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Tips to protect against wildfire smoke
Warnings of another severe wildfire season abound, as do efforts to reduce the risk of ignition. Yet few are taking precautions against the smoke. Stanford experts advise on contending with hazardous air quality.
Simona Onori: How ready are we for our electric future?
An expert in energy resources engineering says “battery biopsies” are key to a tomorrow filled with electric vehicles. (Source: The Future of Everything)
A climate change solution: Invest in environmental education
Governments need to double down on investments and innovation in educating youth and communities about the environment if future generations are to be able to respond effectively and with appropriate urgency to the climate emergency, according to Stanford researchers. (Source: Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment)
Summer reading: Igniting curiosity about Earth and imagining our future
Faculty at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences recommend these 29 books for your summer reading.
For a low-carbon cement recipe, Stanford scientists look to Earth’s cauldrons
As the most-used building material on the planet and one of the world’s largest industrial contributors to global warming, concrete has long been a target for reinvention. Stanford scientists say replacing one of concrete’s main ingredients with volcanic rock could slash carbon emissions from manufacture of the material by nearly two-thirds.
Stanford explainer: The social cost of carbon
In a Q&A, Stanford economists describe what the social cost of carbon is, how it is calculated and used in policymaking, and how it relates to environmental justice. (Source: Stanford News)
Coastal flooding increases Bay Area traffic delays and accidents
Disruptions from sea level rise and coastal flooding events have significant indirect impacts on urban traffic networks and road safety.
How does climate change affect migration?
April 2021 saw a 20-year high in the number of people stopped at the U.S./Mexico border, and President Joe Biden recently raised the cap on annual refugee admissions. Stanford researchers discuss how climate change’s effect on migration will change, how we can prepare for the impacts and what kind of policies could help alleviate the issue.
Researchers reveal environmental learning in unexpected places
A wide range of organizations focused on areas as seemingly disparate as social justice, religion and the arts play important roles in helping people understand and act on environmental issues. Stanford environmental experts discuss their analysis of nearly 1,000 such organizations in the San Francisco Bay.
What it may take to harness solar energy on Native lands
The Navajo Nation has the most capacity, but its troubled energy history and culture of livestock grazing make solar development fraught.
Higher levels of nitrate in drinking water linked to preterm birth, study finds
Women exposed to higher levels of nitrate in drinking water were more likely to deliver very early, according to a study of 1.4 million California births.
Local impacts from fracking the Eagle Ford
Stanford scientists simulated the local risk of damaging or nuisance-level shaking caused by hydraulic fracturing across the Eagle Ford shale formation in Texas. The results could inform a new approach to managing human-caused earthquakes.
Q&A: Why is climate change at the center of a $2.3 trillion federal plan?
In an address to Congress, President Joe Biden pitched a wide-ranging initiative called the American Jobs Plan. Stanford researchers discuss how and why climate change resilience is central to the initiative.
Homes in floodplains are overvalued by nearly $44 billion
Analysis of sales data and flood risk data over two decades indicates that housing markets fail to fully account for information about flood risk. The findings suggest that policies to improve risk communication could influence market outcomes.
U.S. asbestos sites made risky by some remediation strategies
Efforts to prevent human exposure to asbestos may be mobilizing the cancer-causing mineral so that it can reach water supplies, based on new findings about how the fibers move through soil.
AI empowers environmental regulators
Monitoring environmental compliance is a particular challenge for governments in poor countries. A new machine learning approach that uses satellite imagery to pinpoint highly polluting brick kilns in Bangladesh could provide a low-cost solution.
The science behind decarbonization
A collection of research and insights from Stanford experts who are revealing the stakes of emission cuts, enabling better carbon accounting, predicting the consequences of future emission pathways and mapping out viable solutions.
How to close the clean-energy divide
An engineer and clean-energy entrepreneur discusses the troubling socio-economic gap in access to sustainable energy and the things we can do now to narrow and, perhaps, close it.
Climate change has hurt farm productivity
New research shows climate change has wiped out seven years of improvements in agricultural productivity over the past 60 years.