MELINA WALLING

Associated Press
Lance Martin holds a jug of maple syrup as light shines through it, Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024, in Rhinelander, Wis. In many parts of Wisconsin and the Midwest this year, the warmest winter on record drove farmers and hobbyists alike to start collecting tree sap for maple syrup a month or more earlier than they normally would. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
Maple syrup season came weeks early in the Midwest. Producers are doing their best to adapt
This year’s warmer winter temperatures have allowed some maple syrup producers across the U.S. to begin tapping their trees as much as two months early.
 
Katrina Cornish, a professor at Ohio State University who studies rubber alternatives, models a medical glove made from latex produced from the desert shrub guayule, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024, in Wooster, Ohio. Cornish spends her days raising dandelions and desert shrubs. She harvests the stretchy rubber substances they produce and uses special machines to dip them into condoms, medical gloves and parts for trachea tubes. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
Dandelions and shrubs to replace rubber, new grains and more: Are alternative crops realistic?
Many companies, philanthropic organizations and national and international entities tout the promise of alternative crops to fight climate change.
 
Hunter Prince, left, watches a video on his computer inside his mother and stepfather's bedroom as his little brother, Waylon, right, finishes brushing his teeth at Camp Graves, a nonprofit helping provide temporary housing, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024, in Water Valley, Ky. Two years after the tornado outbreak that killed dozens and leveled much of the real estate in Mayfield, many people, like the Prince family, are still living through another, slower disaster, the search for housing. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
Two years after deadly tornadoes, some Mayfield families are still waiting for housing
Two years after the tornado outbreak that killed dozens and leveled much of the real estate in this western Kentucky town, many people are still living through another, slower disaster -- the search for housing.
 
FILE - Ships travel along the Mississippi River in LaPlace, La., as the sun sets on Oct. 20, 2023. The nation’s rivers and streams remain stubbornly polluted with nutrients that can contaminate drinking water, degrade aquatic life and feed the so-called “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a recently released Environmental Protection Agency assessment. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)
Latest EPA assessment shows almost no improvement in river and stream nitrogen pollution
The EPA’s newest assessment of water quality and nutrient pollution in U.S. rivers and streams shows almost no progress on cutting the nitrogen pollution that comes primarily from farm chemical runoff.
 
Gary Chastagner, a Washington State University professor called "Dr. Christmas Tree" shows an example of a less-desirable tree due to fewer top branches, grown in a small plantation of Turkish fir trees to produce disease and insect-resistant Christmas trees at the school's Puyallup Research and Extension Center on Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023, in Puyallup, Wash. Chastagner has been working with breeders to see if species from other parts of the world — for instance, Turkish fir — are better adapted to conditions being wrought by climate change. (AP Photo/Jason Redmond)
As climate warms, that perfect Christmas tree may depend on growers’ ability to adapt
For decades, Christmas tree growers and breeders have been preparing for a future of hotter weather and warming soil. People buying their trees may not have noticed a difference in availability this year and may not even in the next couple.
 
Minke van Wingerden of the Floating Farm, poses for a photo with some cows at the farm on Nov. 7 2023, in Rotterdam, Netherlands. She sees agriculture on water as a viable response to flooding and rising sea levels and a way of bringing food production closer to consumers, meaning a lower carbon footprint. (AP Photo/Patrick Post)
Cows in Rotterdam harbor, seedlings on rafts in India; are floating farms the future?
Visitors walking along the river that flows through downtown Rotterdam might be surprised to see a three-tiered structure moored in the water, with a top level occupied by brown and white cows grazing on hay dropped from a conveyor belt.
 
An activist demonstrates for financing farming now at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Agriculture gets its day at COP28, but experts see big barriers to cutting emissions
This year’s global climate summit in Dubai set aside Sunday to spotlight food and agriculture, a sector that accounts for about a third of the world’s emission.
 
Mariam Almheiri, United Arab Emirates Minister of Climate Change and Environment, left, speaks next to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Friday, Dec. 8, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
U.S. and UAE-backed initiative announces $9 billion more for agricultural innovation projects
A joint initiative from the United States and United Arab Emirates is announcing an additional $9 billion of funding to tackle agriculture’s role in the climate crisis.
 
Jed Clark drives his combine while harvesting soybeans, Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023, in Lynnville, Ky. After historic rainfall in July 2023, floods submerged crops on Clark's farm, destroying about 18 acres of tobacco crop and 200 acres of soybeans. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
Extreme weather can hit farmers hard. Those with smaller farming operations often pay the price
Following historic rainfall and flooding earlier this summer, farmers in Graves County, Kentucky sustained field damage and crop loss.
 
Brewer Scott Peterson retrieves spent grain from a lauterton while brewing a German-style Pilsner at Von Ebert Brewing in Portland, Ore., Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023. The craft brewery have had hops they depend upon from Europe impacted by hot, dry summers over the last couple of years. That’s why some researchers are working on varieties of hops that can better withstand summer heat. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)
How researchers, farmers and brewers want to safeguard beer against climate change
In the face of human-caused climate change impacting water access and weather patterns in the Willamette Valley — a region known for hops growing — farmers are using all the new strategies they can get to stay afloat and provide for large and small breweries alike.
 
FILE - A surfer rides a wave in the Atlantic Ocean in Biarritz, southwestern France, Oct. 7, 2023. October was the fifth straight month that Earth set a record for the hottest month in recorded history. (AP Photo/Bob Edme, File)
Red hot October almost guarantees 2023 will be the hottest year on record
October was the fifth straight month that Earth set a record for the hottest month in recorded history. And it did so by a big margin compared to the Octobers of pre-industrial times — 1.7 degrees Celsius.
 
Nikyle Begay moves a sheep in preparation for shearing Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023, on the Navajo Nation in Ganado, Ariz. When it's time for shearing, Begay ties the hooves of the sheep into place and cut the wool by hand with a special pair of scissors. (AP Photo/John Locher)
‘My heart was always just with the sheep.’ One Navajo’s push to keep tradition vibrant
Growing up in Ganado, a small town in Navajo Nation in eastern Arizona, Nikyle Begay always wanted to visit their grandmother’s sheep.
 
CORRECTS NAME OF FACILITY TO GREENWASTE RENEWABLE ENERGY DIGESTION FACILITY FROM GREENWASTE ZANKER RESOURCE RECOVERY FACILITY - Shredded organic materials are piled up before being taken to an anaerobic digester at a GreenWaste Renewable Energy Digestion Facility in San Jose, Calif., Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. For the first time since the 1990s, the EPA updated its ranking of preferred strategies for waste reduction, ranging from preventing wasted food altogether (by not producing or buying it in the first place) to composting or anaerobic digestion, a process by which food waste can be turned into energy in the form of biogas. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Americans are still putting way too much food into landfills. Local officials seek EPA’s help
A pair of recent reports from the Environmental Protection Agency put striking numbers on America’s problem with food waste.
 
Jay Begay shears a sheep by hand Monday, April 10, 2023, in the community of Rocky Ridge, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation. Climate change, permitting issues and diminishing interest among younger generations are leading to a singular reality: Navajo raising fewer sheep. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Navajo sheep herding at risk from climate change. Some young people push to maintain the tradition
Raising sheep is a way of life for many people in Navajo Nation, but a host of factors threaten that livelihood.
 
Alan Mazzotti walks through one of his pumpkin fields Oct. 26, 2023, in Hudson, Colo. For some pumpkin growers in states like Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, this year's pumpkin crop was a reminder of the water challenges hitting agriculture across the Southwest and West as human-caused climate change exacerbates drought and heat extremes. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)
How extreme weather in the US may have affected the pumpkins you picked this year for Halloween
Some pumpkin farmers in the West, particularly wholesalers in places like Colorado and New Mexico, are feeling the pinching effects of drought.
 
FILE - A house sparrow is seen with an insect in its beak, May 25, 2020, in Lutherville-Timonium, Md. As climate change intensifies extreme heat, farms are becoming less hospitable to many nesting birds, including the house sparrow, a new study found on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
Birds nesting in agricultural lands more vulnerable to extreme heat, study finds
Birds nesting in agricultural settings were significantly less likely to successfully raise their young during extreme heat events than birds nesting in forests under the same weather conditions, a new study finds.
 
Workers hand off plants during operations at a vertical farm greenhouse in Cleburne, Texas, Aug. 29, 2023. Indoor farming brings growing inside in what experts sometimes call “controlled environment agriculture.” There are different methods; vertical farming involves stacking produce from floor to ceiling, often under artificial lights and with the plants growing in nutrient-enriched water. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Lots of indoor farms are shutting down as their businesses struggle. So why are more being built?
Across the country, more indoor farms are launching or expanding even as others founder. This summer marked the groundbreaking of a huge vertical farming operation in Virginia by the California-based company Plenty Unlimited.
 
Gilda Jackson walks on a pasture on her property that she grows hay on in Paradise, Texas, Monday, Aug. 21, 2022. Jackson, who trains and sells horses, has been plagued by grasshoppers this year, a problem that only gets worse when the hatch quickens in times of heat and drought. Jackson watched this summer as the insects chewed through a 35-acre pasture she badly needs for hay and what they didn't destroy, the sun burned up. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Climate change may force more farmers and ranchers to consider irrigation -- at a steep cost
As brutal heat stretches across much of the United States, some farmers may be watching their crops grow parched.
 
FILE - Penguins walk on the shore of Bahia Almirantazgo in Antarctica on Jan. 27, 2015. A new study released Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, concludes that Antarctica is already being and will continue to be affected by more frequent and severe extreme weather events, a known byproduct of human-caused climate change. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)
Even frozen Antarctica is being walloped by climate extremes, scientists find
A new study concludes that Antarctica is already being and will continue to be affected by more frequent and severe extreme weather events, a known byproduct of human-caused climate change.
 
FILE - Sorelly Restrepo, of Colombia, shields herself from the sunlight in the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles, July 27, 2023. Across the U.S., many people are living through one of the most brutal summers of their lives and reckoning with the idea that climate change is only going to make matters worse in the coming decades. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
Swaths of the US are living through a brutal summer. It’s a climate wake-up call for many
With global temperatures shattering records this year, are most people actually seeing this year as anything all that different?
 
Dairy farmer Megan McAllister works in the milking parlor on her farm, Monday, July 24, 2023, in New Vienna, Iowa. More intense summer heat resulting from emissions-driven climate change means animal heat stress that can result in billions of dollars in lost revenue for farmers and ranchers if not properly managed. The McAllister family installed new fans above the beds where their cows lie. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Pig cooling pads and weather forecasts for cows are high-tech ways to make meat in a warming world
More than a third of the heat-trapping gases cooking the planet come from growing and raising food, but millions of cattle, pigs and other animals get to stay cool in the United States and the rest of the developed world.
 
Shalamar Armstrong, associate professor of agronomy at Purdue University, holds a shovel full of soil, Thursday, July 13, 2023, in Fowler, Ind. Cover crops help with maintaining the structure of the soil and storing carbon in the soil, noted by the soil's darker color. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
Farm fields don’t just feed us. They store carbon. But a big question is how much
Soil and its potential for storing carbon is gaining attention from farmers, researchers and even Congress. The growing interest comes as the idea of selling carbon credits comes to agriculture.
 
Jude Addo-Chidie, a Ph.D. student in agronomy at Purdue University, takes a soil sample from a corn field, Wednesday, July 12, 2023, at the Southeast-Purdue Agricultural Center in Butlerville, Ind. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it will invest $300 million on monitoring and reporting planet-warming emissions from climate-smart agricultural processes, such as no-till agriculture and planting cover crops. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
U.S. Department of Agriculture to invest $300 million in monitoring agricultural emissions
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it will invest $300 million on monitoring and reporting planet-warming emissions from climate-smart agricultural processes, such as no-till agriculture and planting cover crops.
 
FILE - Kayak and canoe outfitter Jessie Fuentes walks along the Rio Grande under a warm sun Thursday, July 6, 2023. As the heat breaks records, weakening and sickening people, it’s worth remembering that dire heat waves have inspired effective efforts to prevent heat illness. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Cities have long made plans for extreme heat. Are they enough in a warming world?
With Earth breaking average heat records, cities are sure to be giving a fresh look at their readiness plans for temperatures that can kill.
 
Camilo Martin picks blueberries at the Coopertiva Tierra y Libertad farm Friday, July 7, 2023, in Everson, Wash. Farms and workers must adapt to changing climate conditions. As Earth this week set and then repeatedly broke unofficial records for average global heat, it served as a reminder of a danger that climate change is making steadily worse for farmworkers and others who labor outside.(AP Photo/John Froschauer)
Climate change ratchets up the stress on farmworkers on the front lines of a warming Earth
As Earth this week set and then repeatedly broke unofficial records for average global heat, it served as a reminder of a danger that climate change is making steadily worse for farmworkers and others who labor outside.
 
A Kashmiri man cools off at a stream on a hot summer day on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, July 4, 2023. The entire planet sweltered for the two unofficial hottest days in human recordkeeping Monday and Tuesday, according to University of Maine scientists at the Climate Reanalyzer project. The unofficial heat records come after months of unusually hot conditions due to climate change and a strong El Nino event. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Tuesday set an unofficial record for the hottest day on Earth. Wednesday may break it.
The planet’s temperature spiked on Tuesday to its hottest day in at least 44 years and likely much longer. Wednesday could become the third straight day that global temperatures unofficially hit a record-breaking high.
 
FILE - A jogger runs along McCovey Cove outside Oracle Park in San Francisco, under darkened skies from wildfire smoke on Sept. 9, 2020. As Earth's climate continues to change from heat-trapping gases spewed into the air, ever fewer people are out of reach from the billowing and deadly fingers of wildfire smoke, scientists say. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File)
Climate change keeps making wildfires and smoke worse. Scientists call it the ‘new abnormal’
As smoky as the summer has been so far, scientists say it will likely be worse in future years because of climate change.
 
A person walks along the shore of Lake Michigan as the downtown skyline is blanketed in haze from Canadian wildfires Tuesday, June 27, 2023, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)
Canadian wildfires are causing the worst air in the US in cities like Chicago and Detroit
Drifting smoke from the ongoing wildfires across Canada is creating curtains of haze and raising air quality concerns throughout the Great Lakes region, and in parts of the central and eastern United States.
 
FILE - Wind turbines turn behind a solar farm in Rapshagen, Germany, Oct. 28, 2021. The world is falling well short of the progress needed to meet the United Nations’ sustainable development goals by 2030 in areas ranging from poverty to clean energy to biodiversity, according to a report Tuesday, June 20, 2023, from the nonprofit tracking the goals. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)
World well short of pace needed to meet UN’s 2030 sustainable development goals
The world is falling well short of the progress needed to meet the United Nations’ sustainable development goals by 2030 in areas ranging from poverty to clean energy to biodiversity.
 
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