Editor's Note: How do you talk about optimism in a pessimistic time?
Everything is not okay. This is true as I write this. And it will no doubt be true whenever you read this. Our fossil fuel addiction is dying a very long and painful death. Weather disasters are still surging, coral reefs are still imperiled, plastics still pour into the oceans.
What is also true is that someone somewhere is working on an extraordinary fix that you may not have heard about.
And therein lies the practical optimist’s dilemma. How does one respect the scale of the problems without discounting the solutions—or vice versa?
A good place to start is focusing on tractable problems—meeting the climate crisis one innovation at a time. The steel industry is responsible for 8% of the world’s CO2 emissions. Extracting high-grade iron, steel’s raw ingredient, requires extremely high temperatures (3,000 degrees Fahrenheit) often generated by coal and other fossil fuels. On page 38, you can read about a team of engineers that is reinventing this notoriously dirty industrial process by swapping fire for chemistry.
On page 6, meet an insurance broker spearheading a series of experiments in which he and others are merging the unsentimental world of insurance with the idealistic world of coral conservation. They’re creating parametric insurance policies, typically used to cover property against natural disasters, as a way to rebuild reefs after hurricanes.
And on page 20, follow a group of entrepreneurs who believe that electric vehicles could be used for much more than transportation. With new battery technologies and bidirectional charging software coming into view, they describe how EVs could become virtual power plants that help stabilize and decarbonize the electric grid.
None of these or the other ideas in the following pages is without flaws and trade-offs. Innovation always advances in fits and starts. But if allowed to flourish, innovation collectively builds momentum toward a better future.
Right now it’s a tough sell—but a crucial one. If you squint hard enough, you can get a glimpse of a future markedly different from the past, but nevertheless desirable. Optimism, it has been said, can act as the antidote to cynicism. I think that’s true—but only when it is specific.
—Kathryn Kohm
Anthropocene Editor in Chief
Here’s how fish farms could double as a climate solution
A new study analyzes a potential win-win solution for fish health and carbon capture. The critical ingredient is something you might not expect.
What if the future of mining looked like a farm?
Phytomining promises to extract metals for electric vehicles—not with drills and dynamite but with daisies, grasses, and biology.
The Future of the Grid Could Be Parked in Your Driveway
A growing fleet of electric vehicles could unlock a cheaper, cleaner alternative to fossil-fuel power plants—without building new infrastructure.
An Act of God. Payable Upon Impact.
Parametric insurance, once a niche tool for property owners, is now underwriting coral reefs. It’s efficient, innovative—and unsettling.
Shipping solar power at the speed of a freight train
By charging up battery cars where renewable energy is cheap and delivering the power to where it’s needed, this startup thinks railroads could break the clean energy transmission logjam.
Wheat on Repeat
A tantalizing new breed of climate-friendly crops never need replanting
Greener Steel Through Chemistry
In a lab outside Boulder Colorado, engineers are reinventing one of the dirtiest industrial processes on Earth—by swapping fire for modern alchemy.
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.
Engineers turn fish biology into a breakthrough microplastic laundry filter
Inspired by the filter feeding mechanisms of basking sharks and manta rays, a startup called Cleanr has developed a filter that traps over 90% of microplastics released in each wash cycle.
The Food Fighters
With their inheritance at stake, two brothers pit ultramechanization against traditional farming practices. Now Mum must judge which does better for the family, the nation, and the climate.
Is the AI juice worth the carbon squeeze?
Data centers’ thirst for energy looms as the next big climate provocation
What’s the best way to make the tomato industry more carbon-efficient? Hint: It’s not local.
Tomatoes are the most-farmed vegetable in the world. Researchers set out to quantify the carbon footprint of this ballooning industry—and then identify ways to shrink it.
Researchers pave the way for climate-ready crops with potatoes that thrive in heat
First they cracked a problem that slows down plant photosynthesis—then they succeeded in super-charging potato growth by up to 30%.
By zapping seawater with electricity, scientists make a solid carbon-negative building material
In a double whammy, the method sucks up carbon dioxide and upcycles it into a material that can be used to make concrete, cement, plaster, and paint.
From crop waste to clothing: new research takes a first step
Testing wheat straw, oat husks, potatoes and sugar beet, scientists identify promising candidates to make future fibres from farm waste.
From roadside litter to road strengthener, cigarette butts find a new life
Millions of toxic e-cig butts are tossed every day. A new study shows they can be recycled into asphalt pellets that boost road durability and cut carbon.
Sponge made from food scraps produces clean water from thin air
A hydrogel made from waste natural materials pulls over 14 liters of drinkable water from air per day, offering a sustainable way to alleviate water scarcity.
These new building materials are alive, photosynthetic— and carbon hungry
Scientists have engineered a living, carbon-capturing material that can be shaped by 3D printing and hardened over time through biological growth.
AI shows stoplights are a big climate problem—with a deceptively simple fix.
By simulating a million traffic scenarios, researchers found that apps guiding vehicle speeds at intersections could cut emissions at a scale rivaling entire nations.
Large-scale recycling of modern textiles is now in sight
Fast fashion creates mountains of polyester-cotton textile waste—a new recycling method that separates and recycles the two materials could be what the industry needs.
Not all AI prompts are equal. Some emit 50x more carbon than others. Here’s why.
When researchers delved into the tradeoff between AI sustainability and accuracy, they uncovered strategies for greener chatbots.
Evolution by automotive selection
Scientists in the Galápagos discover yellow warblers living near traffic exhibit the bird version of “road rage.”
Streetlights are artificially extending the growing season in cities.
What’s more, researchers found that the phenomenon will increase further as street lighting is converted to energy efficient LEDs.
Streetlights are quietly rewriting the rules of birdsong
Light pollution is making many birds sing nearly an hour longer at dawn or dusk; whether that is helpful or harmful for the birds is an open question.
