United’s Supersonic Jet Sustainability Claims Sure Sound Suspect
United Airlines has agreed to purchase 15 jets that fly faster than the speed of sound from Boom Supersonic, with options to purchase 35 more. The purchase means United is on track to reintroduce the first commercial supersonic flights since the retirement of the Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde in 2003. The return of supersonic jets is a … Continued
Countries Invested in Drilling for Oil Unsure About This Not Drilling for Oil Thing
Oil-producing heavyweights like Russia and Saudi Arabia will not go quietly into the night. This week, ministers from those and other countries slammed the latest report from the International Energy Agency calling for all new oil and gas development to stop by next year, using some pretty heated (and funny) rhetoric. The “euphoria” around the … Continued
10% of the World’s Sequoias Burned in a Single Wildfire Last Year
The climate crisis has put sequoias on a dangerous path. A draft report from the National Park Service indicates that 10% of the largest trees in the world were wiped out in last year’s Castle Fire. Sequoias can live for thousands of years. Trees alive today are our connections to deep time. As Christianity rose, … Continued
Record Heat Worsens California’s Already Punishing Drought
Summer has begun with a sizzle in California and the rest of the West. Large swaths of the state are baking under a heat wave, including areas in the Central Valley where the National Weather Service is warning there’s “little to no relief” from the brutal temperatures on Thursday. That will only reinforce the dire … Continued
Exxon’s Newest Activist Investor Is a ‘Space Cowboy’
Exxon announced Wednesday that a third new member has been appointed to the company’s board, following a week of vote counting after the company was caught by surprise by a shareholder insurrection last week led by activist investor Engine No. 1. The new board member, Alexander “Andy” Karsner, currently works as a “Space Cowboy” for … Continued
These Whales Are Shrinking, and It’s Our Fault
Whales are some of the biggest animals on the planet, but new research shows that at least one endangered species is shrinking. The study, published in the journal Current Biology on Thursday, examines changes in the length of North Atlantic right whales’ bodies over the past several decades. The findings indicate that fishing gear entanglements … Continued
Why Can’t We Call It an Emergency?
TV newsman Bill Moyers likes to tell the story of how Edward R. Murrow, the preeminent U.S. broadcast journalist of his time, insisted on covering what became Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939. Murrow’s bosses at CBS News had other priorities; they ordered Murrow’s reporters to cover dance competitions in Hamburg, Paris, and London, explaining … Continued