Photograph by: Enric Sala, National Geographic
January 31, 2020
In his 1963 book The Quiet Crisis, my father, former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, sounded the alarm about the creeping destruction of nature. “Each generation has its own rendezvous with the land, for despite our fee titles and claims of ownership, we are all brief tenants on this planet,” he wrote. “By choice, or by default, we will carve out a land legacy for our heirs.”
January 31, 2020
Due to the ongoing situation following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus 2019, the Secretariat, in consultation with the Government of the People’s Republic of China, the COP Presidency and the Working Group Co-Chairs, has decided that the second meeting of the Working Group will take place in Rome, Italy at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on the same dates.
January 30, 2020
Scientists warn that Earth’s sixth mass extinction may be underway, and man may only have 10 years to take drastic steps and protect planet’s vital plant and animal life.
January 29, 2020
UN agencies and the Chinese government are holding consultations to decide whether next month’s meeting can go ahead as planned.
A UN meeting to advance efforts to protect the world’s biodiversity due to take place in China next month could be relocated following the coronavirus outbreak.
The meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is planned to take place in the southern city of Kunming, in the Yunnan province, from 24-29 February. Hundreds of biodiversity experts and policy-makers from across the world are due to attend.
January 29, 2020
Releasing herds of large animals onto the tundra − rewilding the Arctic − to create vast grasslands could slow down global heating by storing carbon and preserving the permafrost, UK scientists say.
With no woolly mammoths available nowadays, the scientists, from the University of Oxford, suggest an alternative in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B − importing large herds of bison and horses to provide the mega-fauna that would prevent tree growth and create huge areas of grazing land.
January 29, 2020
Scientists in Antarctica have recorded, for the first time, unusually warm water beneath a glacier the size of Florida that is already melting and contributing to a rise in sea levels.
The researchers, working on the Thwaites Glacier, recorded water temperatures at the base of the ice of more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above the normal freezing point.
January 28, 2020
Indigenous people, environmentalists and industries vie for control over lands that can offer economic benefits or climate protection — but not always both.
January 28, 2020
Ecosystems will continue to collapse around the world unless humanity listens to the expertise of indigenous communities on how to live alongside nature, a prominent Amazon leader has warned.
Tuntiak Katan of the Ecuadorian Shuar people, who is vice-president of the pan-Amazon organisation representing communities in the river basin, said governments were spending millions of dollars on environmental consultants while largely ignoring the land management skills of the planet’s indigenous people that could help combat the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.
January 28, 2020
All plants and animals need suitable conditions to survive. That means a certain amount of light, a tolerable temperature range, and access to sources of food, water and shelter. Many of the existing efforts to protect plant and animal species across the United States rely on information about where these species currently live.
January 27, 2020
COP26 marks a critical moment for the UN in the long running effort to find a global solution to climate change.
As part of the Paris climate deal, agreed in 2015, countries are meant to update their carbon cutting plans by the end of this year.
So far, 114 say they have done this, or are in the process of doing so this year.
January 27, 2020
Nations of the world have, to date, pursued nature protection and climate change mitigation and adaptation policies separately. Both efforts have failed to achieve the scale of action needed to halt biodiversity loss or mitigate climate change. […] A new target of 30% of the sea given high levels of protection from exploitation and harm by 2030 is under consideration and similar targets are being discussed for terrestrial habitats. We make the case here that these higher targets, if achieved, would make the transition to a warmer world slower and less damaging for nature and people.
January 27, 2020
A combination of climate change, extreme weather and pressure from local human activity is causing a collapse in global biodiversity and ecosystems across the tropics, new research shows.
January 26, 2020
NPR's Michel Martin speaks with journalist Dave Zirin about how climate change is impacting sports around the globe, including the poor air quality at the Australian Open.
January 25, 2020
Our planet has suffered five mass extinctions, the last of which occurred about 66 million years ago, when a giant asteroid believed to have landed near the Yucatan Peninsula set off a chain reaction that wiped out the dinosaurs and roughly three-quarters of the other species on earth. A few years ago, in a book called The Sixth Extinction, the writer Elizabeth Kolbert warned of a devastating sequel, with plant and animal species on land and sea already disappearing at a ferocious clip, their habitats destroyed by human activities.
January 25, 2020
If we handled climate risk the way that businesses manage risk every day, we would have tackled climate change a long, long time ago. But that’s not how we as a society are responding — even though the potential consequences are a lot worse than most business risks.
