From 2001 to 2023, the need to expand cattle grazing pastures to meet global demand for beef has been the primary driver of deforestation.

One of Henry Ford's early failed business ventures later became Cadillac

Before founding the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford started two businesses that ultimately failed because he didn't get a product to market quickly enough. The Henry Ford Company pushed Henry Ford out in 1902, only to later reform and be renamed after the founder of Detroit, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac.

Walt Disney's visit to a Ford factory helped inspire the layout for Disneyland

Walt Disney visited Henry Ford's Greenfield Village and the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge manufacturing plant on a trip to the 1948 Chicago Railroad Fair. The layout of Greenfield Village inspired the different, distinctly themed sections of Disneyland in Anaheim, CA.

Henry Ford built a plastic car from soybeans in 1941

To pursue his goal of marrying industry with agriculture, among other reasons, the automobile giant oversaw the design and creation of a vehicle with 12 panels made from plastic. At 2,000 pounds, the car was much lighter than all-steel ones, but production stopped during World War II.

One of Henry Ford's early vehicle prototypes broke an all-time speed record and got him the money to start Ford Motor Company

In 1904, Henry Ford raced the "999" across a frozen lake and reached an average speed of more than 90 miles per hour, beating the then-record for fastest land speed. Ford's success attracted the eyes of the earliest investors in the Henry Ford Company, Ford's company before he started Ford Motor Company.

Amazon deforestation down by a third in 2023

Read this article to understand how Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who started his term on January 1, 2023, has been successful in reducing deforestation in the Amazon region. Deforestation dropped by 33.6% in the first six months of...

Impact of Brazil's politics on the Amazon rainforest

In this seven-minute podcast, Andrew Limbong speaks with environmental researcher Erika Berenguer about Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s ambitions to save the Amazon Rainforest from deforestation.

Interviews with loggers, tribespeople, environmentalists, ranchers, and scientists about Amazon rainforest deforestation.

Around for 10 million years, the Amazon Rainforest might completely disappear before the end of the century. This 10-minute read shares personal accounts from loggers to Indigenous people, with satellite images of the deforestation of a 134,000...

The current state of Amazon rainforest deforestation

Scientists say the Amazon rainforest is approaching between 20%-25% deforestation, a critical tipping point at which the damage is irreversible. Demand for beef and soy are the main drivers.

The Ford Foundation helped expand America’s regional theater

In 1961, the philanthropic arm of Henry Ford’s massive empire seeded an initial grant of $9M to fund regional theaters around the United States. This was done to replicate the repertory theaters throughout Europe.

Listen to the details of Henry Ford's widely speculated affair and secret child.

Abandoned Detroit: the decline of America's car mecca

Detroit, Michigan, began as a fur trading post in the 1700s but would become the world epicenter of car manufacturing in the 1900s after Henry Ford developed his paradigm-shifting assembly line at a plant there. Racial tensions, a lack of economic diversification, and poor leadership would plunge the city into poverty and decay in the late 1900s, culminating in a 2014 bankruptcy. Browse the somber images of the city's abandoned spaces here.

Watch a video about Greenfield Village, Henry Ford's recreation of an ideal American town

Henry Ford designed Greenfield Village, an open-air museum with restorations of historic buildings, that represented Ford's idealization of what a simple American life should look like. Among the most notable buildings in the village are Ford's childhood home and a recreation of the one-room country schoolhouse Ford attended through the sixth grade.

Learn about the relationship between Thomas Edison and Henry Ford

Despite their 16-year age difference, legendary inventor Thomas Edison and Henry Ford developed a close relationship after meeting at a convention in New York. The two—alongside environmentalist John Burroughs and Harvey Firestone, the founder of Firestone Tire—were known as the "Four Vagabonds" and were famous for their long roadtrips, which were often highly publicized.

Henry Ford pioneered the first moving assembly line, building on earlier iterations of the manufacturing method

Although cars existed before the Model T, manufacturing them required a group of highly specialized mechanics. The Model T was so affordable in large part because of the moving assembly line, which cut down the total manufacturing time of the car and replaced specialized workers with general laborers who performed repetitive tasks.

Finance sector has power to help the Amazon rainforest

Read this article to uncover the potential role of the financial industry in addressing deforestation, climate change, and biodiversity loss in the Amazon rainforest. The finance sector can significantly contribute to conservation efforts by...

Amazon rainforest facts, species, and threats

The World Wildlife Federation presents a brief overview of the Amazon rainforest, covering key facts like location, size, and importance. An overview of threats includes unsustainable resource extraction, climate change, and poorly planned construction projects.

Nonprofits strive to replant the Amazon and slow global warming

This article explores the efforts of nonprofit organizations like Rioterra in reforesting the Brazilian Amazon to mitigate climate change. Their goal is enormous: reforest an area twice the size of Germany, costing over 20 billion dollars. In order...

Read how Fordism helped invent the American middle class

Henry Ford's revolution of the assembly line and American manufacturing as a whole gave rise to the American middle class. The introduction of the $5 workday (in exchange for eight-hour days of highly repetitive work) raised factory workers' wages enough to reorient the economy around consumer demand.

In 1932, Mexican artist Diego Rivera painted a series of murals in Detroit depicting the city's automotive workers and criticizing the Ford Motor Company, leading to weeks of controversy.

The fascinating urban planning experiment that birthed Brazil's capital city

In 1960, the country moved its capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília, a city in the middle of the country built from scratch in just four years.

Watch someone drive a Model T Ford, which feels like driving 'a tractor with the soul of a sewing machine'—and learn how to operate one.

Take a virtual tour through the Amazon Basin

Thanks to Google Maps’ Street View feature, people can virtually explore the Amazon River basin and its surroundings—part of the Amazon rainforest that is under the protection of the Brazilian government with restricted access to the public. The...

In 1965, Warren Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway, a failing textile company

After buying bulks of its stock, Buffett then flipped Berkshire Hathaway into the most successful and largest holding company in the world, which owns companies like Geico, Duracell, and Fruit of the Loom.

Amazon fires: Causes, impact, and prevention strategies

This article explores the issue of rampant fires in the Amazon rainforest, detailing their root causes, devastating impacts, and potential prevention methods. The Amazon rainforest's unique biodiversity and climate conditions make it unsuitable for...

4-minute overview of gold mining in the Amazon rainforest

A 2022 NBC news investigation of gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. Much of the $3B in illegal gold is trafficked to the US every year.

Nearly all natural rubber comes from cloned trees in Southeast Asia

Synthetic rubbers have been unable to mimic the strength and tolerance to heat and pressure provided by natural rubber. This makes rubber trees essential to major global infrastructure, despite being vulnerable to disease due to a lack of genetic diversity.

Explore a timeline of Brownfields and land revitalization programs

Brownfields are properties where redevelopment is complicated by contamination from past industrial or commercial use. The EPA's Brownfields Program funds cleanup and reuse of these sites, transforming abandoned lots into housing, parks, and businesses while boosting local economies.

IBM helped turn Rio de Janeiro into a smart city before it hosted the World Cup

In response to the deadly floods and mudslides in 2010, Brazil and IBM developed a multimillion-dollar plan to modernize Rio's emergency management infrastructure. An operations center utilizes advanced weather forecasting, surveillance, and real-time data to surveil and respond to events such as severe storms more accurately.

How Elon Musk's businesses have shaped Texas' Bastrop County

After deadly wildfires in 2011 burned a significant portion of the county, the tech boom in Austin pushed development eastward. Elon Musk has since made the region a key hub of his businesses, including a Tesla gigafactory considered one of the largest factories in the world by volume. Watch this reporter visit the town to hear the pros and cons of the transformation.

Adolf Hitler deeply admired Henry Ford, citing him as an inspiration for "Mein Kampf"

Hitler frequently praised Ford's anti-semitic viewpoints, both before and during the Holocaust. While Ford denied being sympathetic to the Nazi regime, Hitler kept a portrait of Ford on his desk, and Ford accepted the highest military award available to a foreign citizen from the Nazi government.

Explore Amazon rainforest species in this interactive

Explore plant and animal species from different parts of the rainforest, including the canopy, forest floor, and river basin while learning some general facts specific to the Amazon rainforest.

Disney World was originally known as the 'Florida Project,' an intentionally vague name intended to keep the theme park's plans secret.

These animals are only found in the Amazon rainforest.

The mighty Amazon River and its surrounding rainforest is home to millions of different species of animals, with new ones being discovered regularly.

The largest river on Earth is actually in the sky

High above the canopy of the Amazon rainforest drifts an airborne river fed by the towering trees below. The trees pull water from their roots into their trunks, pushing any excess water out of their leaves and into the atmosphere as vapor. Watch this six-minute video to learn how.

Watch a video of Henry Ford giving square dancing lessons

In the 1920s, Henry Ford did his best to promote square dancing—particularly dances that he learned in his childhood—by teaching lessons twice a week. He believed square dancing was the "correct" way of dancing and was fiercely opposed to jazz music, which was rising in popularity at the time.

Coffee production took off in the 1800s

Coffee production in South America took off in the 1800s, with Brazil establishing itself as the largest global producer in the 1840s. Today, the country grows over one-third of the world's beans and consistently leads in global coffee production, with other Latin American countries like Colombia and Guatemala.