Mark Buchanan

The stirrings of springtime show nature awakening. Coaxed by warming air and stronger sunlight, flowers unfurl on cherry trees and eager green buds burst forth from horse chestnuts. A little hope returns, as bees buzz and birds build nests. This year, it’s been happening a little earlier — and the…

The heatwave currently baking the Western US has produced a record high — 133 degrees Fahrenheit — in Death Valley and triggered rolling blackouts affecting millions of Californians. With demand for electricity threatening to exceed supply, the state sought extra capacity from producers in…

In 2015, the United Nations set 17 sustainable development goals, laudable aims to help humanity to pursue a better future that included reducing inequality, eliminating extreme poverty and addressing climate change. The UN hoped to achieve all of them by 2030. In some areas, we've made impressive…

A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that we’ve probably lost our chance to keep the planet’s temperature within a safe zone for humanity, which would require limiting global warming to just 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times…

Research in science or medicine or economics is most valuable when it is unbiased, with researchers honestly reporting the limitations of their results. It’s a lot less valuable if it exaggerates what’s known, claiming excessive certainty or precision, in an effort to win an argument. That happens…