climate crisis

Two Western cities registered the poorest air quality in the world over the last week as smoke from wildfires in northern California turned the skies over the Rocky Mountains into a chalky white abyss. On July 7, Denver’s air was the worst among international cities, according to IQAir.com. Salt Lake City was No. 1 the day prior.

University of Utah atmospheric scientist Derek Mallia says such pollution levels in these Mountain West cities is “unprecedented.”

Two years ago, more than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries declared a climate emergency. They did so in a report that said scientists have "a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to 'tell it like it is.'"

Now, they say things look even worse.

On Wednesday, an updated version of the report was published in the journal BioScience, and included an additional 2,800 scientists' signatures.

Firefighters have long studied how fires behave to figure out where they’re going and how to keep people safe. But wildfires are becoming more unpredictable.

The United States could see tens of thousands more violent crimes per year as climate change causes warmer winters, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

A radical environmental movement that originated in the UK is now going international, with several chapters in the Mountain West.