Articles by The New York Times

There are four key ingredients to the disastrous wildfire seasons in the West, and climate change is a key culprit.

As of Tuesday, more than two million acres have burned across the state so far in 2020, which makes this a record year, surpassing 2018, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. About 200 Labor Day visitors to the Sierra National Forest had to be evacuated by helicopter after being trapped by the Creek Fire, and Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in five counties.

California is on fire. Almost 2.5 million acres of land have burned there so far this year — nearly 20 times what had burned at this time last year — and the wildfire season is far from over.

Carbon offsets compensate for your emissions by canceling out greenhouse gas emissions somewhere else in the world. The money you pay to buy offsets supports programs designed to reduce emissions.

There’s “no nook or cranny” on the planet where it doesn’t end up, the lead researcher on a new study said.

A planet heated by giant volcanic eruptions drove the earliest known wipeout of life on Earth.

Isolation and other shifts in behavior during the coronavirus outbreak could also alter our greenhouse gas emissions. But will the changes stick?

It’s impossible to live sustainably without tackling inequality, activists say.

The Green New Deal is a congressional resolution that lays out a grand plan for tackling climate change.

The goals of the far-reaching plan to tackle climate change and economic inequality are within the realm of technological possibility.

Climate and environmental activists are growing impatient with a Democratic-led House that they view as not doing enough to enact their agenda.

Climate-focused voters are worried that Mr. Biden has not made the issue a sufficient priority or been specific enough about his plans.

In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions.

Among 20 of the most powerful people in government environment jobs, most have ties to the fossil fuel industry or have fought against the regulations they now are supposed to enforce.

These days you have to use your head far more than your heart to see that your charitable dollars are well spent on causes you care about.

No matter how much you make, there’s never enough compost to go around. So pick your system and get started.

Can the courts fix climate change? Several groups and individuals around the United States have gone to court to try to do what the Trump administration has so far declined to do: confront the causes and effects of global warming.

At the site of a Bangladeshi town lost to devastating storms, locals make do by scavenging what remains.

Protecting the environment and tackling climate change have climbed up the list of Americans’ political priorities this year as economic concerns have faded, according to a new report from Pew Research Center.

The world’s land and water resources are being exploited at “unprecedented rates,” a new United Nations report warns, which combined with climate change is putting dire pressure on the ability of humanity to feed itself.

If you care about the working poor, about racial justice and about Climate Change, you have to stop eating animals.

Dr. Katlin Bowman, a research scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, explains that heavy metal toxins naturally adhere to plastics in the water, creating extremely concentrated “fish food bombs” of mercury. 

On shows like “Queer Eye,” makeovers, shopping and redecorating are presented as deeply meaningful — even political.

Black Friday kicks off the holiday shopping season this week and, according to a recent survey, sustainable shopping is on a lot of people’s minds this year.

The notion of forgoing children as a means of fighting global warming is entering the mainstream.

This is a seven-day New York Times crash course on climate change, in which reporters from the Times’s Climate desk address the big questions:

Three organizers from the first event in 1970 remind us that we still have a lot of work to do.

If you’re passionate about wildlife, earth science or the environment, these tours are for you.

You may live a sustainable lifestyle at home, but what about while on vacation? Here are some practical steps you can take to limit your impact on the environment.

A look at tours and programs that address the impact travelers have on the communities they visit.

When thinking about how to reduce our individual carbon footprints, one of the simplest ways to cut back on emissions is to fly less often. But for those who want to see the world, there are ways to make trips more sustainable, including where you go, what you pack and how you decide to get there.

Take one round-trip flight between New York and California, and you’ve generated about 20 percent of the greenhouse gases that your car emits over an entire year.

Our climate just can’t tolerate widespread frequent flying. At some level we need to figure out, collectively, which flights are necessary, and which are luxuries.

Sales doubled in 2019, but the industry’s tipping point — severing ties to the gas pump — still lies ahead. These cars will help make that happen.

For city dwellers who would love an E.V., the biggest hurdle might be keeping it juiced up without a garage or other convenient charging stations.

Can you recycle coffee cups or greasy pizza boxes? If you’re tossing things in the recycling bin out of sheer hope, you might be an “aspirational recycler.”

With China no longer accepting used plastic and paper, communities are facing steep collection bills, forcing them to end their programs or burn or bury waste.

By now, you’ve probably seen ads for green energy companies. But how do you know if signing up will really reduce your carbon footprint?

The short answer: It will, but probably not the way you think.

The destruction of forests into fragmented patches is increasing the likelihood that viruses and other pathogens will jump from wild animals to humans, according to a study from Stanford University published this month.

In every region, farmers and scientists are trying to adapt an array of crops to warmer temperatures, invasive pests, erratic weather and earlier growing seasons.

How to shop, cook and eat in a warming world.

More than 60 percent of CBD users were taking it for anxiety, according to a survey of 5,000 people. Does it help?

Six years ago a small Texas publisher released an obscure book written by a father-son research team. The work, based on a series of studies conducted in rural China and Taiwan, challenged the conventional wisdom about health and nutrition by espousing the benefits of a plant-based diet.

“Kicking dairy was brutal,” he said. “That’s like getting off OxyContin.”

They’re right about ethics and the environment. If you won’t join them, at least respect their effort to build a sustainable future.

I have found that organic food and nontoxic cleaning supplies tend to be the gateway to eco-living.

In my view, the pathway to activism does run through retail.

The Japanese organizer may be the star of the moment, but others have equally appealing theories and strategies for decluttering your home.

It’s not about empty walls or avoiding your phone — it’s about finding beauty in our surroundings, whatever they may look like.

While real solutions will require action on a global scale, there are choices you can make in your day-to-day life to lessen your personal impact on the environment. This guide will walk you through some of them.

Federal Scientists and Lawyers, told to undo regulations that some worked on for decades, have embedded data into technical documents that environmental lawyers are using to challenge the rollbacks.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday announced a sweeping relaxation of environmental rules in response to the coronavirus pandemic, allowing power plants, factories and other facilities to determine for themselves if they are able to meet legal requirements on reporting air and water pollution.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is expected on Tuesday to announce its final rule to rollback Obama-era automobile fuel efficiency standards, relaxing efforts to limit climate-warming tailpipe pollution and virtually undoing the government’s biggest effort to combat climate change.

New data shows example after example of overheating and damage along the 1,500-mile natural wonder.

Coronavirus patients in areas that had high levels of air pollution before the pandemic are more likely to die from the infection than patients in cleaner parts of the country, according to a new nationwide study that offers the first clear link between long-term exposure to pollution and Covid-19 death rates.

Deforestation in the world's largest rainforest, an importnat buffer against climate change, has soared under President jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.

Your burning climate question: Meat and global warming.

Investors are finally paying attention to climate
change — though not in the way you might hope.

Fixing the planet is going to be expensive. Can we stomach the bill for human survival?

How to live in an ecosystem that is primed to burn?

As they see it, global warming stands to make corporate security as high-stakes in the 21st century as it was in the 19th.

Climate projections suggest that, because of geographic factors, the region around Duluth, the Great Lakes area, will be one of the few places in America where the effects of climate change may be more easily managed.

Climate displacement is becoming one of the world's most powerful - and destabilizing - geological forces.

It’s been a hectic end to summer, meteorologically speaking. Back-to-back hurricanes raked Texas, Florida and the Caribbean. A Labor Day heat wave broke temperature records in San Francisco and strained California’s electricity grid. Wildfires continue to rage in the Pacific Northwest.

Global warming caused by human emissions has most likely intensified the drought in California by 15 to 20 percent, scientists said.

Climate change makes heat waves more frequent

Global warming and rising seas are increasing the amount of tidal flooding on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. Flood levels are different from city to city, but the trends are similar.

Scientists' warnings that the rise of the sea would eventually imperil the US coastline are no longer theoretical.

The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. Predictions about the fate of the planet carry endless caveats and asterisks. We get it. So we’ve put together a list of quick answers to often-asked questions about climate change. This should give you a running start on understanding the problem.

Sea-level rise, a problem exacerbated by greenhouse gas emissions, could disrupt the lives of more than 13 million people in the United States, three times the most current estimates.

Rising seas could affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought, according to new research, threatening to all but erase some of the world’s great coastal cities.

In most states, about half of the premature deaths caused by poor air quality are linked to pollutants that blow in from other states, a new study found.

We visualized the damaging, tiny particles that wreak havoc on human health. From the Bay Area to New Delhi, see how the world’s worst pollution compares with your local air.

“I really believe that the acquisition of material goods doesn’t bring about happiness.”

Conservationists see a persistent threat of epidemics so long as tens of millions of animals are traded in Southeast Asia.

The embrace of environmental concerns by chief executives has accelerated recently for several reasons.

The latest assessment issued by the United Nations said that greenhouse gas emissions are still rising dangerously.

On Monday, oil prices saw their biggest one-day drop since 1991, driven down by coronavirus fears and a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. If we’re entering an era of really cheap oil, it’s worth asking what that could mean for climate change.

For years, most meteorologists and climate scientists would answer that question with a disclaimer, one that was repeated so often it became like a mantra: It is not possible to attribute individual weather events like storms, heat waves or droughts to climate change.

The country is a critical market for animal contraband. Some scientists fear the official commitment to conservation may be wavering.

Scientists are investigating whether releasing tons of particulates into the atmosphere might be good for the planet. Not everyone thinks this is a good idea.

Two European entrepreneurs want to remove carbon from tha air at prices cheap enough to matter.

Chevron, Occidental Petroleum and BHP have invested in Carbon Engineering, a start-up developing technology to take carbon out of the atmosphere.

Here’s a five-step plan to deal with the stress and become part of the solution.

Protecting the forests while we are at it.

We have the tools. Now we are building the political power.

A warmer world makes for a more combustible country. That’s the conclusion in the most comprehensive assessment of the effects of climate change on the United States, released by the Trump administration just weeks after the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.

The city is now the largest on earth to pass such a measure.

The neighborhood is called Agritopia, and it’s one of a growing number of so-called agrihoods, residential developments where a working farm is the central feature, in the same way that other communities may cluster around a golf course, pool or fitness center.

Before joining, ask what kind of agriculture is supported by your membership, and ask yourself what your priorities are.

Most of us financially support companies we might not necessarily support socially, ethically or philosophically.

How a super-niche category got to be so buzzy.

What about forgoing the act of shopping altogether?

As so-called intentional communities proliferate across the country, a subset of Americans is discovering the value of opting out of contemporary society.

The best thing to do with the best things in life is give them up.

More than any other country, The US elevates consumer spending to a virtue, sometimes minimizing saving. There is even an idea here that it is patriotic to spend, rather than to save.

The past decade was the hottest on record, government researchers announced on Wednesday, the latest sign of global warming’s grip on the planet. And 2019 was the second-warmest year ever, they said, just shy of the record set in 2016.

We know. Global warming is daunting. So here’s a place to start: 17 often-asked questions with some straightforward answers.

Huge sections of the Great Barrier Reef, stretching across hundreds of miles of its most pristine northern sector, were recently found to be dead, killed last year by overheated seawater.

Forests, both in tropical and more temperate regions, play an important role in combating climate change, and estimates are that they are declining in size overall.

The authors of a sweeping United Nations report on species in danger of extinction faced the same question I often do in reporting: Why should anyone care about the loss of nature?

From the common barn swallow to the exotic giraffe, thousands of animal species are in precipitous decline, a sign that an irreversible era of mass extinction is underway, new research finds.

More devastating fires in California. Persistent drought in the Southwest. Record flooding in Europe and Africa. A heat wave, of all things, in Greenland.

This narrative by Nathaniel Rich is a work of history, addressing the 10-year period from 1979 to 1989: the decisive decade when humankind first came to a broad understanding of the causes and dangers of climate change.