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Oil is all we seem to want to talk about these days—$3.82 a gallon gas will do that—but the shale gas boom is still going on in much of the U.S. Ground zero—as we wrote about last year in TIME—is Pennsylvania, where some landowners have made a lot of money leasing their land for shale [...]
If you’re already daydreaming about your winter getaway to the tropics as the weather gets crisper and gloomier, consider adjusting your plans to include some swimming among the world’s coral reefs – not just because they offer an unparalleled panorama of underwater life, but also because they’re disappearing in the midst of coastal development. And [...]
From TIME’s Allison Berry: The tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu has declared a state of emergency because it has only several days’ worth of fresh water remaining, after being ravaged by an extended drought. Neighboring New Zealand and Australia have stepped in and offered to provide desalination equipment, which would keep the islands from running [...]
I have a piece in the dead-tree TIME this week on the months-long drought in the South—subscribers of the print and digital versions of TIME can access it here. (And the rest of you can go buy a magazine—or at least an iPad app.) The photos that went along with the piece—by the photographer George [...]
As I wrote in this week’s Going Green column, the American South is gripped by a terrible dry spell, one lasting for months. In Texas alone, 99.93% of the country is in some state of drought. These are extreme times—and they call for extreme measures. Like drinking urine—sort of. In a sense, that’s what one [...]
Better hope you’ve got a little extra closet space. Sometime today, American industry will manufacture or import 250 lbs. of chemicals just for you. There will be another 250 lbs. tomorrow and another the day after that — every day, in fact, throughout the year. That’s a pretty big mountain of chemistry, but if we’re [...]
For all the fear about the potential for deep underground water contamination due to the hydraulic fracturing process used in shale gas extraction, there’s always been a much more present danger: the risk of something going wrong at the surface. From simple spills to industrial accidents to the ongoing problem of wastewater disposal, the rapid [...]
If you watch the Academy Awards show on Sunday evening, you might notice Mark Ruffalo—nominated for Best Supporting Actor—and a number of other celebrities wearing a blue water droplet pin. The pins come from WaterDefense.org, a new campaign that is calling attention to the drinking water supplies that activists say are being threatened by the [...]
Lately, I’ve stopped worrying about climate change. Wait, that’s not quite right. But I only have so much worry bandwidth, and what is keeping me up at night lately is scarcenomoics, the idea that in a finite world, we may be hitting limits on some natural resources. Climate change doesn’t even have to play a [...]
