By Eric Roston25 October 2016 (Bloomberg) – If you want to see the future of New York, Tokyo, or Mumbai, look no further than West Antarctica, where a warmer sea is turning ice into water that may be headed to your doorstep. The bottom of the world has drawn increased scrutiny from scientists over the […]
By Nick Turse13 October 2016 (The Intercept) – The year is 2030. Forget about the flying cars, robot maids, and moving sidewalks we were promised. They’re not happening. But that doesn’t mean the future is a total unknown. According to a startling Pentagon video obtained by The Intercept, the future of global cities will be […]
By Ian Johnston26 October 2016 (Independent) – Climate change is threatening to force millions of people to become refugees and spark major wars that could “completely destabilise” the world, a leading general has warned. And countries which attempted to deal with the coming crisis by resorting to “narrow nationalistic instincts” – for example, by building […]
Recent estimates indicate that urban outdoor air pollution has risen by 8 per cent globally between 2008 and 2013.6 Urbanization, which is often associated with rising air pollution, is increasing too – by 2050, up to two thirds of the global population is expected to live in urban areas. Unless action is taken to control […]
By Josh Haner, Edward Wong, Derek Watkins, and Jeremy White24 October 2014 In the Tengger Desert, China (The New York Times) – This desert, called the Tengger, lies on the southern edge of the massive Gobi Desert, not far from major cities like Beijing. The Tengger is growing. For years, China’s deserts spread at an […]
31 October 2016 (AP) – Six months into a deepening drought, the weather is killing crops, threatening cattle and sinking lakes to their lowest levels in years across much of the South. The very worst conditions — what forecasters call “exceptional drought” — are in the mountains of northeast Alabama and northwest Georgia, a region […]
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, 12 October 2016 (Brown University) – Efforts by the Brazilian government over the past 15 years to curb deforestation have been a widely celebrated success, but a new study finds that there’s more deforestation happening in Brazil than official accounts suggest. The study, led by researchers from Brown University, compared data from […]
27 October 2016 (UN) – “Deeply troubled” that last night, while fires burned in parts of the Calais refugee and migrant camp that has become known as “the Jungle” burned, many children were forced to sleep out in the cold, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today underscored that authorities on the ground must guarantee […]
By Lynda Mapes27 October 2016 (Seattle Times) – Here’s what’s happening: Seattle Times environment reporter Lynda Mapes and Times photographer Alan Berner are on the ground through the end of the week to report on protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline near Bismarck, N.D. Hundreds of protesters have joined the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in […]
26 October 2016 (UN) – Prior to a meeting today at the United Nations on sovereign debt restructuring, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) announced that in order to deal with sovereign debt crises – which are creating a growing threat to economic stability in many developing countries – the world is in […]
