Deforestation increased 79 percent in Amazon rainforest protected areas from 2012 to 2015

By E. Araújo, P. Barreto, S. Baima, and M. Gomes [Translation by Google.]26 March 2017 (Imazon) – Conservation Units (CUs) cover 22% of the Amazon forest and are an effective strategy to conserve animals, plants and environmental services, contain deforestation and maintain the planet’s climate balance. However, deforestation rates in PAs have been increasing – […]

Forest fragmentation may be releasing much more carbon than we think

By Morgan Erickson-Davis31 March 2017 (Mongabay) – The earth’s forests have been broken into around 50 million fragments, the edges of which add up to a length that would make it a third of the way to the sun and which increase annual tropical deforestation carbon emissions by 31 percent. This, according to a new […]

Curbing emissions with a new “carbon law” – “Alarming inconsistencies remain between science-based targets and national commitments”

23 March 2017 (Stockholm Resilience Centre) – An international team of researchers led by centre director Johan Rockström propose a solution for the global economy to rapidly reduce carbon emissions. The authors argue a carbon roadmap, driven by a simple rule of thumb or “carbon law” of halving emissions every decade, could catalyse disruptive innovation. […]

Coal lobbyist Trump attorney seeks to bypass U.S. kids’ climate lawsuit – “Their political goal is to put oil and gas profits over the future of our country’s posterity”

By Karl Mathiesen9 March 2017 (Climate Change News) – The U.S. administration is seeking a fast-track appeal against a climate change lawsuit brought by 21 young people. Jeffrey Wood, a temporary Trump appointee at the Justice Department and recently a fossil fuel lobbyist,3 called on the federal court in Oregon to send the case to […]

Carbon dioxide levels rose at record pace for 2nd straight year in 2016 – “The rate of CO2 growth over the last decade is 100 to 200 times faster than what Earth experienced during the transition from the last Ice Age”

10 March 2017 (NOAA) – Carbon dioxide levels measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Baseline Atmospheric Observatory rose by 3 parts per million to 405.1 parts per million (ppm) in 2016, an increase that matched the record jump observed in 2015. The two-year, 6-ppm surge in the greenhouse gas between 2015 and 2017 is unprecedented in […]

Soils could release much more carbon than expected as climate warms – “By 2100, the warming of deeper soil layers could cause a release of carbon perhaps as high as 30 percent of today’s human-caused annual carbon emissions”

By Dan Krotz9 March 2017 (Berkeley Lab) – Soils could release much more CO2 than expected into the atmosphere as the climate warms, according to new research by scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Their findings are based on a field experiment that, for the first time, explored what […]

EPA chief Scott Pruitt says carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to global warming

By Tom DiChristopher9 March 2017 (CNBC) – Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Thursday he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming. “I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so […]

Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

BY Bob Berwyn28 February 2017 (InsideClimate News) – Huge slabs of Arctic permafrost in northwest Canada are slumping and disintegrating, sending large amounts of carbon-rich mud and silt into streams and rivers. A new study that analyzed nearly a half-million square miles in northwest Canada found that this permafrost decay is affecting 52,000 square miles […]

New research shows how rapid growth in resource use, land use, emissions, and pollution makes humans the dominant driver of changes in Earth’s natural systems

COLLEGE PARK, Maryland, 9 February 2017 (University of Maryland) – A new scientific paper by a University of Maryland-led international team of distinguished scientists, including five members of the National Academies, argues that there are critical two-way feedbacks missing from current climate models that are used to inform environmental, climate, and economic policies. The most […]

Global hydropower boom will add to global warming – “Reservoirs are major emitters of methane, a particularly aggressive greenhouse gas”

By Claire Salisbury14 February 2017 (Mongabay) – From the Amazon Basin to boreal forests, and from the Mekong to the Himalayan foothills, rivers worldwide are being targeted for major new dams in a global hydropower boom that also aims to supply drinking water to exploding human populations and to facilitate navigation on the planet’s rivers; […]

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