"Fewer than 100 Rice’s whales remain on Earth. Here’s what they sound like when they communicate. They live only in the Gulf of Mexico, where air guns firing sonic blasts are used to survey the ocean floor for oil and gas. The low frequency of the blasts overlaps with the frequency of the calls of the whales."
"The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate."
"A judge has temporarily stopped the National Science Foundation from removing the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder from its leadership of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center in Cheyenne."
With 2026 shaping up to be an exceptional El Niño year, expect lots of record-breaking heat waves and other extreme weather. But climate change will also contribute. Explaining the role of both is essential to complete coverage. Journalist Ethan Brown shares tips and resources for using climate attribution science as a powerful reporting tool. Plus, five questions to ask while covering the next extreme climate event.
"The Interior Department unveiled Thursday the first iteration of a new public tool for mapping federal lands and waters, rolling out a unified “national map” with boundaries used by five agencies."
"Scientists have planted American trees in China, Korea and elsewhere to attract hungry insects. Their hope is to identify the most damaging bugs before they cross the ocean."
"In the year since President Donald Trump signed an executive order promising to create a deep-sea mining industry from scratch, businesses have raised millions of dollars from investors, stock prices have soared and federal regulators have raced to fast-track a permitting process."
"The stress of climate change is taking a toll on mental health across the world – and not just among those who have survived disasters."
"Plans for a celebrity-backed “hyperscale” data center in rural Utah, so massive that it would consume more than double the state’s current electricity use, have generated an intense public and political backlash in a state where the motto is “industry” and a Republican supermajority tends to be deferential to development."
"US Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears to be shifting its strategy as it faces environmental review headwinds in its campaign to buy and convert warehouses into detention centers across the country. The Department of Homeland Security is now conducting National Environmental Policy Act reviews for two proposed facilities in New Jersey and Maryland, marking a policy shift after the agency initially exempted the projects from the months-long study process."
