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Industrial landscapes are living reminders of how centuries of fossil-fuel development reshaped Earth’s systems. As the Anthropocene unfolds, that legacy continues to shape our future. Historian Sabine Höhler argues that bridging the divide between human and Earth history is essential to understanding where we are and at what cost.

Has the much‑discussed energy transition actually begun? So far, the answer is no. With only brief dips in crisis years, global fossil fuel use has risen every year since 1983. The newly released 2025 data confirm: humanity burned more of every major energy source in 2025 than ever before.

Modern paints contain toxic chemicals that linger in our homes and bodies, while traditional lime-based whitewash offers a low-energy, low-tox alternative that brightens buildings, protects surfaces and can even ‘sweeten’ acidic soils to boost fertility.

What happens when the global economy depends on fish traveling 10,000 miles, oil flowing through a single strait, and enough cheap fossil fuel energy to build civilizations that previous generations couldn’t even imagine?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to close the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, a 6,500-acre agricultural research station in Maryland that is home to the nation’s premier bee research and disease diagnosis hub. The closure comes at a critical moment for bees.

From vaccine hesitancy to conflict-zone rumors, false information is making it harder for humanitarian organizations to build trust, protect civilians, and save lives.

Despite recent shifts in federal energy policies, a Carbon Brief analysis shows that the US transition to renewable energy is continuing.

Vulnerable communities face growing threats: the climate crisis is outpacing scientists’ worst predictions and authoritarianism is no longer a distant possibility. So what can we do? We build. We shift away from reform and instead direct our energy toward creating entirely new systems.

Are we doomed within the next fifty years, or will it take many centuries? The end-Permian “Great Dying” can help us put today’s extinction crisis into perspective. The unsettling parallels offer a possible roadmap if we learn to see geological history as a series of recurring patterns rather than distant, irrelevant events.

An ecological approach to learning uses outdoor play, storytelling, and shared experience to help children develop a kinship worldview — a deep recognition that living and nonliving parts of the Earth are fundamentally connected.

Slower growth — and ultimately zero growth — is good for people and the planet, but not for those in power, who for millennia relied on women’s reproductive labor to produce more workers, consumers, and taxpayers. Today’s Trump-era and even progressive pronatalist policies try to reverse the trend, but there’s a reason why they won’t work.

As America marks its 250th birthday, Nate takes a moment to step outside of the celebrations to seek out a wider boundary perspective on this milestone holiday. He poses the question of whether the United States has truly matured as a nation over two and a half centuries, particularly through the lenses of energy, ecology, history, and culture.