The climate change issue

Storms. Drought. Fire. Flooding. Stifling heatwaves. Unseasonable cold snaps. Lakes vanish in some regions, while land washes away in others.

The effects of climate change may be uneven, but they are undeniably being felt around the world. In response, more and more biochemists are looking for ways to contribute their expertise to political and technical solutions.

The articles in this month’s special section explore a few of the many threads connecting biochemistry to the climate crisis.

Researchers are hard at work to understand how organisms respond to escalating heat stress on a molecular level, and how their responses may alter global biogeochemistry. They are exploring new ways to use environmental DNA to trace ecological shifts — and synthetic DNA to store our ever-increasing information archives at a lower energy cost. Industrial researchers are investigating approaches to make manufacturing more sustainable using enzymes. Meanwhile, educators work to raise public awareness of the climate crisis and to make biochemistry feel relevant to future students. 

Even geologic carbon sequestration has a metagenomics story waiting to be heard.

Here are links to our eleven climate change articles. Read on.

What does biochemistry have to do with climate change?

Artists, technologists bring data storage to life

Microbes and minerals

A probiotic for the environment’?

How to be a climate activist

Bears, fungi and global warming

Regenerative agriculture: A boost for soil health

CALeDNA: Tracking biodiversity at the molecular level

‘Filling the void of the virosphere’

Machine learning lends a hand to catalyze greener chemistry

Climate bits: More  research in microbiology and biochemistry related to climate change and sustainability.