Read the full post on the Climate Law Blog. See also Tools for tracking Trump 2.0  for additional trackers. Since its launch on January 20, 2018, the Silencing Science Tracker has been documenting government efforts to restrict and prevent scientific research, education, and the publication and use of scientific information. We are proud to announce the launch of an improved version of the Tracker…

by Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro The rapid growth of artificial intelligence has sharply increased electricity and water consumption, raising concerns about the technology’s environmental footprint and carbon emissions. But the story is more complicated than that. I study emerging technologies and how their development and deployment influence economic, institutional and societal outcomes, including…

Read the full story in The Hill. Nearly a month after a wastewater spill into the Potomac River began, recovery efforts are ongoing. The spillage, which resulted from a section of the Potomac Interceptor sewer line collapsing last month, resulted in an overflow of roughly 243 million gallons of wastewater as of Feb. 6, according to DC Water. Although public health officials have said the spillage did not impact drinking water quality, residents are still encouraged to avoid contact with the Potomac River.

Read the full story from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. See also: Ghorbani, K., & Atallah, S. S. (2026). Strategic responses to ban enforcement uncertainty: Antibiotic application decisions in plant agriculture. European Review of Agricultural Economics, jbaf068.  Antibiotic resistance in human and animal health is on the forefront of public debate, but it’s a less well-known issue in plant agriculture.

Read the full story at Canary Media. While Eolian makes important upgrades to a 100-megawatt battery, the company will lend that grid connection to help CyrusOne’s data center get up and running.

Read the full story in Anthropocene Magazine. See also: Zhou, G., Li, Z., Deng, Z., Yao, S., Safari, A., Zhang, L., Hua, P., & Sun, Q. (2026). Sub-zero Celsius elastocaloric cooling via low-transition-temperature alloys. Nature, 649(8098), 879–884.  Researchers have built the first refrigerant-free system to reach sub-zero temperatures, a breakthrough that could reduce food waste and greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the full story at the Climate Law Blog. Until recently, Louisiana was the darling of the carbon capture, removal, and storage industry. Due to its history of oil and gas production, the state has a fairly extensive carbon dioxide pipeline network, and ideal geology for storing carbon dioxide. For those reasons, federal incentives to advance point source capture of carbon dioxide (e.g., at industrial facilities and power plants) and its removal directly from the atmosphere have often gone to projects in Louisiana.

Download the report. Local governments are well-positioned to lead the fight against climate change by reducing community-wide greenhouse gas emissions, promoting renewable energy resources, and otherwise advancing climate mitigation and adaptation goals. Many local governments have already taken actions, and there is more they can do. In mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis, local governments must be aware of and act consistently with preemptive state laws that limit their authority.

Read the full story from the University of Arizona. See also: Mamour Touré, Amadou Fall, Alana Burnham, Alioune Beye, Sidikairou Badiane, Douglas Lawton, Arianne J. Cease. Soil amendments suppress migratory pests and enhance yields. Scientific Reports, 2026; 16 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-27884-z Locust swarms can wipe out crops across entire regions, threatening food supplies and livelihoods. Now, scientists working with farmers in Senegal have shown that improving soil health can dramatically reduce locust damage. By enriching soil with nitrogen, crops become less appealing to the insects, leading to fewer locusts, less plant damage, and harvests that doubled in size.

The Search for New Stories to Live By, a free online course in econarrative and ethical leadership, is for anyone who is aware of the trajectory of society towards collapse under ever-growing inequality and environmental destruction and wants change at the only level that can make a difference: finding new stories to live by. In this course, ethical leadership is defined as shaping how others perceive themselves and the society around them based on an ecological vision.

Read the full story from Illinois Public Media. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Agriculture created a network of “climate hubs” to understand how climate change affects agriculture and forestry and help farmers adapt to more extreme and unpredictable weather. Now, the future of these hubs is uncertain.

Read the full story from NPR. The Trump administration is undertaking the biggest overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in a generation. President Trump has been a vocal critic of the disaster response agency and, shortly after taking office, he appointed a 12-person review council to propose sweeping changes to FEMA. Preliminary recommendations by that council would "eliminate FEMA as we know it today," according to a draft of its report obtained by NPR.

Read the full story from the University of Virginia. There are more than 13 million manuscripts held and maintained by UVA’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library (along with hundreds of thousands of maps, rare books, photographs, broadsides, and more) but the majority of those documents have not been digitized or transcribed. This is typical in the world of special collections libraries; the…

Read the full story at Trellis. Three groups that work on the packaging — the U.S. Plastics Pact, Consumer Goods Forum and Sustainable Packaging Coalition — have received letters warning of potential antitrust violations. Lead author James Uthmeier, Florida’s AG, also targeted Ceres, an investor organization. The goal may be to pressure companies into abandoning the initiatives.

Read the full story from the New York Times (gift article). New Orleans is having Mardi Gras regrets, and not just the kind that come from too many daiquiris. In recent years, the city’s huge, weekslong party has been producing more waste than ever: an average of 1,123 tons per year for the last decade, according to the city’s Sanitation Department.

Read the full story at Grist. Heading into the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympics, skiers and snowboarders were already adjusting to a ban on fluorinated waxes long prized for making their equipment faster. This week, the Winter Games saw their first enforcement of that rule, which is aimed at protecting public health and the environment. South Korean cross-country skiers Han Dasom and Lee Eui-jin were disqualified from the women’s sprint event on Tuesday.

Read the full story from Illinois Public Media. A new challenge has emerged on the agenda for lawmakers in Springfield: regulating the growth of high-tech data centers to shield consumers from rising electricity costs and protect Illinois’ natural resources. Data centers hold computers and servers that are used to transmit large amounts of data. They require ample electricity to power them and water for cooling purposes.

Read the full story at Canary Media. See also Amid national call to make polluters pay, Illinois lawmakers are prepping a climate change superfund bill for a closer look at Illinois' proposed legislation. President Donald Trump has made it quite clear how he feels about state laws that aim to make fossil fuel companies pay for damages caused by climate change.

The ice that now covers West Antarctica was not there 3.6 million years ago, after a massive collapse of the ice sheet during a warming period. Anna Ruth Halberstadt, CC BY-NC-ND by Christine Siddoway, Colorado College; Anna Ruth (Ruthie) Halberstadt, The University of Texas at Austin, and Keiji Horikawa, University of Toyama Due to its thick, vast ice sheet, Antarctica appears to be a single, continuous landmass centered over the South Pole and spanning both hemispheres of the globe.

Read the full story from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. See also: Shuai Wang, Pardis Pourhaji, Dalton Vassallo, Sara Heidarnezhad, Suzanne Scarlata, Nima Rahbar. Durable, high-strength carbon-negative enzymatic structural materials via a capillary suspension technique. Matter, 2025; 102564 DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2025.102564 A new building material developed by engineers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute could change how the world builds. Made using an enzyme that turns carbon dioxide into solid minerals, the material cures in hours and locks away carbon instead of releasing it. It’s strong, repairable, recyclable, and far cleaner than concrete. If adopted widely, it could slash emissions across the construction industry.

Acid mine waste turns rocks orange along Shamokin Creek in Pennsylvania. Jake C/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA by Hélène Nguemgaing, PhD, University of Maryland and Alan Collins, West Virginia University Across Appalachia, rust-colored water seeps from abandoned coal mines, staining rocks orange and coating stream beds with metals. These acidic discharges, known as acid mine drainage, are among the region’s most persistent environmental problems.

Read the full story from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. How do you assess the health needs of an entire community, especially its most vulnerable members? It’s a huge logistical challenge for public health offices serving counties and states around the country, but an accurate view of community health is needed to guide the services they offer and to reach their intended audiences.

Read the full story at Anthropocene Magazine. See also: Meireles, J. P., Hahn-Klimroth, M., Lackey, L. B., Van Eeuwijk, N., Bertelsen, M. F., Dressen, S., Dierkes, P. W., Abraham, A. J., & Clauss, M. (2026). Aging populations threaten conservation goals of zoos. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 123(5), e2522274123.  As reproduction slows and populations gray, scientists warn that many zoos are losing their capacity to function as effective conservation tools.

Read the full story at Pace University. What happens to recovered species after they leave the Endangered Species List? Do the government and scientists go about their business like everything is perfect, or do they try to protect freshly recovered species? These questions are logical. They bring up important topics that are necessary to discuss, especially during a time when so many species are at risk.

Read the full story at Grist. Trump’s attacks on bedrock environmental and climate laws are inherently fragile — and could reflect the president’s preference for political dominance over lasting change.