Emma Howard Boyd, UK Environment Agency Chair. Photo: Environment Agency

UK Environment Agency Chair says coastal communities may need to relocate due to rising sea levels – “We can’t win a war against water”

9 May 2019 (Environment Agency) – Launching a major, long-term strategy to tackle flooding and coastal change, Environment Agency Chair, Emma Howard Boyd has said ‘we cannot win a war against water’ by building higher flood defences and called for a new approach to ensure communities are resilient to the threat of flooding posed by climate change. […]

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 […]

Indonesia plans to move its capital out of Jakarta, a city that’s sinking – “By 2050, about 95 percent of North Jakarta will be submerged”

By Merrit Kennedy 29 April 2019 (NPR) – Indonesia has announced plans to build a new capital city as its current capital, Jakarta, struggles with pollution, traffic gridlock — and the fact that the city is sinking. After a Cabinet meeting on Monday, planning minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said President Joko Widodo has decided to move […]

Life after climate change: lessons from Cape Town – “We have collectively decided not to stop climate change, so the future will be about mitigating its effects”

By Simon Kuper 27 March 2019 (Financial Times) – In the flat where I stayed in Cape Town last month, the bathtub felt like a relic of a lost civilisation. It may never be used again. Beside it was a shower containing an egg timer. The two-minute wash has been standard here since the recent […]

Global carbon emissions hit record high in 2018 – Global energy demand rose at fastest pace in last decade, driven by record temperature extremes

By Nina Chestney26 March 2019 LONDON (Reuters) – Global energy-related carbon emissions rose to a record high last year as energy demand and coal use increased, mainly in Asia, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday. Energy-related CO2 emissions rose by 1.7 percent to 33.1 billion tonnes from the previous year, the highest rate […]

Policymakers are not adequately factoring land use and human diets into climate mitigation strategies – “The fundamental problem is that policymakers and researchers have not truly confronted the fact that global land area is limited”

4 January 2019 (Mongabay) – A recent study finds that governments and researchers routinely underestimate the potential for changes to land use and human diets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the impacts of global warming. Published in Nature last month, the research suggests that policymakers are not adequately accounting for the amount of […]

Jordan to drill fossil water wells a half-mile underground – “After this, we are out of chances”

By Linda Givetash1 January 2019 AMMAN, Jordan (NBC News) – For the past decade, Khawla Qisi has trapped herself at home on Fridays. It’s the only day of the week her apartment building receives water, and she has to make the most of it. “I can’t do anything else but focus on the water,” she […]

An Indian perspective on the Poland climate meeting: Not much help for the world’s poor and vulnerable

By Arun Agrawal 19 December 2018 (The Conversation) – The international climate change conference that concluded in Katowice, Poland on 15 December 2018 had limited ambitions and expectations – especially compared to the 2015 meeting that produced the Paris climate agreement. It will be remembered mainly for its delegates agreeing on a common “rulebook” to […]

Vanishing nutrients: 2 billion people worldwide suffer from “hidden hunger,” in which people are malnourished even though they consume enough calories

By Elena Suglia 10 December 2018 (Scientific American) – Is it possible to starve yourself of nutrients while simultaneously gaining weight? It turns out the answer is yes. According to a growing body of research, rising carbon dioxide levels are making our food less nutritious, robbing key crops of vitamins essential to human development.Studies have […]

Why California’s wildfires are so destructive, in five charts

By Christie Aschwanden, Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Maggie Koerth-Baker, and Ella Koeze 16 November 2018 (FiveThirtyEight) – The Camp Fire in Northern California has already been the most lethal and most destructive in state history, and it continues to burn. The death toll, currently at 63, is expected to grow — more than 600 people are […]

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