Photo Illustration by The New York Times
We have Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich to thank for the answer to this question:
Can Carbon Capture Live Up to the Hype?
The technology to capture and bury carbon dioxide has struggled to ramp up and has real limits. But experts say it could play a valuable role.
World leaders at the annual United Nations climate talks have battled for years over whether they should “phase out” fossil fuels like coal or just phase them “down.” Continue reading
Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya
Planes account for roughly two per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions—if all the world’s aircraft got together to form a country, they’d emit more than the vast majority of actual nations. Photograph by Kevin Dietsch / Getty
I have had precisely one direct experience with otherwise elusive alternative aviation fuel. It was during my first of multiple work trips to Paraguay. The fuel was made from sugarcane, and while I am still here to write about it, the experience was among the most harrowing of my lifetime. I only have time and space here to mention that I spent an unexpected night in the Chaco. I highly recommend visiting the Chaco, but I do not highly recommend traveling with experimental fuel. That said, read on:
Looking for a Greener Way to Fly
The Treasury Department is about to announce tax credits for sustainable aviation fuel, which raises the question: What fuels are actually “sustainable”?
Sometime in the next few weeks, the Department of the Treasury is expected to decide who—or, really, what—will qualify for a new set of tax credits. Continue reading
Nairobi National Park, Kenya
Greenpeace has not been in our pages for years, but it was in our pages for years, and for good reason. Here is one more.
Guatemala
Sam Whitney/The New York Times
Vibing is a slang word that works well as a stand-in for greenwashing. Alex Simon, a co-founder of Synaps, an economic and environmental research center, shares additional perspective on the corruption built into Cop28:
In Dubai, a ‘Good Vibes Only’ Approach to Climate Change
On a recent trip to the United Arab Emirates, I felt as if I’d entered a fever dream of green exuberance. It was more than two months before COP28, the annual global climate meeting now in progress in Dubai, but the country was already awash in environmental hype. On the highway, banners for an event hosted by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the fossil fuel behemoth known as Adnoc, read: “Decarbonizing. Faster. Together.” A placard in my hotel bathroom asked me to conserve water by using the two-tiered flush, although the flush had only one tier. A friend’s utility bill was labeled “green bill” — although U.A.E. households have some of the biggest carbon footprints in the world. Continue reading
Nairobi National Park, Kenya
Milo & Seth Inman, December 1996
27 years ago our family was in Tamarindo, Costa Rica for a long weekend. We stayed at a lovely beachfront hotel. Tamarindo was a very small town at the time, attracting surfers who were escaping more crowded beaches in places like California and enjoying the excellent waves on this part of the coastline. This hotel set the vibe for the town, at least as we experienced it. Tourism has grown 4-fold in the decades since that visit, and still the beaches of Tamarindo offer a ratio of surfers to great waves that make it an ideal destination. Not only for skilled surfers but for those looking to learn. The town has grown, and at various points since that family outing I was concerned about how sustainable that growth was. I am now convinced it is on the right track.
Seth in the pool at Hotel Capitan Suizo, the edge of Milo’s towel in the upper right of the frame. The pool is one of the most beautiful in Costa Rica, and overlooks the Pacific ocean.
So much so that next week we are opening our fourth Authentica shop. In Tamarindo. At that hotel. We will finally be introducing our take on and old game –a product that I have been developing with one of our woodworking partners for the entire time since our first Authentica shops opened four years ago. And we will offer other new products that are particular to the Guanacaste region, and the Nicoya peninsula in particular. More fun.
Male
Davis Mountains Preserve, TX
A particularly loud intersection on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The neighborhood is home to at least one of the noise cameras the city is testing. Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times
When we lived in India we used to post frequently on this topic, but it has been a while. Happy to see (thanks to Erin Nolan and the New York Times) that another onetime hometown of ours is taking up the issue:
These Noise Cameras Put a Price on Peace: $2,500 for Loud Drivers
New York City, not exactly known for its peace and quiet, is expanding its use of technology to fine the drivers of loud cars and motorcycles.
New York City is known for its noise. A cacophony of sounds bombards residents every time they step outside — screeching subway cars, jackhammers drilling away, late-night revelers leaving bars and clubs. Continue reading
Nairobi National Park, Kenya
Satellite images of Cambodian forest in 2000 (left) and, after being cleared, in 2015 (right). Forests were replaced by a grid of rubber plantations, as well as croplands. Source: NASA
If you have never seen ecosystem destruction firsthand, count yourself lucky. I witnessed, during visits over several years, as 1,000 acres of primary forest ecosystem was destroyed to make way for a rubber plantation. It was horrifying. And I am further horrified to read how what I witnessed was only a small part of a much bigger rubber-induced destruction (thanks as always to Fred Pearce):
Rubber resin collected from a tree near Lubuk Beringin, Indonesia. TRI SAPUTRO / CIFOR
How Mounting Demand for Rubber Is Driving Tropical Forest Loss
The growing market for rubber is a major, but largely overlooked, cause of tropical deforestation, new analysis shows. Most of the rubber goes to produce tires, more than 2 billion a year, and experts warn the transition to electric vehicles could accelerate rubber use.
The elephants are gone. The trees are logged out. The Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary in central Cambodia is largely destroyed, after being handed over by the government to a politically well-connected local plantation company to grow rubber. Continue reading
Namibia
Courtesy Of Ifixit/Via Reuters
Ezra Klein has been part of my media diet for about as long as I have been posting in these pages.
He occasionally writes opinions that are the best thing I have read in a while, and this book list is among them:
The Books That Explain Where We Are in 2023
This is another end-of-the-year book list, but with a twist. These are the best books I read about 2023. They are, for the most part, voices from other years helping me make sense of our own. In a world where information keeps speeding up and thinning out, books slow time down, thickening the moment in which we live.
I spent much of the year reporting on artificial intelligence. And my thoughts returned, again and again, to “God, Human, Animal, Machine,” by Meghan O’Gieblyn. Continue reading
Nairobi National Park, Kenya
Illustration: Dana Davis; Photos: Michael Hession
We do not normally offer product promotion nor seek endorsements other than for products we personally love enough to dedicate our lives to making them and selling them. Lesley Stockton is in the business of helping others make smart purchase decisions and does so with this same sense of personal devotion. I share one example today because this is the grinder I use, and I feel the same way about it:
The Baratza Encore Transformed My Morning Coffee (and Turned Me Into a Lowkey Barista)
I cannot overstate how much the Baratza Encore burr grinder improved my morning routine. I strike a weird balance between investing heavily in my home coffee setup while not taking coffee culture too seriously. Like, I love a well-balanced cup in the morning, but I’m not about to weigh my beans on a scale to get the perfect coffee-to-water ratio. Of the $1,000-ish worth of coffee gear in my kitchen, though, my Baratza Encore burr grinder is the one thing I cannot live without.
Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya
courtesy of Laura Murray/Smallhold
The topic came to our attention a dozen years ago and is now mainstream enough that it is a regularly featured topic in our feed:
A mushrooming trend: how fungi became an It food
The mushroom moment of the past few years shows no sign of ending. What’s feeding its enduring popularity?
You can’t walk more than a few aisles in the grocery store these days without running into some kind of new mushroom product. Fresh white button mushrooms are increasingly joined by specialty varieties like lion’s mane, maitake or oyster mushrooms. There’s sparkling cordyceps tea and chaga coffee boasting a range of health benefits, mushroom chips and even chocolate bars infused with reishi. Continue reading
Male – Leander Khil Photography
Seewinkel National Park, Austria
Organikos 