Super yacht the “Rising Sun” at the harbor of Santa Margherita Ligure, 24 June 2016. The “Rising Sun” is owned by billionaire and film producer David Geffen, filmed by a drone. The yacht is the 10th largest in the world. Photo: Fly View

A-listers flock to Google summit in private jets, mega yachts to talk climate change – Greta Thunberg will travel to UN summit by sail

By Emily Smith and Ebony Bowden 30 July 2019 (NY Post) – The world’s rich and famous have flocked to a posh Italian resort to talk about saving Mother Earth — but they sure are punishing her in the process. The billionaire creators of Google have invited a who’s who of A-list names— including former […]

IBAMA environmental agency agents investigate illegal deforestation in Jamanxim National Forest in Pará state, Brazil. Photo: Mongabay

Brazil’s Amazon deforestation surge is real, despite President Bolsonaro’s denial – Brazil environmental agencies and deforestation controls “effectively dismantled”

By Philip M. Fearnside 29 July 2019 (Mongabay) – Brazil’s Amazonian deforestation in June 2019 was 88 percent greater than for the same month in 2018, and deforestation in the first half of July was 68 percent above that for the entire month of July in 2018. There is no reason to question INPE’s current deforestation numbers from the DETER (Detection […]

Members of the Wajapi community in the state of Amapá, Brazil, in 2017. Land invasions in indigenous territories are on the rise across Brazil, where indigenous leaders say they regularly come under threat by miners, loggers and farmers. Photo: Apu Gomes / AFP / Getty Images

Miners kill indigenous leader during invasion of Amazon protected reserve – “President Bolsonaro has virtually declared war on Brazil’s indigenous peoples”

28 July 2019 (BBC News) – Heavily armed gold miners have invaded a remote indigenous reserve in northern Brazil and stabbed to death one of its leaders, officials say. Residents of the village in Amapá state fled in fear and there were concerns violent clashes could erupt if they tried to reclaim the gold-rich land. […]

President Jair Bolsonaro is framed by the national flag of Brazil. Recently, his “popularity is falling because people feel baffled by the things he is doing and saying”, according to one conservative columnist. Photo: Mauro Pimentel / AFP / Getty Images

Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro declares “the Amazon is ours” and accuses scientists of lying about deforestation data

By Dom Phillips 19 July 2019 BRASÍLIA (The Guardian) – The Amazon belongs to Brazil and European countries can mind their own business because they have already destroyed their own environment, said Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who also described his own government’s satellite data showing an alarming rise in deforestation as “lies”. “You have to understand […]

Combined land and ocean temperature anomalies in June in Europe, 1910-2019. 26–30 June 2019 brought the greatest June heat wave in European history. Hundreds of stations with a long-term period of record (POR) set their all-time June maximum temperature records. Graphic: James P. Galasyn / NOAA

June 2019: Earth’s hottest June on record and greatest June heat wave in European history

By Dr. Jeff Masters 18 July 2019 (Weather Underground) – June 2019 was the planet’s warmest June since record keeping began in 1880, said NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) on Tuesday. NASA also rated June 2019 as the warmest June on record, well of ahead of the previous record set in 2015. The global heat in June […]

World map showing risk assessment of future changes in potential tree cover. (A) Illustration of expected losses in potential tree cover by 2050, under the “business as usual” climate change scenario (RCP 8.5), from the average of three Earth system models commonly used in ecology (cesm1cam5, cesm1bgc, and mohchadgem2es). (B) Quantitative numbers of potential gain and loss are illustrated by bins of 5° along a latitudinal gradient. Graphic: Bastin, et al., 2019 / Science

Expert reaction to study looking at trees, carbon storage, and climate change – “It is time to stop suggesting there is a ‘nature-based solution’ to ongoing fossil fuel use. There isn’t. Sorry.”

4 July 2019 (Science Media Centre) – A new study, published in Science, reports on the capacity for trees to reduce atmospheric carbon levels. Dr James Borrell, Researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, said: “Global forest restoration clearly has remarkable potential to address climate change, but restoring forest on this scale is a significant […]

Aerial view of a cattle ranch in Cumaru do Norte, in the interior of the state of Pará. Photo: Eduardo Anizelli / Folhapress

Amazon deforestation in June 2019 is 57 percent higher than in the same month of 2018

3 July 2019 (Folha de São Paulo) – Deforestation in the Amazon in June was about 57% higher than in the same month last year, according to DETER, the deforestation alert system of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). [Translation by Google.] The data from last month, for the time being, only go until […]

Satellite view of the proliferation of small dams in the Amazon rainforest, visible as “water mirrors”. Photo: Imazon / Sentinel 2

The silent proliferation of small dams in the Amazon rainforest

By Francy Nava 6 July 2019 (Imazon) – Recent land cover mapping in Amazonia has identified a considerable number of water mirrors in rural properties, indicating the presence of small dams supporting agricultural activities. In Sorriso-MT, for example, Arvor, et al., (2018) identified a five-fold increase in the number of dams (86 to 522) in […]

Squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) play in the trees, along the Yasuni river. Photo: Kimberley Brown / Mongabay

Heart of Ecuador’s Yasuni, home to uncontacted tribes, opens for oil drilling – “Their intentions are deceitful. What’s the real commitment the government is making to conserve this area?”

By Kimberley Brown 5 July 2019 QUITO, Ecuador (Mongabay) – Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park sits in a unique position on the equator, between the Andes mountain range and the Amazon rainforest, which has allowed a rich and distinct biodiversity to flourish. The region is surrounded by towering ceibo and mahogany trees, emblematic of the area, […]

Overdose deaths, by opioid category in the United States of America, 1999–2017. Data: Holly Hedegaard, Arialdi M. Miniño, and Margaret Warner, “Drug overdose deaths in the United States, 1999–2017”, NCHS Data Brief, No. 329 (Hyattsville, Maryland, United States, National Center for Health Statistics, November 2018). Graphic: UNODC

Two-thirds of global drug deaths now from opioids: UN drugs report – Cocaine production at all-time high

26 June 2019 (UN News) – Opioids, which include both heroin and legal pain relievers, were responsible for around two-thirds of drug-related deaths in 2017, the latest World Drug Report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) revealed on Wednesday. The study from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), also shows that the […]

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