Environment

Ninety-nine per cent of all freshwater ice on Earth is sitting on top of Greenland and Antarctica, and each year, a little more of it melts into the ocean. Normally, it would take hundreds to thousands of years for it all to melt away. But what if something happened that caused a massive global melt

At its heart, climate change denial is a conflict between facts and values. People deny the climate crisis because, to them, it just feels wrong. As I’ve argued elsewhere, acknowledging climate change involves accepting certain facts. But being concerned about climate change involves connecting these facts to values. It involves building bridges between the science

With red-flag warnings in place and an “extreme” fire risk for parts of Northern California on Wednesday that is expected to shift south Thursday, a bout of strong and prolonged winds is prompting Pacific Gas & Electric not to take chances. Because the utility giant does not want to risk its grid infrastructure sparking yet

Following the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown – the world’s worst nuclear accident – authorities cordoned off the most contaminated areas around the Ukrainian power plant. That restricted land, known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, now extends 1,000 square miles (2,589 square kilometres). It’s illegal to live there (though a few families have defied the law by

The world is dealing with a lot right now. The climate is rapidly warming, the oceans are growing dangerously acidic, a sixth extinction is officially unfolding, and all the while the threat of nuclear war hangs imminent. But there’s another crisis on the horizon you might have never heard of. And if the world continues

Our diets can have a big environmental impact. The greenhouse gas emissions involved in producing and transporting various foods has been well researched, but have you ever thought about the water-scarcity impacts of producing your favourite foods? The answers may surprise you. In research recently published in the journal Nutrients, we looked at the water

Of all the known trees found solely Europe, more than half are at risk of dying out, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports. Some of these ancient natives have existed here since before the last ice age, but as the sixth mass extinction unfolds, Europe’s perennial woods are more threatened than its reptiles,

We all know by now that eating less meat is good for the planet – the production of meat products for human consumption leaves behind a hefty carbon footprint. Now scientists have worked out a very simple way that canteens in schools and colleges could greatly reduce the amount of meat eaten – without actually having

If the world is serious about reducing its carbon emissions, we’ll need to re-think how we feed our future children. Creating ways to support and promote breastfeeding, scientists say, is an environmental imperative. Today, breastfeeding is rarely seen as a climate issue, but a new editorial from researchers in the United Kingdom argues the production

We know that our planet has experienced warmer periods in the past, during the Pliocene geological epoch around three million years ago. Our research, published today, shows that up to one third of Antarctica’s ice sheet melted during this period, causing sea levels to rise by as much as 20 metres above present levels in

It’s been six years since Boyan Slat began developing a system to rid the world’s oceans of harmful plastic. In 2013, the entrepreneur founded The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit that aims to remove plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a trash-filled vortex in the Pacific Ocean that’s more than twice the size of Texas.

For nearly 20 years, researchers have closely watched a “loose tooth” of ice dangle from the edge of the Antarctic ice sheet, waiting for it to detach. It turns out, we were keeping our eyes on the wrong part. According to the Australian Antarctic Division, a neighbouring slab of ice along the same rift system has

According to a decade-long study by an international team of researchers, human CO2 emissions total 100 times more than the planet-warming effects of all volcanoes combined. The total amount emitted by volcanoes is only about 0.3 gigatons a year – a tiny fraction of the 37 gigatons humankind produced in 2018 alone. That means they’re

Most of the 24 million annual visitors to Queensland don’t notice the series of seemingly innocuous yellow buoys at many popular beaches. Beneath the waves lies a series of baited drumlines and mesh nets that aim to make Queensland beaches safe from the ominous threat of sharks. Earlier this week the Queensland government lost a

It’s no secret that organic farmers believe in compost, but just what role compost plays in soil’s ability to store carbon – and keep it out of the atmosphere, where it contributes to climate change – has been less clear. A recent study out of the University of California, Davis suggests that compost plays a

We humans have officially entered uncharted territory. In the roughly 2.5 million years our kind has walked the Earth, never before have we endured such an atmosphere. New research on ancient soil has now confirmed that carbon dioxide levels in the past sixty years are the highest we’ve experienced in all of human history. Throughout

Global warming has put a glacier in the Italian Alps at risk of collapse, officials warned, leading to road closures, travel restrictions, and evacuations in the immediate vicinity. Municipal officials issued the order after surveyors observed a significant increase in the sliding speed of the Planpincieux glacier, which rests on the Italian side of the

Climate change is already having staggering effects on oceans and ice-filled regions that encompass 80 percent of the Earth, and future damage from rising seas and melting glaciers is now all but certain, according to a sobering new report from the United Nations. The warming climate is killing coral reefs, supercharging monster storms, and fueling

Gigantic underground masses of rock the size of hidden continents could have been concealed inside the planet in virtual isolation since Earth first formed, scientists suggest in a new study. Up until now, not a lot has been known for sure about these two huge, mysterious structures called large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs). We know that

For the second time in a month, the world is mourning yet another one of Europe’s majestic glaciers. Once a sight to behold, scientists now say that Switzerland’s Pizol glacier has all but disappeared thanks to climate change. Since 2006, this natural wonder has lost at least 80 percent of its volume, and the few patches of white