All seven sea turtle species are already endangered. Now humanity’s overshoot of planetary boundaries — climate change, ocean acidification, pollution and more — is upping the ante. Can turtles, people and conservation adapt?
As bad as the climate crisis now unfolding appears to be, things could have been even worse, with the world a much less hospitable place for human life. What has…
Water-sensitive urban design (WSUD), a holistic sustainable approach to water management, could give the world’s cities a viable means of dealing with the climatic shocks ahead. Cape Town and Singapore point the way.
Is harnessing the storage power of soils the global carbon solution we have been searching for? Understanding soil-formation and function is a first step to finding out.
A huge debate has raged among climate modelers for decades as to how climate change will alter clouds, making Earth cooler or warmer. New research using a machine learning model agrees with the majority view: Clouds will make for a warmer world.
In May 2020, Shivaprakash Nagaraju, senior scientist at The Nature Conservancy in India, was working in New Delhi when he contracted COVID-19. “I had breathing problems and other symptoms, and…
Record extreme weather in the U.S., Brazil, China and elsewhere is impacting food production this year, with the future expected to be far worse. Agriculture requires “transformational change” to meet the climate crisis, say experts.
The new, more contagious COVID-19 Delta variant is raging worldwide, while new pandemics are emerging at an ever-faster rate. But we’re still not taking the urgent action needed to prevent the next zoonotic disease outbreak, experts say.
New agri-technologies and traditional farming practices done right could combine to offer significant benefits and hope for the global environment and health.
With wildfires raging in the western U.S. and floods sweeping parts of Europe, it’s easy to forget that these regions are some of the most well-prepared to tackle climate change.…
In late June, Portland, Oregon, experienced its hottest day on record, reaching 42° Celsius (108° Fahrenheit). The last time it had been this hot was in 1981, when temperatures soared…
Researchers are seeking to pinpoint climate change “tipping points,” but defining what that means exactly, when it will come, and what makes it happen, is unimaginably difficult when faced with the chaotic complexities of a vast Earth biome.
When the first tile in a line of dominoes tips forward, it affects everything in front of it. One after another, lined-up dominoes knock into each other and topple. This…
Growing up in Sweden, environmental scientist Johan Rockström always knew the southern of the two peaks of Mount Kebnekaise was the highest point in the country. But thanks to climate…
To stay within planetary boundary safe limits, we must protect soils by conserving global habitat and revamping industrial agribusiness — and do it fast.
The United Nations Basel Convention regulates international transport of hazardous waste, which in 2021 expanded to include plastics. But the U.S. has never fully implemented the agreement; Biden may change that.
Created in 1987, the pathbreaking treaty not only phased down scores of ozone depleting chemicals and is helping heal the ozone hole — it also offers a flexible, regularly updating example for future environmental treaties.
From Tripoli to Phoenix, the world’s thirst in great desert cities is deepening, even as agribusiness guzzles more water to feed them. Humanity’s arid urban places are colliding with a key Planetary Boundary, scientists warn.
The world is brimming with bad news about people failing to take care of the Earth. But there is a way to change the narrative, says Canadian conservationist Harvey Locke.…
Some 100 ozone-depleting CFCs and HCFCs are being phased out by the landmark treaty, but can this evolving accord now save Earth from the HFCs — one of which is a greenhouse gas 12,700 more potent than carbon dioxide.
Polar phytoplankton, fish, seabirds and mammals are increasingly threatened by global warming, which is destabilizing Arctic ecosystems, even as southern species move northward — will the imbalanced biome collapse?
Simple mathematical models suggest overshooting Paris climate accord emission targets for a short time won’t immediately trigger some environmental tipping points, allowing time to act.
More numerous than stars, our planet’s microbes play an integral role in helping life thrive on Earth. But what happens when climate change, pollution and ocean acidification impact microbes? — We don’t know.
The Earth is a huge floating mass of rock, liquid and gas, weighing a staggering 5.9 sextillion tons. But there’s only one part that supports life: the biosphere, a thin…
Every item of food has a story to tell. Kiwifruits may grow in New Zealand, but they can be flown across the world to sit on a grocery store shelf…
Over the past 20 years, the conservation sector has increasingly recognized the contributions Indigenous communities have made toward achieving conservation goals, including protecting biodiversity and maintaining ecosystems that sustain us.…
Today we discuss Planetary Boundaries, nine environmental systems identified by scientists as essential to Earth’s ability to sustain life and the limits to how far out of equilibrium we can…
No one was sure exactly what near-term impact the global pandemic would have the world’s forests in 2020. Some expected lockdowns and economic shocks to dampen deforestation rates; others thought…
More than a decade after the Planetary Boundaries framework was first proposed by top scientists, we are no closer to changing our destructive trajectory — but 2021 gives us three opportunities to act.
In 1987, world leaders signed the Montreal Protocol in an attempt to curb the amount of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other harmful chemicals being released into the atmosphere, which have been…
