Tag Archives: Forests and Forestry

Wildfires aren’t just tearing through larger swaths of the American West. They’re spreading more quickly, too. A team of researchers looked at NASA satellite data on 60,000 wildfires in the contiguous United States between 2001 and 2020. After classifying each blaze by the most it grew in a single day, …

If I stared too long, the glossy, petrified tree trunk seemed to pulsate energy through the roof, down into the walls and past the fragile washi paper screens. “The house breathes,” Akihiro Tokunaga, the building’s owner, explained, snapping me out of the hypnosis. “You can feel that this tree is …

Is Ireland really all that green? Ecologically speaking, the answer is no, says Eoghan Daltun, a sculptor who restored a patch of native rainforest in the Beara Peninsula, on the country’s rugged southwestern coast. “Ireland really coasts on its reputation as the Emerald Isle,” Mr. Daltun said in a recent …

Forests not only serve as refuges from city life, but could also be among the last fortresses between a livable planet and an increasingly hostile one. Forests can pull carbon from the air and store it in roots and leaves, locking it out of the atmosphere. Through complex markets, nations …

The world’s largest river, the Amazon, has fallen to its lowest level on record in the past few weeks, a development that has shocked experts around the world. Rising temperatures, fueled by global warming, seem to be the driving force behind the powerful drought. They’re parching the largest freshwater reservoir …

The air is crisp, and the leaves are bursting into vivid hues. Maybe you’re planning a road trip to admire the beauty. But getting your fill of fall foliage from behind the wheel can turn into an awkward juggle between admiring the vistas and navigating traffic. If you hop on …

Running into a moose when driving a car or truck is bad enough, but crashing into the giant animal while riding on two wheels can be worse. Kevin Connors barely survived such an encounter while cruising on his motorbike just after sundown on a highway in Newfoundland, a Tennessee-size island …

The soil beneath our feet, home to fungi, bacteria, beetles and worms, may not seem like the most jazzy environment. But if you stuck a powerful enough microphone in the soil, you’d be surprised at how hopping it is, acoustically speaking. That has led some microbiologists to wonder: Are there …

As we report on climate change, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the often troubling news. Ferocious storms wreak havoc around the globe. Planet warming-emissions keep rising. Scientists warn of catastrophic tipping points. Yet those headlines, crucially important as they are, often overshadow a different, equally important …