The Educator's Notebook

featured articles

Kids Want To Know More About Careers In Climate Change
EdWeek - 1/19/23

“30 percent of the roughly 1,000 teenagers surveyed by the EdWeek Research Center last fall said they wanted to learn more about job opportunities related to sustainability and climate change.”
6 Charts That Explain The Concept Of Climate Justice
Fast Company - 11/6/21

“I study the justice dilemmas presented by climate change and climate policies, and have been involved in international climate negotiations as an observer since 2009. Here are six charts that help explain the challenges.”
“The Science of Climate Change Explained: Facts, Evidence and Proof”
New York Times - 4/19/21

“The science of climate change is more solid and widely agreed upon than you might think. But the scope of the topic, as well as rampant disinformation, can make it hard to separate fact from fiction. Here, we’ve done our best to present you with not only the most accurate scientific information, but also an explanation of how we know it.”
Greta Thunberg Is Time Magazine’s Person Of The Year
Time - 12/11/19

“At first, Thunberg’s father reassured her that everything would be O.K., but as he read more about the climate crisis, he found his own words rang hollow. “I realized that she was right and I was wrong, and I had been wrong all my life,” Svante told TIME in a quiet moment after arriving in Lisbon. In an effort to comfort their daughter, the family began changing their habits to reduce their emissions. They mostly stopped eating meat, installed solar panels, began growing their own vegetables and eventually gave up flying—a sacrifice for Thunberg’s mother, who performs throughout Europe. “We did all these things, basically, not really to save the climate, we didn’t care much about that initially,” says Svante. “We did it to make her happy and to get her back to life.” Slowly, Thunberg began to eat and talk again.”

sustainability

UN Expects Global Population To Peak in 2080s, Then Plummet
New York Times - 9/18/23

“Humanity needs a compassionate, factual and fair conversation about how to respond to depopulation and how to share the burdens of creating each future generation. The way to have that conversation is to start paying attention now.”
Greta Thunberg’s “Fridays For Future” Plans To Recommend On Sept. 15
Fridays For Future - 9/15/23
What Powered The World In 2022 [Infographic]
Visual Capitalist - 9/10/23
“America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow”
New York Times - 8/28/23

“The Times analyzed water levels reported at tens of thousands of sites, revealing a crisis that threatens American prosperity.”
“Miyawaki Forests” - “Wee” Forests Of Native Plants
New York Times - 8/24/23

View remaining articles (147)

“New Jersey Requires Climate Change Education… Here’s How It’s Going”
NPR - 8/21/23
Considering Climate Impact Is A Constitutional Necessity Now
New York Times - 8/16/23

“A group of young people in Montana won a landmark lawsuit on Monday when a judge ruled that the state’s failure to consider climate change when approving fossil fuel projects was unconstitutional.”
Resistance To Renewables Is Increasingly Coming From… Environmentalists?
New York Times - 8/12/23

“Standing in their way are environmental groups and local residents, all of whom are committed to a clean energy future and worried about the rapid warming of the earth. Still, they want the state to pick a different site for its so-called wind port, citing the tranquillity of Sears Island and its popularity and accessibility as a recreation destination.”
People Switch To Renewables For the Economics, Not The Environment
New York Times - 8/12/23

“Mr. Leach has since encouraged other farmers to install solar panels. “I’ve had several friends of mine that were, you know, not necessarily trying to save the planet,” he said. “They just wanted to save money.””
Clean Energy Is Surging, Often In Places Least Expected
New York Times - 8/12/23

“Mr. Peters was broke six years ago, with less than $400 in his checking account after his contracting business slowed down. Then he responded to a help-wanted ad looking for workers to install solar panels, which were becoming more popular in Tulsa. He now employs 61 workers and has $18 million in annual sales. “The environmental benefits are nice,” he said, “but most people are doing this for the financial opportunity.””
Deep Dive: What Is The Current State Of Climate Change? [Data, Graphs]
Uncharted Territories - 8/11/23
“What The Data Says About Americans’ View Of Climate Change”
Pew Research - 8/9/23
“Why Some Americans Do Not See Urgency In Climate Change”
Pew Research - 8/9/23
Microgrids Are Growing More Common
New York Times - 8/9/23
A Climate Warning From The Cradle Of Civilization
New York Times - 7/29/23
“July Is Globe's Hottest Month In Recorded History”
PBS - 7/27/23
Can Solar Energy Solve Global Warming?
Uncharted Territories - 7/11/23
A History Of Ancient Energy Sources, From Fire To Wind
Uncharted Territories - 5/23/23
Lake Or Battery? A New Kind Of Hydropower Is Spreading Fast
New York Times - 5/2/23
Switch To Electric School Buses
Flowing Data - 4/27/23
“Inside The Global Race To Turn Water Into Fuel”
New York Times - 3/11/23
Heat Pumps: A Rapidly Growing Energy-Efficient Heating (And Cooling) Device
New York Times - 2/22/23
What’s Happening With Population Growth And Stabilization?
Professor Galloway - 1/27/23
A Kid’s Guide To Climate Change, And A Comic
NPR - 1/17/23
Solar GeoEngineering Scientists Explore Dimming The Sun…
New Yorker - 11/22/22
Climate Protestors Attack Art (But Safely, And WIth Historical Precedent)
New York Times - 10/20/22
On Getting To 100% Clean Energy
Fast Company - 10/5/22
“Visualized: The World’s Population At 8 Billion”
Visual Capitalist - 9/27/22
A New Wind Turbine Design
Fast Company - 9/20/22
On Men, Meat, Masculinity, And The Climate Crisis (And France)
New York Times - 9/5/22
Hydrogen Powered Trains Are Now Running In Germany
Fast Company - 9/2/22
“The Case For Longtermism”
New York Times - 8/5/22
Comic Books For Fighting Climate Change
Forbes - 6/17/22
The Town With The Most Roundabouts In The US
New York Times - 11/20/21
Solving Climate Change Requires Business Participation
New York Times - 11/16/21
“Climate Refugees” - Entire Welsh Village Relocates To Avoid Rising Seas
Yahoo - 11/11/21
Are We Making Climate Progress? Excellent Interactive Media
New York Times - 10/25/21
“We're Living Through One Of The Most Explosive Extinction Episodes Ever”
New York Times - 9/30/21
Harvard No Longer Invests In Fossil Fuels
New York Times - 9/10/21
“Penguin Classics Launches ‘New Canon’ Of Environmental Literature”
Guardian - 8/26/21
The Ecology Of The Seagram Building: On Architectural Use Of Resources
Architect’s Newspaper - 6/9/21
“GM Will Sell Only Zero-Emission Vehicles By 2035”
New York Times - 1/28/21
"The Price Of Solar Electricity Has Dropped 89% In 10 Years”
Fast Company - 12/9/20
Electric Cars Are Coming To Mass Market Ahead Of Schedule
New York Times - 9/20/20
“Mass Extinctions Are Accelerating, Scientists Report”
New York Times - 6/1/20
San Francisco And Manila: How Two Cities Are Fighting Rising Sea Levels
New York Times - 2/13/20
Kids From Cork, Ireland, Make Delightful Climate Change Rap
CorkBeo - 2/2/20
“2019 Was The Year Sustainability Finally Burst Into The Fashion Mainstream”
Fashionista - 12/12/19
Stanford Is Skeptical Of Carbon Capture Costs
Stanford - 10/25/19
MIT Offers New, Low Energy Way To Remove CO2 From The Air
MIT - 10/24/19
Greta Thunberg Rallies The World Again With “How Dare You?!”
YouTube/Guardian - 9/23/19

“How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words… Entire ecosystems are collapsing, we are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?”
A Grim Look At Our Inability To See Our Own Impending Extinction
The Baffler - 9/3/19
How Aquaponics Works [video]
National Geographic - 8/20/19
“A Quarter Of Humanity Faces A Looming Water Crisis”
New York Times - 8/6/19
“Texas Used More Energy From Wind Than Coal This Year”
Dallas Observer - 8/5/19
Experts: We Have 18 Months To Save The Planet
BBC - 7/24/19
22-Part Plan To Feed The World By 2050
Fast Company - 7/17/19
Middle School Makes Hydroponic Farm, Supplies School And Neighborhood
NPR - 7/7/19
Georgia Town Builds Largest Solar Panel Assembly Plant In The World
NPR - 6/24/19
Everything You Wanted To Know About: Composting
Quartz - 6/18/19
Everything You Wanted To Know About: Tiny Houses
Quartz - 6/14/19
“The Uncanny Power Of Greta Thurnberg’s Climate-Change Rhetoric”
New Yorker - 4/24/19

“No one knew what to say to Thunberg, or how to respond to her exhortations. Her microphone check was another rhetorical device. “Did you hear what I just said?” she asked, in the middle of her speech. The room bellowed, “Yes!” “Is my English O.K.?” The audience laughed. Thunberg’s face flickered, but she did not smile. “Because I’m beginning to wonder.””
Lengthy Exploration Of Media Coverage Of Climate Change
The Nation - 4/22/19
"The Last Ripe Hass” - Absurdist Dystopian Climate Change Thriller
Vimeo - 4/4/19
Great Thunberg, 16-Year-Old Climate Activist, Stuns Davos [video]
Guardian - 1/25/19

“I don't want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act.”
“EU Market Says Goodbye To Single-Use Plastic Products”
Forbes - 1/22/19
“How Does Your State Make Electricity?”
New York Times - 12/24/18
Who Is Greta Thunberg?
TED - 11/1/18
An Interesting Toolkit For Understanding The “Circular Economy”
Medium - 10/28/18
An Island Is Washed Away: Climate Change In Action
Quartz - 10/24/18
Lego Wants To Remake Its Bricks Out Of Sustainable Materials
New York Times - 8/31/18

“It wants to eliminate its dependence on petroleum-based plastics, and build its toys entirely from plant-based or recycled materials by 2030.”
Can The Hoover Dam Become A Giant Battery For Solar And Wind?
New York Times - 7/24/18
“Sucking CO2 From The Air Is Cheaper Than Scientists Thought”
Nature - 6/7/18
A PD Workshop For Teachers Who Want To Address Climate Change
Omega - 6/1/18
Puerto Rico Schools Rebuild With Sustainable Energy
EdSurge - 5/30/18
Bitcoin Servers Are About To Consume .5% Of World’s Electricity
Grist - 5/17/18
Are Electric Scooters A Sustainable Transportation Solution?
New York Times - 4/20/18
“UK Sets New Record By Going Without Coal For 55 Hours”
CBS News - 4/19/18
Renewable Energy Programs Are Enabling Social Mobility
Hechinger Report - 4/14/18
The Environmental Impact Of Buying A Smartphone Is Huge
Fast Company - 3/27/18

“Buying a new smartphone consumes as much energy as using an existing phone for an entire decade.”
"The Population Bomb” And The Inevitable Collapse Of Civilization
Guardian - 3/22/18
China Deploys 60,000 Soldiers… To Plant Forests On 23% Of Its Land
World Economic Forum - 2/16/18
2017 Was The Second Hottest On Record [Graph]
New York Times - 1/18/18
"World Scientists’ Warning To Humanity” - 25 Years Ago And Today
New York Times - 11/18/17

"Twenty-five years ago this month, more than 1,500 prominent scientists, including over half of the living Nobel laureates, issued a manifesto titled “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” in which they admonished, “A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated… This month a new coalition of scientists, led by researchers at Oregon State University, published a new warning: “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice.” It’s not as poetic as the first, unfortunately, but it’s just as grim.”
Will Tesla Restructure Puerto Rico’s Entire Power Grid?
Core77 - 10/6/17
A Visual History Of Carbon Emissions On Earth [Video]
Vimeo - 9/5/17
How The Netherlands May Be The Future Of Farming
National Geographic - 9/1/17
"A Credible Path To 100-Percent Renewable Energy”
Pacific Standard - 8/26/17
The Most Effective Individual Steps To Avoid Climate Change [Infographic]
Phys - 7/11/17
Volvo Phases Out Gas-Only Engines
New York Times - 7/5/17
Cli-Fi (Climate Fiction) Is An Emerging Genre
Smithsonian - 6/14/17

"The primary function of climate fiction is not to convince us to do something about climate change—that remains a job primarily for activists, scientists and politicians. Rather, fiction can help us learn how to live in a world increasingly altered by our actions—and to imagine new ways of living that might reduce the harm we do.”
How Schools Can Change The Minds Of Student Climate Skeptics
New York Times - 6/4/17

"Mr. Sutter’s classroom shows how curriculum can sometimes influence culture on a subject that stands to have a more profound impact on today’s high schoolers than their parents.”
Chinese Company Trains US Coal Miners To Be Wind Farmers
Quartz - 5/24/17
Recycled Material Is Losing Value, And The Market For It Is Shrinking
USA Today - 4/20/17
Kentucky Coal Museum Installs Solar Panels…
USA Today - 4/8/17
Ikea Makes A Flatpack Garden That Feeds A Neighborhood
Expand Your Consciousness - 2/27/17
"A History Of Global Living Conditions In 5 Charts”
Our World In Data - 12/20/16
Middlebury College Achieves Carbon Neutrality
Middlebury - 12/8/16
6 Maps Showing America’s Infrastructure (Energy, Rail, Transport, More)
Washington Post - 12/1/16
Arctic Ice Is At An Unprecedented Recorded Low
BuzzFeed - 11/19/16
Visualized, Animated History Of Human Population
YouTube/American Museum of Natural History - 11/6/16
Tesla Announces Solar Roof Tiles
TechCrunch - 10/29/16
Has Global Wildlife Fallen by 58% in 40 Years?
BBC - 10/27/16
Massive, Global Agreement To Reduce Hydrofluorocarbons
New York Times - 10/15/16
The Barrier Reef Isn’t Dead, But Needs Help
LA Times - 10/14/16
Obituary For The Great Barrier Reef
Outside - 10/11/16
“Germans Lawmakers Vote To Ban The Internal Combustion Engine”
Gizmodo - 10/8/16
"The Behavioral Economics Of Recycling”
Harvard Business Review - 10/7/16
XKCD On 20,000 Years Of Climate Change
XKCD - 9/15/16
How Rising Sea Levels Would Reshape New York City
New York Magazine - 9/7/16
Evaporative Cooling: Refrigerate Without Electricity
MIT Technology Review - 8/25/16
An Analysis Of Solar Power Generation In America, By State
Priceonomics - 7/25/16
The Environmental (And Health) Benefits Of Plant Diets
Stanford - 7/22/16
Tesla Motors Is Now Just Tesla. Musk’s Vision Grows.
Quartz - 7/20/16
Primary Energy Sources By Zip Code
Metric Maps - 7/19/16
The Graphs You’ve Wanted About Sustainability Of Different Foods
Washington Post - 6/30/16
New Way Of Making Hydrogen Fuel From Water
Stanford - 6/17/16
Scientists Create Bionic Leaf: Artificial Photosynthesis
Gizmag - 6/6/16
Computers Powered By Ambient Radio Signals
Fast Company - 4/21/16
Humans Spread “Like Invasive Species”
Stanford - 4/5/16
Where Do Children Learn About Food Sources? [infographic]
Guardian - 3/11/16
The Great Barrier Reef And Destruction By Climate Change
Pacific Standard - 2/15/16
Peak Paper Has Passed, And Our Consumption Continues To Slow
Aeon - 2/12/16
15 of the 16 Hottest Years On Record Have Occurred Since 2001
Pacific Standard - 1/21/16
By 2050, There Will Be More Plastic In The Ocean Than Fish.
Washington Post - 1/20/16
Harvesting Energy From Small Bends, i.e. Walking
MIT - 1/6/16
One Step Closer To Bacteria That Produces Hydrogen
University of Indiana - 1/4/16
Simple Answers To Questions About Climate Change
New York Times - 11/28/15
Scientists Fly Over Greenland, Measure Rivers, Sinkholes
New York Times - 10/27/15
Could Climate Change Be An Accident, Not The Result Of Greed?
NPR - 10/6/15
What 2 Years Of A Warmer Pacific Ocean Has Done To Marine Life
Hakai Magazine - 9/16/15
How The 100 Largest US Metro Areas Get Their Electricity
Brookings - 9/2/15
How The 50 States Generate Their Electricity
Washington Post - 7/31/15
Can Every State Be 100% Renewable By 2050? He Thinks So.
Stanford - 6/8/15
More Prototypes For Self-Sustaining “Ecocapsules”
Quartz - 5/27/15
NASA: Here Are Houseplants That Clean Chemicals From The Air
Love The Garden - 5/12/15
Tony Stark—uh, Elon Musk Solves Global Warming [video]
YouTube - 5/1/15
Millbrook School Is Now 100% Solar Powered
Green Schools Alliance - 4/3/15
How One Teacher Teaches Climate Change In A Fossil Fuel State
PBS - 3/26/15
On The Need For More Access To Water… In America
Newsweek - 3/13/15
Insight Into Local Food Sourcing In Schools
NPR - 3/11/15
Big Companies Are Going Solar
Slate - 2/20/15
Without Electricity In India, Problem Solving In Small Villages
NPR - 2/17/15
Gates Makes Case and Call For Sustainable, Global Future
Gates Notes - 1/21/15
9 Barriers To Human Destruction. We’ve Crossed 4.
Quartz - 1/20/15
Is Climate Disaster Inevitable?
New York Times - 1/18/15
Bill Gates: How To Turn Sewage Into Drinking Water And Electricity
Core77 - 1/7/15
In Case You Didn’t Know, Global Water Is An Issue
Stanford - 11/10/14
4 Different Paths to Social Change
Stanford Social Innovation Review - 11/6/14
Solar Soon To Be Cheaper Than Oil?
Bloomberg - 10/29/14
Can Windows Become Solar Cells?
ExtremeTech - 8/26/14
Uncivilization: When Advocates For Sustainability Lose Hope
New York Times - 4/17/14

"Kingsnorth and Hine’s aspirations for their manifesto weren’t revolutionary, but neither were they nihilistic. Each man draws a distinction between a “problem,” which can be solved, and a “predicament,” which must be endured. “Uncivilization” was firm in its conviction that climate change and other ecological crises are predicaments, and it called for a cadre of like-minded writers to “challenge the stories which underpin our civilization: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality and the myth of separation from ‘nature.’ ””

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