Why are big, insect-eating birds disappearing? Maybe we’re running low on bugs.

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, […]

Air pollution from UK shipping is four times higher than previously thought

By Josh Gabbatiss 3 February 2018 (The Independent) – Toxic nitrogen dioxide emissions around major ports and sea routes in the UK are four times higher than previously suggested, according to a report for the Government. Levels of sulphur dioxide, another harmful pollutant, are three times higher. Experts say shipping pollutants, which are concentrated around […]

Ocean oxygen levels dropping as world warms – “The decline in ocean oxygen ranks among the most serious effects of human activities on the Earth’s environment”

4 January 2018 (Smithsonian Environmental Research Center) – In the past 50 years, the amount of water in the open ocean with zero oxygen has gone up more than fourfold. In coastal water bodies, including estuaries and seas, low-oxygen sites have increased more than 10-fold since 1950. Scientists expect oxygen to continue dropping even outside […]

Global warming has quadrupled ocean dead zones – “The decline in ocean oxygen ranks among the most serious effects of human activities on the Earth’s environment”

4 January 2018 (SERC) – In the past 50 years, the amount of water in the open ocean with zero oxygen has gone up more than fourfold. In coastal water bodies, including estuaries and seas, low-oxygen sites have increased more than 10-fold since 1950. Scientists expect oxygen to continue dropping even outside these zones as […]

What was it like to be India in a warming world in 2017?

By Aruna Chandrasekhar 29 December 2017 (The Wire) – In 2017, weather reports were bumped up to the front page because the impact of climate change was becoming more visible than ever. Devastating cyclones, thousands lost to floods and drought in South Asia, thousands more displaced, infernal heat-waves sweeping cities, air pollution stealing hundreds of […]

Study reveals scale of “nitrate timebomb”

By Roger Harrabin 10 November 2017 (BBC News) – Huge quantities of nitrate chemicals from farm fertilisers are polluting the rocks beneath our feet, a study says.Researchers at the British Geological Survey say it could have severe global-scale consequences for rivers, water supplies, human health and the economy.They say the nitrate will be released from […]

Industrial waste pollutes America’s drinking water – “I want to see our future generations have the time to grow up and not have to deal with young kids dying and sicknesses and illnesses”

By Jasmine Spearing-Bowen and Karl Schneider 17 August 2017 PHOENIX (News21) – In Ringwood, New Jersey, Ford Motor Co. dumped more than 35,000 tons of toxic paint sludge onto lands occupied for centuries by the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lenape tribe, poisoning groundwater with arsenic, lead and other harmful chemicals. Today, more than 43 […]

Nitrous oxide emissions are enhanced in a warmer and wetter world

By Sam Lemonick 17 October 2017 (Forbes) – A years-long study of Minnesota farm fields has found that emissions of nitrous oxide—a more dangerous greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide—will likely increase as our planet gets warmer. And our climate models aren’t ready.Like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide (yes, the same stuff as laughing gas) traps heat […]

Why the last snow on Earth may be red – ”Snow-dwelling microbes increase glacier melt directly in a bio-geophysical feedback by lowering albedo”

By Alan Burdick 21 September 2017 (The New Yorker) – Every spring, in alpine regions around the world, one of Earth’s tiniest migrations takes place. The migrants are single-celled green algae; they are kin to seaweed, but instead of living in the sea they live in snow. (Snow weed, maybe?) They spend the winter deep […]

The great nutrient collapse – “We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history – an injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply”

By Helena Bottemiller Evich 13 September 2017 (Politico) – Irakli Loladze is a mathematician by training, but he was in a biology lab when he encountered the puzzle that would change his life. It was in 1998, and Loladze was studying for his Ph.D. at Arizona State University. Against a backdrop of glass containers glowing […]

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