A new study calculates that by 2047, average temperatures across much of the planet will rise to levels higher than we’ve …
biodiversity
Urban Planet: How Growing Cities Will Wreck the Environment Unless We Build Them Right
More and more people are moving into cities around the world—and those cities are getting bigger and bigger. The urbanization shift could wreck the environment—unless we can plan the transition.
Biodiversity Has Increased During Earth’s Warm Periods. But Climate Change Isn’t Off the Hook
A new study indicates that the number of species grew when global temperatures increased during periods in the geologic past. But that may not matter when it comes to rapid, man-made climate change.
New Ocean Scorecard Gives World a 60%
We live in a world obsessed with numbers – college rankings, baseball scores, exam results – and now we have one to tell us what’s happening to our oceans.
How Climate Change Is Whittling Down the World’s Species
With all the climate conversation currently littering the Internet, and the myriad ways that extreme weather is linked to global warming, it’s hard not to get confused about climate change sometimes – and given the sheer volume of muddled information out there, you might even be forgiven for being unconvinced by the arguments …
Why the Aflockalypse Is Business As Usual For Biodiversity—And Why That’s Not Good
Call it the Aflockalypse, the Aquapalypse or some other clever term that will soon be trending on Twitter. What’s clear is that something odd seems to going on with the birds in the sky and the fish in the waters. First on New Year’s Day, the residents of Beebe, Arkansas awoke to find thousands of dead birds scattered over rooftops …
New Mistletoe Species Discovered: Yet Another Excuse to Celebrate This Holiday Season
Among the various natural disasters and man-made catastrophes that unfolded during 2010, it’s nice to take a moment to consider the happier crumbs of environmental news that came out of the year. The UN’s International Year of Biodiversity yielded the discovery and naming of hundreds of new species, many of which can be credited to the …
Wildlife: Protecting Biodiversity Might Just Protect Us From Disease
Biodiversity—what’s it good for? Of course anyone lucky enough to catch a glimpse of an endangered Indri lemur screaming through a forest in Madagascar or humpback whale cresting in the north Atlantic knows there’s an intrinsic value to a world with species beyond Homo sapiens. But if biodiversity was just about providing a pretty …
Wildlife: Nations Agree on a Historic Deal for Biodiversity in Nagoya
Bucking the trend of global environmental summits over-promising and under-delivering, representatives from nearly 190 nations came together in Nagoya at the end of the two week-long Convention on Biological Diversity and signed an important deal that aims to greatly expand the portions of the planet that are under protection and …
Wildlife: Biodiversity Is Declining Fast—But It Would Be Even Worse Without Conservation Efforts
As the meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) continues in Nagoya (tip for attendees—check out Los Tacos!), hopes are dwindling for any kind of broad, global deal to aggressively protect nature. That’s partially due to the fact that diplomats are locked over contentious arguments about how to divide up the world’s …