Photograph by: Enric Sala, National Geographic
January 23, 2020
A new NOAA-funded study has documented for the first time that ocean acidification along the US Pacific Northwest coast is impacting the shells and sensory organs of some young Dungeness crab, a prized crustacean that supports the most valuable fishery on the West Coast.
January 20, 2020
Refugees fleeing the effects of the climate crisis cannot be forced to return home by their adoptive countries, a United Nations panel has ruled, in a landmark decision that could open the door to a flood of legal claims by displaced people around the world.
The UN's Human Rights Committee was making a judgment on the case of Ioane Teitiota, who applied for protection from New Zealand after claiming his life was at risk in his home country of Kiribati. The Pacific island is at risk of becoming the first country to disappear under rising sea levels.
January 20, 2020
Business leaders attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week are supporting a new science-based approach to tackling their companies' impacts on both climate change and all the Earth's natural systems.
The fight against climate change cannot be won without both decarbonizing our economies and restoring balance to the "global commons": land, oceans, freshwater and biodiversity, alongside climate.
January 17, 2020
Five years ago, tens of thousands of emaciated seabirds washed ashore on the Pacific Coast. Now, scientists know why: a long-lived marine heat wave known as "the blob."
The common murre (Uria aalge) is a black and white seabird that reaches about 1 foot (0.3 meters) long and can dive hundreds of meters deep into water in search of prey. These seabirds feast on tiny "forage fish" such as sardines, herring and anchovies, and need to consume about half of their body weight every day in order to survive.
January 15, 2020
Today, the World Economic Forum released a new report outlining the findings of its annual Global Risks Perception Survey. Environmental concerns dominate the top long-term risks identified by survey participants, with “major biodiversity loss” named the second-most-impactful and third-most-likely risk for the next decade. The report notes its potential “irreversible consequences for the environment, resulting in severely depleted resources for humankind as well as industries.”
January 14, 2020
Sustainable investments that take into account climate change will deliver better returns, says BlackRock founder Larry Fink in his annual letter to chief executives.
The boss of the world’s largest fund manager warned: “In the near future—and sooner than most anticipate—there will be a significant reallocation of capital.”
“I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.”
January 14, 2020
The European Union announced Tuesday that it will invest 1 trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) into combating climate change, The Associated Press reports.
The EU will invest a fourth of its budget to battle climate change, with other funds coming from the private sector. The plan will fund European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s European Green Deal, which strives to make Europe the first carbon-neutral continent in the world by 2050.
January 14, 2020
In 25 years, the oceans have absorbed heat equivalent to the energy of 3.6 billion Hiroshima-size atom bomb explosions, the study's lead author said.
The world's oceans are warming at a rapidly increasing pace, new research shows, and the heat is having devastating effects on marine life and intensifying extreme weather. Last year, the oceans were warmer than any time since measurements began over 60 years ago, according to a study published Monday in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.
January 13, 2020
The world's oceans are now heating at the same rate as if five Hiroshima atomic bombs were dropped into the water every second, scientists have said.
A new study released on Monday showed that 2019 was yet another year of record-setting ocean warming, with water temperatures reaching the highest temperature ever recorded.
January 10, 2020
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with more than $6.8 trillion under its control, becomes the latest signatory to Climate Action 100+, an influential big-money pact that’s pushing — although with spotty results so far — many of the world’s largest greenhouse-gas emitters to take action on man-made climate change.
January 10, 2020
The AMA and 23 other medical organizations declared in a letter to President Donald Trump that “there is no single step that will do more for the health of all Americans than remaining in and meeting our obligations to the Paris Climate Agreement.”
The letter, which states that “climate change is a public health emergency,” was released by the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health.
January 10, 2020
As wildfires devastate Australia, author and activist Julia Watson considers the wisdom of low-tech land management strategies that’ve been passed down through generations.
Australia’s wildfires—which, since September, have burned 17.9 million acres of the continent—have not only turned skies vermillion and made breathing the air a health hazard, they have also claimed the lives of an estimated 27 people and 1 billion animals. This global warming-fueled crisis began thanks to a combination of lightning, arson, and an unusually hot and dry summer season.
January 9, 2020
According to a report from the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree approving a national action plan for the first stage of adaptation to climate change, for the period up to 2022.
This national plan defines economic and social measures that will be implemented by federal and regional executive bodies to reduce the vulnerability of the Russian population, the economy and natural objects to the effects of climate change, as well as the seizing of the opportunities arising from such changes.
January 9, 2020
Rare plant species are far more likely to go extinct than common species, yet we know surprisingly little about global species abundance.
Most efforts to quantify species abundance focus on local communities, according to the authors of a study published late last year in the journal Science Advances, which limits our ability to accurately assess plant rarity.
January 9, 2020
A three-day mapathon to mark the city’s existing green cover and devise strategies to augment it will commence at St. Teresa’s College on Thursday.
The mapathon is being conducted under the Cities4Forests project, a global initiative by the World Resources Institute (WRI) which has partnered with the Kochi Corporation. The project envisages expanding green patches in cities and mitigating the impact of climate change by protecting wetlands and biodiversity.
