In Pagosa Springs, Colorado, a nonprofit is using underground heat from a natural hot spring to operate greenhouses that grow produce year-round, even in freezing temperatures.
The Geothermal Greenhouse Partnership in Colorado uses naturally hot water from a town-owned well to heat greenhouses, supporting local food production despite harsh winters.
Geothermal greenhouses, unlike conventional models powered by fossil fuels, significantly reduce carbon emissions and energy costs by recycling Earth’s natural heat.
Although geothermal systems can cut heating costs by up to 80%, high installation expenses remain a major barrier to widespread adoption in U.S. agriculture.
Key quote:
“Geothermal greenhouses offer a more sustainable solution by using the Earth’s natural heat directly for warming, greatly reducing overall energy use and carbon footprint.”
— Gina Marie Butrico, co-author of “Greenhouse Agriculture in the Icelandic Food System”
Why this matters:
As climate change intensifies and rural food insecurity grows, the need for resilient, low-carbon agriculture becomes more urgent. Geothermal energy, a stable and renewable source, offers a promising path to heating greenhouses without fossil fuels, cutting emissions while extending growing seasons in cold regions. Yet in the U.S., adoption has lagged due to steep upfront costs and limited policy support. Less than 0.5% of U.S. energy comes from geothermal sources, despite the country’s significant potential, especially in the West. In places like Pagosa Springs, where more than one in 10 residents lack reliable access to food, geothermal greenhouses could become important resources for survival and community health.
Boston is building a climate-resilient future with flood-ready building codes, nature-based defenses, and redesigned public spaces that double as sea walls — despite federal funding cuts and political inertia.
The city’s 100+ projects are backed by a mix of local, state, and private money, while planners assume at least one meter of sea-level rise in their designs.
Meanwhile, other U.S. coastal cities risk falling behind, especially in states like Florida where climate change is being scrubbed from official policy.
Key quote:
“We have to finish these projects sooner rather than later to solve a problem that is coming at us very quickly.”
— Brian Swett, chief climate officer, City of Boston
Why this matters:
Boston’s not waiting for Washington to throw it a life raft. The city is bracing for the kind of waterlogged future that’s no longer hypothetical, one where king tides slosh over sea walls and destructive nor’easters chew through neighborhoods with regularity. But instead of issuing dire warnings or hiding behind red tape, Boston is getting to work. The city is overhauling building codes to factor in future floods, and sidewalks, parks, and plazas are doubling as spongey infrastructure. As other coastal cities fumble the politics of climate change, Boston’s betting on pragmatism over paralysis.
Nearly six billion people live in countries losing more freshwater than they gain, largely due to groundwater overuse, according to a 22-year NASA satellite analysis.
Groundwater depletion is now a bigger driver of sea level rise than glacier melt, with much of the pumped water ending up in oceans, permanently lost for human use.
As aquifers collapse and cities sink, from Mexico City to Jakarta, the risks to food systems, political stability, and global security are mounting rapidly.
Key quote:
“The massive overpumping of groundwater poses enormous risk to food production.”
— Peter Gleick, climate scientist and member of the National Academy of Sciences
Why this matters:
The planet is shrinking from the inside out. In a sweeping new global analysis, NASA satellites reveal that billions of people live in countries bleeding out their freshwater faster than it’s being replaced, and the culprit is mostly underground. This invisible crisis is quietly reshaping coastlines, accelerating climate impacts, and setting the stage for widespread food shortages, mass migration, and geopolitical tension. If the U.S. and others don't act soon, health and security risks will intensify.
The Trump administration is rolling back decades of bipartisan conservation policy by prioritizing industrial use of public lands, despite widespread public opposition.
The Trump administration rescinded protections on nearly 59 million acres of national forest and proposed selling millions more, aiming to expand roads, logging, and fossil fuel extraction.
These public lands are economic engines for rural towns via outdoor recreation, tourism, and water protection — activities that contribute billions to local economies and support clean drinking water for major cities.
Despite sweeping policy changes, polls show strong bipartisan support for keeping public lands accessible, and backlash to land sell-off proposals has been fierce across political lines.
Key quote:
“The aim is, ‘Let’s make federal management so bad and so dismal that it will change public opinion.’”
— John Leshy, former U.S. Interior Department general counsel
Why this matters:
For decades, the idea that public lands should serve everyone — hikers and hunters, tribes and towns, wildlife and watersheds — was a rare bipartisan consensus. But under Trump, that notion is being gutted in favor of more drilling, more logging, and more roads, even as the climate crisis accelerates and biodiversity declines. Public lands are the economic backbone of countless rural towns that thrive on recreation, tourism, and clean water. The same forests that filter drinking water for cities and provide refuge during heatwaves are now being primed for industry — not in the name of energy independence, but ideology.
Copenhagen is rewriting the rulebook on flood protection with an ambitious plan to turn the city into a giant sponge — soaking up rain, storing it underground, and using parks, tunnels, and even bike shelters to manage the deluge.
After a devastating flood in 2011 caused $1.8 billion in damages, Copenhagen launched the Cloudburst Management Plan, blending green infrastructure with massive underground engineering to handle future storms.
Hundreds of new parks, bioswales, tunnels, and water-retaining public spaces now dot the city, reducing flood risk in key areas by up to 50% while doubling as urban gathering spots.
Though the city is far from done, its “sponge city” model is now influencing cities worldwide and offering added benefits like cooling, biodiversity, and drought resilience.
Key quote:
“Copenhagen’s adaption efforts aren’t just technical and functional, but they’re social too. The infrastructure is aesthetically pleasing and experiential, like collection basins that are also skate parks and amphitheaters.
— Maryam Naghibi, urban landscape architect, Delft University of Technology
Why this matters:
By employing a forward-thinking mixture of above-ground beauty and below-ground muscle, Copenhagen's Cloudburst Management Plan points the way for many cities struggling to cope with a warming world. With extreme weather and rising seas threatening urban centers everywhere, the Danish capital's flood strategy offers a compelling example of how smart design responsive to local conditions can protect health, prevent disaster, and improve daily life.
Top scientists are slamming a new Department of Energy (DOE) report for pushing debunked climate denial talking points under the guise of legitimate science.
The DOE's 150-page report claims climate change is less economically damaging than believed and suggests mitigation efforts could hurt more than help, contradicting established research.
Climate scientists including Michael Mann and Andrew Dessler call the report deceptive, cherry-picked, and scientifically dishonest, recycling discredited claims while ignoring extensive peer-reviewed literature.
The report, drafted by prominent climate contrarians, opens a 30-day public comment period, raising concerns that it could be used in legal battles to weaken climate regulations.
Key quote:
“It’s the usual mix of untruths, half-truths, and discredited if seemingly plausible claims we’ve come to expect from professional climate deniers and those who platform them.”
— Michael Mann, director of the Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania
Why this matters:
In the latest volley of science versus spin, the Department of Energy has dropped a 150-page climate report that feels more like a love letter to fossil fuel interests than a serious attempt at policymaking. In a country where extreme heat is killing outdoor workers, wildfires are poisoning lungs, and hurricanes are drowning coastlines, casting doubt on settled climate science has serious social and economic consequences.
Soviet physicist Roald Sagdeev’s story of a crumbling scientific empire echoes in today’s America, where researchers face political interference, dwindling funding, and increasing pressure to conform to ideology.
The Trump administration’s second term has accelerated what critics call a “controlled demolition” of American science, from dismantling advisory panels to surveilling foreign researchers and slashing research budgets.
Other nations are actively recruiting U.S. scientists disillusioned by these conditions, raising fears that America could lose its next generation of scientific talent.
Key quote:
“American science could lose a whole generation. Young people are already starting to get the message that science isn’t as valued as it once was.”
— Steven Shapin, science historian at Harvard
Why this matters:
America’s retreat from science leadership is a public health, environmental, and economic one that could reverberate for decades. When scientific institutions become politicized and underfunded, the consequences show up in everything from slower medical breakthroughs to weakened climate responses. In Ross Andersen’s dispatch, there are echoes of Cold War Soviet collapse, as American scientists now face dwindling federal funding, surveillance of foreign-born colleagues, and the growing fear that the next administration could finish gutting what's left.
