Ensia articles

Environmental justice advocates are working to ensure the state’s efforts to combat climate change benefit everyone — and the lessons can be applied nationwide.

It was a time of year that should have been perfect.

Warming temperatures marked Southern California’s gentle return to spring. The grass had shifted from drab to glowing green. The sky, which can be pale and hard in winter, had softened to a gentler blue.

At the John Mendez Baseb

Scientists and physicians are looking for clues to a worrying increase in fungal infections and exploring ways to reduce the threat.

Fungi are everywhere — from the mushrooms that decompose fallen logs in the forest, to the mold that grows in your bathtub, to the microscopic fungal cells that reside naturally on your skin. Scientists estimate there are 1.5 million species of fungi

“We are within nature. We are part of nature. … We’re not divided from nature. We cannot be dismissive of nature because Christ himself chose to be of nature.”

Reverend Robert “Bud” Grant, professor of environmental theology at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, has dedicated his life to studying and preaching about issues at the intersection of faith and

Ask someone in Flint, Michigan, or São Paolo, Brazil — the list of cities rocked by water disasters seems to grow each day — how much safe water is worth. Worried about contamination and drought, it might be a pretty penny. But the ability of people to actually pay for the full cost of water — from protecting it at its source to getting it to flow from the tap — depends, as i

From migrating birds to pollinating bees to seed-dispersing plants, thousands of species depend on the quality of the aerosphere­ — the layer of air that surrounds our planet. Despite this, aircraft, wind farms, drones, telecommunication towers and other anthropogenic infrastructure increasingly crowd this critical habitat. Current species conservation efforts are generally focused on terrestrial and aquatic habitats, but not on airspace as a similarly important ecosyst

For three weeks every month, Ray Archuleta captivates audiences with a few handfuls of soil. He begins with two clumps, dropping them into water. The soil from a farm where the soil isn’t tilled holds together, while the tilled soil immediately disperses, indicating poor soil structure. Next, volunteers from the audience — mostly farmers and ranchers — pour water over a soil that grew a variety of crops, and it runs right through. A sample of tilled soil that grew only corn