By George Monbiot25 March 2015 (The Guardian) – Imagine a wonderful world, a planet on which there was no threat of climate breakdown, no loss of freshwater, no antibiotic resistance, no obesity crisis, no terrorism, no war. Surely, then, we would be out of major danger? Sorry. Even if everything else were miraculously fixed, we’re […]
ABSTRACT: Brazilian environmental law imposes more restrictions on land-use change by private landowners in riparian forests than in non-riparian forest areas, reflecting recognition of their importance for the conservation of biodiversity and key ecosystem services. A 22-year time series of classified Landsat images was used to evaluate deforestation and forest regeneration in riparian permanent preservation […]
19 March 2015 (IUCN) – The first-ever assessment of all European wild bee species shows that 9.2% are threatened with extinction, while 5.2% are considered likely to be threatened in the near future. A total of 56.7% of the species are classified as Data Deficient, as lack of experts, data and funding has made it […]
21 March 2015 (The Guardian) – Roundup, the world’s most widely used weedkiller, “probably” causes cancer, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – WHO’s cancer agency – said that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide made by agriculture company Monsanto, was “classified as probably carcinogenic […]
20 MARCH 2015, NEW DELHI (AP) – The world could suffer a 40 percent shortfall in water in just 15 years unless countries dramatically change their use of the resource, a U.N. report warned Friday [The United Nations World Water Development Report 2015]. Many underground water reserves are already running low, while rainfall patterns are […]
By Molly Hunter17 March 2015 EIN GEDI, ISRAEL (ABC News) – There are more than 3,000 sinkholes on the banks of the Dead Sea – and they’re multiplying exponentially, according to environmentalists, as the body of water dries up. “It’s nature’s revenge,” said Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli Director at EcoPeace Middle East, an organization that […]
10 February 2015 (Conservation Letters) – Red List Indices for (a) pollinating and non-pollinating bird species; (b) pollinating and non-pollinating mammal species; and (c) aggregated pollinating and non-pollinating birds and mammals. An RLI value of 1 equates to all species being Least Concern; an RLI value of 0 equates to all species being Extinct. Improvements […]
By Jay Famiglietti 12 March 2015 (Los Angeles Times) – Given the historic low temperatures and snowfalls that pummeled the eastern U.S. this winter, it might be easy to overlook how devastating California’s winter was as well. As our “wet” season draws to a close, it is clear that the paltry rain and snowfall have […]
July 2010 (Chesapeake Bay Foundation) – Oyster harvests tumbled by two-thirds between the 1890s and 1930, but then remained relatively stable at a lower level until the 1950s. Then a pair of diseases hit. MSX and Dermo are both caused by parasites that attack and frequently kill oysters, although they are harmless to people. Compounded […]
By Richard Schiffman9 March 2015 (Yale Environment 360) – Ecologist Philip Fearnside has lived and worked in the Brazilian Amazon for 30 years and is one of the foremost authorities on deforestation in the world’s largest tropical forest. A professor at the National Institute for Research in the Amazon, Fearnside has focused his work on […]
