As U.S. coal’s comedown continues, our latest Issue Backgrounder takes a close look at the factors behind the industry’s decline and finds a combination of economics, competition and shifting global markets, along with aging technology, politics and environmental pushback. What’s in store for coal in 2020?
"A massive iceberg with the robotic sounding name D28 has separated in recent days from an ice shelf in Antarctica, prompting both awe and concern around the world. Measuring 610 square miles, D28 is slightly larger than Oahu, Hawaii, and some are worried that its fracture from the Amery Ice Shelf is a signal of climate change."
"An E&E News reporter spends six weeks on an icebreaker with scientists who are unraveling the mysteries of the Arctic."
It’s poisoning fresh waters across the United States, as well as elsewhere in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. Blue-green algae is on the rise, lingering later and later into the year. Our new Issue Backgrounder explains the contributing factors behind the potent toxin’s scourge, its societal and public health ramifications, and the many angles and resources to tell the story.
"They arrived on Sunday in parkas and ski hats, hiking across the rocky terrain where Iceland’s Okjokull glacier once flourished. Today it is a watery grave, which scientists and politicians say is the site of the nation’s first glacier lost to climate change."
"ABOARD A NASA RESEARCH PLANE OVER GREENLAND — The fields of rippling ice 500 feet below the NASA plane give way to the blue-green of water dotted with irregular chunks of bleached-white ice, some the size of battleships, some as tall as 15-story buildings."
"Russia is planning to dispatch the vessel, its first floating nuclear power station, on a 4,000-mile journey along the Northern Sea Route, in a milestone for the country’s growing use of nuclear power in its plans for Arctic expansion."
"More than 100 intense wildfires have ravaged the Arctic since June, with scientists describing the blazes as 'unprecedented.'"
"The vast expanse of sea ice around Antarctica has suffered a “precipitous” fall since 2014, satellite data shows, and fell at a faster rate than seen in the Arctic."
"The Arctic spring thaw has begun with a bang, with extensive melting of the Greenland ice sheet and sea ice loss that is already several weeks ahead of normal, scientists said."
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