Other writing

A Surge of New Plastic Is About to Hit the Planet

January 20, 2020

As public concern about plastic pollution rises, consumers are reaching for canvas bags, metal straws, and reusable water bottles. But while individuals fret over images of oceanic garbage gyres, the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries are pouring billions of dollars into new plants intended to make millions more tons of plastic than they now pump out.

How to Reduce Exposure to Air Pollution

August 13, 2019

While most of us do not have the power to make the air cleaner, there are some ways to protect yourself.

Best Book Of 1982: The Years Of Lyndon Johnson

December 10, 2019

I love a good biography. But even so, when contemplating a multi-volume, 3,000-pages-and-counting study of a US president, I might have been tempted to cheat a bit, and skip straight to the one about the subject’s time in the White House. That’s not really an option with Robert Caro’s epic The Years of Lyndon Johnson series.

Kids suffer most in one of Earth's most polluted cities

March 26, 2019

ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA — Coal is everywhere in Mongolia’s frigid capital. It sits beneath the towering smokestacks of power plants in piles as big as football fields. Drivers haul it through town in the open beds of pickup trucks.

For Europe’s Far-Right Parties, Climate Is a New Battleground

October 29, 2019

As its refugee crisis recedes, Europe’s increasingly powerful nationalist and populist parties have found a new cause — attacking what they view as elitist hysteria over climate change. Will these movements succeed in blunting European action on cutting CO2 emissions?

U.K. Universities Face Uncertainty as Brexit Looms

April 5, 2018

Nicole Grobert is German, but she has spent almost all of her career in Britain, developing tiny nanomaterials and figuring out how to use them in everything from artificial bones to super-efficient batteries.