AI is everywhere, in the news, on your computer and smartphone, it seems as though we can’t escape it. AI can be a useful tool that can do many things to help us in our day-to-day lives and has the potential to help us solve big scale problems too. However, AI is also having a devastating impact on the environment. Generative AI chatbots are asked to process hundreds of millions of queries each day. This takes a lot of energy. In fact, it takes 5 times as much energy for AI t

In a year, a large tree can take around 40 kilograms of CO₂ out of the air. Now scientists at UC Berkely have made a carbon-capturing powder that can achieve the same feat. With half a pound of this fluffy yellow powder, the researchers say that they can capture the same 40 kilos. This powder, called COF-999, has been designed to trap greenhouse gas particles, and then release them in a safer place, for example injecting the carbon into the ground, something already done at c

In the final days of December last year, the state of New York approved their new “Climate Change Superfund Act”, a measure that will make Big Oil companies pay more to help clean up the damage they have done. The act will force the biggest oil companies to pay a total of $75 billion over the next 25 years.               Costs for repairing damage caused by climate change have continued to add up for the state, and a new act is supposed to help with this significantly. As est

The Climate Crisis is getting nothing but worse and although as a world we are seeing some progress, many countries are still not doing enough. This month, I want to tell you about one country that is taking serious measures to reduce global warming and doing unbelievably well. The country is: Iceland. Over 99% of Iceland's electricity comes from renewable sources, with approximately 80% coming from hydropower and 20% from geothermal energy. As if this is not enough, Iceland’

This month, I have written about three climate-related, youth-led lawsuits against various governments. These lawsuits, among others, are examples of youth holding their governments accountable for providing them with a livable future. We should all be inspired by these young people and the work they are doing through the legal system.  I.  Hawaii  Just a couple weeks ago, on June 20th, the government of Hawaii settled a lawsuit with young people who had sued the Department o

On Tuesday April 2nd, researchers at the University of Washington used a decommissioned aircraft carrier in the San Francisco Bay to launch microscopic salt particles into the air in an effort to reflect sunlight away from the Earth. This is part of a new area of research called solar radiation modification. In this specific experiment the researchers aimed to increase the density, and therefore the reflectiveness, of the clouds. This experiment was kept very secretive to avo

This month I thought I would write about something more local than my last article so, I decided to write about the proposed Sun Bear solar farm on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation, near Towaoc, CO and how tribes may benefit from projects like this. Climate justice demands that any level of involvement that tribes choose to have in the production of renewable energy must be on the terms of the native communities and benefit them directly in the ways that they design and envis

This month I wrote a letter to President Biden concerning the Willow oil drilling project in Alaska that his administration approved in March. This project would potentially produce 180,000 new barrels of oil a day, an astonishing 1.5% of the U.S.’s total oil production. I encourage you to do some research and write to him as well. Dear President Biden, My name is Forest Olson I am an 11 year old environmentalist from Telluride Colorado. I am writing to ask you to put a stop

With the ski season coming up, many people in mountain towns are worried about how global warming will affect their snowpack. This month I looked into what mountains are doing to reduce snow loss and melting and stay open all winter long. I’m also going to look at some ways we are trapping carbon to reduce global warming. Research shows that cleaner snow does not melt as fast as dirtier snow. When air pollution particles settle and make the snow dirty it will absorb more sunl

This month I’m going to write about one of nature’s greatest wonders; coral reefs. Corals are animals that attach themselves to the ocean floor and through symbiotic relationships grow large, intricate, structures called reefs. 25% of marine life depends on these reefs which make up structures that can be seen from space. Coral reefs can reduce 97% of coastal wave energy during a storm. Coral reefs provide benefits to the tune of 2.7 trillion U.S dollars every year. They also

As some of you may know, July was Earth’s hottest month on record and many devastating effects of climate change started to show themselves such as huge wildfires in Hawaii and Canada as well as dying coral reefs in Florida and Australia. As I sit here on a high mesa in Southwest Colorado I can feel that this summer has been warmer than in the past and every year there is less snow on the mountains. But so far I have been relatively shielded from the biggest impacts. In order

This month I’ve been reading about how innovative satellite technologies are being used as important tools for scientists leaders in monitoring and addressing climate change. Recently, the British technology company, SatVu, built a satellite that can measure the heat radiating off buildings and determine whether or not they are energy efficient. This incredible satellite is named Hotsat-1 and was launched with a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in

There has been a lot of climate news in the past two months. In early April an important new report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that we are not doing enough to curb global warming to only 1.5 degrees Celsius, the goal set in the Paris Agreement in 2015. The report which was written by hundreds of leading scientists says that despite some efforts to curb emissions, greenhouse gas emissions did, in fact, increase globally from 2010 to 2019 and c

In February, the Colorado Legislature agreed to move forward with a study to determine whether biochar could effectively help to cap orphaned oil and gas wells. There are estimated to be over three million abandoned oil wells nationwide, many of which leak climate warming gasses into the atmosphere. The gasses can also have negative effects on the health of people and animals living near the wells.  Biochar is made through a process called pyrolysis in which wood and other or

Happy Holidays! This month I am going to write about how to be thoughtful about your impact on the Earth and reduce your waste these holidays. No matter what you celebrate you can be helping the environment the whole way through. Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s waste increases by 25% to 43%. Not only should we work to reduce this, but it is an opportunity to create good habits for the years ahead.  In my family, we celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas, and one big part of Chr

This month, given the theme of gratitude, I have been thinking about how grateful I am to live in a place where the elected leaders and local citizens care about the environment and put in the effort to protect it. For example, recently the town of Telluride has announced that in 2024 there will be a ban on single use plastics. Back in 1993 the Colorado State Legislature passed a bill that banned municipalities from banning single use plastics. Last year the law was finally r

Every time a rocket is launched it releases black carbon or soot, which, when there were only about 70 worldwide rocket launches a year didn’t have a significant impact, but now with an average of about twice that is becoming more of a problem. Each year about 1,000 metric tons of soot is released into the stratosphere from rocket launches. However, this does not include all the fossil fuels used to build and transport these rockets.  Currently rocket launches account for 0.2