A Club of Rome study projects that on current trends the world population will reach 8.8 billion before the middle of the century, then decline rapidly. The peak could come earlier if governments take steps to raise average incomes and education levels.
Geologists will choose a place they believe best illustrates when a new epoch – which they have dubbed the Anthropocene – was born and its predecessor, the Holocene, came to an end.
The target is dominating at the biodiversity summit, but the problem of finding a balance between Indigenous peoples’ rights and conservation remains unresolved.
Exoplanets, worlds orbiting distant stars, were once only theorized. And even then, astronomers thought only some stars had planets. Yet, on Monday, NASA announced that, to date, 5,000 exoplanets have been detected.
High-income countries could cut their agricultural emissions by almost two-thirds through dietary change, a study finds. Moving away from animal-based foods could free up an area of land larger than the entire European Union.
