Through rampant overfishing, pollution, and coastal destruction, humanity has inflicted severe damage on the oceans and its inhabitants for centuries. But conservation successes, while still isolated, demonstrate the remarkable resilience of the seas.
Antarctica represents the simple, extreme end of conditions for life. It can be seen as a ‘canary in the mine’, demonstrating patterns of change we can expect to see elsewhere.
Petrochemicals are rapidly becoming the largest driver of global oil consumption. Fossil fuel companies are trying to offset losses from the renewable energy transition with petrochemicals, which carry other environmental costs.
Experiments in Siberia have shown that the presence of large herbivores decelerates permafrost warming. A recent paper suggests that if we let groups of grazers roam throughout the Arctic, they could keep 80% of the world’s permafrost intact until 2100.
The COVID-19 outbreak has sent countries scrambling to avert economic disaster. Yet in a time of climate change, none appear to be prioritizing clean energy plans. DW spoke with experts to find out why.
Soviet scientists tried for decades to network their nation but failed. The first global computer network emerged thanks to capitalists behaving like cooperative socialists, not socialists behaving like competitive capitalists.
It took an epidemic and near-shutdown of the Chinese economy to precipitate a permanent ban on the consumption and trade of wildlife. But the conditions that triggered the emergence of COVID-19 also exist in plain sight on factory farms.
Researchers think it is the destruction of biodiversity that creates conditions for new viruses and diseases such as COVID-19. A new discipline is emerging that focuses on the connections among the wellbeing of humans, other living things, and entire ecosystems.
Modernity got it wrong. City life is not mainly about efficiency and speed. Sydney may still be building motorways but Paris has seen that life demands dignity, engagement, and a degree of tranquillity. The new direction is dubbed hyper-proximity.
The UK government has pledged to plant millions a year while other countries have schemes running into billions. But how much carbon dioxide do trees really pull in from the atmosphere? And what happens to a forest over the following decades?
The analysis by a climate finance thinktank found renewable power was a cheaper option than building new coal plants in all large markets including Australia, and was expected to cost less than electricity from existing coal plants by 2030 at the latest.
If we don’t act on preventing the irreversible tipping point, many of us will watch the rainforest shift to a savannah-type ecosystem with a mix of trees and grass within the next 50 years, a new report says.
Climate law rollbacks in the US and Australia have origins in libertarian think tanks that trade in climate denial. Investigative journalists have exposed how one is now trying to strip climate protections in Germany.
The Indonesian leadership promises its new capital on Borneo will be a sustainable city the like of which Indonesia, and arguably the world, has never seen. Environmentalists fear, however, that this ambitious plan could have disastrous implications.
Despite the fact that Canadians are increasingly demanding climate action, the argument that Canada is just a bit player in terms of global greenhouse gas emissions is pervasive. But blaming China and India is misleading and is not a solution.
