Episode Intro A couple years ago, a Utah statewide ballot initiative called Clean the Darn Air was proposed to tackle the persistent air pollution which Wasatch Front residents deal with every year. The proposal was to tax the things that cause the pollution — the carbon emissions – by levying a 10 cents per gallon […]
Read MoreEpisode Intro One of the two runners up for the Wilkes Center Climate Launch Prize this past year is De Novo Foodlabs, a startup with operations in North Carolina and Cape Town, South Africa, which is focused on using precision fermentation to synthesize a new kind of lactoferrin. I had to read up on this […]
Read MoreEpisode Intro Ross Chambless: Many believe that chemistry is foundational to understanding and solving environmental challenges. And when it comes to solving a pernicious global environmental problem – such as methane emissions – it may be basic chemistry research that ultimately leads society to innovative breakthroughs. Methane (C𝐻4) is a potent greenhouse gas. It is […]
Read MoreEpisode Intro Ross Chambless: In September 2025, the Wilkes Center awarded its annual Wilkes Climate Launch Prize to the organization Build up Nepal. Build up Nepal has developed a new approach to building homes for very low-income Nepalese using bricks that are not made by burning coal, but instead are compressed, and made with locally […]
Read MoreWhen it comes to climate change, one big question is how are ecosystems adapting to shifting weather patterns, heavier precipitation events, and hotter temperatures for longer periods of time? Are some plants better equipped to withstand these changes than others? And if yes, then why and how? Jacob Levine is a Wilkes Center Postdoctoral scholar […]
Read MoreThe Wilkes Center recently hosted its 3rd annual climate solutions hackathon at the end of January. This year the focus was water resources. The “hackathon” as we’ve come to call it – borrowing the term from the computer coding world – is an intense problem-solving competition where we challenge U of U undergraduate and graduate […]
Read MorePerovskites are crystal structures that can be manufactured in labs for making solar panels. They are relatively cost-effective, and efficient, and could provide a reliable thin-film alternative to the more common silicon-based solar panels. However, perovskite solar cells face a few challenges that must be addressed before they can become a competitive commercial PV technology. […]
Read MoreThere are an estimated 54,000 glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayas. These glaciers cover 60,000 square kilometers and serve as a major source of the water in the region’s rivers, including as much as 40 percent in the Indus River system – the backbone of agriculture and food production in Pakistan, for example. But in […]
Read MoreIt’s true the Earth has experienced periods of global warming in its past. The largest such warming event in the past 90 million years – since the time dinosaurs roamed Earth – was the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, about 56 million years ago. Average global temperatures increased by 4–5°C over a period of 3,000–10,000 years. Human […]
Read More“Eco-anxiety” or “Climate grief” are increasingly part of our lexicon when it comes to describing the heavy feelings of concern people are feeling about the state of our natural environment and global climate change. This past year, Jennifer Follstad Shah, associate professor in the School of the Environment, Society and Sustainability, along with her colleague […]
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