Scientists behind car number plate study say ‘potentially catastrophic’ decline must be reversed.Continue readingFlying insect numbers plunge 64% since 2004, UK survey finds
Tag: impact
Conservation groups warn not enough is being done to protect ecosystems as state government data shows more than 400,000ha of land was cleared in 2019-20.Continue readingCalls for tougher regulations as Queensland, Australia records highest rate of land clearing in country
Vast tracts of countryside transformed into barren wasteland, decimated crops and animal herds and children dying of starvation. The grim reality confronting drought-stricken east Africa is a frightening portent…Continue readingHorror of a hotter world on stark display in parched East Africa
The Arctic is getting wetter and rainier Arctic precipitation is on the rise across all seasons, and these seasons are shifting. As sea ice rapidly declines, more open water…Continue readingArctic Report Card
It was when the US Bureau of Indian Affairs built schools in Alaska, as part of an effort to assimilate Indigenous peoples into white culture, that the community was…Continue readingAlaska Native community relocates as climate crisis ravages homes
Devastating floods this [northern hemisphere] summer and fall [autumn] displaced 1.5 million Nigerians and killed 612. In all of West Africa, more than 800 people died. Researchers have determined…Continue readingClimate change made deadly floods in West Africa 80 times more likely
Scientists attempting to replicate a 1964 survey of freshwater bivalves in a stretch of the Thames near Reading found striking results, as native mussel populations had crashed by almost…Continue readingNative mussel numbers down almost 95% since 1960s
Illegal and unsustainable fishing, fossil fuel exploration, the climate crisis and disease are pushing marine species to the brink of extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of…Continue readingMarine life hit by ‘perfect storm’ as red list reveals species close to extinction
“At the moment,” writes Warren Hern, “we are the most misnamed species on the planet: Homo sapiens sapiens—’wise, wise man.’ Not.” Hern, 84, physician and adjunct professor of anthropology…Continue readingHumanity devouring itself and the planet
More and more scientists are now admitting publicly that they are scared by the recent climate extremes, such as the floods in Pakistan and west Africa, the droughts and…Continue readingWhy scientists are using the word scary over the climate crisis
At the bottom of a crater in southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, 20,000 people work at a cobalt mine, in shifts of 5,000 at a time.Continue readingDR Congo’s faltering fight against illegal cobalt mines
The stresses of warming temperatures and forest losses are driving dozens of species of monkeys and lemurs that normally shelter and feed high in the tree canopy to spend…Continue readingAnthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions driving monkeys and lemurs from trees to the ground
Severe to exceptional drought conditions remain common in the West, which has been battling its driest period in the past 1,200 years. But the drought is now far more…Continue readingNearly 82% of the U.S. is facing troubling drought conditions
“We are getting hotter, drier summers and wetter winters and that is making trees more susceptible to disease. Climate change is already having some really significant effects”, said Rob…Continue readingDisease ravages UK’s fragile woodlands
More than 90% of the heat caused by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels is taken up by the ocean. 15 scientists carried out a…Continue readingOcean heat found to be accelerating and fuelling extreme weather
Human-driven climate change made the droughts that gripped large swaths of Europe, China and North America this year at least 20 times more likely, an international group of scientists…Continue reading2022 droughts ‘virtually impossible without climate change’, study finds
Despite decades of social and environmental campaigns aimed at protecting the Amazon, the threats now are greater than they have ever been, thanks to the relentless expansion of activities…Continue readingLast stand in the Amazon
As Hurricane Ian barreled toward Florida this week, it did what six other storms did over the past six years as they approached the United States: It intensified, quickly.…Continue readingHow climate change is rapidly fueling super hurricanes
Nearly half of the planet’s bird species are in decline, according to a definitive report that paints the grimmest picture yet of the destruction of avian life. The State…Continue readingHalf of world’s bird species in decline as destruction of avian life intensifies
It was the river that is said to have watered the biblical Garden of Eden and helped give birth to civilisation itself. The Tigris’s course through Iraq begins in…Continue readingCradle of civilisation dying
Sprawling coastal cities in South and Southeast Asia are sinking faster than elsewhere in the world, leaving tens of millions of people more vulnerable to rising sea levels. Vietnam’s…Continue readingAsian coastal cities sinking fast
Colombia lost more than 174,000 hectares of woodland in 2021 — an area 30 times the size of Manhattan — with illegal clearances fuelling the surge. It was the…Continue readingColombia’s battle against Amazon deforestation: ‘The jungle is disappearing’
This summer, heat waves struck Europe, North Africa, the U.S. and Asia with temperatures reaching over 40°C in places—breaking many long-standing records. Images from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission show…Continue readingImage: UK heat wave
At least 10 people died and 4 were missing after an extraordinary thunderstorm sparked major flooding in central Italy. Prime Minister Mario Draghi confirmed the toll, while saying it…Continue reading‘Like a waterfall’: deadly Italian storms spark climate debate
A humanitarian disaster is unfolding in the Horn of Africa, which is in the grip of its worst drought in at least four decades. More than 20 million people…Continue readingWhy East Africa’s Facing Its Worst Famine in Decades
The waters of the EU are in a “dismal” state, with only a third of fish populations studied in the north-east Atlantic considered to be in good condition, according…Continue readingEU slammed over failure to protect marine life from ‘destructive’ fishing
Caption for figure above: Grid-cell specific rankings of 22-yr negative soil moisture anomalies (drought rank) in 2000–2021 compared to the driest 22-yr period in each previous drought event back…Continue readingMegadrought in the American south-west: a climate disaster unseen in 1,200 years
Higher high tides, supercharged by rising sea levels, could flood all or parts of an estimated $34 billion worth of real estate along the nation’s coasts within just 30…Continue readingRising seas fueled by climate change to swamp $34 billion in US real estate in just 30 years
The latest assessment by risk company Verisk Maplecroft brings those two threats together to calculate that heat stress already poses an “extreme risk” to agriculture in 20 countries, including…Continue readingCountries growing 70% of world’s food face ‘extreme’ heat risk by 2045
Smoke from hundreds of wildfires has darkened skies over the Alaskan interior this summer with the state experiencing its fastest start to the fire season on record amid hot…Continue reading‘Nothing left to burn’: Wildfires blaze through the Arctic
The climate crisis has driven the world to the brink of multiple “disastrous” tipping points, according to a major study. It shows five dangerous tipping points may already have…Continue readingWorld on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points
Amid blistering heat waves, brutal drought and widespread wildfires, Europe just notched its hottest summer in recorded history, new data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service shows. It was…Continue readingEurope just had its hottest summer on record
The heat wave that’s been gripping California and other parts of the West for 10 days and counting is the most severe ever recorded in September, weather experts have…Continue readingNo September on record in the U.S. West has seen a heat wave like this
China recorded its highest temperatures and one of its lowest levels of rainfall in 61 years during a two-month summer heatwave. The average national temperature in August, 22.4˚C, was…Continue readingChina reports ‘most severe’ heatwave and third driest summer on record
Unprecedented and societally disruptive extreme weather events, including heat waves, droughts, dust storms and torrential rains, will soon become a reality unless immediate, ambitious, and transboundary climate action is…Continue readingWarming of up to 5°C in this century projected for the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East
The UN describes Iraq as the fifth-most-vulnerable country to climate change. Temperatures have increased by 1.8˚C (3.2˚F) in three decades, well above the global average, and in the summers,…Continue readingClimate migrants flee Iraq’s parched rural south, but cities offer no refuge
Chad’s heaviest seasonal rainfall in more than 30 years has left parts of the capital N’Djamena navigable only by boat and forced thousands to flee their flooded homes over…Continue readingChad’s heaviest rains in 30 years leads to ‘catastrophic’ floods
The rice fields are washed away. The coconut trees and chilli plants, flooded with salt water, are all dead. The farmers’ fish ponds fail, the water so high that…Continue readingThe Indonesians living in flooded villages
Pakistan is experiencing its worst floods this century. At least one-third of the country is under water. Scientists say several factors have contributed to the extreme event, which has…Continue readingWhy are Pakistan’s floods so extreme this year?
Major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now inevitable, scientists have found, even if the fossil fuel burning that is driving the climate crisis…Continue readingMajor sea-level rise is ‘now inevitable’
Avian flu is a highly pathogenic strain of the H5N1 virus. Since its early detections in poultry and wild birds in the spring of 2021, this new strain has…Continue readingA new strain of avian flu is decimating wild birds. Humans should worry
Flash floods, which have intensified in recent days, have swept away villages, roads, bridges, people, livestock and crops across all four provinces. Pakistan has appealed for international help as…Continue readingPakistan declares floods a ‘climate catastrophe’ as death toll tops 1,000
One argument against deep seabed mining is the existence of previously unknown species in the deep sea, including the recently discovered pom-pom-like Biremis spaghetti worm and the delightfully weird…Continue readingTwo-year countdown for deep seabed mining
The number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon hit a nearly 15-year high this week, according to official figures that provided the latest warning on the advancing destruction…Continue readingBrazil records worst day for Amazon fires in 15 years
Iraq is known in Arabic as the Land of the Two Rivers, but it has seen water levels on the once mighty Tigris and Euphrates plummet. The Euphrates, which…Continue readingBoiling heat and no water: taps run dry in southern Iraq
A giant, gentle sea creature that belongs to the manatee family is now “functionally extinct” in China with no sightings recorded since 2008, a new study said. The dugong,…Continue reading‘Charismatic’ dugong sea mammal declared functionally extinct in China
Researchers found that a typical forest fire season now burns 3 million more hectares (7.4 million more acres) than in 2001. Forest fires accounted for a quarter of global…Continue readingForest fires burn twice as many trees as two decades ago
An international team of researchers looked specifically at 25,000 species, including fish, bacteria, plants and protozoans living in the top 100 meters of the world’s oceans. They found that…Continue reading90% of marine species at risk of extinction by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed
47% of Europe is undergoing warning conditions, as moisture in the soil dries out and 17% of the region is on a state of alert as vegetation is affected.…Continue readingEurope facing its worst drought for 500 years
Bumblebee populations have dropped throughout the United States and Europe as Earth has heated up. Research from 2020 found that the number of areas populated by the insects had…Continue readingBumblebee species stressed by climate change
People in large parts of China have been experiencing two months of extreme heat. Hundreds of places have reported temperatures of more than 40°C (104°F), and many records have…Continue readingHeatwave in China is the most severe ever recorded in the world
Forest fires supercharged by climate change are burning twice as much global tree cover as 20 years ago. The equivalent of 16 football pitches are now lost every minute.…Continue readingClimate change driving unprecedented forest fire loss
Despite enviable earnings, shares of Three Gorges Renewables are down 15% this year and trade at 20 times forward earnings, half the level of a year ago. Strict policy…Continue readingDroughts push China towards coal power
The reputed home of the biblical Garden of Eden, Iraq’s swamplands have been battered by 3 years of drought and low rainfall, as well as reduced water flows along…Continue readingIraq’s Garden of Eden now ‘like a desert’
The world’s biggest ice sheet could cause “several meters” of sea-level rise over centuries if the global temperature rises more than 2°C, according to a British study. Researchers at…Continue readingWorld’s biggest ice sheet could cause massive sea rise without action
Blazes that have torched tens of thousands of hectares of forest in France, Spain and Portugal have made 2022 a record year for wildfire activity in southwestern Europe. France…Continue reading2022 sets record fire activity in southwest Europe
No longer having access to potable running water, the villagers of Ouled Essi Masseoud rely solely on sporadic supplies in public fountains and from private wells. “The fountains work…Continue readingDrought tightens its grip on Morocco
As Antarctica’s slow rivers of ice hit the sea, they float, forming ice shelves. These shelves extend the glaciers into the ocean until they calve into icebergs. But they…Continue readingIce shelves hold back Antarctica’s glaciers from adding to sea levels, but they’re crumbling
Forests from the Arctic to the Amazon are transforming at a “shocking” rate due to the climate crisis, with trees advancing into previously barren tundra in the north while…Continue readingGlobal heating has caused ‘shocking’ changes in forests across the Americas
Europe’s most severe drought in decades is hitting homes, factories, farmers and freight across the continent, as experts warn drier winters and searing summers fuelled by global heating mean…Continue reading‘The new normal’: how Europe is being hit by a climate-driven drought crisis