Civilization destroying nature at rate “unprecedented in human history” – Up to 1 million species threatened with extinction, many within decades

Civilization destroying nature at rate “unprecedented in human history” – Up to 1 million species threatened with extinction, many within decades

6 May 2019 (IPBES) – Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history — and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely, warns a landmark new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the summary of which was […]

Blue-green algae causing health crisis Southwest Florida – “It is not alarmist to say that the people of Florida are being slowly poisoned by the water”

By Howard Simon 23 April 2019 (Miami Herald) – Hats off to Southwest Florida Congressman Francis Rooney for pressing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies to tell the public what it knows about the threat of toxic blue-green algae. Finally, a public official is focusing attention on our public-health crisis, […]

Lawsuit blames fisheries management for decline of southern resident orca population in Salish Sea

By Alex Halverson 3 April 2019 (SeattlePI) – West Coast salmon fishing contributed to southern resident orca population decrease through mismanagement and a reliance on outdated science, a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Wednesday argued. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Wild Fish Conservancy filed a suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service […]

Coral larvae production drops by 90 percent after marine heat waves – “We used to think that the Great Barrier Reef was too big to fail – until now”

4 April 2019 (James Cook University) – The damage caused to the Great Barrier Reef by global warming has compromised the capacity of its corals to recover, according to new research published today in Nature. “Dead corals don’t make babies,” said lead author Professor Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University (JCU). […]

“Doomsday vault” town warming faster than any other on Earth – “The brutality of nature used to bring joy, but now it scares people”

By Sarah Lazarus 27 March 2019 (CNN) – In 2014, Mark Sabbatini noticed cracks in his apartment walls. Then a mysterious bulge appeared in his bedroom and the apartment block’s communal staircase became crooked. “Doors and windows weren’t shutting properly,” he says. Sabbatini, the editor of a local newspaper, was living in Longyearbyen, the world’s […]

Photo gallery: Exxon Valdez oil spill, 30 years later

By Johnny Simon 22 March 2019 (Quartz) – On 24 March 1989 the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground and spilled nearly 11 million gallons of oil in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. It was the worst oil spill in US history until 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon disaster pumped nearly 20 times that amount into the […]

Direct killing by humans pushing Earth’s biggest animals toward extinction – “70% of megafauna species are decreasing and 59% are threatened with extinction”

By Steve Lundeberg30 January 2019 CORVALLIS, Oregon (OSU) – One hundred forty-three species of large animals are decreasing in number and 171 are under threat of extinction, according to new research that suggests humans’ meat consumption habits are primarily to blame. Findings published today in Conservation Letters involved an analysis of 292 species of “megafauna” […]

Heatwaves sweeping oceans “like wildfires”, scientists reveal – “You see the kelp and seagrasses dying in front of you. Within weeks or months they are just gone, along hundreds of kilometres of coastline.”

By Damian Carrington 4 March 2019 (The Guardian) – The number of heatwaves affecting the planet’s oceans has increased sharply, scientists have revealed, killing swathes of sea-life like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest”. The damage caused in these hotspots is also harmful for humanity, which relies on the oceans for oxygen, food, […]

Coastal erosion causes once-buried waste to re-emerge on an English beach – “A massive decline in the numbers of fish”

By Kris Jepson 18 February 2019 (ITV News) – Exclusive: Residents have called on authorities to excavate an historic landfill site, which is leaking waste onto Lynemouth Beach and into the sea. Northumberland County Council told ITV News it undertook a land reclamation in the early 2000s, which involved cleaning up the beach and landscaping […]

Colombia’s disaster-ridden hydropower project runs second largest river dry – “The greatest environmental crime that has ever happened in Colombia”

By Taran Volckhausen 7 February 2019 (Mongabay) – Colombia’s environmentalists have declared an ecological disaster after the country’s second most important river, the Cauca, was reduced to less than 10 percent of normal flow after the country’s largest hydroelectric dam project Hidroituango took emergency measures earlier this week.Medellin energy company EPM took emergency measures to […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial