Climate
The latest facts about the Climate Emergency: Peer reviewed research, publications and the evolving data regarding climate breakdown, how you can help make a difference and fight for climate justice.
Regenesis – George Monbiot
Farming is the world’s greatest cause of environmental destruction – and the one we are least prepared to talk about. We criticise urban sprawl, but farming sprawls across thirty times as much land. We have ploughed, fenced and grazed great tracts of the planet, felling forests, killing wildlife, and poisoning rivers and oceans to feed ourselves. Yet millions still go hungry.
Our global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss
A new Chatham House report highlights that the global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss.
Biodiversity loss will continue to accelerate, unless we change the way we produce food. Further destruction of ecosystems and habitats will threaten our ability to sustain human populations.
Unilever and Nestlé are burning Indonesia. Is ‘sustainable palm oil’ a con?
At the moment, fires burning across Indonesia since July have destroyed over burned 8,578 square kilometers (3,304 square miles and around the size of Puerto Rico) as of the end of September, blanketing the islands in thick toxic smoke which has turned the sky a violent red.
Why ‘Carbon-Cycle Feedbacks’ Could Drive Temperatures Even Higher
New research indicates that parts of the Amazon and other tropical forests are now emitting more CO2 than they absorb. Some scientists are concerned this development, which is not yet incorporated into climate models, could put the temperature goals set by the Paris Agreement out of reach.
Climate scientists may have been underestimating global warming, finds study
Preventing global warming from becoming “dangerous” may have just got significantly harder after new research suggested climate scientists have been using the wrong baseline temperature.
Sea-level rise from climate change could exceed the high-end projections, scientists warn
Of the many threats from climate change, sea-level rise will most certainly be among the most impactful, making hundreds of thousands of square miles of coastline uninhabitable and potentially displacing over 100 million people worldwide by the end of the century. This threat is a top concern for national security experts because forced migration poses significant risks to international security and stability.
Forests Absorb Twice As Much Carbon As They Emit Each Year
New research, published in Nature Climate Change and available on Global Forest Watch, found that the world’s forests sequestered about twice as much carbon dioxide as they emitted between 2001 and 2019. In other words, forests provide a “carbon sink” that absorbs a net 7.6 billion metric tonnes of CO2 per year, 1.5 times more carbon than the United States emits annually.
The Face on Your Plate: The Truth About Food: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
In this revelatory work, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson shows how food affects our moral selves, our health, and the environment. It raises questions to make us conscious of the decisions behind every bite we take: What effect does eating animals have on our land, waters, even global warming?
Eating Away at Climate Change with Negative Emissions: Harwatt/Hayek
We estimate the CDR potential of returning UK land currently used for animal agriculture to
forest cover in two scenarios. Our first scenario maximises CDR by restoring land currently under pasture and cropland used to produce farmed animal feed to forest.
How bad are meat and dairy for the climate?
Livestock uses huge amounts of land, both for grazing and for growing feed. Indeed, one estimate is that if we all went vegan, we could reduce the land used by agriculture by 75%. It is inherently inefficient to grow grain and soya to feed to animals and then eat the animals, rather than eating the grain and soya directly.
Mass extinctions and climate change: why the speed of rising greenhouse gases matters
We now know that greenhouse gases are rising faster than at any time since the demise of dinosaurs, and possibly even earlier. According to research published in Nature Geoscience this week, carbon dioxide (CO₂) is being added to the atmosphere at least ten times faster than during a major warming event about 50 million years ago.
Sharks at unprecedented risk of extinction after 71 per cent decline
Numbers of oceanic sharks and rays have declined at what researchers describe as an “alarming” 71 per cent over almost half a century, leading to what researchers say is an unprecedented increase in risk of extinction.
Conservationists have been warning for years about the unsustainable killing of the apex predators, based on regional reports and data on individual species, but a paper published today is the first to offer an authoritative global overview.
Gray whales are starving and dying off at an alarming rate along the Pacific Coast
Scientists are not exactly sure why the whales are dying, but in a newly released study, published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, researchers conclude it is likely a result of starvation due lack of prey, perhaps caused by warming Arctic waters where they feed. If that’s true, the concern is that mass die-offs like this may become more frequent in the future as waters continue to heat up due to human-caused climate change.
The state of nature: 41 percent of UK species have declined since 1970s
A new report has found that the UK’s wildlife is continuing to crash, with hundreds of species now at risk of disappearing from our shores altogether.
Over the past 50 years, urbanisation, agriculture, pollution and climate change have all caused the nation’s plants and animals to dwindle – a trend that has continued unabated within the last decade despite efforts to reverse these losses.
A quarter of all known bee species haven’t been seen since the 1990s
The number of bee species recorded worldwide has been sharply decreasing since the 1990s.
Eduardo Zattara and Marcelo Aizen at the National University of Comahue in Argentina analysed how many wild bee species are observed each year as recorded in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility – a publicly available platform where researchers and citizens can record sightings of bee species.
UN report: Pollution from planned fossil fuel production would overshoot Paris climate goals
In the 2015 international Paris Climate Agreement, nearly every country [see editor’s note] agreed to try and limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and preferably closer to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures. Achieving these goals will require dramatic changes, as the world has already warmed 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), and temperatures, fossil fuel consumption, and carbon pollution all are continuing to rise.
Eating Our Way To Extinction
‘Eating Our Way to Extinction,’ a Cinematic Feature Documentary addresses the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about… Will we be the next species on the path toward extinction?