Little is expected to benefit from climate change, with the possible exception of air-conditioning manufacturers, Popsicle makers and Canada. But scientists have found at least one species that seems to be better off in a rapidly …
Wildlife
Can Polar Bears Keep Their Heads Above Water in a Warming World?
Polar bears are classified as marine mammals, like a seal or a walrus, which might come as a surprise given that they’re usually pictured on land. But polar bears spend a lot of their time in the waters of the Arctic, fishing or …
What’s the Buzz: Study Links Pesticide With Honeybee Collapse
Colony collapse disorder (CCD)—the sudden and massive die-off of honeybees—has emerged as one of the most mysterious ecological disasters of the past several years, and one of the most expensive. Around the middle of the last …
Indonesia Punishes Wildlife Traffickers
From the jungles of Borneo to the markets of Jakarta, illegal wildlife trafficking in Indonesia is growing. But recent jail sentences might change that.
How U.S. Soldiers Are Fueling the Endangered Species Trade
You’re a U.S. soldier, abroad on your first deployment in Afghanistan. Like any world traveler, you want to bring a souvenir back home to the family, something they could never get at home. So you visit the local market on base, …
Little People: Will Climate Change Shrink the Species?
If you think there are no new reasons to get freaked out by climate change, try this: there’s at least a theoretical possibility that a warmer and warmer world could lead to tinier and tinier humans. That’s the inevitable …
Bat Signal: More than 5 Million Bats Dead From White-Nose Syndrome
An animal apocalypse is happening right beneath our noses in the Northeast. Since 2006, bats throughout New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Jersey, Indiana and other states have been infected with a deadly white-nose fungus that …
Zom-bees: How Parasitic Flies Are Turning Honeybees into the Buzzing Undead
From the Nature Is Scary file: researchers from San Francisco State University announced this week in a new study that honeybees are being turned into “zombies” by parasite flies. The fly—known as …
Animal Actors: Why Wild Beasts and Hollywood Don’t Mix
My weekly Going Green column—one day late because of the New Year’s holiday—is up on the Time.com mainpage. Prompted by holiday films like We Bought a Zoo, I’m exploring the role of wild animals in Hollywood, asking whether …
Winning the Conservation War: How to Manage the World We’re Stuck With
I have a Going Green column over on the Time.com mainpage today, and it’s a review of a new collection of essays called Love Your Monsters: Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene. Readers of this blog are probably familiar …