It’s become more clear than ever this year that climate change is very real and that we are already seeing the effects. A new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in October detailed how even just half a degree of rise in the world’s temperature would result in severe, catastrophic effects. As Business

Storm systems, driven by persistent low pressure near Alaska, are churning waters to dangerous levels along the West Coast of the United States. The focus of the punishment from massive waves is from southern Washington state through central California. The San Francisco Bay area is one region taking the brunt, with waves expected to reach

What is thought to be the largest known sinkhole in New Zealand ripped open across a farm on NZ’s North Island earlier this year, revealing a gigantic cavernous void estimated to have been decades or even a century in the making. As of May 2018, the sinkhole, situated about 15 kilometres south-east of the city

Organic farming aims to maximise the ‘natural’ and minimise chemical interference when it comes to producing our food, but is it actually better for the environment? A new study looking at pea and wheat crops suggests the opposite, claiming that organic farms are worse for the climate, because they tend to take up more room. 

The radar signature meandered over southern Illinois for 10 hours on Monday. It definitely wasn’t precipitation, the National Weather Service said. But that seemed for days to be the only sure thing about the blob, which floated for nearly 140 miles (225 kilometres) before scattering into nothing after it crossed into western Kentucky. So what

How do fish breathe underwater? It’s the kind of question children ask. They get their oxygen in the water, we tell them – but sadly, that’s not always true. The world’s oceans are currently undergoing a dangerous transformation. Scientists have detected vast ‘dead zones’ around the world, where hypoxic water lacks the necessary oxygen for

Insects are kind of a big deal. As many as 30 million species make up this ecologically important class, only a fraction of which we know about. Around 80 percent of all animal species are insects. Estimates put their numbers in the quintillions. Not that you’d easily know that if you opened a random introductory

Humans have pulled too hard on our planet’s strings, and now we’re at a point where the global climate itself is unravelling. A new study suggests that if nothing is done to reduce our carbon emissions, we could essentially reverse 50 million years of long-term cooling in just a few generations. The consequences could send

Around 252 million years ago, Earth experienced catastrophic devastation – an extinction event so severe that it wiped out almost all of the life on Earth. Up to 70 percent of all land vertebrate species were killed off, and a massive 96 percent of all marine species, including the famous trilobite that had previously survived

Human activity has shifted the chemical composition of our waterways. Now, it’s beginning to corrode our freshwater supply. A new study has confirmed that in the last 25 years, at least a third of the rivers and streams in the United States have gotten saltier. If nothing is done to curb this trend, the results suggest

A drought scorched the Great Plains, causing wildfires and US$2.5 billion in agriculture losses. Catastrophic floods submerged more than a third of Bangladesh. Record-shattering heat waves killed scores of people in Europe and China. These were among 15 extreme weather events in 2017 that were made more likely by human-cased climate change, according to in-depth

The island nation of Mauritius has little in the way of natural resources – historically, it’s depended on imported petroleum to generate electricity. But increasingly, according to Phys.org, leadership on the island is preparing for an energy-scarce future. They’re investing in solar, wind and hydropower, but also leveraging a key crop on the island: sugar

It’s the most populous city in Western Asia, and it’s sinking into the ground at an alarming rate. Tehran, the capital of Iran and home to some 15 million people in total across its greater urban footprint, is a victim of dramatic subsidence, new research reveals, which is causing the region to sink by more

An ambitious project to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has hit an unexpected snag, just three months after being launched. Developed by The Ocean Cleanup, the huge floating contraption was designed to drift with the currents, scooping up thousands of tons of plastic waste as it bobs along. The first prototype, System 001,

The weather was closing in. For a week, cryosphere scientist Luke Trusel and his team hadn’t been able to access their remote drill site in western Greenland, and if they didn’t act now, there was no telling when they’d get another chance. Spying a brief window where helicopter flight was safe, the researchers grabbed only

Last month, new research from Harvard and Yale led to a flurry of news claiming scientists were proposing to ‘dim the Sun’ in an “ingenious but as-yet-unproven way to tackle climate change”. Only, they weren’t. As other outlets made clear, the paper was actually an analysis of whether solar geoengineering is technically and economically feasible,

The fate of civilisation itself lies squarely in the hands of today’s leaders, Sir David Attenborough has warned in a strident address on behalf of the world’s peoples. Speaking at the opening of the United Nations COP24 Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland, Attenborough implored the assembled delegates and decision-makers to listen to the voices

Our environment is changing, and changing fast, putting pressure on our hardworking scientists to come up with ever more ingenious ways of meeting the needs of humankind – like pulling drinkable water right out of the air, in this case. A new prototype device, developed at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

Kiel, Germany: The herring here – both a symbol of the seaside region and a staple food that locals eat salted, pickled or fried – have plummeted to about a third of their population in the 1990s. Cod have declined drastically, too. And they are getting smaller and thinner. Scientists have observed fish in their

A huge, gaping cave has been discovered hidden in the remote Canadian wilderness, and despite the overwhelming scale of this stunning natural void, researchers suggest it may never have been seen by human eyes before. Nicknamed the ‘Sarlacc Pit’ after the monstrous pit-dwelling beast in Star Wars, the giant cave – concealed amidst the rugged

There’s mounting pressure on the world to grapple with its plastic addiction. Landfills and oceans alike are choking on waste plastic, which is made from crude oil and can take centuries to decompose. New evidence, though, suggests that small changes in plastic policy can make large changes in aggregate. When Australia’s two largest supermarket chains

The Woolsey and Paradise wildfires brought widespread devastation to California in November, killing more than 90 people and torching 250,000 acres of land. With the fires now fully contained, residents have returned home to find nothing but scorched foundations. Officials are still on the hunt for hundreds of missing people – a process made more

Scientists are at a loss to explain a strange seismic event that shook the planet on November 11 and was picked up by earthquake sensors stationed across the globe. While the cause of this mysterious disturbance remains unknown, it’s somehow linked to an ongoing seismic swarm that’s been rumbling the archipelago of Mayotte in the

On the eve of the most important global climate meeting in years, a definitive United Nations report has found that the world is well off course on its promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions – and may have even further to go than previously thought. Seven major countries, including the United States, are well behind

Cruise liners are a surprisingly large source of greenhouse gases and pollution, but Norwegian cruise operator Hurtigruten says it’s on its way to carbon neutrality – and all thanks to dead fish. Although this sounds crazy, it does actually make a lot of sense. Norway has a large fishing industry, and leftovers and off-cuts are

The unseen depths of the Great Australian Bight are absolutely teeming with life, a new study study has revealed. But soon enough, even these deep-sea creatures could be subject to the probing fingers of the oil industry. The Great Australian Bight is a 1,160-kilometre (720 mile) open bay that takes a sizeable chunk out of

The idea was once taboo, but desperate times may just call for desperate measures. If humans are able to spray millions of tons of sulfate aerosol into the sky, we could create a sort of chemical canopy that reflects heat from the Sun and takes the edge off global warming. This kind of atmosphere-hacking could be dangerous,

The federal government on Friday released a long-awaited report with an unmistakable message: The effects of climate change, including deadly wildfires, increasingly debilitating hurricanes and heat waves, are already battering the United States, and the danger of more such catastrophes is worsening. The report’s authors, who represent numerous federal agencies, say they are more certain

Keeping an eye on your water usage is a good way to save money and help the planet at the same time. Plenty of us have bad habits that could be costing us hundreds of dollars in water bills over the long run. Here are a few ways that you could be wasting water without realising it,

Slow-motion collisions of tectonic plates under the ocean drag about three times more water down into the deep Earth than previously believed, according to a seismic study that spans the Mariana Trench. The observations from the deepest ocean trench in the world have important implications for the global water cycle, researchers say. “People knew that

Researchers have developed catalysts that can convert carbon dioxide—the main cause of global warming—into plastics, fabrics, resins, and other products. The electrocatalysts are the first materials, aside from enzymes, that can turn carbon dioxide and water into carbon building blocks containing one, two, three, or four carbon atoms with more than 99 percent efficiency. Two

Sir David Attenborough’s passionate voice is one few would struggle to recognise. Next month, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Poland, world leaders will be listening to it as the famous British naturalist delivers a speech. And you can even help him write it. A new UN campaign called the “People’s Seat” has been

Solar power has never been cheaper, and it’s often held up as a success story for clean energy advocates. In the past four decades, the cost of some solar panels, like photovoltaic cells (PTV), has plummeted by as much as 99 percent. But while the technology’s growth is impressive, until now we didn’t have a

Our planet is constantly changing each and every day, and now thanks to researchers at the University of Cincinnati, we can see some of those shifts mapped over the course of a quarter of a century. The new maps published by the team show 22 percent of Earth’s livable surface has dramatically altered between 1992

Humanity is likely responsible for the death of yet another sperm whale. After it washed ashore Kapota Island in the Wakatobi National Park in Indonesia, park officials found its stomach full of plastic. Over 1,000 individual pieces were found, including 115 plastic cups, 25 plastic bags, two flip-flops, and a sack containing over 1,000 pieces

When it comes to measuring ice loss at the poles, and predicting what might happen next, scientists need as much accurate data as they can get – and a new study suggests there’s a big source of geothermal heat underneath East Antarctica that we haven’t yet factored into our calculations. Ice in this area appears

Nowhere is climate change more obvious than in the Arctic. Experiencing rapid and, at times, unprecedented atmospheric change, the cold crest of our planet has taken on a burden greater than any other region in the world. But while it’s clear the Arctic is especially vulnerable to greenhouse gases, the physical causes that are driving

Some 4,000 years ago, a thriving civilisation in the Indus River Valley inexplicably abandoned its cities, leaving their empty buildings to decay. The Harappa culture (of what is now Pakistan) had a booming local economy and long-distance intercultural trade. Yet, by around 1800 BCE, they had moved from their cities with mod cons such as

Palm oil can be found in food and cosmetics everywhere: in fact, half of the world’s population uses palm oil in food. But public awareness about the loss of wildlife through deforestation caused by palm oil crops is growing, and there’s mounting pressure on retailers to reduce their sales of palm oil products, or boycott

Dogs, cats, or goldfish probably can’t have conversations with each other about times long gone by – it’s a feature we’ve thought was exclusive to humans. But a new study is shaking up that idea, showing that orangutan mothers wait on average seven minutes after a potential predator is out of sight, before sounding the

In the driest and oldest desert on Earth – a place so barren and bleak it’s effectively hell on Earth – things don’t work quite the same way they do in other places. Take water. We tend to think of water as a universally life-giving blessing, but in the hyperarid core of Chile’s Atacama Desert,

Polar bears are pretty much the poster child for climate breakdown. That famous WWF photo by Carla Lombardo Ehrlich of a polar bear clinging to a remnant of melting ice is a stark and poignant image of the dangers of global warming. A new survey suggests that in some parts of the Arctic, the polar

It’s been almost 500 years since Italy’s Campi Flegrei let loose its fiery wrath, but new evidence reveals the ancient supervolcano – the home of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire – may be stirring from its long sleep. For the 1.5 million residents of the Naple region who live in the shadow of the

Scientists behind a major study that claimed the Earth’s oceans are warming faster than previously thought now say their work contained inadvertent errors that made their conclusions seem more certain than they actually are. Two weeks after the high-profile study was published in the journal Nature, its authors have submitted corrections to the publication. The

China has halted a directive that partially legalized the domestic trade in farmed rhinoceros and tiger parts, two weeks after the move drew a torrent of criticism from conservation groups. A senior official in China’s cabinet said in a state media interview published Monday that implementation of an October directive reviving the market for the

It appears that climate change could be damaging the fertility of insects, leaving males virtually sterile, according to new research. Since these creatures make up 90 percent of all life forms on Earth, the results should concern all of us. Scientists agree that climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more intense, more frequent

By now, most of us can list a variety of ways our species is making a mess of this planet. Canadian zoologist Sarah Otto reports in detail how humans have made a mess of things, with the aim of asking how it affects evolution overall. The answer isn’t academic, either – it could show us

We know that huge chunks of ice are breaking off Antarctica at an alarming rate, but sometimes a smart visualisation is what it takes to really understand the scale of a problem – and that’s exactly what we’ve just got for Antarctic icebergs over the last 40 years. Science animators Pixel Movers & Makers (Marlo