The dry season of 2015 was a devastating one for Indonesia, with around 100,000 fires engulfing thousands of hectares of tropical rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands on the islands of Sumatra,…
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A misty rain blows against my face as I follow Farah Obaidullah along Scheveningen Beach in the northwest part of The Hague. Despite the wind and…
For the first time ever, researchers have plotted out the locations and tabulated the carbon stocks of more than 9.9 billion individual trees spread across the dry belt of land…
Analysis of 40 years of climate temperature data shows a connection between Amazon tree loss and Tibetan snow decrease via a 20,000-kilometer oceanic and atmospheric pathway. West Antarctica is also impacted.
Warmer temperatures could significantly diminish the ability of tropical forests to siphon carbon from the atmosphere by intensifying dry seasons, according to a recent study. The tropics pack away an…
The answer is, it depends. A multitude of conditions must be analyzed, and forests properly managed long-term, if they’re to curb climate change-intensified flooding, landslides, and even stand up to a tsunami.
More than three decades after the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu raised the issue at international climate talks, the question of who should pay damages for climate change-induced losses is…
With 350 million people facing food insecurity on the continent, most African nations face a quandary: how to vanquish hunger and meet the climate challenge. The continent is warming faster…
As Arctic sea ice begins melting out fully in summer, the frequency of strong El Niños could increase by 35% by century's end, causing extreme weather events to increase, says recent modeling study.
Unstudied at sea until recently, this huge, fast-moving ocean current may hold a key to resolving climate change uncertainties. But doing remote research in southern oceans poses financial, data gathering, and unexpected challenges.
DHAKA – On July 30 this year, Moza Mia took his two buffalo out to graze in the field near his home in Bangladesh’s northern Lalmonirhat district. Soon after, lightning…
Bangladesh, a least developed country in South Asia, has made remarkable progress in various development sectors over the last few decades. From agricultural production and food security to infrastructural development,…
At 49, Hamid Ali has moved house at least eight times in his life. The reason each time has been the same: the erosion of the char lands, or river…
The world’s largest bank of the partially decomposed plant matter known as peat in the tropics is even more extensive than initially thought, according to a new study. The peatlands…
Much of Bangladesh lies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basin, where the three rivers meet in the world’s largest delta before washing out in the Bay of Bengal. The Meghna Basin covers…
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.
In the past, ocean carbon data was sparse, mostly gathered by ships. But the future of monitoring belongs to robot floats that deliver real-time data across vast oceans — even in the remote Antarctic Southern Ocean.
Current pledges to cut emissions won’t be enough to slow climate change, according to a new report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). U.N. Secretary-General António…
Technology-critical elements (TCEs) — vital for wind and solar power and electric cars — are contaminating land and water, impacting biodiversity and health. A circular economy may be the solution.
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.
Climate protection policies restricting the import of goods produced through deforestation have increased in recent years, but there has been little research into whether these measures have had their intended…
The “Black Summer” bushfires burned an area the size of the U.K. in Australia in 2019-20, forcing foresters to reconsider the meaning of forest resilience and how best to restore forests as climate change and drought intensify.
Initiatives to inject billions of aerosol particles into the stratosphere to deflect solar rays and cool Earth are too risky to go forward; governments must act fast to rein in potentially disastrous planetary-scale solar geoengineering, say critics.
In the Argentine city of Rosario, an award-winning urban agriculture program is marking nearly two decades as a model for how to put local farming and agroecology at the heart…
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.
This is the wrap-up article for our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. In the first half of December, Mongabay…
This is the fourth article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Three. The muddy cores that Ian Lawson and his colleagues…
This is the third article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Four. The logging concession moratorium signed in 2002 was supposed to shore…
When it comes to slowing climate change, there’s one natural solution that has recently gripped the world: large-scale tree planting and reforestation. But a new study warns that other natural…
This is the second article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Three and Part Four. The announcement came in mid-2019: A pool of oil lay deep…
