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Earth Wise
Weekdays, 11:10 a.m. and 4:04 p.m.

From green business and new environmental legislation to how nature impacts our environment in ways never before considered, Earth Wise offers a look at our changing environment.

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  • Marine heat waves are becoming more frequent, longer lasting, and more intense as the climate warms. And new research suggests their impacts extend far beyond dying coral reefs and declining fish populations.
  • The world is in a global transition from a fossil-fuel-based energy system to a zero-carbon, renewable energy system. Renewable sources including solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal power form the backbone of energy production along with nuclear power. Heating, transportation, and industrial processes are shifting to run on electricity rather than burning fossil fuels.
  • Africa is experiencing a boom in solar energy that is largely unaccounted for in any official statistics. It is primarily composed of rooftop arrays and other small systems and is mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. The rapid buildout is driving solar generation to record levels but is largely untracked.
  • Hyperscalers are large technology companies that build and operate massive, globally distributed data center networks to provide cloud computing, storage, and networking services on an enormous scale. Examples include Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Alibaba.
  • Phytomining is an agricultural and environmental process that makes use of specific plants called hyperaccumulators to absorb and concentrate valuable metals and critical minerals directly from the soil.
  • Italians have long resisted using air conditioning in their homes and businesses. They viewed it as a threat to their health. A research article published in 2023 even cited air conditioning as causing so-called sick building syndrome, absenteeism from work, and a variety of respiratory ailments. Many Italians believe that “a blast of air” can cause headaches, muscle cramps, and neck pain.
  • Under the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, more than 190 countries pledged to keep the global temperature less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the average during the preindustrial period of 1850 to 1900. This period was before humans altered the atmosphere and the climate by emitting billions of tons of fossil fuel emissions and other pollutants. The level was chosen because climate models indicated that warming further would greatly intensify extreme weather events, ecosystem losses, and even potential submersion of small island countries.
  • Electric vehicles are basically giant power banks on wheels. They swallow up lots of electricity at charging stations or home outlets in order to power the vehicle. However, in principle, they could also send back that stored up energy to power appliances and homes or even send it back to the grid to bolster the local utility. This sort of capability is called vehicle-to-everything, or V2X.
  • The offshore Revolution Wind project, located off the coast of Rhode Island, is nearing completion after nearly three years of work. The project is 95% complete, with 61 out of 65 turbines fully installed.
  • A new peer-reviewed study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology identified more than 15,000 chemicals that come in contact with food. Of that number, 1,222 are known to be associated with serious health risks including cancer and reproductive harm.