By Taran Volckhausen 21 June 2018 (Mongabay) – The large-scale expansion of oil palm has been a major driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss in many areas of the tropics. In Malaysia and Indonesia, where 85 percent of the world’s oil palm is cultivated, rampant industry growth over the past several decades has replaced rainforest […]
20 June 2018 (UN News) – Although more people are leading better lives than a decade ago, persistent poverty and hunger, as well as rapid urbanization, are challenging global efforts to create a more just and equitable world, according to a United Nations report launched on Wednesday.The study provides a snapshot of progress towards achieving […]
By Uki Goñi 1 April 2018Villa Mercedes, Argentina (The Guardian) – After a night of heavy rainfall, Ana Risatti woke to an ominous roar outside her home. Mistaking the noise for a continuation of the night’s downpour, she stepped outside to look. “I nearly fainted when I saw what it really was,” said Risatti, 71. […]
21 February 2018 (Nature) – Decarbonization of the world’s economy would bring colossal disruption of the status quo. It’s a desire to avoid that change — political, financial and otherwise — that drives many of the climate sceptics. Still, as this journal has noted numerous times, it’s clear that many policymakers who argue that emissions […]
By Hans Nicholas Jong 29 October 2017(Mongabay) – The wholesale destruction of rainforests across parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra island to make way for cash-crop plantations has not just devastated animal and plant biodiversity in the region, but may also be driving an alarming rise in temperatures on the ground, a new study suggests. Average temperatures […]
AMHERST, Massachusetts, 5 October 2017 (UMass Amherst) – Microbiologist Kristen DeAngelis and her graduate student Grace Pold at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with colleagues at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) and in New Hampshire, report results in the Oct. 6 issue of Science from their study of warming-related soil carbon cycling changes in […]
5 September 2017 (Bloomberg News) – China will expand its agricultural use of environment-damaging plastic film to boost crop production even as authorities try to curb soil pollution, a government scientist said.Some 1.45 million metric tons of polyethylene are spread in razor-thin sheets across 20 million hectares (49 million acres) — an area about half […]
8 September 2017 (United Nations) – Noting the efforts being undertaken around the globe to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed called for picking up the pace to ensure that the 2030 deadline is met.“The SDGs have jumped from the General Assembly Hall to communities across the world [and] […]
By Desmond Ng and Tamal Mukherjee 25 July 2017 INDIA (Channel New Asia) – Much of the once bountiful and lush-green rice fields was reduced to a dry, yellow-brown landscape, after successive years of scanty rainfall and severe drought. For farmer Mr Vijayakumar, 52, the rice crop was his family’s sole source of income. Hit […]
By Jeffery Gettleman 29 July 2017 LAIKIPIA, Kenya (The New York Times) – The two elders, wearing weather-beaten cowboy hats with the strings cinched under their chins, stood at the edge of an empty farm, covering their mouths in disbelief. Their homes — neat wooden cabins — had been smashed open. All their cattle had […]