Environment

Environment

If you're of a certain generation, you might be able to trace your affinity for orcas to repeated viewings of a certain movie: the seminal 1993 film Free Willy. That movie led to a herculean effort that would eventually rope in the U.S. Air Force to rescue the movie's star, an orca named Keiko, from captivity. It also cemented the idea of orcas as intelligent, curious animals who deserve to live outside of captivity.

As the calendar turns the final pages on 2025, the information technology sector stands at a critical juncture regarding its environmental commitments. This year was not marked by technological breakthroughs solving decarbonisation, but by the decisive maturation of sustainability from a strategic differentiator into an operational and regulatory imperative. This transition involved a painful reckoning with data complexity, supply chain reality, and the sheer energy appetite of modern computing, driven primarily by the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI).

the floating structure functions as a self-sufficient ecosystem addressing climate change and resource scarcity designed for research, recreation, and habitation,

One fire appears to have been caused by a spark from old power lines, the other allegedly started by an Uber driver with a fascination with flames. In the end, the Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed more than 16,000 homes, businesses and other structures and left 31 people dead. They were the second and third most destructive wildfires in California history - eclipsed only by the Camp fire that leveled the town of Paradise in 2018, destroying more than 18,000 structures and killing at least 85 people.

Nearly three years after a fire destroyed the Doral incinerator that processed about half of Miami-Dade's trash, county commissioners want to pursue building a new one in an industrial area near the Broward County line. Two teams have been competing to build a replacement facility, and both kept their hopes alive on Tuesday after commissioners voted to consider a combined proposal from the current rivals.

Most portable tanks are used with smaller or mid-range outboard motors. Ensure your tank's output matches your engine's needs. Refer to the engine and tank manuals for fuel flow, line diameter, and connector type specifications. A mismatch causes poor performance or engine starvation. Portable tanks are integrated into your fuel system, so ensure vapor and emission controls meet safety and environmental standards.

The skies were filled with a rare rose colour, which meteorologists at the Met Office have explained is due to sunlight passing through fine layers in the air, such as moisture or dust. Graham Madge, spokesperson for the Met Office, told the Daily Mail: When the sunlight comes through lots of layers, it filters out the blue and scatters it, leaving the red to come through, It's effectively a sunrise filtered through the atmosphere and through the fog, giving it that pinkish hue.

The sign outside Tom Hermes's farmyard in Perkins Township in Ohio, a short drive south of the shores of Lake Erie, proudly claims that his family have farmed the land here since 1900. Today, he raises 130 head of cattle and grows corn, wheat, grass and soybeans on 1,200 acres of land. For his family, his animals and wider business, water is life.

To identify the 20 five-billion-dollar weather disasters since 2020, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information report, Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2024). The 20 events are listed in order of the estimated cost of the damages, adjusted for inflation. Two of the events are winter storms, three are wildfires, four are droughts, five are severe storms, and six are tropical cyclones.

Makeup is making the planet ugly. The beauty industry generates approximately 120 billion packaging items annually, most of which end up in landfills. Most beauty packaging is too small, made of mixed materials, or too flexible to be accepted by municipal curbside recycling programs. Compacts, lipstick tubes, mascara wands, pumps, and travel-size containers are typically not accepted at standard recycling facilities.

No water, no life, says Sheikh Nidham, a Mandaean religious leader living in the southern Iraqi city of Amarah, on the banks of the river in which he has been regularly immersed since he was a month old. Mandaeans are members of one of the oldest gnostic religions in the world. Southern Iraq has been their homeland for more than a thousand years, particularly in Maysan province. Amarah, the provincial capital, is built around the Tigris. Water is central to their faith and every major life event requires ritual purification. Marriage ceremonies begin in water, and before drawing their last breath, Mandaeans should be taken to the river for a final cleansing.

Our weekslong dry spell will end this week as a wet weather pattern will begin with spotty showers starting Tuesday afternoon. Spotty afternoon and evening showers mainly in the North Bay. But a few showers may work their way south and east of the Golden Gate before day's end. MORE: North Bay first responders, residents gear up for parade of storms It will be a light Level 1 on the exclusive ABC7 Storm Impact Scale on Wednesday morning with scattered showers.

California's Central Valley is a 400-mile long expanse, penned in by the Sierra Nevadas to the East and the Coast Ranges to the west. The flatland is composed of remarkably fertile soil, as both mountain ranges erode into and drain out through the valley via the San Francisco Bay. Before the bay was formed roughly 600,000 years ago, geological evidence suggests there was a Lake Michigan-sized inland body of water (referred to as Lake Corcoran in the literature) spanning most of the valley.

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On Hawaii Island, Pennsylvania resident Andrew Tepper has emerged as one of the island's largest landowners, purchasing over 14,000 acres since 2021. He's also become a controversial figure, holding a Burning Man-inspired festival called "Falls on Fire" on his agricultural land in 2023 and 2024 without the proper permits. The event has raised concerns among neighbors, environmentalists and government agencies about its impacts to the community, such as increased traffic, environmental damage and fire hazards, especially with the Lahaina fire fresh in their minds.

Air pollution in Delhi and its suburbs, which together make up the National Capital Region, has been at its worst levels in weeks. According to government data, the averageAir Quality Index (AQI) in the region on Monday was 471, which among the worst in the world, with any measurement above 300 considered "hazardous" to health. For comparison, any measurement under 50 is considered "good."

The Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the most beautiful and forbidding places on earth, so dry that it's sometimes used by scientists to test-run Mars missions. Most years, the area sees less than half a centimeter of rain, but this past September unusually heavy precipitation brought forth a desert bloom, blanketing the ground with delicate purple flowers that disappeared as quickly as they'd appeared.

Volunteers were out bright and early Wednesday morning along the Harbor Marsh coastline in the Palo Alto Baylands, joining an effort to build a nature-based buffer designed to absorb storm surges and curb flooding amid climate change and sea-level rise that threaten shoreline communities. They were helping build what project developers described as the Bay Area's first horizontal "living levee" directly connected to the Bay and irrigated with treated wastewater.

About two hours southwest of Houston lies Matagorda, a small beach town for travelers seeking solitude and a break from everyday life. Unlike other beach towns in Texas, Matagorda is sleepy. You won't find crowds, buzzing bars, and traffic here; instead, you'll encounter wide-open stretches of sand, tiny mom-and-pop eateries, and not a whole lot going on except fishing, shelling, birding, kayaking, and a few other outdoor pursuits.

In 2021, I explored the ruins of a Miami zoo that was abandoned after hurricanes ravaged the area. Nature has since taken over Crandon Park Zoo. Crocodiles and other wildlife now thrive there. Some abandoned cage structures from the zoo remain, and I got a look inside. On a corner of a South Florida beach, I found empty cages covered in graffiti and greenery.

If you're trying to stay away from using toxic chemicals in your home or can't stand the smell of store-bought cleaners, Martha Stewart has an easy answer. On Martha Stewart's website, writer Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner explains that it is possible to make your own cleaner with vodka. Not only is vodka a natural antiseptic, it also neutralizes smells. When combined with filtered water and your favorite essential oils, you'll have the ingredients you need to keep a kitchen smelling lovely and clean.

The group said it estimated a population for the southern half of Maine of 3,174 adult loons and 568 chicks. Audubon bases its count on the southern portion of Maine because there are enough bird counters to get a reliable number. The count is more than twice the number when they started counting in 1983, and the count of adults has increased 13% from 10 years ago.

What you might not appreciate is that conifers, which grow and thrive all year alongside other evergreens, have played some surprising roles in U.S. history. Take the eastern white pine. It decorated the first coins minted in the British colonies. Spruce lumberjacks in the early 20th century, meanwhile, helped enshrine some key labor rights, including an eight-hour workday and overtime pay. These tales and more are highlighted by Trent Preszler, an environmental economist at Cornell University,