Selected Writing About the Earth and Environment
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Hope for coral reefs after IVF colonies survive record heat event (The Guardian)
Scientists found 90% of young coral surveyed remained healthy compared with 25% of older corals, after mass bleaching event in the Caribbean. This news story for the Guardian's Seascape section highlighted unexpected outcomes after deadly heat. |
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The Very Hungry Urchins (Hakai Magazine)
With spikes as long as knitting needles, long-spined sea urchins may look like underwater villains, but their appetite for algae makes them the unsung heroes of Caribbean reefs. This feature for Hakai Magazine shared how scientists in Florida are figuring out how to raise the urchins in large enough numbers to hopefully restock reefs. |
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A New Way to Predict Earthquakes (Nautilus Magazine)
Picture a fault line, like the San Andreas fault, and you might imagine a perfect slice through rock, like a cut through a cake with a sharp knife. But these geological fractures between blocks of rock in the Earth’s crust and upper mantle are rarely as straightforward or as simple as that. |
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Six Months After the Heat Spiked, Caribbean Corals Are Still Reeling (The Atlantic and Hakai Magazine)
In deep water and in the shallows, corals cooked by last year’s extreme heat are not doing great. This news story, published in both Hakai Magazine and The Atlantic (as Extreme Heat Toasted Caribbean Corals), explained what marine scientists in Mexico and the Bahamas have been seeing in coral reefs in the wake of the 2023 marine heatwave. |
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Reef Refugia (bioGraphic)
In Belize, scientists are studying a thriving coral reef and helping to spread its resilience into other reefs around the Caribbean. This feature for bioGraphic tells the story of patch reef filled with staghorn coral that remained unusually healthy over the 20th Century as similar reefs declined. Now researchers and conservation experts are hoping to spread these more resilient corals to other reefs. |
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How Can We Know When Methane Leaks Happen? (Inside Energy)
Natural gas has lower emissions than other fossil fuels, and so it is often touted as a “bridge fuel” to ease our country’s transition from big polluters like coal and oil to a cleaner, greener, low-carbon energy future. But methane leaks as a result of natural gas production may put that clean gas bridge in doubt. |
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The History of Climate Science Research (UCAR Center for Science Education)
An interactive timeline that explores how and when we learned about greenhouse gases, their ability to cause warming, modeling future climate, and the consequences of climate change. Selected in 2023 for inclusion in the Library of Congress. |
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Sea Star Deaths along the West Coast Elicit Close Study (Scientific American)
People woke early to greet the low tide at Cannon Beach, Oregon, in late July. They wandered through sand to a pillar of stone at the edge of the Pacific called Haystack Rock. |
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Teachers Bring Fracking to School (Science Friday)
Many kids in the state of Colorado pass a drill rig on their way to school, thanks to the state’s oil and gas boom. Colorado teachers are now bringing the boom to the classroom, introducing students to the science of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and to the impacts of fracking and other technologies used to extract oil and gas. |
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Can We Limit the Amount of Sunlight that Gets to Earth and Stop Climate Change? (UCAR Center for Science Education)
Blocking some solar radiation from getting to Earth could involve sending gases or particles into the atmosphere, like volcanoes. It could also include methods like making clouds or the Earth’s surface brighter so that they reflect sunlight back out to space. Methods like these could help slow climate change. However, changing the albedo of our planet could be risky. |
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Whose turn is it to clean up the atmosphere? (Smith Alumnae Quarterly)
No one owns the atmosphere yet everyone is responsible for it, which can be problematic. This essay for the Smith Alumnae Quarterly describes how our air has become a tragedy of the commons as individuals, nations, and corporations act in their own best interests instead of the interests of the planet. |
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In “Tales from an Uncertain World” excerpt, author explores the boundaries of understanding (The Colorado Sun)
Scientists work at the outskirts of our understanding, on the border between known and unknown. On one side of this boundary is all the science that we know. On the other side of the boundary is an endless plain of knowledge that we do not yet know. And the science that researchers are exploring now is right on the boundary. |
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Is Fracking Dangerous? (Inside Energy)
There are many hazards associated with oil and gas development: air and water pollution, accidents, and threats to mental health. Clearly, oil and gas development can be dangerous, but HOW dangerous? And for whom? |
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Where Does Fracking Water Go? (Inside Energy)
Oil and water don’t mix, they say, but when it comes to drilling an oil and gas well, water is a big part of the process. Each day, 2.4 billion gallons of wastewater pour out of U.S. oil and gas wells. This includes water pumped down for fracking and water that flows up to the surface from deep aquifers. |
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Studying Lions from Space as Climate Changes (UCAR Center for Science Education)
The American Southwest is becoming more prone to drought as Earth warms. How will the drier conditions affect mountain lions, the biggest cats in North America? |
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The World Cup’s Climate Wild Card (Scientific American)
When I read that the soccer balls used for World Cup games have been specially designed for the climate in Brazil, that got me wondering - which climate? |
Gal Science: On Dry Ground in the Floods (The Toast)
What looked like a slurry of chocolate milk was pouring through the tunnel under a road near my home in Boulder, Colorado. This was on September 12, 2013. A couple of days earlier, this tunnel contained a dry creek bed, a bike path, a few shady characters and a strong smell of pot.
What looked like a slurry of chocolate milk was pouring through the tunnel under a road near my home in Boulder, Colorado. This was on September 12, 2013. A couple of days earlier, this tunnel contained a dry creek bed, a bike path, a few shady characters and a strong smell of pot.
Record Breaking Planet (Science Friday)
Records set during the Olympics by fast swimmers and runners and all sorts of other athletes were exciting. They made people jump out of seats in living rooms around the world and cheer. But records set by our planet are another story. Those make me uneasy.
Records set during the Olympics by fast swimmers and runners and all sorts of other athletes were exciting. They made people jump out of seats in living rooms around the world and cheer. But records set by our planet are another story. Those make me uneasy.
An Oily Year for Citizen Scientists on the Gulf Coast (Science Friday)
When the explosion happened at the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, we didn’t know exactly how much oil would eventually leak into the ocean and that, a year after the spill, there are still so many questions about how to restore the region. While there is a lot to make us feel blue about the situation, there are also thousands of people who are making a positive difference, people who, over the past year, have volunteered their time to help.
When the explosion happened at the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, we didn’t know exactly how much oil would eventually leak into the ocean and that, a year after the spill, there are still so many questions about how to restore the region. While there is a lot to make us feel blue about the situation, there are also thousands of people who are making a positive difference, people who, over the past year, have volunteered their time to help.
Tracking the Wild Horseshoe Crabs of New York (Science Friday)
On June 1, 2011 at 11:51 PM, a group of people assembled on the beach in Northpoint, New York. There was no moon shining that night, not even a sliver. The people carried flashlights or wore headlamps. They held clipboards and paper. Their mission: to report where horseshoe crabs were spotted along the beach.
On June 1, 2011 at 11:51 PM, a group of people assembled on the beach in Northpoint, New York. There was no moon shining that night, not even a sliver. The people carried flashlights or wore headlamps. They held clipboards and paper. Their mission: to report where horseshoe crabs were spotted along the beach.