Coach John Beam changed my life when I was a 14-year-old kid on the Skyline High football field. I still remember getting flattened in a varsity drill and looking up to see Beam standing over me, demanding more because he saw more. That was his gift. He coached football, but he taught manhood: accountability, discipline, belief in yourself long before you earned it.
Now, the city's top staffer said Tagami's firm, Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal LLC, will be "treated like any other developer that comes into the city." "At this point, it's just another development project," City Administrator Jestin Johnson said in an interview. "The city has exercised all its legal options." The word "coal," he added, did not even come up during a recent meeting between the administrator and Tagami.
The once-rigid link between economic growth and carbon emissions is breaking across the vast majority of the world, according to a study released ahead of Friday's 10th anniversary of the Paris climate agreement. The analysis, which underscores the effectiveness of strong government climate policies, shows this decoupling trend has accelerated since 2015 and is becoming particularly pronounced among major emitters in the global south. Countries representing 92% of the global economy have now decoupled consumption-based carbon emissions and GDP expansion, according to the report by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
As 2025 draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on how dramatically the conversation around IT sustainability has shifted in the past 12 months. This has been a year of transition - not because enterprises have suddenly become experts in sustainable IT, but because they've finally stopped treating it as a peripheral topic. For the first time in my career, sustainability is no longer the "add-on" to IT strategy - it's now a structural pillar shaping procurement, infrastructure planning, lifecycle decisions and
Augustus Doricko, founder and CEO of cloud-seeding startup Rainmaker, surveys the sky from a sunbaked hillside 5 miles from Utah's Great Salt Lake. On this balmy Sunday afternoon in late September, the lake is calm, but its serenity belies a potentially catastrophic problem: The Great Salt Lake is shrinking-and is at risk of disappearing altogether. At its peak 40 years ago, the lake covered 2,300 square miles; today, more than 800 square miles of lake bed are exposed.
'Tis the season of giving, and while we all want to be generous with our loved ones, it's hard not to feel like the Grinch when you find out that more than $8.3 billion may be wasted on unwanted gifts each year, according to a survey by the Center for Biological Diversity. And to make matters even worse, when those gifts are returned, they're likely to end up in a landfill instead of back on the shelves.
They look like ordinary basketball courts. But two new courts built next to public housing in New York City double as flood prevention. In a sudden flash flood-when the city's aging sewer system can easily become overwhelmed and streets can fill with water-the sunken basketball courts act like retention basins. The design can hold as much as 330,000 gallons, with the court's lowest areas filling like a pool and additional water stored in bioretention cells beneath the surface.
"We own and operate all the batteries," says Haven CEO Vinnie Campo. (The company focuses on batteries, but also installs and owns connected rooftop solar panels at some homes.) "We're then able to provide to the utility a fixed dispatch or fixed capacity from those batteries. They can almost think of it as building a mini power plant exactly where they need it."
Critically endangered animals are being advertised for sale as bushmeat on TikTok, a new study finds. The work, published recently in Nature Conservation, underscores the growing role social media plays in the global illegal wildlife trade. Bushmeatmeat sourced from wild animalsis commonly eaten in many African and some Asian countries. Though some people hunt for personal consumption, many hunters sell meat to regional traders, who may then sell it to families or restaurants.
Floods ravage villages, leaving thousands displaced in makeshift shelters with little aid. At just 20 days old, Muhammad Hafidz has already endured extraordinary hardship. He and his family are among hundreds of thousands displaced by devastating floods in Aceh Tamiang, where local authorities report all 300,000 residents have been affected by the disaster. Environmental groups attribute the severity to widespread deforestation, which has resulted in entire villages being washed away.
As data center power density and uptime expectations rise, it's predicted that we'll see a rapid growth in the use of battery energy storage systems (BESS) in the next three to five years. While there are utilities working on flexible load tariffs for which data center operators could use storage when called upon instead of curtailing, many are turning to off-grid solutions because interconnection for new loads is taking too long, says Allison Weis, Global Head of Energy Storage, Power, and Renewables at Wood Mackenzie.
Did you know that the National Sleep Foundation recommends you replace your pillow every one to two years? This may not seem like long, but pillows go through quite a bit of wear and tear. And because you rest your face on them, they can accumulate quite a few unpleasant things like saliva, skin oils, makeup, dead skin cells, and yes, even dust mites and mold.
Scientists have issued an urgent warning that some of the synthetic chemicals that help underpin the current food system are driving increased rates of cancer, neurodevelopmental conditions and infertility, while degrading the foundations of global agriculture. The health burden from phthalates, bisphenols, pesticides and Pfas forever chemicals amounts to up to $2.2tn a year roughly as much as the profits of the world's 100 largest publicly listed companies, according to the report published on Wednesday.
Come out to the Palo Alto Baylands and the EV EcoCenter on December 14, 2025 between 2:00-4:00 PM for a day of outdoor exploration and interactive activities. Get ready to immerse yourself in nature and learn about the environment in a fun and engaging way. Whether you're a nature enthusiast or just looking for a unique way to spend the day, this event is perfect for all ages.
Enhanced geothermal startup Fervo Energy has raised $462 million to complete its first large-scale power plant and begin development on several others as it races to provide electricity to a power-hungry grid. The new funds will help the company continue work on its 500-megawatt Cape Station power plant in Utah while starting development on several others, Sara Jewett, senior vice president of strategy at Fervo, told TechCrunch.
Molina, M. J. & Rowland, F. S. Stratospheric sink for chlorofluoromethaneschlorine atomic-catalysed destruction of ozone. Nature 249, 810812 (1974). Article ADS CAS Google Scholar Wofsy, C., Mcelroy, M. B. & Yung, Y. L. The chemistry of atmospheric bromine. Geophys. Res. Lett. 2, 215218 (1975). Article ADS CAS Google Scholar McElroy, M. B., Salawitch, R. J., Wofsy, S. C. & Logan, J. A. Reductions of Antarctic ozone due to synergistic interactions of chlorine and bromine. Nature 321, 759762 (1986).
Once the drone went up and I got a top-down look, it was just like ok, this thing is next level big'. I was going higher and higher and higher just to figure out where this thing ended and then I was looking at this thing going there's without a doubt 100 sharks in here, he said. [The sharks] were so close. We're talking knee-high water and they were coming right in and flapping around the bait ball, he said.
That principle has guided Cincinnati Metro for the past five years. We have asked ourselves tough but necessary questions: How do we attract new riders while continuing to provide reliable, high-quality service to our existing customers? What amenities will tomorrow's riders expect to make public transit their preferred choice? And how do we pursue bold innovation within the realities of today's funding and workforce landscape?
The run clubs that took off in the past few years were outpaced by hiking. That's according to new data from Strava, a fitness tracking app, and AllTrails, a hiking navigation app. Strava's end-of-year report, analyzing data from over 30,000 users, found that hiking clubs grewsixfold in 2025 - nearly double the pace of run clubs. In 2025, AllTrails saw a 20% increase in users (i.e., people who created an account on the app) to 90 million.
The open letter [PDF], sent to members of the US Congress by campaign group Food & Water Watch, complains that the AI-driven wave of datacenter expansion is stoking demand for more energy, which in turn leads to further greenhouse gas emissions, straining water resources, and higher electricity prices for ordinary consumers across the country. Organizations endorsing the letter collectively represent millions of citizens across all 50 US states, the group claims.
Since 2021, at least 6 million policy holders across the country have seen rate hikes to their property insurance policies, according to a new report from environmental advocacy group Climate Power. Insurers have also canceled at least 1.4 million policies in that time. One big reason is the worsening climate crisis, which is driving more and more instances of extreme weather. Inflation, labor shortages, and supply chain issues are also factors, as they drive up the costs to rebuild a home.
The research by the non-profit group Material Focus found about 1.7bn was spent last year on Christmas lighting, including 39m sets of fairy lights. Consumers bought a further 28m light-up items such as garlands, wreaths, stars and snow globes, along with 23m light-up figures and characters and 16m pre-lit Christmas trees.
The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reported data up to November 2025 that show this year has been 1.48 degrees C above the average from 1850 to 1900. That's right around the target set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, under which countries pledged to limit warming to below 1.5 degrees C and well below 2 degrees C. Despite 2024's record-setting temperatures and 2025's proximity to the 1.5-degrees-C threshold, scientists must take into account many years of data before they can say with certainty that the Paris Agreement's target has been breached.
As someone who can demolish a sushi platter in minutes, I've always felt a pang of guilt watching those tiny plastic fish pile up on my plate. Sustainable design studio Heliograf clearly felt the same way. After five years of development, they've launched Holy Carp!, the world's first home compostable soy sauce dropper that doesn't make you choose between convenience and conscience.
Perched at the Osaka Health Pavilion during Expo 2025, a translucent dome hums with life. Inside, tomatoes ripen above brackish water while pufferfish swim below, their waste feeding the plants that clean their home. This is "Inochi no Izumi," or "Source of Life," a 21-foot-high sphere that reimagines how cities might feed themselves. The dome's genius lies in its vertical arrangement. Four water compartments form the base: seawater, brackish water, and two freshwater tanks.
The draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR/EIS) will be available for public comment from December 5, 2025 through February 3, 2026 - a required step under both the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). To read the full review, for details on how to submit a comment, or for information on the four public hearings on the document, click here.
Southeast Asia is facing one of its worst storm seasons on record, as thousands of people have died or are missing across Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Sri Lanka. Another storm is currently forming in the Philippine Sea. But while governments are promising to rebuild, it is not clear how they can afford to do so every year as the storm seasons get worse.
San Jose residents have been clamoring for a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers for years, complaining about their noise and pollution. In response, the City Council began reviewing a proposal to encourage the use of electric leaf blowers through a subsidy program. The city is moving forward with a green subsidy more than a year and a half later - but it won't be for electric leaf blowers. Instead, councilmembers unanimously approved a $100,000 program Tuesday to incentivize local contractors to carry out home heat pump installations.
