By Lauren Said-Moorhouse 21 March 2018 (CNN) – Without intervention soon, the amount of plastic littering the world’s oceans is expected to triple within a decade, a new UK government report warns.The Foresight Future of the Sea report from the UK Government Office for Science said our oceans have seen “unprecedented change as a result […]
Delft, the Netherlands, 22 March 2018 (The Ocean Cleanup) – 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic weighing 80,000 metric tons are currently afloat in an area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – and it is rapidly getting worse. These are the main conclusions of a three year mapping effort conducted by an international team […]
12 September 2017 (UNCCD) – There is broad evidence to suggest that direct human alteration of terrestrial ecosystems by hunting, foraging, land clearing, agriculture, and other activities started about 12,000 years ago. Sometimes referred to as the “Neolithic Revolution,” agriculture slowly began to transform societies and the way in which people lived; traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles […]
12 April 2018 (University of Exeter) – Bees could be at risk from climate change because more frequent droughts could cause plants to produce fewer flowers, new research shows. Droughts are expected to become more common and more intense in many parts of the world, and researchers studied the impact on flowering plants using a […]
11 April 2018 (University of Tasmania) – An international study in Nature Communications co-authored by researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) reveals that marine heatwaves have increased globally over the past century in number, length and intensity as a direct result of […]
By Kate Lamb 27 February 2018 (The Guardian) – Dramatically carved into the landscape of a Sumatran oil palm plantation that borders one of the world’s most unique rainforests are three ominous letters: SOS. The message stretches half a kilometre alongside a snaking river; a bird’s-eye view gives the eerie sense the land has been […]
23 March 2018 (IPBES) – Biodiversity – the essential variety of life forms on Earth – continues to decline in every region of the world, significantly reducing nature’s capacity to contribute to people’s well-being. This alarming trend endangers economies, livelihoods, food security and the quality of life of people everywhere, according to four landmark science […]
PORTLAND, Oregon, 1 March 2018 (CBD) – Within the next two years, more than 60 million acres of monarch habitat will be sprayed with an herbicide that’s extremely harmful to milkweed, the only food for monarch caterpillars, according to a new analysis by the Center for Biological Diversity.Monarch populations have already fallen by 80 percent […]
By David Koenig 6 March 2018 HOUSTON (AP) – Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says his agency should be a partner with oil and gas companies that seek to drill on public land and that long regulatory reviews with an uncertain outcome are “un-American.” Speaking Tuesday to a major energy-industry conference, Zinke described the Trump administration’s […]
By Brandon Keim 14 March 2018 (Anthropocene) – No guild of North American birds is declining so rapidly as aerial insectivores: acrobatic marvels whose maneuvers make our hearts soar, and who provide a vital ecosystem service. Why are their numbers plummeting? A leading explanation is a widespread decline in insect populations — a troubling possibility, […]
