As a scientist researching marine plastic pollution, I thought I had seen a lot. Then, early in 2017, I heard from Alex Weber, a junior at Carmel High School in California.

The Farm Bill demonstrates that even in a divided nation, protecting animals is something all Americans can support.

Dear EarthTalk: What is the so-called Green New Deal proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and is Congress likely to go for it?

Permaculture is an agriculture-based design science built upon pillars of sustainability and interconnectivity.

As individuals, we can help fight climate change by adopting some rather simple daily habits.

Dear EarthTalk: It seems to me the single biggest potential “environmental” problem we could face—even bigger than global warming or a nuclear war—is a comet or asteroid striking the Earth.

With Earth in the throes of what many scientists consider our planet’s sixth mass extinction — as living organisms disappear, and even many of those seen as “species of low concern” are stricken by plunging populations and increasingly constricted ranges — conservation is a global concern.

Not so long ago, the basic skills needed for repairing and refurbishing – such as sewing, knitting, woodworking and metalworking – were taught in schools.

By now, most everyone knows that the pesticides used by industrial farming operations pollute the air, linger in the soil and turn up on many foods—including Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

Many children play with toys that evoke the bucolic life on a farm. And many will likely visit a small local farm, where animals have space and access to sunlight and the outdoors. But most kids are probably not aware that, for the vast majority of farmed animals, life is anything but happy.

Turkeys are intelligent, sensitive animals who can live up to 15 years, but on factory farms, their lives are painful and short.

Dear EarthTalk: When will those gasoline driven leaf blowers that gardeners use be outlawed? The noise and toxic fumes they emit can’t be good for us.

It seems like every few months there’s a new cellphone, laptop or tablet that is so exciting people line up around the block to get their hands on it. While the perpetual introduction of new, slightly more advanced electronics has made businesses like Apple hugely successful, the short shelf life of these electronics is bad for the environment.

Every minute, another truckload's worth of plastic trash ends up in the ocean, amounting to 8 million tons every year.

The 2nd annual MAKE SMTHNG campaign will support local organizers from around the world in creating events and experiences that invite people to celebrate the holiday season in more sustainable ways.

A handful of firms around the world are working to develop environmentally responsible recycling and disposal strategies. Here’s what they have to teach the rest of us.

Life extension – using science to slow or halt human aging so that people live far longer than they do naturally – may one day be possible.

Long overlooked as just dirt beneath our feet, soil has taken on increasing importance as we recognize its fundamental role in everything from agriculture to climate change to human health. So, too, with the organisms that call it home.