National Geographic (NOVEMBER 2023) – The latest issue features The race to capture carbon – Any climate solutions strategy requires the removal of carbon from the atmosphere. Here are 12 of the most promising strategies; What flashy feathers reveal about the secret lives of birds, and more…

Another weapon to fight climate change? Put carbon back where we found it

Getting to zero carbon emissions won’t save the world. We’ll have to also remove carbon from the air—a massive undertaking unlike anything we’ve ever done.

BY SAM HOWE VERHOVEK

Over the past few centuries, we have dug, chopped, burned, drilled, pumped, stripped, forged, flared, lit, launched, driven, and flown our way to adding 2.4 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide to Earth’s atmosphere.

That’s as much CO₂ as would be emitted annually by 522 billion cars, or 65 cars per person living today.

On a lonely, lunar-like valley 20 miles outside of Reykjavík, Iceland, Edda Aradóttir is on a mission to put it back where it came from.

What these flashy feathers reveal about the secret lives of birds

Shimmery. Spiky. Shaggy. Soft. Feathers are what make birds so alluring—but these photographs remind us that they also tell a story about the science of evolution.

BY ANNIE ROTH

PHOTOGRAPHS BY HEIDI AND HANS-JÜRGEN KOCH

In 1860 Charles Darwin wrote, “The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!” The plumes were so extravagant, he surmised, they could be a hindrance to survival. Darwin’s frustration with their seemingly inexplicable elegance eventually led him to the idea of sexual selection. Although this form of natural selection—driven by the preference of one sex for certain characteristics in individuals of the other sex—is well understood today, a peacock’s feather can still hold mystery for its viewers, says Heidi Koch. She and her husband, Hans-Jürgen, have spent the past few years photographing feathers in all their glorious detail.