Month: October 2023

Artificial cobwebs strung in a windowframe, hung with tiny plastic skeletons.

Trash or Treat? Escaping the Environmental Horrors of Halloween

October 31, 2023

I entered my office and walked straight into a cloud of bats. Cartoonish chiropterans clung to the walls. Orange crepe shrouded the doorways. A plastic mermaid skeleton with blue nylon hair dangled from the light over my desk. My grinning colleague animated a large, fuzzy spider perched on the cubicle divider. “You think that’s going … More Trash or Treat? Escaping the Environmental Horrors of Halloween

Side-by-side globes showing El Nino satellite data across the Pacific. The 1997 globe shows a thick red line near the equator; on the 2015 globe, the red indicators have spread up the west coast of the United States and into the Pacific.

Fire and Ice: How Climate Change Impacts the El Niño Southern Oscillation

October 2, 2023

“I saw the termination dust in September,” said my colleague, nodding out the office window toward the Chugach Range. When I raised my eyebrows, he added “That’s what Alaskans call that first sprinkle of snow on the mountaintops, because it means summer is coming to an end. I’ve never seen it that early before.” I … More Fire and Ice: How Climate Change Impacts the El Niño Southern Oscillation