Bioplastics could potentially be worse for the environment than conventional plastics, according to recycling expert Arthur Huang. Switching to plastic made from plants instead of fossil fuels would require vast amounts of farmland, Huang said. This could could cause environmental problems and deprive humans of food. Huang, founder and CEO of circular-economy engineering company Miniwiz, […]

The United States—and the world—is facing a plastics crisis. Experts predict that if we continue using plastics at the current rate without proper disposal, there could be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050. The problem has only gotten worse after China stopped accepting contaminated recycling last year. The United States used to […]

An unanswered question about Westeros’s past could be the key to really understanding the metaphor everyone assumes the HBO epic is founded upon. I hope that someday I find out what happened to Valyria. There are a lot of other lingering mysteries left in Game of Thrones, the HBO adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A […]

From the arrival of the first Polynesian settlers, to short term rentals and the tourism industry, a new book chronicles the history of human society in the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii: Eight Hundred Years of Political and Economic Change is the work of University of Hawaii economist Sumner La Croix. The tale begins around 1100-1200 AD, […]

U.S. consumer sentiment fell in April for the first time in three months, missing estimates, as the long-term economic outlook dropped to the lowest in more than a year and enthusiasm over tax cuts waned. The University of Michigan’s preliminary sentiment index decreased to 96.9 from the prior month’s 98.4, according to a report April […]

Four million children develop asthma every year as a result of air pollution from cars and trucks, equivalent to 11,000 new cases a day, a landmark study has found. Most of the new cases occur in places where pollution levels are already below the World Health Organization limit, suggesting toxic air is even more harmful […]

Humanity has been dumping millions of tonnes of plastic into the ocean every year – and one team of researchers may have figured out where it all went It’s a puzzle that has perplexed scientists for years: humanity dumps millions of tonnes of plastics into the world’s oceans annually, yet only a tiny fraction remains […]

In an unprecedented public push to change Amazon policies, nearly 4,500 employees have put their names to a letter asking CEO Jeff Bezos and the commerce giant’s board of directors to become global leaders in fighting climate change. The letter, posted online Wednesday, is the latest step up in an internal drive by employees for […]

More than 2.7 million Californians live in areas that are at very high risk for wildfires, according to our analysis of census data and state fire maps. They live in more than 1.1 million housing units, or in about one in 12 of the state’s homes. That’s right: one in 12 homes in California are […]

Inaction would cost at least $500 billion per year by the end of the century. Despite what the world’s least-interesting talking gecko would have you believe, no one likes handing over payments for car insurance. But there’s one thing everyone likes even less: suddenly paying for expensive repairs not covered by your insurance. Similarly, opponents […]