How Europe’s biomass appetite is harming the US south

BBC Future, March 2022 In the summer of 1993, the southwestern Illinois town of Valmeyer took the brunt of a massive flood when, not once but twice in a month, the swollen Mississippi River topped its levee system. …

Discover Magazine, Jan 2022 It was 1970 when marine biologist Roger Payne first brought the mesmerizing sound of humpback whales to a wide audience via the celebrated Songs of the Humpback Whale album. Back then, the possibility of deciphering those eerie vocalizations seemed a far-out idea plucked straight from science…

The Progressive, Dec 2021 Standing near his front yard, Charles Warsinske gazes at the sprawling expanse of rippling open waters that surrounds his native village of Taholah in northwestern Washington State. The seventy-two-year-old fondly recalls growing up on this remote stretch of Pacific coast, digging for clams and playing football…

Smithsonian, August 2021 As devastating wildfires rage throughout the American West, fire agencies across the region are turning to cutting-edge technologies from supercomputers generating near-real-time fire maps to fireball-dropping drones to enhance the way they respond to these disasters. Fires are still won and lost through grueling work on the…

The Guardian, July 2021 The American west has a sprawling network of dams, reservoirs and pipelines that brings a supply of water to its cities and farms. But overexploitation and a two-decade dry spell have put a severe strain on the resources, with reserves dwindling to historic lows in some…

The Progressive, May 2021 In the sixty-nine years that Sharon Lavigne has lived on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Louisiana’s St. James Parish, she has seen more than three dozen petrochemical plants turn her community from a rural place with sugar- cane plantations from the state’s history…

Future Human, April 2021 On a warm afternoon in the northeastern Siberian region of Yakutia, farther north than most humans care to live, Sergey Zimov stood below an eroding mudbank along the Kolyma River. He reached down by his feet and drove a metal rod into the spongy ground that…