designed to prevent -- Kim S. Bernard, Oregon State University

21 days ago

Alaska's glacial lakes are expanding, increasing the risk of destructive outburst floods -- Dan McGrath, Colorado State University

6 months ago

A walk across Alaska's Arctic sea ice brings to life the losses that appear in climate data -- Alexandra Jahn, University of Colorado Boulder

7 months ago

US military has a long history in Greenland, from mining during WWII to a nuclear-powered Army base built into the ice -- Paul Bierman, University of Vermont

7 months ago

West Antarctica's history of rapid melting foretells sudden shifts in continent's 'catastrophic' geology -- Christine Siddoway, Colorado College; Anna Ruth (Ruthie) Halberstadt, The University of Texas at Austin, and Keiji Horikawa, University of Toyama

1 month ago

The missing link in America's critical minerals push isn't mining – it's processing expertise -- Hélène Nguemgaing, University of Maryland and Alan Collins, West Virginia University

3 months ago

The race to mine critical minerals for AI and clean energy is creating 'sacrifice zones' that harm water and health of world's poor -- Abraham Nunbogu, United Nations University and Kaveh Madani, United Nations University

4 months ago

In its hunt for critical minerals, the US is misconstruing what is and is not America's -- Coalter G Lathrop, Duke University

5 months ago

Mining the ocean floor: 5 deep-sea sources of critical minerals essential to technology, and the fragile marine life at risk -- Leonardo Macelloni, University of Mississippi

6 months ago

America's next big critical minerals source could be coal mine pollution – if we can agree on who owns it -- Hélène Nguemgaing, University of Maryland and Alan Collins, West Virginia University

4 months ago

Read more about critical minerals

1 year ago

Small businesses at the gateways to America's national parks face 4 big risks – including changing boundaries and extreme weather -- Nancy Forster-Holt, University of Rhode Island

24 days ago

The US has acknowledged Bears Ears and Grand Staircase as sacred for over a century, but keeps stripping away protections -- Kerri J. Malloy, San José State University

1 month ago

You're not going to be alone in national parks this summer – enjoy the company -- Will Rice, University of Montana and Bing Pan, Penn State

5 months ago

Why protecting wildland is crucial to American freedom and identity -- Leisl Carr Childers, Colorado State University and Michael Childers, Colorado State University

9 days ago

What does it mean to be a new national park? Ocmulgee Mounds in Georgia may soon find out -- Seth T. Kannarr, University of Tennessee

9 months ago

Read more about national parks

1 year ago

Pennsylvania's aging levees are under pressure from scarce funding and severe weather -- Kaleigh Yost, Penn State

1 day ago

Data center projects in Pennsylvania face stronger local scrutiny after Shapiro's executive order -- Michael Helbing, Penn State

10 days ago

Severe storms battered Pittsburgh twice as often as usual this spring – a meteorologist explains why -- Christopher Davis, UMass Amherst

1 month ago

Colorado prepares for screwworms, as the pest that was eradicated in 1966 returns to the US -- Sarah Tomlinson, Colorado State University

1 month ago