Articles by

Matt Simon

The Designer Who’s Trying to Transform Your City Into a Sponge

Your city isn’t prepared for what’s coming. The classical method for dealing with stormwater is to get...

Get Ready to Eat Pond Plants

If you ever watch a duck float across a pond, gobbling up the vegetation coating the surface,...

Cities Aren’t Prepared for a Crucial Part of Sea-Level Rise: They’re Also Sinking

Fighting off rising seas without reducing humanity’s carbon emissions is like trying to drain a bathtub without...

Less Sea Ice Means More Arctic Trees—Which Means Trouble

Anywhere else in the world, more trees would be a blessing. But in the far north of...

US Cities Could Be Capturing Billions of Gallons of Rain a Day

Your city is a scab on the landscape: sidewalks, roads, parking lots, rooftops—the built environment repels water...

What Would Happen if Every American Got a Heat Pump

One of the most powerful weapons you can wield to fight climate change is … an appliance....

Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be

Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky,...

Ocean Temperatures Keep Shattering Records—and Stunning Scientists

For nearly a year now, a bizarre heating event has been unfolding across the world’s oceans. In...