News

Humanity can farm more food from the seas to help feed the planet while shrinking mariculture’s negative impacts on biodiversity, according to new research led by the University of Michigan.

Research from the University of Michigan reveals a connection between pollen exposure and death rates among older adults with breathing problems.

Research led by the University of Michigan arrived at a surprisingly unsurprising result while assessing the sustainability gap between public transit and services like Uber and Lyft.

Researchers from the University of Michigan measured hormone levels in capuchin monkeys to decode how the stress response helps these monkeys weather environmental challenges.

To try to understand how harmful algal blooms might evolve in Lake Erie in a warming climate, University of Michigan scientists helped conduct a survey of cyanobacteria in a gulf of Kenya’s Lake Victoria.

Water desalination plants could replace expensive chemicals with new carbon cloth electrodes that remove boron from seawater, an important step of turning seawater into safe drinking water.

Research led by the University of Michigan shows that communities of color in Texas face pronounced risks of E. coli exposure in nearby waters after intense rain.

Community program and policy interventions aimed at reducing screen time are less successful in neighborhoods that lack green space

To combat climate change, the world needs to pivot away from fossil fuels. But building battery electric vehicles and infrastructure for renewable energy will require enormous amounts of minerals and resources.

According to a new report from the Center for Sustainable Systems, the Big Ten’s 2024 expansion will more than double the average conference game emissions for the University of Michigan football team.

The Mellon Foundation has awarded nearly $4 million in a first-of-its kind grant to bolster the University of Michigan’s leading work in environmental justice.

Morning glory plants that can resist the effects of glyphosate also resist damage from herbivorous insects, according to a University of Michigan study.

Built on the expertise and experiences of urban agriculturalists, along with research from the University of Michigan, a new policy brief urges Congress to fully fund the Office of Urban Agriculture.

Spencer Checkoway, a research assistant at the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS) is first author of a new study, "Carbon and energy footprinting across archetypes for U.S. maple syrup production." He answered five questions about the study, its findings and the main recommendations made by the authors. The other authors of the study are SEAS Professor and CSS Co-Director Gregory Keoleian and CSS Research Specialist Geoffrey Lewis.

Smarter use of processor speeds saves energy without compromising training speed and performance

Small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, could help the U.S. meet emissions goals while also satisfying growing energy demands. Although the U.S. has not powered up an SMR yet due to some deployment challenges, cost and complexity, new research from the University of Michigan shows that they are an economically viable option. Max Vanatta, School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) doctoral student is the lead author. The other authors are SEAS Assistant Professor Michael Craig and Robb Stewart, chief technology officer of Alva Energy.

Carbon-based products are central to our economy, yet urgent action is needed to combat climate change. As part of Climate Week NYC, the Global CO2 Initiative held a discussion how carbon capture and utilization can mitigate the negative impacts of fossil fuel use, addressing the technology’s economic and social impacts, as well as its challenges.

In certain parts of the U.S., the ability of residents to prepare for and respond to flooding is being undercut on three different levels.

In a new long-term ecological experiment, researchers showed that elevated levels of carbon dioxide nearly tripled species losses in grasslands attributed to the long-term application of simulated nitrogen pollution.

U-M has published a guidebook to help communities navigate the arrival of new battery energy storage systems amid changing energy policies.

"Any product that undergoes significant processing is going to have some carbon footprint, and maple syrup is no different. However, maple farmers get to tell a different story because they are the stewards of a resource that they tap into year after year."

This year’s survey will focus on critical topics including carbon neutrality, transportation, waste prevention, climate change, and food sustainability. New questions on climate anxiety will explore respondents' feelings about climate issues and their experiences with direct impacts.

At the core of Campus Plan 2050 is a commitment to sustainability. The initiative proposes innovative infrastructure solutions, including geo-exchange systems designed for efficient heating and cooling through ground-source heat pumps, as well as extensive building retrofits that enhance energy efficiency and sustainability, and efficiency upgrades to the transit system.

Hundreds of terrestrial and aquatic animal species live in the Boca do Mamirauá Reserve, located in the upper reaches of the Amazon, at the confluence of the Solimões and Japurá rivers. It is the first destination of the U-M Pantanal Partnership students this year.

The United States’ struggle to build electricity transmission capacity connecting low-cost producers has environmental and economic consequences for energy companies.

U.S. auto plants producing battery electric vehicles have required a larger workforce than traditional internal combustion engine plants—a finding that runs counter to early predictions about how EVs would impact the industry.

The system produces ethylene, an important ingredient of many plastics, with much higher efficiency, yield and longevity than competing systems.

"Energy justice is this concept that really looks at how do communities participate in both the health environment and social impacts of our energy system, recognizing that the energy system has had certain burdens on communities. And so environmental justice is really saying that all communities, regardless of race and income and geography, should be afforded a clean environment."

U-M has received a $25 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to support collaborative research initiatives addressing critical environmental challenges in U.S. coastal communities.

Massive 2014 flooding event in southeast Michigan showed why systems thinking beats local thinking in flood protection.

Maximizing the benefits of clean energy requires new ways to store it, and U-M engineers will partner in a new research hub created by the U.S Department of Energy (DOE), designed to develop and further battery innovations.

Artisanal and small-scale mining plays a critical role in supplying the world with minerals vital for decarbonization, but this kind of mining typically lacks regulation and can be socially and environmentally harmful.

While ticks and the maladies associated with these minute vampirish insects get a lot of media attention, lurking in the not-too-distant shadows we find several other and potentially more ominous vectors of disease—the fungal pathogens.

Despite ongoing geopolitical tensions, the United States and China have the opportunity to collaborate on reducing methane emissions, a critical greenhouse gas significantly contributing to about 30 percent of global warming.

The soils of northern forests are key reservoirs that help keep the carbon dioxide that trees inhale and use for photosynthesis from making it back into the atmosphere. But a unique experiment is showing that, on a warming planet, more carbon is escaping the soil than is being added by plants.

Anyone who’s spent their winter months around the Great Lakes has probably had the uncanny experience of living through three seasons in a single weekend. According to new research from U-M, these wild weather swings are poised to become even more common in the future.

For carbon capture and utilization (CCU), public support depends on which aspect of the technology is being considered and which people are considering it, according to a new study conducted by researchers from University of Michigan and other institutions.

The Center for EmPowering Communities, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office and the Michigan Department for Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, has expanded its pioneering renewable energy zoning database to detail solar zoning regulations across the Great Lakes region.

Nanoparticles delivered intravenously in mice can block the allergic reactions to red meat caused by the bite of the lone star tick, new research led by U-M shows. The condition, called alpha-gal syndrome, is on the rise in humans as climate change and other factors have led the ticks to expand their habitat.

As climate-induced migration increases in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world, what are the potential policies to help communities adapt and support residents? In a new Core Conversations podcast, Kaitlin Raimi explores how Americans view climate migrants, how policies could become a crucial factor influencing climate migration, and what the broader impacts of migration may mean for American society and the economy.

Green hydrogen is emerging as an important potential solution for decarbonizing transportation, but new energy efficiency findings indicate that it should be used strategically in heavy-duty road, rail, aviation and marine transportation, a U-M study shows.

People find it hard to resist negative messages. A recent U-M study reveals that recipients are more likely to engage with emails containing negative sentiment sent by the Environmental Defense Fund, a U.S. based nonprofit organization. Specifically, emails with a negative tone were more frequently opened, and recipients were more likely to click on links within these emails, compared to those with a positive tone.

Sporting a brand new roll cage, the U-M solar car team’s latest vehicle will speed down parts of the Oregon Trail and seven other national historic trails during this year’s American Solar Challenge, July 20-27. Starting in Nashville, Tennessee, the team will drive more than 1500 miles to the finish in Casper, Wyoming.

The percentage of Michigan local governments that say they have or are considering renewable energy goals has doubled since 2019. Local officials also report that a variety of energy issues, such as energy infrastructure zoning and planning for electric vehicles, are more relevant to their communities than they were four years ago, and the tone of local policy discussions regarding zoning for renewable energy infrastructure is generally seen as constructive.

As sea ice disappears and grows less reflective, the Arctic has lost around a quarter of its cooling power since 1980, and the world has lost up to 15%, according to new research led by U-M scientists.

An assessment ranks the feasibility of converting 245 operational coal power plants in the U.S. into advanced nuclear reactors, providing valuable insights for policymakers and utilities to meet decarbonization goals, according to a new study by University of Michigan researchers.

A recent University of Michigan study exposes a gap in sociology: a lack of focus on climate change. Societies fuel and face the consequences of this crisis, but sociology as a discipline appears insufficiently engaged with the issue, says Sofia Hiltner, U-M doctoral candidate in sociology.

“Clarity on vulnerable subgroups more susceptible to heat-related deaths will enable policymakers to design effective intervention strategies targeted to these subgroups. Downstream, this will ensure greater climate action equity.”

Nestled by the St. Clair River, a small rural neighborhood in St. Clair Township, Michigan, is surrounded by a high concentration of hazardous crude oil and natural gas facilities. For decades, Murphy Drive residents have been exposed to unreported chemical releases, oil spills, poor air quality and harmful odors.

Currently the director of the Office of Energy Justice and Equity and the secretarial adviser on equity at the U.S. Department of Energy, and formerly the department’s chief diversity officer, Baker will advance sustainability education and research across U-M schools and colleges.

Identifying public concerns and misconceptions about nuclear energy can target efforts to bridge these gaps as nuclear energy will play a large role in goals to decarbonize by 2050, replacing oil and gas as a stable baseload electricity source.

“As people are worried about climate, we shouldn’t forget that a big part of the climate story is the ocean, which stores and transports a lot of heat and carbon.”

Great Lakes researchers at U-M have been awarded a $6.5 million, five-year federal grant to host a center for the study of links between climate change, harmful algal blooms and human health. Increased precipitation, more powerful storms and warming Great Lakes waters all encourage the proliferation of harmful algal blooms composed of cyanobacteria.

Improving electric motor efficiency, reducing costs and ultimately making them without heavy rare-earth elements are the goals of a new $2.6 million project led by U-M.

The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded a three-year, $614,000 grant to U-M and its international partners to create a new research initiative that will address the socioeconomic vulnerabilities of climate migrants in the Lake Victoria Basin (LVB) and Great Lakes Region (GLR).

Converting home heating systems from natural gas furnaces to electric heat pumps is seen as a way to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But a new U-M study of 51 Southeast Michigan households shows that switching to efficient, cold-climate heat pumps would increase annual utility bills by an average of about $1,100.

Changing how often a popular cancer therapy is delivered would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve environmental impact without decreasing cancer survival, according to an analysis from researchers at the U-M Health Rogel Cancer Center.

Three new U-M sustainability catalyst grants will support novel research projects to address vexing environmental challenges. “Catching the Waves” focuses on deploying wave energy converters to power remote coastal communities, starting with Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. “Mussel Roads” uses biomimicry to enhance asphalt durability by developing materials inspired by mussel-binding proteins. “Plast-ick,” leverages artificial intelligence and satellite data to predict pollutants like PFAS in water bodies.

About a third of the food produced globally each year goes to waste, while approximately 800 million people suffer from hunger, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Heat batteries could store intermittent renewable energy during peak production hours, relying on a thermal version of solar cells to convert it into electricity later.

According to a U-M survey, 86% of respondents either strongly or somewhat support adding rooftop solar panels. The survey found some regional variation: Rooftop solar drew support from 83% of leaders in the Upper Peninsula, while garnering 89% support from southeastern Michigan officials.

Nearly half of the young people surveyed on disaster preparedness indicated they felt unprepared for any type of disaster event during a period when catastrophic climate disasters are becoming increasingly frequent, says a U-M researcher.

A costly step in the process of taking carbon dioxide emissions and converting them into useful products such as biofuels and pharmaceuticals may not be necessary, according to U-M researchers.

“Given that we sit in the heart of the Great Lakes and 21% of the world’s fresh surface water, we wanted to explore the region’s plans to identify the highest-impact, most innovative and scalable multi-state opportunities. We looked for what was working, to inform ways to accelerate community-based climate action."

Copper cannot be mined quickly enough to keep up with current U.S. policy guidelines to transition the country’s electricity and vehicle infrastructure to renewable energy, according to a U-M study.

The new projects include “Plast-ick,” which leverages AI and satellite data to predict pollutants like PFAS in water bodies; “Catching the Waves,” which focuses on deploying wave energy converters to power remote coastal communities; and "Mussel Roads," which uses biomimicry to enhance asphalt durability by developing materials inspired by mussel-binding proteins.

Eighth graders from Henderson Academy in Detroit were the first to build and race model hydrogen cars at the Michigan Engineering Zone.

In a new effort to support decarbonizing the maritime shipping industry, U-M has entered into a strategic partnership with the Copenhagen-based Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping.

Local officials across Michigan increasingly view electric vehicle infrastructure planning as relevant for their governments, though many cite too few public charging stations and costs associated with adding them as barriers to expansion.

Extreme heat is America’s deadliest weather hazard, killing more people than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined. Yet one obvious solution – increasing access to indoor cooling – is hindered by a lack of reliable data on which households have working air conditioning.

As the world faces the loss of a staggering number of species of animals and plants to endangerment and extinction, one U-M scientist has an urgent message: Chemists and pharmacists should be key players in species conservation efforts.

One of the most important things people can do to address climate change is talk about it, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said. Citing statistics that two-thirds of people in the United States are worried about climate change, but only 8% are activated to do something about it, Hayhoe said talking about climate change doesn’t mean trying to change the minds of those who believe it is a hoax.

For long-haul routes below 300 miles, electrification can reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas damages by 13%, or $587 million annually, according to the study. For long-haul routes above 300 miles, electrification of just the urban segments facilitated by hub-based automation of highway driving can reduce damages by 35%, or $220 million annually.

Climate change will increase the future value of residential rooftop solar panels across the United States by up to 19% by the end of the century, according to a new U-M-led study.

Among residents living within 3 miles of large-scale solar energy developments, positive attitudes about the projects outnumbered negative attitudes by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, according to a new survey of nearly 1,000 large-scale solar neighbors across the United States.

A new study published online April 4 in the journal Science finds that agricultural diversification comes with significant benefits, and very few negative effects.

The ice-out, declared on March 16 this year, comes after the latest-recorded Douglas Lake “ice-in” occurred on Jan. 6—making this the shortest season of lake ice cover recorded at the U-M Biological Station, at 70 days. For 93 years, scientists at the Biological Station, the 10,000-acre research and teaching campus nestled along Douglas Lake near Pellston in the northern Lower Peninsula, have made the calls based on their observations of the lake.

Pollen allergies affect nearly one third of the global population, and climate change is set to make it worse. Rackham student Yingxiao Zhang is developing a better way to forecast allergy season to help people better navigate its headaches.

U-M is marking late March and all of April with a series of events focused on sustainability and climate action, continuing a tradition that began with the first “Teach-In on the Environment” in 1970—which grew into what is now known as Earth Day.

“I think we’ve become more and more aware of that as a problem, and it’s tearing down Americans’ trust of their own country and their government, because they feel like the game is rigged. And if we want to try to restore some trust in the system, we need to unrig it."

"Train travel in America is much more limited than, for example, in Europe. You often can’t get where you want to go. But you can get to Lincoln from Ann Arbor, with just one change in Chicago. What’s the carbon savings? A flight to Lincoln would add about 800 kg of CO­2 emissions to my annual budget. The train trip is more like 85 kg. Takes more time, for sure, but that’s a big part of why emissions from train travel are so much lower."

A new way to make an important ingredient for plastics, adhesives, carpet fibers, household cleaners and more from natural gas could reduce manufacturing costs in a post-petroleum economy by millions of dollars, thanks to a new chemical reactor designed by U-M engineers.

What materials and methods will allow us to design and construct low-carbon buildings? How can architects and designers promote social justice through community ownership of land? Through its Pressing Matters grant program, Taubman College has funded five faculty-led research and creative practice projects that address these questions.

When climate scientists look to the future to determine what the effects of climate change may be, they use computer models to simulate potential outcomes such as how precipitation will change in a warming world. But U-M scientists are looking at something a little more tangible: coral.

The global challenges posed by climate change are widespread, impacting various aspects of human life, with water resources at the forefront of these challenges. As climate change advances, it is projected to exacerbate water scarcity and access issues, given the intensification of water-related hazards (such as hurricanes and flooding) and rising temperatures that will lead to sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion.

Improving the U.S. electricity grid is necessary to lower costs, boost reliability and help tackle climate change, but it will take some serious soul searching by the leaders of entities that control the grid.

Mushrooms come with a seemingly endless list of things that make them unique, including some that glow in the dark, some that are poisonous, and others that have been living for thousands of years. In the natural world, they are known as efficient decomposers and fast growers that play an integral role in maintaining and restoring the ecosystem.

The ClimateCAP MBA Summit, a conference that aims to prepare future business leaders on how to understand and respond to the climate crisis, was hosted at U-M this year.

The Green Anesthesia Initiative, or GAIA — an homage to the personification of Earth in Greek mythology — was established in 2022 by the Department of Anesthesiology. Its initial goal, now surpassed, was to reduce emissions from inhaled anesthesia by 80% within three years from a 2021 baseline, while ensuring patient safety.

Rackham Ph.D. candidate Etienne Herrick-Sutton works with Great Lakes region farmers to identify strategies for improving the environmental and economic outcomes of cover cropping.

Despite the possibility of climate-smart agriculture improving food security, most CSA practices and technologies are not widely adopted in South Asia.

Six new research projects will investigate the shifting dynamics of harmful algal blooms, economic trends in coastal communities, emerging fish viruses, and other issues relevant to the Great Lakes.

As the architect of the Solar Energy Research Institute, which won 42 awards and was named the most energy-efficient building in the world, Rich von Luhrte knows how something is built is just as important as what is produced and why. That knowledge and his passion for addressing climate change have led him to establish a scholarship supporting students studying urban design.

Scientists have long warned that a warming climate will cause communities around the globe to face increasing risks due to unprecedented levels of flooding, wildfires, heat stress, sea-level rise and more. Though the science is sound—even showing that human-induced, climate-related natural disasters are growing in frequency and intensity sooner than originally anticipated—climate change is still not wholly accepted as true in the United States.

Fiber optic cables that line ocean floors could provide a less expensive, more comprehensive alternative to the current buoys that act as early warning systems for tsunamis, says a U-M researcher.

The City of Ann Arbor recently reached out to the Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS) to design a model of a geothermal energy system. The model will be used for public education and community outreach in Ann Arbor.

“Often we look at climate change or widespread human poverty or these deep inequities that hold so many communities back generation after generation, and we say to ourselves, these challenges are too complex. I’m just one person; what can I do to really make a difference?”

The United States recently passed major climate change laws, such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), and the CHIPS and Science Act, which allocate funding with a goal of expanding energy-transition initiatives. Analysts suggest new investments could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40% below 2005 levels by 2030.

“We are driving the development of modern mobility systems with our advanced modeling and simulation methods, such as high-fidelity synthetic environments, virtual vehicle prototypes and virtual reality tools for human-autonomy teaming."

This winter, researchers at the U-M Biological Station in northern Michigan are strengthening their snow science with new technology to track the snowpack at an hourly rate and get a deeper understanding of the complexities of global environmental change.

A new U-M-led international study finds that fruits and vegetables grown in urban farms and gardens have a carbon footprint that is, on average, six times greater than conventionally grown produce.

Four newly awarded sustainability “catalyst grants” at U-M are piloting innovative ways to bolster climate resilience and sustainability. Funded by the U-M Graham Sustainability Institute, these projects will explore renewable energy deployment in Nepal, climate justice in the Midwest, textile recycling innovation and equitable transportation planning.

Climate change is reshaping forests differently across the United States, according to a new analysis of U.S. Forest Service data. With rising temperatures, escalating droughts, wildfires and disease outbreaks taking a toll on trees, researchers warn that forests across the American West are bearing the brunt of the consequences.

Capturing carbon dioxide from the air or industries and recycling it can sound like a win-win climate solution. The greenhouse gas stays out of the atmosphere where it can warm the planet, and it avoids the use of more fossil fuels. But not all carbon-capture projects offer the same economic and environmental benefits. In fact, some can actually worsen climate change.

The findings could help engineers methodically find the best molecules to increase the lifespan of perovskite solar cells, rather than relying on time-consuming trial and error.

"“And the warming will continue to accelerate until we halt the burning of fossil fuels. This means continued worsening extreme heat and heat waves, but also many other worsening climate extremes driven by warmer temperatures. More severe droughts, more intense rainfall, more devastating hurricanes and bigger, more widespread wildfires."

Concern for climate change grows—along with support for policies to reduce emissions—when people read about Americans being forced to move within the U.S. because of it. That’s in sharp contrast to learning about climate-induced moves to the U.S. by non-Americans, which doesn’t move the dial on climate change beliefs or policy support.

Is it actually cheaper to own an electric vehicle instead of a gas vehicle? It depends. U-M researchers say that where you live matters. For instance, a midsize SUV costs more to own in Detroit than in San Francisco—one of the most expensive cities in the country.

Rackham student and sociologist Joyce Ho’s research seeks to understand homeowners’ experiences and insurance companies’ responses in the aftermath of forest fires in northern California.

At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, nearly 200 nations approved a global pact that calls for transitioning away from fossil fuels—a first. The deal also calls for tripling the use of renewable energy, doubling energy efficiency and slashing methane emissions.

Autonomous and electric vehicles can be a positive force for people and the planet, but widespread gains require government incentives and investment to ensure access for users across the economic spectrum.

Once derided as “forever 30 years away,” fusion energy has a new swagger. Will it last?

LED lighting is up to 44% more efficient than 4-foot fluorescent tubes, according to a U-M study. Lighting is responsible for 11% of electricity use in commercial buildings and residential basements, garages and shops. Linear recessed lighting systems, which are also called linear fixtures or troffer lights, are among the largest opportunities for energy efficiency improvement, given their long operating hours.

Sixteen U-M students and their faculty adviser will attend the two-week COP28 climate summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The students will observe the negotiations, attend side events and interact with various experts. This year’s conference runs from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12. U-M has sent student delegations to U.N. climate change conferences since 2009.

For his work refining agricultural waste into materials for lithium-ion batteries and other sustainable energy technologies, Michigan Engineering Professor Richard Laine has been honored by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.)

Because large disparities in access to green technologies exist between countries in the Global North and the Global South and among different demographic groups within those countries, it’s important to focus on equity in access to energy services and not simply on energy technologies, according to a new U-M review paper.

New research suggests that a realistic estimate of additional global forest carbon-storage potential is approximately 226 gigatonnes of carbon—enough to make a meaningful contribution to slowing climate change.

Electric vehicles (EVs) represent the largest auto industry shakeup since, perhaps, the introduction of the assembly line more than a century ago. Moving consumers from the internal combustion engines (ICE) that have powered their transportation since birth to something fundamentally different means major changes at all levels of the business.

As part of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers’ new initiative aimed at planting 250 million trees in the Great Lakes region by 2033, the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability partnered with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources ( and GSGP to hold a ceremonial tree planting on November 9 at one of SEAS’ research natural areas.

More than 100 U-M community members gathered Nov. 3 at the site of the future Central Campus residential development to observe construction efforts that will advance the university’s progress toward carbon neutrality.

One of the goals outlined by the Biden administration’s National Climate Task Force in 2021 was to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to 50%-52% below 2005 levels by 2030. Now, a U-M study investigates one of the strategies to achieve this goal, which is to increase new vehicle sales to 50% electric by 2030. The study also reveals a path to meeting the targets.

Ann Arbor and other cities across the Midwest and Northeast have been referred to by climate specialists as “climate havens,” natural areas of refuge that are relatively safe from extreme weather events such as intense heat and tropical storms.

“Over a third of the energy we use in our homes goes to waste. That’s a lot! Programs like TCLP’s are essential in helping residents save money, support their health, and protect the environment.”

“Elephants, in a way, are the giant versions of canaries in a mine for the planet. If we cannot sustain animals as big and as capable and as versatile as elephants, then that means we have ripped a hole in the fabric of life on Earth in a way that could actually be very dangerous to ourselves. It could lead to our own demise.”

"In many parts of the world, the air pollution monitoring network is inadequate, so people just don't know how bad pollution is in their neighborhoods. And even when they have a monitor nearby, households might not be aware of the full range of health damages that they could be experiencing. So people don't always take adequate measures to protect themselves."

Each peer-reviewed factsheet presents data on patterns of use, life cycle impacts, and sustainable solutions. Updated annually by a current SEAS graduate student, the collection is a free resource to inform journalists, policymakers, business professionals, students, teachers and the public.

Since 2010, the university has reduced its total greenhouse gas emissions by 28%, even as total building area has increased by 14%. U-M is on pace to reduce its total quantified emissions by 50% by 2025, exceeding Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change guidance to reduce emissions by 45% by 2030.

Savannas and grasslands in drier climates around the world store more heat-trapping carbon than scientists thought they did and are helping to slow the rate of climate warming, according to a new study.

We are in an “extraordinary moment” to create an equitable clean energy future. And Michigan, like other states, is an “essential part” of bringing forth that future.

Electric and hybrid aircraft, hydrogen power, advanced airframes and more were on the table at U-M's first symposium on sustainable aviation.

"Michigan’s legislative leadership earlier this year announced its intention to introduce a package of bills to accelerate the Mi Healthy Climate Plan. Recently, Governor Whitmer put her support behind the proposal and echoed what those involved in the renewable energy transition have noted for some time: the current approach to permitting clean energy projects is broken."

U-M researchers will lead a new effort to strengthen the climate change resilience of vulnerable communities that span international boundaries and jurisdictions. The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded $5 million to U-M to establish the Global Center for Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Transboundary Waters.

“Water conservation and access” brings a slew of images to mind: wastewater flowing through main lines to a city treatment plant, a fisherman yanking invasive mussels off the hull of a trawler, the installation of filters in communities that lack access to safely managed drinking water.

A new University of Michigan-led study finds that farmers in India have adapted to warming temperatures by intensifying the withdrawal of groundwater used for irrigation. If the trend continues, the rate of groundwater loss could triple by 2080, further threatening India’s food and water security.

The BioMatters team at U-M has developed a fully biodegradable, reusable and recyclable material to replace the wasteful concrete formwork traditionally used across the construction industry. The base of this material is upcycled sawdust—millions of tons of sawdust waste are created each year from the 15 billion cut trees and often burned or dumped in landfills left to contribute to environmental pollution.

The devastating floods that ripped through the northeast United States are among the most recent in a long string of severe flooding events occurring worldwide, which make it plain that better flood predictions and safety plans are needed. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, flooding causes $8 billion in losses on average annually in the U.S. alone.

Should states and Indigenous nations be able to influence energy projects they view as harmful or contrary to their laws and values? This question lies at the center of a heated debate over Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline, which carries oil and natural gas across Wisconsin and Michigan.

No amount of air pollution is good for the brain, but wildfires and the emissions resulting from agriculture and farming in particular may pose especially toxic threats to cognitive health, according to new research from U-M. Increasingly, evidence shows exposure to air pollution makes the brain susceptible to dementia.

“The e-mobility revolution presents an opportunity for all of us to lead the world toward a more sustainable future. And, at Michigan, this means land, sea, space, and air mobility.”

The tools and policies that worked to significantly reduce threats to the Great Lakes over the past century are ill-equipped to handle today’s complex and interrelated challenges. A new set of stewardship principles is needed to work holistically and systematically on long-term social, economic, environmental, and racial-equity and resiliency concerns that have too often been sidelined in a rush for immediate results.

Rather than being solely detrimental, cracks in the positive electrode of lithium-ion batteries reduce battery charge time, research done at U-M shows. This runs counter to the view of many electric vehicle manufacturers, who try to minimize cracking because it decreases battery longevity.

In an effort to speed the licensing of advanced nuclear reactors, ensure that communities are respected during reactor siting, monitor and limit corrosion in nuclear reactors, and more, the Department of Energy has awarded $7.5 million to Michigan Engineering researchers.

The Center for EmPowering Communities will help Michigan communities tackle the planning and zoning challenges related to renewable energy projects such as wind and solar installations. In addition, the center will spur collaborative research that integrates social science with technology design, community engagement and policymaking.

"Join the conversations already happening rather than remake the wheel. Climate anxiety is very real, and research shows individual actions don’t help reduce that, but collective action—joining groups, clubs, green teams, nonprofit organizations, local watershed coalitions—actually does reduce climate anxiety and eco grief."

With a name inspired by the Latin phrase “ad astra,” which means “to the stars,” the U-M Solar Car Team unveiled its first three-wheeled bullet-style vehicle. “Astrum” is scheduled to race in this year’s Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, a biannual, 1,800-mile race from Darwin on Australia’s northern coast to Adelaide on the country’s southern coast.

The production of the fertilizer urea is one of the largest carbon dioxide emitters in the chemical industry, but it doesn’t have to be that way. With $1.3 million in funding from the W. M. Keck Foundation, a new, more sustainable approach for producing urea will be tested at U-M.

The winning submission provided a hyperlocal blueprint for safe CO2 sequestration and integrative city planning in Houston, Texas, with a replicable pipeline system designed for major metropolitan areas.

In this role, Clark will lead a new initiative aimed at linking the university’s expanding sustainability research, collaborations and engagement with external partners to accelerate climate action across the state of Michigan and beyond.

A cross-functional group is working to advance a strategic roadmap for developing targeted research domains and building out capacity and industry partnerships that will position U-M as a leader in accelerating low-carbon building innovations.

More efficient computing—potentially room temperature quantum computing—and recyclable rigid plastics are two projects to be undertaken by a new materials research science and engineering center.

"There’s a huge need for people who understand the natural environment and want to work in the urban setting. It’s a surprising gap where best and promising practices from natural resource management don’t make it into the urban planning and urban design space."

Discussions of valuable but threatened ocean ecosystems often focus on coral reefs or coastal mangrove forests. Seagrass meadows get a lot less attention, even though they provide wide-ranging services to society and store lots of climate-warming carbon.

A new study estimates that the overall benefits to society of switching ride-hailing vehicles from gasoline to electric would be very modest—on average, a 3% gain per trip when other “costs on society” are factored in.

The transmission potential of Zika or dengue in Brazil may increase by 10% to 20% in the next 30 years due to warming temperatures linked to climate change, according to U-M researchers.

Plant life plays a crucial role in fighting climate change by absorbing and transforming greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. For instance, over its lifetime, a tree can absorb more than a ton of carbon from the air and store it in wood and roots.

Reading about climate-induced immigration prompted negative, nativist attitudes among people toward the affected migrants—an unintended, perhaps even paradoxical effect of many delivering the original messages, according to researchers at U-M and elsewhere. The findings, the researchers say, raise cautionary flags for reporters, advocates and other communicators in their work related to forced migration caused by global climate change.

Engaging researchers from nine units across U-M and several other academic institutions, along with multisectoral partners, the projects will explore community solar, agrivoltaics, carbon-neutral building materials, aviation fuel waste reduction, and sustainable archeology.

On the heels of the global chip shortage, U-M is part of a new public-private partnership that will establish a global semiconductor center of excellence in Michigan that focuses on the auto industry.

A new study evaluated the potential decarbonization of industry through the use of nuclear energy, specifically small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). Researchers performed an analysis on individual facilities and grouped processes within them to quantify the technoeconomic potential when compared to existing fossil fuels. They also tested the economic benefits available if these facilities additionally sell electricity onto the wholesale power market as an additional revenue stream. Key findings of the paper are discussed below.

This year’s theme was “Global Change and Its Consequences for Green Life,” and focused on the Direct and indirect impacts of environmental change on green life survival, reproduction, and distribution, how green life can buffer the impact of global change, evolutionary responses of green life to environmental change/stress, green life functional traits and their environmental correlates, and agroecology.

Birds across the Americas are getting smaller and longer-winged as the world warms, and the smallest-bodied species are changing the fastest.

U-M has launched a report on the use of $300 million in “green bonds,” updated sustainability dashboards and building guidelines, and announced that it is the first university to join the First Movers Coalition, which aims to advance sustainable industrial technologies.

In an effort to cultivate a robust EV ecosystem in the place where the modern auto industry was born, the U-M Electric Vehicle Center is launching with these three focus areas: accelerating collaborative R&D, developing a highly skilled workforce, and establishing advanced campus infrastructure and facilities to support both research and education.

Preserving the diversity of forests assures their productivity and potentially increases the accumulation of carbon and nitrogen in the soil, which helps to sustain soil fertility and mitigate global climate change.

"This is really important work, especially in the face of all the [negativity] that goes on in the world. I want to be able to go to bed at the end of each day with the satisfaction of knowing that I am contributing to the world in a positive way.”

An expanded renewable energy zoning database from U-M brings together more than 1,600 local ordinances from six Great Lakes states. The database is designed to simplify matchmaking between renewable energy developers and interested host communities in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Anesthesiology is a carbon-intensive specialty, including the recurring use of inhaled agents which can lead to significant greenhouse gas emissions and global warming over an extended period. The Green Anesthesia Initiative aims to implement environmentally sound health care practices while continuing to protect public health and provide excellence in patient care.

Participating in our democracy, particularly locally, and organizing for systems and policy change to promote the collective good is critical to building a clean energy future that is just and works for all. This was the overall sentiment of a panel that brought together three community activists and organizers who have emerged as powerful leaders that work on pushing forward solutions that consider the rights of all people.

Deep learning models that power giants like TikTok and Amazon, as well as tools like ChatGPT, could save energy without new hardware or infrastructure.

A U-M team, along with researchers and staff from Eastern Michigan University, Duke University and cleantech company 374Water, received $200,000 to fund research around converting lawn, garden and food waste from U-M’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens into valuable products, as well as heat and energy for the gardens’ facilities.

By directly measuring greenhouse gas emissions from an airplane flying over the Gulf of Mexico, a U-M team found that the nation’s largest offshore fossil fuel production basin has twice the climate warming impact as official estimates.

“Campus sustainability is a process. It isn't something you achieve at some point. Every wave of students who come through has to be brought into that new culture. "

“Our students are already, and will continue to be, impacted by climate change. They want to be empowered to make a difference through actions in their lives, communities and their future professions. Moreover, employers want a workforce able to anticipate and meet the challenges ahead.”

Researchers and staff from U-M, Eastern Michigan University, Duke University, and 374Water recently won a grant to turn Matthaei Botanical Gardens’ trash into treasure. The project aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by preventing organic waste from going to landfills, where it then rots and emits greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.

Architect Mania Aghaei Meibodi and researchers Alireza Bayramvand and Yuxin Lin of the DART lab at U-M’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, have developed a method for creating ultra-lightweight, waste-free concrete. The method reduces weight by 72% as compared to conventional, solid concrete of the same size, and is leading to new partnerships and patents beyond U-M.

With more than half of the world’s population active on social media networks, user-generated data has proved to be fertile ground for social scientists who study attitudes about the environment and sustainability. But several challenges threaten the success of what’s known as social media data science.

There’s been a well-documented shift toward earlier springtime flowering in many plants as the world warms. The trend alarms biologists because it has the potential to disrupt carefully choreographed interactions between plants and the creatures that pollinate them. But much less attention has been paid to changes in other floral traits, such as flower size, that can also affect plant-pollinator interactions, at a time when many insect pollinators are in global decline.

“We are on the cusp of a clean-energy world, which we should all be immensely excited about and look forward to. Yet, we have this strange paradox where our world continues to warm 2.4 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and we don’t talk about it."

The risk of death rises among older adults with Alzheimer’s or other dementias in the months following exposure to a hurricane, a new U-M study shows. Their increased risk could be due to disruption of normal routine, such as access to caregiving, changes in living environment, loss in access to medications, and change in daily routines, said study first author Sue Anne Bell, assistant professor at the U-M School of Nursing.

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education recently awarded U-M a Gold rating in recognition of universitywide climate action and sustainability work. U-M earned 73.84 points — more than four higher than its previous submission, due in large part to new sustainable investing strategies and renewable power purchase agreements.

As climate change and population growth make water scarcity increasingly common, a much larger share of the global population will be forced to reckon with the costs of urban water scarcity. A new study sheds light on how households bear the monetary and nonmonetary costs when water supply is intermittent, rather than continuous—with policy implications that could help make urban water safer, more sustainable and more equitable.

Janet Napolitano, former UC president, U.S. secretary of homeland security and Arizona governor, joined U-M sustainability experts for a panel discussion on climate action. The discussion, entitled “Working Together to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” centered around mobilizing government, higher education, the private sector, community stakeholders and individuals toward addressing the climate crisis.

U-M is a partner in a major state-sponsored initiative to promote careers and attract talent to the state of Michigan’s burgeoning electric vehicle and transportation mobility sector.

“I wish to use this fellowship to answer these questions in the context of Mexico, documenting through “day in the life”-style illustrations of various people and communities interacting with water. I hope my findings can be transferable to other countries and regions facing similar challenges.”

The world’s building stock is expected to double by 2060, adding the equivalent of one New York City in new construction every month. Yet construction methods and materials that dominate the building sector are carbon-intensive, unhealthy for people, destructive to the environment, and are becoming increasingly expensive, with much of the burden falling on vulnerable populations.

U-M is planning to build on-campus solar installations with a capacity of 25 megawatts across the Dearborn, Flint and Ann Arbor campuses, including Michigan Medicine and Athletics. The total amount of electricity that would be generated by the installations is estimated to equal the power consumed by approximately 3,000 homes annually.

The Graham Sustainability Institute’s Carbon Neutrality Acceleration Program (CNAP) announced $1,160,000 in funding for six new faculty research projects. They tackle a range of carbon neutrality topics and augment the CNAP portfolio, which addresses six critical technological and social decarbonization opportunities: energy storage; capturing, converting, and storing carbon; changing public opinion and behavior; ensuring an equitable and inclusive transition; material and process innovation; and transportation and alternative fuels.

The U-M Museum of Art’s recent interactive discussion, “Talking Trash,” shared insights and advice on combating the overwhelming effects of single-use plastic. The event was inspired by The Plastic Bag Store, an immersive public art installation created by Robin Frohardt that provides social commentary on our plastic consumption.

Climate change deniers are using new strategies to spread their beliefs — namely the conspiracy theory that climate change is a hoax meant to subdue populations.

The U-M Ann Arbor campus achieved two of its 2025 sustainability goals in 2022, according to an annual Planet Blue fact sheet. It reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 25% from its 2006 benchmark — three years ahead of schedule — and exceeded its goal of applying 40% less chemicals to campus landscapes, compared with 2006, for the fourth consecutive year.

Michigan Sea Grant recently received $500,000 in funding to help improve resilience under future climate change scenarios in disadvantaged coastal communities in Michigan and Wisconsin. The project will assess flood risk for disadvantaged communities in Berrien County, Michigan, and Milwaukee, and will provide a framework to extend the analysis throughout the Great Lakes.

U-M ranks eighth on the Green Power Partnership’s quarterly Top 30 College & University List and 89th on its National Top 100 List.

The Urban Climate Law Module aims to support countries in building legal frameworks that can effectively implement the Paris Agreement and address their environmental issues in an urban context. The reports assess existing urban planning legislation and identify the climate priorities of each country to create a customized legal outline for the country’s climate action.

In the video, tribal leaders and Native community members share the ways that Line 5 harms Native communities and how a future with clean energy is possible and essential.

“It’s quite exciting to observe something as it’s happening. Many local experts are advocating for the implementation of new ideas about living with nature, water management, and dealing with climate change by adapting agricultural practices and other kinds of infrastructure rather than fighting against it."

During a U-M visit to promote the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to address climate change—which include the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the CHIPS and Science Act—Vice President Kamala Harris told the packed crowd that “we are modeling some of the best of what innovation looks like at this moment.

“I think that we are at one of the most incredible moments in this movement — a movement that, yes, we are a big part of, but that you all will be leading for years to come, and I’m so excited."

More than 90% of vehicle-owning households in the United States would see a reduction in the percentage of income spent on transportation energy—the gasoline or electricity that powers their cars, SUVs and pickups—if they switched to electric vehicles. However, more than half of the lowest-income U.S. households (an estimated 8.3 million households) would continue to experience high transportation energy burdens, defined in this study as spending more than 4% of household income on filling the tank or charging up.

"From my vantage point at a large public university, I know firsthand how activism and energy of students, with support from faculty and other university communities, has galvanized our institution to make real commitments and progress toward carbon neutrality."

A new kind of solar panel, developed at U-M, has achieved 9% efficiency in converting water into hydrogen and oxygen—mimicking a crucial step in natural photosynthesis. Outdoors, it represents a major leap in the technology, nearly 10 times more efficient than solar water-splitting experiments of its kind.

Hydrogen is an important energy carrier that can play a key role in reducing carbon emissions from heavy-duty vehicles and aviation, heating and distributed power, and industrial applications like steelmaking, glassmaking and semiconductor manufacturing. With growing interest around wider adoption of hydrogen and its potential economic and environmental benefits, U-M has launched a new initiative to support and catalyze multidisciplinary research involving the universe’s lightest and most abundant element.

Recent investments in renewable energy and fuel will prompt considerable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions associated with the U-M endowment. Avoided emissions from U-M investments are on track to exceed the total amount of greenhouse gases produced by the Ann Arbor campus in 2023.

Since returning from COP27, the United Nations climate change conference, University of Michigan student delegates have been reflecting on their experiences. At the conclusion of COP, the Conference of the Parties agreed to establish loss and damage funding for vulnerable communities and recommitted to keeping the 1.5°C target goal alive through a new mitigation work program.

A new analysis of more than 20,000 trees on five continents shows that old-growth trees are more drought tolerant than younger trees in the forest canopy and may be better able to withstand future climate extremes.

Global climate talks in Egypt are heading into the home stretch with many issues still unresolved. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries have gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh for the COP27 conference in an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the worst ravages of climate change.

Flow batteries are one of the methods under consideration for storing intermittent sources of renewable electricity, such as solar and wind power. They can bank large quantities of energy by keeping the chemical potential in liquid form, with two electrolytes that flow through porous electrodes to charge and discharge. The metal cerium could store energy at a relatively high voltage, meaning more energy per metal ion, and at low cost.

As climate change looms, policymakers must find ways to mitigate its effects. Many have turned to recycling in an effort to limit the amount of plastic in landfills, dumpsites, and the environment.

When an emergency causes a disruption in access to clean water, it seems reasonable to respond by providing the public with bottled water. In the short term, this can provide a safe supply of water while the problems get sorted out. But what if the emergency has lasted eight years, and counting, as it has in Flint, Michigan?

Flooding is the leading cause of property damage and deaths in the U.S. It’s bigger than earthquakes and forest fires put together. Branko Kerkez, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and his students at the Digital Water Lab partnered with researchers at the U-M Center for Social Solutions to measure, better understand and prevent flooding and its aftermath in some of the most vulnerable communities.

Fish excretions. Yes, that’s fish pee. Could it improve food security in the Caribbean? Allgeier thinks so, and it might even help slow global warming.

The Responsible Battery Coalition (RBC) today announced the launch of a comprehensive research project with the U-M Center for Sustainable Systems to compare the total cost of ownership of gas and electric vehicles (EVs).

When the Global CO2 Initiative first came to the University of Michigan in 2018, removing carbon dioxide from emissions or the air and using it to make profitable products seemed like a distant dream. That’s beginning to change, says Volker Sick, director of the initiative and a professor of mechanical engineering.

Building on their groundbreaking work for highly-efficient red micro light emitting diodes (LEDs), Prof. Zetian Mi’s research team have now achieved a new approach for the design, fabrication, and integration of high-performance green micro-LEDs on silicon. These highly stable micro-LEDs are important for a broad range of applications in on-chip optical communication, including emerging augmented reality/mixed reality devices, and ultrahigh-resolution full-color displays.

Did you know that the average North American household uses roughly 240 gallons of water daily? Or that the Department of Energy estimates that 75% of U.S. energy will come from fossil fuels in 2050, which is widely inconsistent with IPCC carbon reduction goals? Did you know that just 16¢ of every dollar spent on food in 2020 went back to the farm, whereas, in 1975, it was 40¢?

We usually think of climate change in terms of summer heat waves, warming oceans and extreme weather events. But what is happening in winter, when the ground should be frozen or covered in snow? Statistics show that winter is actually the season that is warming fastest in the U.S., and this is having some serious and unforeseen consequences.

Communities in the Great Lakes region need to start planning now for a future that may include “climate migrants” who leave behind increasingly frequent natural disasters in other parts of the country. And user-friendly web-based tools can be a central part of that planning process.

The miles-wide asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago wiped out nearly all the dinosaurs and roughly three-quarters of the planet’s plant and animal species. It also triggered a monstrous tsunami with mile-high waves that scoured the ocean floor thousands of miles from the impact site on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, according to a new U-M led study.

Oil and gas producers rely on flaring to limit the venting of natural gas from their facilities, but new research led by U-M shows that in the real world, this practice is far less effective than estimated—releasing five times more methane in the U.S. than previously thought.

Many small and mid-sized communities like Goshen, IN simply don’t have the resources to tackle a global crisis like climate change on their own. So in 2018, Goshen was one of 12 cities that partnered with Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments (GLISA), an organization led by U-M that’s working to help small and mid-sized cities plan for a future that will be shaped by a changing climate.

Reames received the award in recognition of his widely influential research into the intersections of affordability, access to clean energy resources and related disparities across race, class and place, which has been the cornerstone of discussions about equity among policy makers at all levels of government.

As U-M works toward carbon neutrality, plans are moving forward for renewable purchased electricity, widespread geo-exchange heating and cooling systems, and innovative financing mechanisms.

Hydrogen, the most abundant and lightest element in the universe, can play a significant role in accelerating Michigan’s clean-energy transition away from fossil fuels in the coming decades, according to a new report released today by U-M and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

A new nanophotonic material has broken records for high-temperature stability, potentially ushering in more efficient electricity production and opening a variety of new possibilities in the control and conversion of thermal radiation.

Termites are critical in natural ecosystems—especially in the tropics—because they help recycle dead wood from trees. Without such decayers, the world would be piled high with dead plants and animals. But these energetic wood-consuming insects could soon be moving toward the North Pole and South Pole as global temperatures warm from climate change, new research indicates.

"We can’t stop natural climate variability and the extreme weather La Niña can bring, so we must instead accelerate our efforts to stop the human-driven climate change that is relentlessly turning so many climate extremes into unprecedented disaster and suffering."

"Water levels are getting lower and lower because of two big problems. First, the long agreed-upon annual allocation of water to about 40 million users in seven states (e.g., California) and Mexico exceeds the supply of water flowing in the river. Second, and ignored by many, the water flowing in the river is also dropping relentlessly, as a warmer, drier climate reduces the amount from snow and rain that reaches the river."

Projects will pursue a range of carbon neutrality pathways, including carbon capture, renewable fuels, energy storage, aircraft electrification, solar power, chemical production, and circular economies.

As a board member of the nonprofit Cass Community Social Services organization in Detroit, SEAS master’s student Isabella Shehab has seen firsthand the challenges the city and its residents face: vacant buildings, aging infrastructure, flooding. Now, Shehab is using a scholarship awarded through the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) to research the impacts these challenges have on Detroit residents’ mental health and well-being—all with an eye on solutions.

A relatively new kind of semiconductor, layered atop a mirror-like structure, can mimic the way that leaves move energy from the sun over relatively long distances before using it to fuel chemical reactions. The approach may one day improve the efficiency of solar cells.

People who respond less emotionally to images of damage to the environment are also less emotional and empathic in general, according to a new U-M study. Differences in political ideology can limit policy adjustments that address climate change. However, some people appear less emotionally impacted by environmental destruction—particularly those who are more ideologically conservative and less pro-environmental, the study showed.

The U-M Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) has awarded $450,000 in grants across eight research teams to explore persistent racial disparities embedded in systems ranging from health, education and wealth to criminal justice and infrastructure. Kyle Whyte, the George Willis Pack Professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability, is a team lead for one of the selected projects, which focuses on Indigenous peoples and climate injustice.

To bolster a just transition to cleaner, more resilient energy systems, the U-M Energy Equity Project has released the first standardized national framework for comprehensively measuring and advancing energy equity. Energy equity recognizes the historical and cumulative burdens of the energy system borne by frontline and low-income communities.

A new center, led by Michigan Engineering and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, could help enable the development of advanced batteries and fuel cells for electric vehicles. It focuses on understanding an emerging branch of science involving mechanical and chemical phenomena that affect advanced battery designs.

The Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by President Biden this month contains $3 billion to help the U.S. Postal Service decarbonize its mail-delivery fleet and shift to electric vehicles. A new U-M study finds that making the switch to all-electric mail-delivery vehicles would lead to far greater reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than previously estimated by the USPS.

Floods are complex events, and they are about more than just heavy rain. Each community has its own unique geography and climate that can exacerbate flooding, so preparing to deal with future floods has to be tailored to the community.

"One major component of the legislation addresses methane, a major climate pollutant that has tended to get less attention than carbon dioxide until recently. The new statute established a fee on methane releases from the oil and gas sector, designed to complement other regulatory policies that are being developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. With this step, the U.S. would join Norway as only the second major national producer of oil and gas to establish a tax or fee on methane emissions in an attempt to incentivize less waste."

Even relatively modest climate warming and associated precipitation shifts may dramatically alter Earth’s northernmost forests, which constitute one of the planet’s largest nearly intact forested ecosystems and are home to a big chunk of the planet’s terrestrial carbon.

Across the United States, local wind and solar jobs can fully replace the coal-plant jobs that will be lost as the nation’s power-generation system moves away from fossil fuels in the coming decades, according to a new U-M study. As of 2019, coal-fired electricity generation directly employed nearly 80,000 workers at more than 250 plants in 43 U.S. states. The study quantifies—for the first time—the technical feasibility and costs of replacing those coal jobs with local wind and solar employment across the country.

U-M and Ford Motor Co. researchers modeled emissions for a single 36-item grocery basket transported to the customer via dozens of traditional and e-commerce pathways. Of the various scenarios analyzed by the researchers, in-store shopping by a customer driving an internal-combustion-engine pickup truck produced the most emissions (expressed as kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents).

How should scientists, advocates, and others communicate to the general public about new geoengineering technologies that mitigate climate change? Specifically, does the discussion of climate change technologies create a moral hazard effect, in which individuals feel less threatened by climate change and less supportive of policies to address it?

From the Great Lakes to its inland rivers and streams, hiking trails to golf courses, and lakeside cottages to campgrounds, the State of Michigan has long offered a near-endless number of natural resources to enjoy each summer—and a thriving tourism industry to prove it. But like with the rest of the country, and planet, the effects of climate change not only loom in the distance, but are here and causing real challenges to our ecosystem, and the outdoor recreation it provides, right now.

"Europe has been the global leader on climate policy for at least the last 10 years. They have done the most in making their own adjustments. They’ve tried to find ways to put pressure on the U.S., the rest of the world and move this forward. And despite all of these efforts — and some real emission reductions in Europe — they aren’t able to hide from the effects of this either."

In an important step toward bringing transparent solar cells to home windows, U-M researchers have developed a way to manufacture their highly efficient and semitransparent solar cells.

"Our growing global warming and heat wave problem is scorching our economy in many ways, racking up a trillion-dollar-plus price tag in the U.S. alone. Impacts are often highest locally where extreme heat occurs, but global supply chains are also at increasing risk due to heat-supercharged extremes, including drought, wildfire, flooding and deadly storms."

The U-M Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences has received $5.1 million funding for three projects to advance nuclear technology. The biggest project U-M leads, funded with $4 million from the Integrated Research Projects program, is focused on compact heat exchangers, which would transfer heat from a nuclear reactor to the systems that use the heat directly or convert it to electricity. They are much smaller and thus less expensive than traditional designs.

Santa J. Ono, an accomplished biomedical researcher and the president and vice chancellor of the University of British Columbia, has been named the 15th president of the University of Michigan. Ono is the leader of the University Climate Change Coalition, a network that connects 23 of the world’s leading research universities and university systems committed to accelerating climate action.

Ford School PhD graduate Michael Lerner (Political Science, 2021) has been chosen to receive the Virginia Walsh Dissertation Award for his dissertation, "Green Catalysts? The Impact of Transnational Advocacy on Environmental Policy Leadership.“ The dissertation examines the impact of transnational advocacy on the development of national environmental policy.

“If we can generate syngas from carbon dioxide utilizing only solar energy, we can use this as a precursor for methanol and other chemicals and fuels. This will significantly reduce overall CO2 emissions,” said Zetian Mi, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Michigan.

"The ability of presidents to reinterpret established laws to address emerging challenges such as climate change is further eroded by today's Supreme Court decision. The majority concludes the Obama administration exceeded its authority in using the Clean Air Act to try to address climate, putting tight limits on the ability of President Biden or subsequent presidents to use these powers on climate issues."

Testing the longevity of new electric vehicle battery designs could be four times faster with a streamlined approach, researchers at U-M have shown. Their optimization framework could drastically reduce the cost of assessing how battery configurations will perform over the long haul.

“For some states, high energy prices are a boon. In Wyoming, New Mexico, Alaska, North Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and even parts of California, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utah, high energy prices translate into not just jobs, but also surging government revenue."

The leading cause of death worldwide is water-borne disease. Some 3.4 million people die each year from drinking unclean water. The primary source of contamination is raw sewage intrusion into drinking-water sources due to the lack of waste-water-treatment infrastructure.

Because environmental justice screening tools will affect community members impacted by disproportionate environmental burdens, soliciting input from the environmental justice community is crucial to developing and using screening tools, according to a new study from U-M.

Researchers have identified many factors that influence the timing and distribution of Lake Erie’s harmful algal blooms. Intensity and timing of spring rainstorms is part of the puzzle, as is the amount of algae-feeding nitrogen and phosphorus traveling into the lake from nearby rivers.

Trish Fisher's (MPP/MPH ‘23) work examines agricultural methane governance in the U.S. and Canada—two of the world’s largest producers, consumers, and exporters of livestock and animal source food products. “Recent research has demonstrated that even if global combustion of fossil fuels were to cease immediately, emissions from the global food system alone would exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming and threaten the preclusion of 2 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100,” she said.

U-M experts are exploring how participation in co-curricular sustainability activities fosters climate change leadership development and sustainability activism among students.

A new U-M study that used fossil oyster shells as paleothermometers found the shallow sea that covered much of western North America 95 million years ago was as warm as today’s tropics. The findings also hint at what may be in store for future generations unless emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are reined in.

Carbon dioxide is known to have a fertilizing effect on plant growth, and the gas is often added to greenhouse crops to help improve yields. Climate scientists have suggested that this same CO2 fertilization effect could help offset global warming by promoting the growth of trees and shrubs that store carbon released by the burning of fossil fuels. But this highly influential concept of “tropical greening” due to anthropogenically elevated carbon dioxide levels is difficult to test, and the idea has been challenged recently.

As the world turns its attention to electric vehicles as a replacement for gas-powered cars and trucks, some vehicles such as long-haul trucks and planes will need a bridge between gas and electric. Natural gas could be a viable alternative. It’s widely available and burns more cleanly than gasoline. There are even conversion kits already available to allow your passenger cars or long-haul trucks to run on natural gas, says Adam Matzger, a U-M professor of chemistry.

"As members of the Michigan Business Sustainability Roundtable (MBSR), convened by the Erb Institute at University of Michigan, we urge all Michiganders to come together in collaboration and support of Michigan’s movement toward a healthier and more sustainable economy."

The North American Colloquium (NAC) is a forum that strengthens a wider North American conversation and more fruitful trilateral cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the U.S., led by the International Policy Center at the U-M Ford School of Public Policy, the Autonomous National University of Mexico’s Center for Research on North America, and the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

During the fall semester, students in the interdisciplinary class “Where is the Science in Science Fiction?” read stories about rising sea levels, brains that are computing slower because of rising atmospheric pressure, and other topics related to anthropogenic climate change. The faculty members who co-teach the class—Jon Miller, professor of astronomy, and Lisa Makman, lecturer of English language and literature—recognized an educational opportunity based in reality that was inspired by the fictional stories.

School for Environment and Sustainability dean Jonathan Overpeck: "Although a great deal is known about the problem, its cause, and its solutions, the crisis just keeps growing due to the lack of rapid action to combat it."

In a discovery that could speed research into next-generation electronics and LED devices, a U-M research team has developed the first reliable, scalable method for growing single layers of hexagonal boron nitride on graphene. Graphene-hBN structures can power LEDs that generate deep-UV light, which is impossible in today’s LEDs, said Zetian Mi, U-M professor of electrical engineering and computer science and a corresponding author of the study.

Interdisciplinary teams of Sustainability Scholars—senior undergraduate students—recently presented the results of their engaged research projects. Projects pertained to farmland preservation, sustainable energy data, STEM kits and gardens, and water quality, respectively.

Each year, the Graham Sustainability Institute supports a limited number of paid summer internships for Graham Sustainability Scholars and actively seeks partners offering paid internships. This summer, supported by the City of Ann Arbor’s carbon neutrality efforts, additional Graham Scholars will receive hands-on experience assisting with carbon benchmarking.

The Great Lakes Impact Investment Platform announced the environmental performance of its participating projects across eight U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. Collectively, the projects are reducing 3 million tons of carbon, protecting more than 30,000 acres of forest and farmland, saving 110 million kilowatts of energy, and saving 5.4 million gallons of water.

The Arctic is rapidly losing sea ice, and less ice means more open water, and more open water means more gas and aerosol emissions from the ocean into the air, warming the atmosphere and making it cloudier. So when U-M researchers collected aerosols from the Arctic atmosphere during summer 2015, Rachel Kirpes, then a doctoral student, discovered a curious thing: aerosolized ammonium sulfate particles didn’t look like typical liquid aerosols.

U-M announced steps toward procuring 100% renewable purchased power, expanded plans for geothermal heating and cooling systems, and $10 million in funding for additional LED lighting in approximately 100 buildings across all three campuses. The announcements come as the university launches a progress-tracking dashboard — available online for interested members of the community — and $300 million in “green bonds” for projects that align with U-M carbon neutrality goals.

"Critics [who prefer traditional climate policies] fear that adopting simpler behavioral interventions may divert attention from and even crowd out public support for climate policies."

Allergy seasons are likely to become longer and grow more intense as a result of increasing temperatures caused by manmade climate change, according to new research. By the end of this century, pollen emissions could begin 40 days earlier in the spring than we saw between 1995 and 2014.

The Dow Innovation Teacher Fellowship was created for K-12 teachers of all disciplines interested in teaching sustainability issues. It trains and supports educators who teach primarily in Michigan’s Arenac, Bay, Gratiot, Isabella, Midland and Saginaw counties.

Maps of the American West have featured ever darker shades of red over the past two decades. The colors illustrate the unprecedented drought blighting the region. In some areas, conditions have blown past severe and extreme drought into exceptional drought. But rather than add more superlatives to our descriptions, one group of scientists believes it’s time to reconsider the very definition of drought.

Researcgers found that for sedans, SUVs and pickup trucks, battery-electric vehicles have approximately 64% lower cradle-to-grave life cycle greenhouse gas emissions than internal-combustion-engine vehicles on average across the United States.

"In a world without the ideal carbon emissions regulation that we might hope for, we need to be careful about the unintended consequences of our policies, especially around things like new technologies or changes to electricity markets."

"Instead of supporting knee-jerk policy shifts to produce more fossil fuels, we need to take a deep breath and examine how we got into this energy jam. Throughout the history of the fossil fuel era, wars have been fought over access to oil and gas, and fossil fuels have been used for political advantage both within petro-states and internationally for strategic goals."

For the environmental movement to be effective, it must be something that everyone participates in, marine biologist and climate policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson said.

Geo-exchange systems, which are similar to more widely known geothermal systems, use the Earth’s constant subsurface temperature as a low-grade energy source. They can be used as either a heat-sink in the summer or low-grade heat source in the winter, thus maximizing energy efficiency.

Marine biologist and climate policy expert Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson will deliver the Wege Lecture on Sustainability on February 23. Johnson is the co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for coastal cities, and co-creator (and former co-host) of the Spotify/Gimlet podcast “How to Save a Planet,” which discusses climate solutions.

Five newly awarded catalyst grants from the Graham Sustainability Institute will fund projects designed to advance potential infrastructure solutions across energy, transportation, and the built environment. The projects will facilitate climate change adaptation, test products aimed to reduce carbon emissions, and foreground equity and justice in sustainability interventions.

A quasiparticle that forms in semiconductors can now be moved around at room temperature, a U-M-led study has shown. The finding could cool down computers, enabling faster speeds and higher efficiencies, and potentially make LEDs and solar panels more efficient.

When the attendees of COP26 met in Glasgow last November to address climate change, they were a long way from rain gardens in Washtenaw County. Yet, the link between that global assembly and a southeastern Michigan water initiative illustrates different approaches in pursuit of the same goal: how to connect science and policy in order to improve our environment.

Teams will drill through ice to collect water samples, measure light levels at various depths and net tiny zooplankton as part of a broader effort to better understand the changing face of winter on the Great Lakes, where climate warming is increasing winter air temperatures, decreasing ice-cover extent and changing precipitation patterns.

As U-M advances its commitments to climate action and universitywide carbon neutrality, it joins more than 25 universities, nonprofit organizations, corporations and local governments in founding the Midwest Climate Collaborative.

Jose Alfaro, an assistant professor of practice at U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability, has pioneered new ways to harness sustainable energy from bio-waste through innovative gasification technology.

In recent years, lakeside communities have struggled to cope with the effect of rising water levels and erosion on the beaches that have made them such attractive places for vacationers and residents alike. As a professor of urban and regional planning, Richard Norton’s work explores how humans can safely adapt to these environmental changes, while also protecting the unique ecosystems that make the Great Lakes region special.

A semiconducting material that performed a quantum “flip” from a conductor to an insulator above room temperature has been developed at U-M. It potentially brings the world closer to a new generation of quantum devices and ultra-efficient electronics.

"One of the biggest surprises about the 117th Congress is, in an era where the conventional thinking is that carbon pricing is politically impossible, at least in the United States, how well some of the pricing policies have done.”

A new biologically inspired battery membrane has enabled a battery with five times the capacity of the industry-standard lithium ion design to run for the thousand-plus cycles needed to power an electric car.

Following its commitment last year to achieve universitywide carbon neutrality, U-M is unveiling an initial $5 million investment in energy conservation measures that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Measures include substantial LED lighting projects, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning improvements that span U-M campuses and units.

In the new Netflix movie “Don’t Look Up,” two astronomers discover a comet on a collision course with Earth and struggle to convince people to take them seriously. The film is a satire about society’s inability to cope with climate change. Several real-world scientists from U-M comment on the movie’s climate-change messages.

In an advance that could dramatically improve the productivity of solar panels in cold climates, a UM-led team has demonstrated an inexpensive, clear coating that reduced snow and ice accumulation on solar panels, enabling them to generate up to 85% more energy in early testing.

Solutions to a 55-year-old problem in boiling water reactors—which represent a third of nuclear power reactors in the United States—are on the way now that the problem has been emulated with ion beams.

By pioneering new methods in life cycle analysis, design, and optimization, researchers have made real impacts on the future of alternative vehicle technology, renewable energy systems, buildings and infrastructure, information technology, food and agricultural systems, and packaging alternatives.

The U.S. has set the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. As part of the leadership of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Rackham and Barbour Scholarship alumna Xin Sun is playing a key role in helping it get there.

Sail outings, arranged as part of a new Skiff and Schooner program piloted by U-M’s Detroit River Story Lab, include learning stations devoted to the physics of ship construction and buoyancy, river ecology, the carbon cycle and the river’s role in the history of the Underground Railroad. The lab partnered with several community groups including Communities First in Flint and Healthy Kidz in Detroit for the trips.

There is a policy tool to reduce the burning of fossil fuels that is broadly favored by economists: charge fossil fuel companies a carbon fee and return the revenue to households as a dividend or rebate.

How do human and social capital affect people in the aftermath of a disastrous shock? Ford School professor Elisabeth Gerber and School for Environment and Sustainability professor Arun Agrawal examined the question with data gathered before and after the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal, using a novel machine-learning based analytical approach.

Thirteen U-M graduate students and their faculty adviser, Avik Basu, attended the recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. Several members of the delegation share their perspectives and experiences.

To decarbonize industrial heat—a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions—and advance a form of solar power that’s cheaper to store, the Department of Energy is backing a transparent solar sponge for further development by a UM-led team.

A team of researchers used data from 60 million individual American households to look into how carbon emissions caused by household energy use vary by race and ethnicity across the country. Paradoxically, this first national-level analysis found that even though energy-efficient homes are more often found in white neighborhoods, carbon emissions from these neighborhoods are higher than in African American neighborhoods.

“Each time there is lots of drama, high expectations, and usually in the end we are underwhelmed but there is some progress. I would put the Glasgow meeting in that category, there are few areas where we have seen marginal incremental progress, there are few areas where we were not able to achieve as much as some have hoped. And yet I'm not sure that most of the work on climate change is really done.”

“The COP26 left the desired global warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius barely alive. But there is still a way to save the planet from the most devastating impacts of climate change.”

“Meeting the climate challenge means making significant changes to our daily lives. One important component of that change is our energy landscape. Shifting from coal, gas, and natural gas toward cleaner renewables will require building new infrastructure.”

The two-week COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, ended with an agreement among nearly 200 nations aimed at intensifying global efforts to fight climate change and to aid vulnerable nations, while leaving some crucial questions unresolved.

The School for Environment and Sustainability has launched the SEAS Sustainability Clinic, which aims to help the city of Detroit and nonprofits serving it address the impacts of climate change on the natural and built environment, human health and city finances, while working to enhance sustainability policy and action.

“1.5 is again a tremendous goal but it seems more aspirational than something we’re going to be able to realistically achieve. (...) We are seeing a growing willingness in many nations to spend more—more than ever before....the reluctance to spend money goes up when it is transferred somewhere else. That is going to be a huge challenge for the United States.”

Thirteen University of Michigan graduate students and their faculty adviser are attending the two-week COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The students will observe the negotiations, attend side events and interact with various experts. U-M has sent student delegations to U.N. climate change conferences since 2009.

What actions are we taking to adapt to climate change around the world, and how successful are our efforts? A global network of 126 researchers sought to answer those questions, producing the most systematic and comprehensive assessment of implemented human adaptation to climate change to date.

As demand for electric vehicle batteries continues to grow, U-M researchers have developed a method for predicting how changes to manufacturing processes and materials will impact battery life.

Without a sustainable water supply, life in the desert is all but impossible. Flows of the Colorado are steadily shrinking because it’s snowing and raining less in the headwaters. Even bigger reductions in river flow have occurred due to the impact of relentless global warming.

Heavy metals like lead, industrial pollution from steel mills, coal-fired power plants or oil refineries, "forever chemicals" called PFAS that don't break down in the environment—how much are Michigan residents exposed to these environmental contaminants and what does this mean for their risk of developing cancer?

In order to motivate people to address climate change, you need to speak about it in “human terms,” said Gina McCarthy, the country’s first National Climate Advisor, during the Oct. 14 Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability.

Researchers at U-M and Michigan State University have been awarded $5.4 million from NOAA to continue their study of climate change and variability risks in the larger Great Lakes region for the next five years. The Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments—established in 2010 as a federally funded collaboration between U-M and MSU—will begin new partnerships with the College of the Menominee Nation and the University of Wisconsin.

As Michigan utilities look to meet clean energy regulations and transition to renewables, a new guide is available to help communities across the state address solar-energy-system, or SES, siting within their planning policies and zoning regulations.

Cattle are supremely efficient at digesting tough materials, and a proposed energy-production system based, in part, on cow stomachs could generate 40% more power from municipal waste streams, at a 20% reduced cost—and provide a viable alternative to sending waste to landfills.

Nearly 30 students from the Ford School and SEAS recently got a view of Michigan that will become increasingly familiar, visiting a 239 MW solar energy installation in Shiawassee County and a 150 MW wind park in Middleton. As the state moves toward its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, more sites like these will dot the landscape—especially in rural areas.

While the move from petroleum fuels to biofuels is not as environmentally drastic as a complete transition from diesel to electric motor power, switching to vehicles run with biofuels is a more immediate solution. Even though it is estimated that half of new cars sold will be electric in the year 2030, it will still take many more years after to make a significant dent in greenhouse gas emissions.

In a key step toward improving the feasibility of reusing wastewater as drinking water, the EPA has granted U-M researchers $1.2 million to study how well current treatment methods remove viruses from wastewater.

Producing the fertilizer that helps feed Earth’s 7.8 billion people comes with an environmental cost—one that U-M engineers are hoping to lessen with a new strategy that favors sunlight over fossil fuels. The National Science Foundation has awarded U-M researchers $2 million to study the effectiveness of a new ammonia production process aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“Solar energy is about the cheapest form of energy that mankind has ever produced since the industrial revolution,” said Stephen Forrest, the Peter A. Franken Distinguished University Professor of Electrical Engineering, who led the research. “With these devices used on windows, your building becomes a power plant.”

Pulling heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the air and turning it into useful products, a concept called carbon capture and utilization, has the potential to offer both environmental and economic benefits. By some optimistic estimates, it could generate annual revenues of more than $800 billion by 2030 while reducing climate-altering carbon dioxide emissions by up to 15%.

July 2021 was almost 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average — the warmest month in the entire record of global temperature stretching back over 140 years. The land area of the Northern Hemisphere set an even larger record in July, exceeding 2.7 degrees above average.

Communities across the western United States face an existential crisis. As forests become drier and thicker with vegetation, and development encroaches further into forested areas, wildfires grow larger, more frequent and more damaging. U-M experts are working with practitioners across the west to address this growing concern.

Whether a robot or a person delivers your package, the carbon footprint would essentially be the same, according to a U-M study that could help inform the future of automated delivery as the pandemic fuels a dramatic rise in online shopping.

A U-M study evaluated more than 5,800 foods, ranking them by their nutritional disease burden to humans and their impact on the environment. It found that substituting 10% of daily caloric intake from beef and processed meats for a mix of fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and select seafood could reduce your dietary carbon footprint by one-third and allow people to gain 48 minutes of healthy minutes per day.

“It's never too late. even if some of these extreme impacts, there is still so much we can do to minimize the human misery that might come from it. Our best shot at slowing the warming is to focus in the near term on some of the very potent greenhouse gases that aren’t carbon dioxide, and by that I mean methane."

The new IPCC report, released Monday, says some devastating impacts of global warming are now unavoidable, but there is still a short window to stop things from getting even worse. It calls climate change a “code red for humanity.”

The push for consumers to go electric for their energy needs has significant environmental benefits as the world deals with the disruptive, deadly effects of climate change. Yet the economic burden of a big switch could fall more on lower-income, minority communities.

New research used direct satellite observations of floods to reveal that the proportion of the world’s population exposed to floods has grown by 24% since the turn of the century—10 times higher than scientists previously thought—due to both increased flooding and population migration.

Deploying residential heat pumps more widely across the United States has the potential to help reduce carbon pollution while also saving homeowners money, according to a new study by a U-M researcher and colleagues.

The story of worsening climate extremes — almost every story — is also a story of failing infrastructure. Much of existing human infrastructure was built with the climate of the 20th century in mind, rather than the rapidly worsening climates of the 21st century.

“We are not accustomed to thinking about equity in the context of innovation. But in recent years, we have begun to recognize that marginalized communities — including those who are low-income and those who come from historically disadvantaged communities of color — are often unable to access the benefits of science and technology, but may be disproportionately subject to the harms.”

The transportation sector is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., and a lot of attention has been devoted to electric passenger vehicles and their potential to help reduce those emissions. But with the rise of online shopping and just-in-time shipping, electric delivery fleets have emerged as another opportunity to reduce the transportation sector’s environmental impact.

Many of the benefits that humanity derives from the natural world, like the provisioning of oxygen, are priceless. Climate change can threaten these services through the loss of species or shifts in species’ size or abundance. For example, warming temperatures have reduced the size of many birds over the last four decades; this is emblematic of the scale of climate change impacts on the world’s biological diversity.

Like many regions across the country, southwestern Michigan is preparing for the closure of a nuclear power facility, the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant. The impact of this transition on a community can lead to reduced tax base, lost employment, reduction in services and an unused site.

Something highly unusual is happening in the western United States. Record hot temperatures, some above 115 degrees Fahrenheit, recently spanned the Southwest northward into the interior West, and now a dangerous heatwave is hitting the Pacific Northwest. The news has been full of references to ongoing western drought and predictions of yet another extreme wildfire year. Even so, in reality, the story is worse.

How will actions taken towards preventing climate change affect communities that rely on a fossil fuel economy? In a recent report titled "Mapping the US Energy Economy to Inform Transition Planning," Daniel Raimi, Ford School lecturer and fellow at Resources for the Future, explored the economic consequences of moving away from fossil fuels for those communities.

When a UM-led research team reported last year that North American migratory birds have been getting smaller over the past four decades and that their wings have gotten a bit longer, the scientists wondered if they were seeing the fingerprint of earlier spring migrations. Multiple studies have demonstrated that birds are migrating earlier in the spring as the world warms.

The world’s largest ice sheets may be in less danger of sudden collapse than previously predicted, according to new findings led by U-M. Researchers modeled the collapse of various heights of ice cliffs—near-vertical formations that occur where glaciers and ice shelves meet the ocean. They found that instability doesn’t always lead to rapid disintegration.

Dr. Tony Reames, an assistant professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), has been appointed a Senior Advisor to the Department of Energy’s Office of Economic Impact and Diversity. In this role, Reames will be responsible for energy justice policy and analysis to ensure energy investments and benefits reach frontline communities and Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color.

The U-M Global CO2 Initiative is partnering with the OpenAirCollective to launch an annual student hackathon for direct air carbon capture. Four student teams are working to maximize the amount of CO2 removed while minimizing energy use.

The next generation of electric vehicle batteries, with greater range and improved safety, could be emerging in the form of lithium metal, solid-state technology. But key questions about this promising power supply need to be answered before it can make the jump from the laboratory to manufacturing facilities, according to U-M researchers.

Despite widespread calls for a just transition to cleaner, more resilient energy systems, there isn’t a standardized measurement framework for evaluating the equity of clean energy programs. As a result, utility administrators, regulators, and energy advocates have been judging equity on an ad hoc basis. The Urban Energy Justice Lab at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability announced a new program aimed at addressing this gap.

Some climate activists advocate large-scale tree-planting campaigns in forests around the world to suck up heat-trapping carbon dioxide and help rein in climate change. But the idea of planting trees as a substitute for the direct reduction of greenhouse gas emissions could be a pipe dream.

As the deadline approaches for Canadian oil company Enbridge to shut down a 4.5-mile section of the Line 5 pipeline that runs beneath Lake Michigan, U-M engineering researchers offered insights into how the company might go about doing that, and also how they might construct a tunnel under the lakebed for a replacement section of the line.

The impact of our world's ever-growing population and resulting pollution only compounds concerns related to our Earth's rapidly changing climate. In a recent conversation, U-M climate, environment, and sustainability experts discuss climate change and what we can do to address it in our community, across the nation, and around the world.

As promises for greenhouse gas reductions become more ambitious, international forecasts projecting that nuclear energy may contribute at most 10 percent of the global energy supply by 2050 are not ambitious enough.

Private sector initiatives may be the key to spurring climate action across the political spectrum, particularly among moderates and conservatives. That finding is based on new research by Kaitlin Raimi, an assistant professor at the U-M Ford School of Public Policy, and her colleagues that has been published in Energy Research & Social Science.

The U-M School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) announced that it received a significant philanthropic gift to establish a program that will advance socially engaged, problem-oriented research on western forests, fires, and communities.

In a finding that could help make artificial photosynthesis a practical method for producing hydrogen fuel, researchers have discovered why a water-splitting device made with cheap and abundant materials unexpectedly becomes more efficient during use.

The University of Michigan will immediately shift its natural resources investments to focus more on renewable energy, stop investing in funds primarily focused on certain fossil fuels and discontinue direct investments in publicly traded companies that are the largest contributors to greenhouse gases.

Larissa Larsen, associate professor of urban and regional planning and director of the urban and regional planning doctoral program at Taubman College, faced a skeptical audience when she started sounding the alarm on climate change and particularly the issue of extreme heat in 2000. In 2006, she co-authored an article that was the first to document that lower-income and communities of color were disproportionately impacted by the urban heat island.

The President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality at the University of Michigan has submitted its final report, which contains recommendations to help the university achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. The report includes 50 recommendations that U-M could take to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions across the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses.

Climate change is causing significant impacts on the Great Lakes and the surrounding region. Because of their unique response to environmental conditions, Earth’s large lakes are considered by scientists as key sentinels of climate change.

Co-producing climate information improves Great Lakes cities' adaptation to climate change, but how can these partnerships be sustained long-term? One successful model, according to a Gala learning case, is through the Great Lakes Climate Adaptation Network (GLCAN), which has linked a number of organizations together to provide Great Lakes cities with the information they need to adapt.

In an effort to drive the commercialization of more affordable, higher-capacity batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage, the U-M Battery Fabrication and Characterization Facility will join the Michigan Materials Research Institute (MMRI). The North Campus facility, better known simply as the Battery Lab, enables academic and industry researchers to work together to build and test batteries.

The Carbon Neutrality Acceleration Program at U-M’s Graham Sustainability Institute has awarded research grants to seven projects aimed at reducing net carbon emissions. The first round of funding was awarded to projects that investigate groundbreaking energy-storage and carbon-capture technologies, innovative ways to reduce carbon emissions in agriculture, and new options for lowering the carbon footprint of U-M student diets.

One of the big contributors to climate change is right beneath your feet, and transforming it could be a powerful solution for keeping greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Concrete is one of the most-used resources on Earth, with an estimated 26 billion tons produced annually worldwide.

The virtual conferencing that has replaced large, in-person gatherings in the age of COVID-19 represents a drastic reduction in carbon emissions, but those online meetings still come with their own environmental costs, new research from U-M shows.

Robert Hampshire, associate professor at U-M's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, whose research and policy engagement focuses on understanding the societal, climate and equity implications of autonomous and connected vehicles and other innovative mobility services, has joined the Biden administration to work in the U.S. Transportation Department.

Sarah Mills, senior project manager at the Center on Local, State, and Urban Policy, and Michael Craig, assistant professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability, have been selected for a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office. The two will research how rural communities in the Great Lakes region learn about and decide whether to zone for utility-scale solar.

The President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality, charged with recommending scalable and transferable strategies for U-M to achieve net-zero emissions, has released its preliminary draft recommendations for public comment. The draft report includes a collection of steps that U-M could take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the Flint, Dearborn and Ann Arbor campuses, including Michigan Medicine.

Kaitlin Raimi, U-M Assistant Professor of Public Policy, explains her research on how people compare their own beliefs and behaviors to those of others, specifically climate change and environmental behaviors.

Methane is the primary component of natural gas, a greenhouse gas with 34 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. More than one percent of methane in the U.S. supply chain escapes into the atmosphere, much of which is caused by degraded pipes and loose-fitting components during distribution of natural gas. Ford School professor Catherine Hausman’s research has been cited as the primary influence of a law that passed in Washington state to address the problem.

More older adults are hospitalized in the month following hurricanes while fewer primary care doctors, surgeons and specialists are available in some of their communities in the long term, according to a pair of U-M studies. The findings are noteworthy as the population of older adults is rapidly growing alongside increasing impacts from climate change, such as extreme weather events, the U-M researchers say.

Dominic Bednar, a PhD candidate in the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), was selected for a Fulbright Award to travel to Santiago, Chile, where he will study energy efficiency, energy poverty, and firewood use among residential areas.

U-M was awarded $3.9 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The funding will be used to harvest hydrokinetic energy using reconfigurable high-efficiency marine micro-turbines.

Some Detroiters spend up to 30% of their monthly income on home energy bills, a sky-high rate that places the city among the Top 10 nationally in a category that researchers call household energy burden. The COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened the situation, adding financial challenges that make it increasingly difficult for many low- and moderate-income residents to pay their utility bills.

The sinking carcasses of fish from near-surface waters deliver toxic mercury pollution to the most remote and inaccessible parts of the world’s oceans. And most of that mercury began its long journey to the deep-sea trenches as atmospheric emissions from coal-fired power plants, mining operations, cement factories, incinerators and other human activities.

An international team of climate scientists, including two from U-M, suggests that researchers using numerical models to predict future climate change should include simulations of past climates when evaluating model performance. Unlike historic climate records, which typically only go back a century or two, paleoclimates cover a vastly broader range of climatic conditions that can inform climate models in ways historic data cannot.

Few local governments in Michigan report collaborating with another community on energy and sustainability issues, yet nearly half expressed interest in teaming up with others to pursue opportunities, according to a new U-M survey.

New heat-harnessing “solar” cells that reflect 99% of the energy they can’t convert to electricity could help bring down the price of storing renewable energy as heat, as well as harvesting waste heat from exhaust pipes and chimneys.

A team of scientists has nailed down the temperature at the peak of the last ice age, a time known as the Last Glacial Maximum, to about 46 degrees Fahrenheit. Their findings allow climate scientists to better understand the relationship between today’s rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide—a major greenhouse gas—and average global temperature.

Over the past several decades, it has appeared that cold-climate forests at high latitudes have become more effective carbon sinks as rising temperatures and higher CO2 levels have made them more productive. But a new UM-led study casts additional uncertainty on whether those ecosystems will continue to absorb carbon as they become hotter and drier.

The homes of wealthy Americans generate about 25% more greenhouse gases than residences in lower-income neighborhoods, mainly due to their larger size. In the nation’s most affluent suburbs, those emissions can be as much as 15 times higher than in nearby lower-income neighborhoods.

Asian carp and the trillions of quagga mussels that carpet the bottom of Lake Michigan would compete for the same food—algae and other types of plankton. Some Great Lakes researchers have suggested that the fingernail-size mollusks could help prevent the invasive fish from gaining a foothold.

Scientists estimate that 5-15 percent of the carbon stored in surface permafrost soils could be emitted as the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 2100, given the current trajectory of global warming. This emission, spurred by microbial action, could lead to 0.3 to 0.4 degrees Celsius of additional global warming.

To answer a question crucial to technologies such as energy conversion, a team of researchers at U-M, Purdue University and the University of Liverpool have figured out a way to measure how many “hot charge carriers”—for example, electrons with extra energy—are present in a metal nanostructure. The team believes that others can use it to explore and optimize nanostructures.

At a forum convened by the House Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources on June 1, Daniel Raimi, Ford School lecturer, testified about the feasibility of capping some 56-thousand such oil and gas wells.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen great reductions in travel, a major source of the carbon emissions that drive climate change. Sustainable systems master’s student Nate Hua is working to help the university reduce its own travel impact in the future.

As the number and cost of natural disasters continues to increase, communities are looking for ways to adapt and become more resilient. U-M researchers are bringing together interdependent data to build communities that are resilient to disasters.

Safe and more affordable nuclear energy is the goal of a new UM-led project, bringing together researchers who specialize in nuclear energy technology and computer science.

Discussions of drought often center on the lack of precipitation. But among climate scientists, the focus is shifting to include the growing role that warming temperatures are playing as potent drivers of greater aridity and drought intensification.

Buildings accounted for 98.5 percent of total Ann Arbor campus energy use during fiscal year 2019, and one U-M research team has been exploring ways to better enable energy efficiency projects in existing buildings.

China is the world’s largest emitter of climate-altering carbon dioxide gas, generated by the burning of fossil fuels. A new study details the links between China’s exports and its emissions by mapping the in-country sources of carbon dioxide emissions tied to products consumed overseas.

A new study from U-M climate researchers concludes that some of the latest-generation climate models may be overly sensitive to carbon dioxide increases and therefore project future warming that is unrealistically high.

Domenico Grasso, chancellor of U-M Dearborn, argues that professional engineering societies need to stand boldly in favor of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “As engineers, we have a distinct and special opportunity to use our voices to address one of the most critical matters of our age.”

"Disrupting natural (or human) food chains on either land or sea will create large ripple effects,” says John DeCicco, a research professor at the U-M Energy Institute.

A U-M study quantitatively shows, for the first time, that during a 30-year period, coverage of climate change has not only become dominated by partisan voices, but also that those voices are associated with increasingly different messages about climate change.

"It's pretty clear that the decline in coal use is sustained, it's big and it's real, and it's coming mostly from the big drop in natural gas prices we've seen in the last decade," said Catie Hausman, a U-M professor whose research focuses on energy and climate policy.

U-M Energy Institute’s John DeCicco hosted a panel of experts for a teach-in on Automobile Efficiency: Challenges and Opportunities for Addressing a Major Part of CO2 Emissions.

Using data from NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, researchers found connections between the population density of cities and how much carbon dioxide they produce per person.

For electric car owners, keeping battery degradation at bay can seem like a difficult task. U-M researchers are here to help.

U-M researchers have created a searchable, sortable public database of Michigan zoning ordinances related to siting renewable energy, such as windmill farms and solar panel fields.

Confused about the claims of those who doubt the reality of climate change? U-M is offering a free learning opportunity “Melting Ice Rising Seas Teach-Out,” beginning March 2. The self-guided experience on Coursera will walk learners through the reality of climate change as evidenced by the melting glaciers in Greenland.

Biosequestration relies on the natural ability of living organisms and biological processes to capture carbon. The biosequestration internal analysis team, part of the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality, has been working for several months to evaluate the biosequestration of university-owned lands.

Half of Michigan’s local governments have taken steps to improve energy efficiency in their facilities—more than double the 22% who reported similar efforts a decade ago, according to a survey by the U-M Ford School of Public Policy.

Wildfire risk is a defining environmental challenge throughout much of the American West, as well as in other regions where complex social and ecological dynamics defy simple policy or management solutions. Consequently, diverse forms of land use, livelihoods, and accompanying values require trade-offs in land management.

A new artificial photosynthesis approach uses sunlight to turn carbon dioxide into methane, which could help make natural-gas-powered devices carbon neutral. Methane is the main component of natural gas.

Volker Sick, Director of the CO2 Initiative, describes how the CO2 that we remove from the atmosphere can be used and reused instead of pulling carbon from fossil sources.

New Mexican chiles can’t be grown just anywhere: The state’s high elevation provides the required temperature swings between hot days and cool nights. “It’s hard to say that you could just move to a cooler environment,” said Jonathan Overpeck, U-M’s dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability. “I just don’t think there’s an obvious place to move to grow our chile.”

North American migratory birds have been getting smaller over the past four decades, and their wings have gotten a bit longer. Both changes appear to be responses to a warming climate. Those are the main findings from a new U-M led analysis of a dataset of some 70,000 North American migratory birds from 52 species that died when they collided with buildings in Chicago.

Most of the cities in Michigan will be dealing with harsh consequences of climate change, and vulnerable groups who are disproportionately affected by it will continue to do so now and into the future, according to a new U-M study.

Breast cancer patients who endured Hurricane Katrina in 2005 have a 15% higher mortality rate than those patients not exposed to the storm, according to a U-M researcher.

While most of the Puerto Rican coffee farms did lose a great deal of shade cover—an average of 37.5% canopy loss—there was “no relationship” between the amount of shade on a farm and damage to its coffee plants, U-M researchers report in a recent study.

The U-M Solar Car team will soon race down the Australian outback in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. The team is counting on its new battery system and solar cells to propel it to a first-place finish.

Drew Gronewold and Richard Rood explain how a series of historically damaging floods “serve as warnings that we must better prepare and plan for the future ahead.”

As the world grows warmer and the region grows wetter, extreme heat and rain will cause more people to die or become ill—a costly burden in terms of lives lost and health care costs to the state of Michigan, a new report says.

Some may not realize that, at times, giant solar and wind farms can produce more power than what is needed, leaving energy to, in a sense, go to waste.

Pulling carbon dioxide out of the air using a technology called “direct air capture,” or DAC, will not be the silver bullet for curbing climate change that some hoped it would be, according to new research from U-M.

Under the hot Australian sun, the U-M Solar Car Team hopes its overhauled electrical system and tightly packed trapezoid solar cells will power their car to gold at the 1,800-mile Bridgestone World Solar Challenge this fall.

Thin-film solar panels, the cell phone in your hand and the LED bulb lighting your home are all made using some of the rarest, most expensive elements found on the planet.

In an aspen-dominated hardwood forest at the northern tip of the state’s Lower Peninsula, U-M scientists are testing ways to make the region’s forests more resilient to climate change. About 12,000 mature trees—mostly aspen—are being cut on 77 acres at the U-M Biological Station, a 10,000-acre research and teaching facility just south of the Mackinac Bridge, near the town of Pellston.

Drew Gronewold and Richard Rood say the rapid transitions between extreme high and low water levels in the Great Lakes represent the “new normal.”

Ecology concept with green city on earth, World environment and sustainable development concept, vector illustration

As researchers work toward next-generation electric vehicles, they may be hitting their heads on the ceiling of what lithium ion batteries can deliver. Meanwhile, a U-M research team pushing the performance of a competing electric vehicle technology—hydrogen fuel cells—to new heights.

Electric vehicles will have reduced range, and batteries won't charge as readily. But beyond the cold Midwest, more of the globe is experiencing record highs.

The federal response to hurricanes Harvey and Irma was faster and more generous than the help sent to Puerto Rico in preparation and in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, according to U-M researchers.

Researchers examining data produced by small satellites launched in 2016 to track ocean winds were surprised the mission produced valuable information on soil moisture and flooding.

Don’t try this at home: This nail penetration test was designed as a control to show the violence of a catastrophic battery failure when not properly contained.

A community armed with that real-time data could move more quickly to prevent flash-flooding or sewage overflows, which represent a rising threat to property, infrastructure and the environment. Coupled with “smart” stormwater systems, municipalities could potentially take in data from connected vehicles to predict and prevent flooding.

“I think we're getting our handle on adaptation,” said School for Environment and Sustainability Dean Jonathan Overpeck. “That's a big focus of our efforts here at the University of Michigan and elsewhere around the state. But adaptation will only get you so far. What we really want is a strong, resilient, and sustainable economy for this state.”

There are three tenets of energy justice. The first is distributional justice, which focuses on the benefits and burdens of energy generation. The second is procedural justice, which considers access to participation in the energy decision-making process. The third is recognition justice, which is the identification of energy injustices affecting specific populations.

Hurricane Harvey was the most powerful tropical storm to hit the U.S. since 2005. It caused about $125 billion in damage, ranking it as the second-most costly hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since 1900.

Experiencing extreme weather is not enough to convince climate change skeptics that humans are damaging the environment, a new study shows. Political bias and partisan news reporting influence whether people indicate experiencing certain extreme weather events, according to the study involving researchers from U-M and other universities.

Seawalls higher than approximately 16 feet can effectively reduce tsunami-related damage and death, according to a study that applies big-data analytics to more than 200 years of tsunami records from the Pacific coast of Japan’s Tohoku region.

The Amazon is likely to face continued warming in addition to possible multiyear droughts, a new study finds. The research suggests that primary ecosystem services—biodiversity, water cycling, carbon capture and others—are at greater risk than anticipated.

An analysis of more than 40 climate-adaptation plans from across the U.S. shows that local communities are good at developing strategies to combat the harmful effects of climate change but often fail to prioritize their goals or to provide implementation details.

The Battery Fabrication and Characterization User Facility, or Battery Lab, is an open user facility designed to allow researchers from academia and industry to work with experts in the nation’s most complete, customized battery research user facility.