Jessica S. McKenzie

Bulletin: Wildfires push air quality in East Coast cities almost off the charts

The East Coast was blanketed in smoke from wildfires in Canada this week. I can feel the burn and sting from the toxic smog in the back of my throat even now, after the air quality in Brooklyn has somewhat improved. My eyes became swollen, puffy, and irritated the morning after a masked walk.

In New York City, the Air Quality Index (AQI), a measure of air pollution and health safety risk, peaked at 484 on Wednesday evening, the highest ever recorded in the city. (The index only goes up to 500.) Philadelphia also surpassed 400.

Bulletin: ‘Uncharted territory’: Warming oceans and disappearing sea ice alarm scientists

There has been a wave of new research and warnings related to the oceans and climate change this year. Little of the news is good.

Almost 90 percent of the heat added to the Earth system between 1971 and 2020 has gone into the ocean. When the sun shines, it warms the air, water, and soil. But the Earth also reflects and releases heat back into space. If the amount of incoming solar radiation is greater than outgoing radiation, then it creates an energy imbalance. And boy is our world out of whack.

Bulletin: There’s less need to convince people of a future climate doomsday. It’s already here.

As the reality of climate crisis sets in and as more and more people experience it first-hand, convincing people of a future doomsday scenario becomes less necessary. The present is already bad enough.

What Will It Take for Geothermal To Heat Up the Renewable Energy Sector?

sign: danger scalding water unstable ground keep out

Geothermal energy’s potential contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is enormous. Just 0.1 percent of the Earth’s heat could provide enough energy to power the world for two million years. And every gigawatt of energy from geothermal resources offsets approximately 380 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Yet geothermal energy is responsible for less than 1% of the total electricity generation in the United States.

So why has it been so slow to tap into this vast and essentially inexhaustible resource? And how might that soon change?

Audubon: An Abundance of American Robins

Stuck inside her Brooklyn apartment in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, artist Mayuko Fujino had one connection to the outside world: a single window that looked out on a neighbor’s yard. It was March, then April, and Fujino thought it was about time to see an American Robin. She spotted sparrows, pigeons, cardinals—but none of the robins that usually appear in spring.