Since the wide-spread burning of fossil fuels began, our global oceans have become nearly a third more acidic and it is killing one of the most unusual ecosystems we have – deep sea coral. An international symposium is underway right now in Wellington, bringing researchers from all around the world together to discuss the problem. […]
1992: 2006: Dense green vegetation gives way to pale fields in these newly released satellite images of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. The first image, from the Landsat Thematic Mapper in 1992, shows the beginning of agricultural development in a region of the southwestern state of Mato Grosso. It dissolves into a recently released image […]
By James Morgan, Science reporter, BBC News Harbour seals, or common seals, are familiar faces along coastlines across the northern hemisphere. But they are now vanishing in the UK at an alarming rate, warn scientists from St Andrews University. Numbers have halved in the hardest hit area, the Orkney Islands, since 2001 – falling almost […]
SARASOTA, Florida, December 3, 2008 (ENS) – A new analysis of economic activity generated by Florida’s coral reefs finds that some 70,000 jobs and more than $5.5 billion in business in the state could disappear if climate change destroys the reefs. "A business-as-usual approach to climate change could mean a lot less business for Florida," […]
By Peter Michael SCIENTISTS say a white possum native to Queensland’s Daintree forest has become the first mammal to become extinct due to man-made global warming. The white lemuroid possum, a rare creature found only above 1000m in the mountain forests of far north Queensland, has not been seen for three years. Experts fear climate […]
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) – The Yangtze River dolphin, the Christmas Island shrew and the Venezuelan skunk frog are all victims in an alarming flood of extinctions, but how do scientists decide when such "possibly extinct" creatures no longer exist? The United Nations says the world faces the worst spate of extinctions […]
by Jessica Aldred, The Observer As the rain begins to fall on Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park, thousands of zebra, wildebeest and giraffe will begin one of the world’s greatest migrations. But many of the herds trampling across the grass at the foot of the Rift Valley highlands are falling in number – and scientists do […]
The disaster in south Florida is invisible from above water but the damage is horrific. Hundreds of yards of sensitive coral reefs, part of the largest such ecosystem in the United States, have been sliced through by boats in two incidents over the last month. Indeed, because of choppy conditions, the assessment of the damage […]
By Andrew Darby, Hobart THE first evidence suggests that a predicted rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide will wreak havoc on krill, the tiny crustacean at the heart of the Antarctic food web. Although public sympathy for the crustacean is undetectable, polar life such as penguins, seals and whales would wither without it. Captive-bred krill at […]
