Environment

Texas and oil have been an inexorable combination for well over a century. The oil and gas industry is the state’s largest economic engine, generating billions of dollars and supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs. But these days, Texas is meeting much of its rising electricity demand with renewable energy.

In 1978, green sea turtles were placed on the endangered species list primarily due to human activities like bycatch in fisheries, habitat loss from coastal development, pollution, commercial hunting for their meat, and harvesting of their eggs. Other threats include entanglement in marine debris, being struck by boats, and climate change. For more than 40 years, they teetered on the brink of extinction around the world.

Data centers consume large amounts of energy. In 2023, they consumed 4.4% of the nation’s electricity and that percentage is projected to double or triple by 2028, in part due to the proliferation of AI. Much of that power is used to operate computing equipment like servers but nearly half of it is used for cooling systems for the equipment.

The Department of Energy's mission is to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States through scientific and technological innovation. Its aim has been to ensure affordable and reliable energy, address environmental and nuclear challenges, and conduct basic research. Under the Trump administration, its focus has changed dramatically, reflecting the political and economic focus of the agency’s new leadership.

Wastewater treatment plants in the U.S. clean trillions of gallons of water each year. Whatever water gets drained down sinks or flushed down toilets goes through these plants to be rendered clean enough to return to the environment.

In the 1990s, the Greenland Ice Sheet as well as the rest of the Arctic region were observed to be measurably thawing as a result of human-caused global warming. At that time, most of Antarctica’s vast ice cap seemed to be securely frozen. Conventional wisdom was that Antarctica’s ice sheets were going to remain stable and were not going to melt much.

Most of us make frequent use of GPS technology to find our way around in our cars. There are increasing numbers of self-driving cars, and they are even more dependent on GPS technology in order to know where they are located. We tend to take for granted that the position shown by the GPS system is correct, but that isn’t always the case.

The world’s largest meat and dairy companies are responsible for emitting more methane than all the countries in the EU and the UK combined. The biggest meat company in the world, the Brazilian company JBS, accounts for nearly a quarter of the industry’s emissions and is more than the methane emissions from ExxonMobil and Shell combined.

The average level of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere had its largest one-year increase on record between 2023 and 2024. In 2024, the level reached 423.9 parts per million, an increase of 3.5 parts per million over the year before. The previous record jump was 3.3 parts per million in 2016. Modern measurements of carbon dioxide levels began in 1957.

The 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP30, took place in Belèm, Brazil in November. One hundred ninety three countries plus the European Union registered delegations for the summit. The only countries not officially attending were Afghanistan, Myanmar, San Marino, and the United States.