El Niño Is Coming—and the World Isn’t Prepared
In 2023, the relentless increase in global heating will continue, bringing ever more disruptive weather that is the signature calling card of accelerating climate breakdown. According to NASA, 2022 was…
If Humans Went Extinct, Would a Similar Species Evolve?
The rise of powerful new technology means that humanity must confront the risk of its own demise. The invention of nuclear weaponry, for example, has already shown just how quickly…
The Danger of Leaving Weather Prediction to AI
Humans have tried to anticipate the climate’s turns for millennia, using early lore—“red skies at night” is an optimistic sigil for weather-weary sailors that’s actually associated with dry air and…
Humans Are On Track to Export Our Environmental Problems to Space
To be clear, space is not exactly the Wild West. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty—the Magna Carta of space law—set out a framework and key principles to guide responsible behavior…
The Future Is Bleak. Pondering Pangaea Gives Me Hope
The human passion for gouging burnable stuff out of the earth and reducing it to ashes may well be the end of us. But it’s not clear who the “us”…