Explainers

Our planet's rich variety of plant and animal life provides many important products and services—from foods and medicines to clean water and pest control—as well as a multitude of less tangible benefits.

Here are four key methods 21st-century farmers are adopting to take better care of the land that they—and we—depend on.

Formed deep underground over thousands of years of heat and pressure, coal is a carbon-rich black rock that releases energy when burned.

Increasingly destructive hurricanes are putting a growing number of people and communities at risk.

Major fossil fuel companies have known for decades that their products—oil, natural gas, and coal—cause global warming.

Certain consequences of global warming are now inevitable, including sea level rise, more frequent and severe heat waves, growing wildfire risks, and an increase in extreme weather events.

Learn how global warming is affecting the US Midwest—and why these consequences will become more costly and damaging in the years to come.

The Clean Air Act has a long record of keeping Americans safe from air pollution and its damaging health effects. A recent decision by Environmental Protection Agency threatens to walk back these vital protections.

A crucial resource helping policymakers use science to serve the public good, federal science advisory committees are facing unprecedented neglect under the Trump administration.

More than 50 percent of test intercepts have failed.

Industrial agriculture makes farms more vulnerable to climate impacts.

Rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are changing the chemistry of the ocean, and putting marine life in danger.