Building codes are holding back low-carbon concrete. A new study shows why.
Building standards treat all concrete the same, hindering the use of greener concrete, but climate conditions play a much bigger role in determining a structure’s durability
In a first, probiotics helped real coral survive a real heatwave
Past studies of coral probiotics stayed in the lab. This one tested them on wild coral in the Red Sea during an actual marine heatwave—and the microbes held up.
Scientists develop a plastic that can be turned into fertilizer
Researchers say a modified plant-derived polymer offers a possible alternative to conventional plastics—one designed to end its life as crop fertilizer, not landfill waste.
Could a single methane moonshot outpace a thousand carbon cuts?
Cracking down on methane emissions could have a quick and dramatic impact
Issue #8
Greener Steel Through Chemistry
By Stephen Robert Miller
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The Future of the Grid Could Be Parked in Your Driveway
By Sarah DeWeerdt
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What if the future of mining looked like a farm?
By Kate Gammon
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An Act of God. Payable Upon Impact.
By Emma Bryce
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Nuclear power is in a hole. To get out, this start-up kept digging
By Mark Ellis Harris
Explore Back Issues >>
This counterintuitive technology fights climate change by making more carbon dioxide
Scientists are trying to pull methane from thin air to make CO2. It’s a surprisingly good idea.
The pelicans that brought peace to a troubled corner of Europe
Environmental peacebuilding shows that restoring nature can also heal conflicts
It's time to upgrade not just our technology, but also our collective imagination.
Discover Anthropocene’s newest and most forward-looking project: Climate reporting from the future. Live story-telling events and online stories.
Here’s how top predator species might buffer climate change impacts on biodiversity
Study underscores the power of top predators to shape ecosystems—even helping to keep them cool during heatwaves
Hot rocks could be the next big energy storage technology
Soapstone, widely used in cooking appliances and countertops, could be an ideal low-cost material to store the sun’s heat for electricity
Nanosilver may cut down on odor, but does it make clothing “green”?
Less frequent laundering may not offset the additional environmental impacts of using antimicrobial silver nanoparticles in textiles.
What counts as extreme temperature is a moving target
Rapidly shifting “climatic baselines” could hamper the public’s ability to recognize human-caused climate change—and tamp down the sense of urgency about addressing it.
Using less steel, cement, and copper in homes and cars could take a huge bite out of emissions
Material efficiency in home construction could save up to 50 billion metric tons of carbon emissions by 2050; for cars, the savings is up to 26 billion metric tons
Nuclear power is in a hole. To get out, this start-up kept digging
They’re betting that they can take the cost out of nuclear power—and solve it’s waste problem — by putting small reactors a mile underground.
Using satellite imagery, researchers have built an automatic habitat loss detector
They then trained image change detection algorithms on “before and after” images of places that have recently been cleared, built on, or even covered in solar panels.
David Quammen
What if evolution isn’t linear, as Charles Darwin proposed when he first sketched the tree of life?
Emily Anthes
Amphibious architecture responds to floods like ships to a rising tide, floating on the water’s surface.
Oliver Morton
The godlike powers of geoengineering irrevocably change the human’s relationship with Planet Earth.
Frances Cairncross
What is the optimal rollout of carbon taxes and research subsidies to speed up the transition to a low-carbon economy?
David Biello
Welcome to the brave new world of artificial intelligence for conservation.
Veronique Greenwood
The rise of fast fashion and the technology that needs to change to keep your clothes out of the garbage.
Fred Pearce
Some economies may be quietly, and surprisingly approaching a phenomenon economists call “peak stuff.
Akshat Rathi
What if we could transform cement from a climate wrecker into a carbon sponge?
Ted Nordhaus
The climate change apocalypse problem
Andrew Revkin
The word “anthropocene” has become the closest thing there is to common shorthand for this turbulent, momentous, unpredictable, hopeless, hopeful time—duration and scope still unknown
Vandana Singh
How might science fiction constructively contribute to the Human Age?
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What happened to Conservation Magazine—the precursor to Anthropocene?
