Freshwater’s life-giving benefits are being gravely threatened by humanity’s manipulations of the hydrological cycle, impacting the climate and biodiversity, and undermining Earth’s operating system.
SATKHIRA, Bangladesh — Over the past three decades, Moyna Rani Mondol, who lives right on the coast in Bangladesh's southwestern district of Satkhira, has lost her home around 10 times…
A new book by Wake Smith, “Pandora’s Toolbox,” explores controversial ideas for artificially cooling the planet. Smith discusses the hopes and hazards of geoengineering in an exclusive Mongabay interview.
JAKARTA — Tropical forest loss remained consistently high in 2021 with no sign of slowing down, despite commitments by companies and governments to curb deforestation, according to new data from…
The Mediterranean is a cradle — of civilization, of agriculture, of history. But the region, stretching across southern and southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, is also a…
A reassessment by an international group of scientists finds that human-caused destabilization of the water cycle is seriously impacting global soil moisture, with knock on effects for forests and other ecosystems.
Only aerial footage captures the true scale of the horror: Houses have been flattened, roads ruined, and everything looks like it’s been covered in a film of dark-brown syrup. A…
In 2010, an influx of cold air blew over the lower Florida Keys, chilling the subtropical waters to temperatures as low as 11° Celsius, or 52° Fahrenheit. The coral reefs…
Arctic sea ice extent continued its trending decline in winter 2022, while the Antarctic saw a record low summer minimum extent. Both regions also saw extraordinarily high temperatures for this time of year.
The transition zone between the Amazon and the Cerrado, where the world’s greatest rainforest melds into its largest tropical savanna, is heating up, posing severe threats to both biomes, a…
Of the nine critical planetary boundaries that humanity is transgressing, climate change is the best known and understood, while atmospheric aerosol pollution may be the least, but aerosols are already having climate impacts and polluting Earth’s skies, killing millions.
The fires were still several miles away, but Talía Zamboni and her colleagues wanted to work fast. Early in the morning on Feb. 23, they traveled to San Alonso Island…
BRUSSELS — This past week, the U.K. and Western Europe were hit by a trio of powerful storms that battered the region with wind and rain, causing widespread damage to…
When conservation ecologist Rob Harcourt went surfing off the coast of Sydney, Australia, he immediately knew the water was warmer than usual. “We had at least 23 [degrees Celsius, or…
Forest degradation due to environmental causes (such as drought) and human causes (such as fragmentation) released three times as much carbon as deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2010 and 2019, say researchers.
Cyclone Batsirai rammed into Madagascar’s coast on Feb. 5, bringing further devastation to a country already reeling from the effects of another tropical storm, Ana, that struck on Jan. 22. Batsirai,…
For years, Joaquim Garrabou donned scuba gear and dove into the waters of the Scandola Marine Reserve in Corsica to find a paradise. Twenty meters (66 feet) beneath the surface,…
PALAWAN, Philippines — When park ranger Allan Daganta travels to work from his home in a village just outside Palawan's Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (PPSRNP), he’s usually welcomed…
For Africa, 2021 was the third-warmest year on record, tied with 2019. Even as the continent clocks record-breaking temperatures, adaptation efforts are failing to keep pace, marred by planning gaps…
In 2017, catastrophic flooding in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, left at least 1,000 people dead and many more homeless. In a matter of minutes, mudslides wiped out homes and destroyed…
Movement is a way of life among the Kel Tamasheq of northern Mali. Living near Timbuktu, the transhumance traditions of this branch of nomadic Tuaregs (or Touaregs) who speak Tamasheq have…
BARINGO COUNTY, Kenya — Across the arid landscape of Baringo county in western Kenya, in the geologically active Great Rift Valley, the December heat is scorching. Although the Indigenous pastoralist…
The U.S. West is already deep in drought, with forecasts for far worse this century. But there’s hope for water-stressed farms: regulators are testing solutions that rely on cooperation and bold water saving and sharing strategies.
As climate change worsens, sea turtles on the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf seaboards, and in other coastal areas around the world, are increasingly at risk from cold-stunning events. But rescuers often await.
A new study published in Lancet Planetary Health reports how localized deforestation and global warming are contributing to an increase in heat-related deaths in Berau, a district in Indonesia’s East…
For the second year in a row, La Niña conditions have developed across the Pacific Ocean. A climate pattern that occurs every few years, La Niña heralds broadly cooler and…
As delegates from around the world convened in Glasgow, Scotland, for the COP26 climate summit, most top climatologists say the threshold for reining in global warming is already out of…
RIO BRANCO, Brazil — In the space of just a few months, entire cities and small communities in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon have faced extreme weather conditions this…
In late 2020, a succession of violent storms slammed into Central America during the worst Atlantic hurricane season on record. The effects were devastating. Flooding and mudslides caused billions of…
Exequiel Ezcurra was dubious when he first heard about the possibility of mangroves on the San Pedro Mártir River in southern Mexico from Carlos Burelo-Ramos, a botanist at Mexico’s University…
