Cover Photo: Yellow trout lily flowers nearly a week earlier now than in previous decades in the Appalachian Mountains. Katja Schulz/Wikipedia, CC BY Author: Theresa Crimmins, University of Arizona Across much of the United States, a warming climate has advanced the arrival of spring. This year is no exception. In parts of the Southeast, spring […]
Climate Change
Termites actively help save soils during droughts, study finds
Author: Shreya Dasgupta Researchers studying the effects of termites in an old-growth tropical forest in Malaysian Borneo found that both termite numbers and activity increased during the El Niño drought of 2015-2016, resulting in higher leaf litter decomposition and soil moisture compared to a test plot where the termite population had been artificially suppressed. These improvements […]
An Indian perspective on the Poland climate meeting: Not much help for the world’s poor and vulnerable
Top Photo: Bamboo structures on the Brahmaputra river in Majuli, northeastern India, intended to help prevent land erosion in a region experiencing erratic weather patterns and bursts of intense rainfall. AP Photo/Anupam Nath Author: Arun Agrawal, University of Michigan The international climate change conference that concluded in Katowice, Poland on Dec. 15 had limited ambitions and expectations […]
Climate change linked to specific 2017 extreme weather events
This article originally appeared at Mongabay.com and is republished here under CC BY-ND 4.0 license. According to the seventh annual special report by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) probing the causal links between rising global temperatures and extreme weather events, issued last month, climate change made the Northern Great Plains drought of 2017 some […]
“A Never-Ending Commitment”: The High Cost of Preserving Vulnerable Beaches
By Lisa Song and Al Shaw, ProPublica As lawmakers consider disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Florence, projects to rebuild North Carolina’s shrunken shorelines are likely to get a healthy chunk of government money. To their advocates, these so-called beach nourishment initiatives are crucial steps in buffering valuable oceanfront properties from storm damage and boosting […]
Climate mitigation has an ally in need of recognition and land rights: indigenous peoples in tropical countries
Article by Justin Catanoso All graphics by Rights and Resources Initiative (CC BY 4.0) Researchers have released what they called “the most comprehensive assessment to date of carbon storage” on forested lands occupied by indigenous peoples and local communities in 64 tropical countries. One of the main findings of the research is that indigenous peoples are […]
Coffee farmers struggle to adapt to Colombia’s changing climate
Top photo: The fertile, mountainous terrain of Colombia’s coffee-producing central region is vulnerable to climate change impacts such as stronger storms and hotter temperatures. (Image by Eddy Milfort/flickr, CC BY-SA) Authors: Jessica Eise, Purdue University and Natalie White, Purdue University Leer en español. In Colombia’s coffee-producing region of Risaralda, small trees run along the sharp […]
Designing greener streets starts with finding room for bicycles and trees
Top Photo: Street in Hangzhou, China, with trees separating a cycle track from road traffic and from the sidewalk. (Xu Wen, CC BY-ND) Author: Anne Lusk, Harvard University City streets and sidewalks in the United States have been engineered for decades to keep vehicle occupants and pedestrians safe. If streets include trees at all, they […]
Hope and mourning in the Anthropocene: Understanding ecological grief
Top Photo: Crossing an increasingly unfamiliar landscape in Nain, Canada. By Ashlee Cunsolo. Authors: Neville Ellis, University of Western Australia and Ashlee Cunsolo, Memorial University of Newfoundland We are living in a time of extraordinary ecological loss. Not only are human actions destabilising the very conditions that sustain life, but it is also increasingly clear […]
Rwandan people and mountain gorillas face changing climate together
All Text and Images: Elham Shabahat This article originally appeared on Mongabay.com, 27, June 2018 (Republished under under Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0). The Critically Endangered mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei), has been brought back from extinction’s brink in Rwanda, with numbers in the Virunga Mountains around Volcanoes National Park estimated at 604 individuals in 2016, up […]