Tag: climate
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Rights of Nature will be meaningless without a fundamental shift in how we think
More than 2,500 trees will be uprooted as construction works for new subway lines begin in Athens, Greece. This follows a devastating summer in which more than 110,000 hectares (424 square miles) of forest areas have burned, more than five times the average from 2008 to 2020. Granted, the new routes are expected to lower…
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Can our oceans save us? The role of seaweed in large scale carbon capture
With governments such as the UK’s looking to rapidly accelerate investment into large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies that will target excessive carbon dioxide emitted found in the air, should policy-makers and ministers set their sights on the sea instead to find an effective solution to the mounting carbon emissions? Sami Cheqrouni-Espinar investigates. A…
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Scientists pinpoint how much time we have left before global warming reaches critical levels
Global warming is the most pressing environmental threat that humanity faces today. The harmful effects that it has brought about are visible, with glaciers melting, sea levels rising and wildfires ramping across the Earth. If global warming continues at its current rate, the Earth will soon be too hot to live on. Up until now,…
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Body clocks and light levels: some plants just aren’t morning people
Just like your lie-in-loving body clock might differ from your early-riser friend’s, the plants you’ve acquired during lockdown may have similar variations in the way their body clocks work. Researchers at the Earlham Institute in Norwich have identified a gene that determines whether a plant can be classed as a night owl or an early…
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Can the US reclaim global leadership on the climate crisis?
On the 4th of November, the US officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement. This came as no surprise, as president Trump announced his intention to leave back in 2017. Joe Biden promised to rejoin the deal on “on day one in office”. Can America, originally a key part of the deal, take back the lead…
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Sea otter decline accelerating effects of climate change
In a new study published by the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, researchers have found that the loss of key predators may be accelerating the effects of climate change in their habitats. The study focussed on the kelp forests of the Aleutian Archipelago off the western coast of Alaska, which have experienced a sharp decline…
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The sunscreen of the sea
Coral reefs are one of the most bountiful – and beautiful – ecosystems on the planet. These diverse, underwater rainforests host at least a quarter of all marine life, despite only occupying a tiny fraction of the ocean floor, and provide stability and filtration to our oceans and shores. However, in recent years more and…
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Growing evidence for climate change that sparked dawn of dinosaurs
During the Carnian Stage in the late Triassic Period, around 237 to 227 million years ago, three major events occurred: the Wrangellia eruptions, the Carnian Pluvial Episode (CPE), and the emergence and diversification of dinosaurs. The Wrangellia eruptions, which formed the Wrangellia basalt floods in the eastern Panthalassic Ocean, were major tectonic events that caused…
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How do mountains grow?
Climate controlled erosion is often considered the driving force in managing mountain height; however, a recent study concluded that tectonics may have a greater impact than erosion. Armin Dielforder, Ralf Hetzel, and Onno Oncken, the authors of the study, explained that the maximum potential height of a mountain is limited by what can be upheld…
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Feeling the heat: why the South Pole is warming up so quickly
The South Pole is one of the coldest and most remote regions on our planet. It is a polar desert of long and sunless winters, quasi-continuous frigid winds, and precious little wildlife or vegetation. But as distant and inaccessible as it may be, it is not so isolated that it is exempt from the changes…