The global production of food is responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity, with the use of animals for meat causing twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods, a major new study has found.
Complex systems, such as the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere seek equilibrium. When they are pushed too far out of one equilibrium state, they can flip suddenly into another. Once a transition has happened, it cannot realistically be reversed.
As a major biodiversity summit begins in the French port city of Marseille, human rights groups are raising concerns that some conservation measures are violating indigenous peoples’ rights.
The past 30 years have brought flood, drought, and hunger to Afghanistan. With the Taliban sweeping to power, many within and outside the country wonder how to deal with looming climate disaster.
Hydropower has long been seen as a reliable renewable energy source. But during drought and heavy rain, hydropower plants often come to a standstill. Will climate change spell the end for this clean energy alternative?
Cambridge astronomers have identified a new class of habitable exoplanets, called Hycean planets – hot, ocean-covered, and with hydrogen-rich atmospheres – which are more numerous and observable than Earth-like planets.
Access to clean drinking water is a human right, but as the global population grows and the planet heats up, can we rely on this resource we take for granted?
The ozone-wrecking chemicals once commonly used in refrigerators would have driven 2.5C of extra global heating by the end of the century if they had not been banned, research has found.
The IPCC is unequivocal: we must take urgent action to curb global heating and prevent catastrophe. Will policymakers and the Cop26 conference be up to the task?
Human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways, says a major UN scientific report. It warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts, and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade.
We have a slow food movement and a slow travel movement. But we’re missing something, and its absence contributes to our escalating crisis. We need a slow ecology movement, and we need it fast.
Indigenous women in North and Central America are coming together to share ancestral knowledge of amaranth, a plant booming in popularity as a health food.
To every age dogged with pollution, accidents, and congestion, the transport solution for the next generation seems obvious – but the same problems keep coming back.
