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Climate

A sea turtle.
Sparks

Sea Turtles Are Back. But There’s a Catch.

Climate change has done a number on the sex ratio.

Sparks

Marc Benioff and Bill Gates Are Feuding About Trees

Trees are wonderful, but Gates is probably right.

Blue
A man hiding from a wildfire.

Wildfire Bunkers Are a Thing. But Can They Save Lives?

When there’s no way out, should we go down?

Libya.

How War Left Libyans Vulnerable to Deadly Floods

This is a different kind of compound climate disaster.

Yellow
Culture

Farmers’ Almanacs Clean Up Their Climate Act

Once used by conservative media to promote climate skepticism, America’s favorite purveyors of pseudoscience are pivoting for the warming era.

Old-style farmers and a wildfire.
<p>Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images</p>

Last week, the 2024 edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac became the ninth bestselling nonfiction paperback in America. “Sales on Amazon … have never been so strong, and copies are also selling briskly at bookstore chains and indie bookstores,” The Washington Post’s book critic Ron Charles reported, going on to admit he is among the millions who are “hooked” on the almanac’s folksy advice, remedies, and, of course, its long-range forecasts.

This winter, The Old Farmer’s Almanac has told its readers to expect “a whole lot of cold” as well as “oodles of fluffy white throughout the season!” The Farmers’ Almanac — the primary competitor of Old Farmer’s, which postdates its founding by a quarter century — has a similar outlook. “The brrr is back!” it predicted, much like it did in the winter before this one (“shake, shiver, and shovel!) and the winter before that (“snowy comeback!).

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Climate

An Interview With the Climate Scientist at the Center of a Scandal

Patrick Brown claims to have “left out the full truth” in order to get published. But his full story is much more perplexing.

Patrick Brown.
<p>Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, The Breakthrough Institute</p>

Patrick Brown is a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute, a heterodox think tank based in California that advocates for using technology and economic growth to manage climate change. He holds a Ph.D. from Duke University in Earth and ocean science.

Last week, Brown and a team of co-authors published a paper in Nature that found climate change has made it more likely that California wildfires will experience a particularly dangerous kind of event: a moment of rapid, explosive growth. Thanks to climate change, these dangerous events are now 25% more likely to occur, the paper found.

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