X-ray showing pellets lodged in the body of an orangutan who was shot 74 times with pellets by villagers and blinded. Photo: Bryan Denton / The New York Times

One casualty of the palm oil industry: An orangutan mother, shot 74 times

By Hannah Beech 29 June 2019 BUNGA TANJUNG, Indonesia (The New York Times) – The men came at Hope and her baby with spears and guns. But she would not leave. There was no place for her to go. When the air-gun pellets pierced Hope’s eyes, blinding her, she felt her way up the tree […]

Four major drivers of insect decline for each of the studied taxa according to reports in the literature. Graphic: Sánchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys, 2019 / Biological Conservation

Insect apocalypse: German bug watchers sound alarm – “Unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades”

By Daphne Rousseau 1 July 2019 (AFP) – For almost 30 years they passed as quirky eccentrics, diligently setting up their insect traps in the Rhine countryside to collect tens of millions of bugs and creepy crawlers. Now the group of German entomology enthusiasts can boast a world-class scientific treasure: evidence of what is described […]

Annual average sea-ice extent in the Southern Ocean, 1979-2019. Sea ice extent in Antarctica has plunged since 2014. Data: Parkinson, 2019 / Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Graphic: The Guardian

“Precipitous” fall in Antarctic sea ice since 2014 revealed – “The rapid decline has caught us by surprise and changes the picture completely”

By Damian Carrington 1 July 2019 (The Guardian) – The vast expanse of sea ice around Antarctica has suffered a “precipitous” fall since 2014, satellite data shows, and fell at a faster rate than seen in the Arctic. The plunge in the average annual extent means Antarctica lost as much sea ice in four years […]

Mannubai Chamariya at the check dam construction site in Sangvi village in Madhya Pradesh. Photo: Aarefa Johari / Quartz India

An investigation into how India dismantled its main defence against drought – “By shifting the focus to farm irrigation, the government is taking water conservation efforts back by 20 years”

By Aarefa Johari and Nithya Subramanian 1 July 2019 (Quartz) – At the height of the June summer in Madhya Pradesh, Mannubai Chamariya heaved boulders from the banks of a dry stream to a site where other workers arranged them in a tiled wall, filling the gaps with cement. The work was arduous but Chamariya […]

Spatial patterns of linear trends of the JJA DSL from four precipitation datasets for the period 1988–2013. Graphic: Jiang, et al., 2019 / Nature Climate Change

A longer dry season in the Congo Rainforest – “Dry season length is one of the most crucial climate limitations for sustaining rainforest”

By Kathryn Hansen 3 July 2019 (NASA) – It is the “rain” in the term “rainforest” that makes possible the diverse ecosystem teeming with plants and animals. That doesn’t mean a rainforest is always wet: tropical rainforests are known for having distinct wet and dry seasons. But new research shows that the summer dry season in the […]

Groundwater levels across Chennai, June 2018 and June 2019. Wells in Anna Nagar and Choolaimedu in June 2019 were dry. Data: The Rain Centre, Chennai / Gaurav Dogra. Graphic: Reuters

Villagers accuse city of seizing water as drought parches “India’s Detroit” – “Private tankers have fitted more than eight bore wells in our village and are indiscriminately extracting thousands of liters of water every day”

By Sudarshan Varadhan 2 July 2019 CHENNAI (Reuters) – In the small village of Bangarampettai, 20 miles from India’s manufacturing capital Chennai, about 150 people last month “captured” a water tanker, breaking its windscreen and deflating its tires before handing it over to a nearby police station. People living on the outskirts of this southern […]

Black skimmer chick carrying a cigarette filter on a beach in Florida, 24 June 2019. Photo: Karen Mason

Image of the Day: Bird feeding chick cigarette filter

2 July 2019 (BBC News) – A wildlife photographer has captured a picture of a black skimmer bird feeding its chick a cigarette filter on a beach in Florida, USA. In a Facebook post, Karen Mason said she had happened upon the pair on St Pete beach outside Tampa last month. She urged: “If you […]

Workers carry the last bucketful of water from a small pond in the dried-out Puzhal reservoir on the outskirts of the Indian city of Chennai. Photo: Arun Sankar/ AFP / Getty Images

UN expert: World faces “climate apartheid” risk, 120 more million in poverty – “Even if current targets are met, tens of millions will be impoverished, leading to widespread displacement and hunger”

25 June 2019 (UN News) – Climate change “threatens to undo the last 50 years” of development, global health and poverty reduction, a United Nations expert said on Tuesday, citing the risk of a new era of “climate apartheid” where the rich buy their way out of rising heat and hunger. “Even if current targets […]

The jet stream wanders around Alaska, trapping a record-breaking heatwave over Anchorage, 3 July 2019. Graphic: The Weather Channel

Alaska could see all-time temperature record today in “unbelievable” heat wave – “It’s not just the magnitude of the heat, it’s how long it will last”

By John Bacon 4 July 2019 (USA TODAY) – Alaska’s biggest city won’t be marking the nation’s 243rd birthday with fireworks displays as Anchorage struggles with dry conditions, wildfires and what could become the hottest day on record. The city’s all-time high temperature record of 85 degrees dates back 50 years. It could fall today, with a […]

Map showing the anomalies in temperature (°C) estimated from ERA5 during the 5-day period of 25-29 June 2019. Graphic: ECMWF / Copernicus Climate Change Service

June 2019 hottest ever recorded on Earth – “Temperature records haven’t just been broken. They have been obliterated.”

By Conrad Duncan 2 July 2019 (The Independent) – Last month was the hottest June ever recorded, the EU’s satellite agency has announced. Data provided by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the EU, showed that the global-average temperature for June 2019 was […]

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