Stanford Earth Matters covers insights, discoveries and solutions from the organizations forming the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
How to fight climate change
Environmental scientist Chris Field explains why taking on climate change will require that we continue to reduce emissions and adapt to the effects of increasing temperatures. (Source: Stanford Engineering)
Climate grief researcher Britt Wray discusses new book
Planetary Postdoctoral Health Fellow Britt Wray discusses her recently published book about dealing with climate anxiety and her own path to finding purpose in a chaotic time. (Source: Stanford News)
How one ‘extreme’ plant could help biologists engineer climate-resistant crops
Stanford biologist José Dinneny is studying why one plant grows faster in stressful conditions. His results could help scientists engineer food and biofuel crops to survive in harsher environments. (Source: Stanford News)
How a soil microbe could rev up artificial photosynthesis
Researchers discover that a spot of molecular glue and a timely twist help a bacterial enzyme convert carbon dioxide into carbon compounds 20 times faster than plant enzymes do during photosynthesis. The results stand to accelerate progress toward converting carbon dioxide into a variety of products. (Source: SLAC)
Massive conservation effort
California has rolled out plans to protect plant and animal life across 30 percent of the state’s most critical land and water by 2030. Biologists Elizabeth Hadly and Mary Ruckelshaus and environmental law expert Deborah Sivas discuss keys to its success, potential impacts, legal precedents, and more. (Source: Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment)
Are big companies’ net-zero pledges a well-intentioned shell game?
The world of climate promises and carbon offsets is “like the Wild West, where anything goes,” says Stefan Reichelstein. (Source: Insights by Stanford Business)
Stanford energy expert discusses UN climate report
Energy expert Inês Azevedo, a lead author of the energy chapter in the United Nations’ new report on climate mitigation, discusses the assessment and changes necessary to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. Energy technology is ready, she says, but time is short.
To meet the climate challenge, philanthropy must challenge itself
Recent rapid growth in climate philanthropy risks redundancy, waste, and friendly fire, according to Laurence Tubiana of the European Climate Foundation and Christie Ulman of the California-based Sequoia Climate Fund. (Source: Stanford Social Innovation Review)
Snowpack changes how a California volcano 'breathes'
A Stanford University study suggests the weight of snow and ice atop the Sierra Nevada affects a California volcano’s carbon dioxide emissions, one of the main signs of volcanic unrest.
Methane leaks are far worse than estimates, at least in New Mexico, but there’s hope
The amount of methane leaking from a huge U.S. oil and gas producing region is several times greater than the federal government estimates, according to a new study led by Stanford University.
A data-driven approach to cooling
A civil engineer is finding ways to model informal settlements in tropical regions, and using these models to help find universal solutions for extreme heat. (Source: Stanford Engineering)
Researchers investigate squid found far from home
California market squid are typically found between Baja California and Monterey Bay. New research details how climate change has likely ushered the creatures north.
How fast will Antarctica’s ice sheet melt?
Using autonomous drones and machine-learning models, geophysicist Dustin Schroeder and a multidisciplinary team are working to quickly and efficiently collect ice sheet data that can improve our understanding of melt rates. (Source: Stanford HAI)
Personal experience and disaster adaptation
Surveys of people exposed to wildfires and hurricanes show that negative experiences with these events are associated with elevated perceived risk for specific climate hazards and self-reported adaptation behaviors, as well as increased support for interventions. The findings could help shape public communications and policy.
Rethinking how to measure methane's climate impact
By focusing on the climate impact of methane over a 100-year timeframe, international climate negotiators have underestimated the importance of this short-lived greenhouse gas for achieving Paris climate agreement goals, a new Stanford University study finds.
Researchers identify 'double-hazard' zones for wildfire in the West
Rapidly growing communities in the American West’s forests and shrublands are nestled in zones where local soil and plant traits amplify the effect of climate change on wildfire hazards and lead to bigger burns.
Can we engineer crops to withstand climate change?
By changing the genome of both commercial crops and soil bacteria, a bioengineer thinks it may be possible to help plants survive droughts by retaining more water during a dry spell, or growing deeper roots to reach soil that hasn’t dried out yet. (Source: Stanford Engineering Magazine)
Climate and health impacts of natural gas stoves
Natural gas stoves release methane – a potent greenhouse gas – and other pollutants through leaks and incomplete combustion. Stanford researchers estimate that methane leaking from stoves inside U.S. homes has the same climate impact as about 500,000 gasoline-powered cars and the stoves can expose people to respiratory disease-triggering pollutants. VIDEO
Native agriculture never went away. Now it is on the rise.
Despite persistent efforts by the U.S. government to eradicate Indigenous farming and ranching practices, they are regaining currency in an American West stressed by drought, diminishing resources and climate change. (Source: Bill Lane Center for the American West)