<?xml encoding="UTF-8"> The spotlight Tending a garden is about as hands-on as climate solutions get. On a basic level, putting plants in the ground helps sequester carbon. Vegetation can reduce stress and tension for the humans around it, and it provides habitat and sustenance for pollinators and other wildlife. Gardens can provide spaces...

Negotiators wrapped up the fourth round of formal discussions over the United Nations’ global plastics treaty early on Tuesday morning, inching closer to a final agreement that’s intended to “end plastic pollution.”  Delegates made important progress on the treaty, the final version of which is due by the end of the year. They pared down a lengthy...

For several months last year, patrons of a Seattle coffee shop called Tailwind Cafe had the option of ordering their Americanos and lattes in returnable metal to-go cups. Customers could simply borrow a cup from Tailwind, go on their way, and then at some point — perhaps a few hours later, perhaps on another day that week — return the cup to the shop,...

Last week, the EPA released a suite of long-awaited rules meant to cut down the carbon that the U.S. emits when generating electricity. The rules primarily target existing coal plants and new natural gas facilities, in many cases requiring dramatic emissions cuts that won’t be possible without an unprecedented deployment of carbon capture. (The new...

This story was produced by Grist and was co-published with Fast Company. When office workers stopped working in offices in 2020, trading their cubicles for living room couches during COVID-19 lockdowns, many began questioning those hours they had spent commuting to work. All those rushed mornings stuck in traffic could have been spent getting...

About a year ago, the seas got unusually hot, even by our current, overheated standards. Twelve months of broken records later, the oceans are still more feverish than climate models and normal fluctuations in global weather patterns can explain. When the seas turn into bathwater, it threatens the survival of the planet’s coral reefs, home to...