The restoration of natural forests and coasts can simultaneously tackle climate change and the annihilation of wildlife but is being worryingly overlooked, an international group of campaigners have said. Animal populations have fallen by 60% since 1970, suggesting a sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is under way, and …
Extreme weather and climate events affected 62 million people in 2018. That’s the conclusion reached in a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which warns the physical signs and socio-economic impacts of climate change are accelerating as record greenhouse gas concentrations “drive global temperatures towards increasingly dangerous levels”. …
Neil Pederson’s introduction to tree rings came from a “sweet and kindly” college instructor, who nevertheless was “one of the most boring professors I’d ever experienced,” Pederson said. “I swore tree rings off then and there.” But they kept coming back to haunt him. As a future forest ecologist, he …
The European Commission has concluded palm oil is environmentally damaging and results in excessive deforestation. The decision means it is likely to be removed from transport biofuels as it will not contribute to EU renewable transport targets for national governments. The cultivation of palm oil primarily takes place in Indonesia …
People love meat. The trouble is that meat production, especially red meat production, is a major driver of climate change and environmental destruction. Red meat requires 28 times more land to produce than pork or chicken as well as 11 times more water. Beef production also leads to five times …
Through burning vast amounts of fossil fuels over the decades, we’ve pumped so much CO2 into the atmosphere that even if we had stopped burning any more at all, the planet’s climate would still be changing irrevocably. And it’s not as if we are going to stop burning yet more …
Dramatic rises in atmospheric methane are threatening to derail plans to hold global temperature rises to 2C, scientists have warned. In a paper published this month by the American Geophysical Union, researchers say sharp rises in levels of methane – which is a powerful greenhouse gas – have strengthened over …
