By Nick Paton Walsh and Natalie Gallón 26 August 2019 Porto Velho, Brazil (CNN) – The smoke is so thick, at times the Cessna airplane had to climb to stay out of it. At times your eyes burn and you close the air vents to keep the cabin habitable. Sometimes it is so bad, it […]
By Andrew Freedman 22 August 2019 (The Washington Post) – The wildfires burning in the Amazon have the potential to release vast quantities of long-stored carbon — thereby accelerating climate change and cause permanent harm to the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems. A fleet of public and private-sector satellites are keeping tabs on deforestation rates in […]
21 August 2019 (BBC News) – Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has seen a record number of fires this year, new space agency data suggests. The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said its satellite data showed an 84% increase on the same period in 2018. It comes weeks after President Jair Bolsonaro sacked the head of the […]
By Jennifer Chu 8 July 2019 (MIT News) – In the brain, when neurons fire off electrical signals to their neighbors, this happens through an “all-or-none” response. The signal only happens once conditions in the cell breach a certain threshold. Now an MIT researcher has observed a similar phenomenon in a completely different system: Earth’s […]
12 August 2019 (NCEI) – A new State of the Climate report [pdf] confirmed that 2018 was the fourth warmest year in records dating to the mid-1800s. Last year was the fourth warmest year on record despite La Niña conditions early in the year and the lack of a short-term warming El Niño influence until […]
8 August 2019 (UN News) – More than 500 million people today live in areas affected by erosion linked to climate change, the UN warned on Thursday, before urging all countries to commit to sustainable land use to help limit greenhouse gas emissions before it is too late. Speaking at the launch of a Special […]
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 […]
30 July 2019 (AFP) – Gigantic forest fires have regularly raged through the vast expanses of Russia’s Siberia, but the magnitude of this year’s blazes has reached an exceptional level with fears of a long-term impact on the environment. As fires sweep across millions of hectares enveloping entire cities in black smoke and noxious fumes, […]
OAKLAND, California, 23 July 2019 – On 29 July 2019, humanity will have used nature’s resource budget for the entire year, according to Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability organization that has pioneered the Ecological Footprint. It is Earth Overshoot Day. Its date has moved up two months over the past 20 years to the […]
By Edward Helmore 26 July 2019 (The Guardian) – The Arctic is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, with huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia, and Alaska producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from space. The Arctic region has recorded its hottest June ever. Since the start of that month, more than 100 wildfires have […]
