Peak News and Blog

Food, agriculture, and land use Human activity has transformed a significant fraction of the planet’s land, especially for growing food and harvesting forests. Land is the livelihood for billions of people. The twin forces of a growing population and rising consumption mean the challenge of stewarding land in sustainable ways will only intensify. How can…

Plant-rich diets Paring down and replacing that hamburger with meatless meats has multiple benefits. It reduces demand which reduces the associated land clearing, fertilizer use, emissions from burping cattle, and greenhouse gas emissions from animal operations.Shifting to a diet richer in plants is a solution that runs counter to an American diet that includes an average…

The idea for the first Earth Day was the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson, a junior senator from Wisconsin, saw the deteriorating environment in the United States. After his election in to the Senate in 1962, Nelson discovered that Washington had no environmental political agenda despite the many urgent national issues. Nelson believed in the political power…

Quit using warm water for laundry​Who would think that doing laundry with cold water could do way more than save you money? It’s actually a BIG deal!That’s the message from Tide in a newly launched campaign to decarbonize common everyday laundry habits. What if consumers did three out of every four loads of laundry with cold…

​Social Cost of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Scientific studies show that climate change will have, and in some cases has already had, severe consequences for  society,  like  the  spread  of  disease,  increased  food  insecurity,  and  coastal  destruction.  These  damages  from emitting greenhouse gases are not reflected in the price of fossil fuels, creating what economists call…

Heat waves; how climate change makes them worse Extreme heat domes, heat islands, mega-droughts, and climate change: the anatomy of worsening heat waves.Early season heat waves are troubling and we are seeing a trend toward lengthening of the hot season. The worst effects of heat aren’t always in the hottest places. Heat waves can have…