The US Environmental Protection Agency’s retreat from science endangers the health of people and the planet: Andromeda stock/Shutterstock Pollution causes more illness and early death than any other environmental threat, accounting for one in six deaths worldwide. For decades, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Research and Development (ORD) has driven many of …
Shop smarter, not harder. How gentle messaging can help the planet more than tough talk: Heavy-handed messaging? Andy Soloman/Shutterstock Fast fashion is booming, but so is its environmental toll. With up to 10% of global carbon emissions linked to the industry, the over-consumption of cheap clothing has made sustainability campaigns more vital than ever. Yet, …
Dakar Biennale: Senegal’s big art show shines a light on a bruised planet: One of Africa’s most important art shows, the 15th Biennale of Contemporary African Art in Dakar – also known as Dak’Art – is currently on in Senegal. A biennale is a major international exhibition held every two years. The theme for 2024 …
Economic policies encourage the careless use of people and the planet. Creating caring economies is the answer: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change includes a Gender Action Plan, adopted in 2017. The plan aims to “enhance the gender responsiveness” of climate policy and climate action. It outlines specific actions and strategies to promote …
Forest fires are shifting north and intensifying – here’s what that means for the planet: Fires have long been a natural part of forest ecosystems, but something is changing. Our new study shows that forest fires have become more widespread and severe amid global heating, particularly in the high northern latitudes such as Canada and …
The global food system is owned by an ever smaller number of companies – it’s damaging our health, our communities and the planet: creativeriver/Shutterstock Across the world, over 800 million people spend their days hungry. More than 2 billion have limited access to food. Yet today’s global food system produces enough to feed every person …
Ghana’s schools don’t teach enough about geoscience: why kids need to know how the planet works: Over the last few decades Ghana has seen a rise in environmental degradation such as pollution, deforestation and land degradation. These have been driven by urbanisation, industrialisation, carbon emissions and waste burning. Environmental problems have an impact on public …
Planting trees in grasslands won’t save the planet – rather protect and restore forests: Tree planting is one of the nature-based solutions being used to offset greenhouse gas emissions. Trees absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. Many of these tree planting projects target Africa’s rangelands (open grasslands or shrublands used by livestock and wild animals). They include …
Can golf courses help save the planet? Ask a herd of wild pigs: Mathilde.LR/Shutterstock An Arizona golf course, so picture-perfect it was described as “the Imax of golf”, was wantonly trashed by intruders in the autumn of 2023. But no, this was not Just Stop Oil back for another round, nor the result of a …
Is some of the body that collided with Earth to form the Moon still recognisable inside our planet?: Scientists have dated the birth of the Solar System to about 4.57 billion years ago. About 60 million years later a “giant impact” collision between the infant Earth and a Mars-sized body called Theia created the Moon. …
Planet Earth III: how cookie cutter nature programming could fail to educate and inform audiences: Perhaps nothing embodies the BBC’s values of inform, educate and entertain more than its nature documentaries. Planet Earth III is the latest in a proud tradition going back to the founding of the BBC Natural History Unit in 1957 and …
El Niño may be drying out the southern hemisphere – here’s how that affects the whole planet: FoxPictures / shutterstock It is a well-known fact that water is the key to life on Earth. But it is less well known that only about 1% of all water on the planet is fresh water available to …
Life on Our Planet: evolution experts review this ‘hugely entertaining’ Netflix docuseries: Netflix’s beautifully realised historical biography of life certainly has ambition. Perhaps 4 billion species have existed in as many years of Earth’s history: an embarrassment of riches for eight 50-minute episodes. To make sense of this, Life on Our Planet focuses on some …
Mercury: shrinking planet is still getting smaller – new research: Perspective view of a lobate scarp on Mercury named Carnegie Rupes, colour-coded according to surface altitude. The crater near the middle is nearly 40 km across. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington Planetary scientists have long known that Mercury has been shrinking …
Invasive alien species are a serious threat to the planet: 4 key messages for Africa: Climate change has negatively – and irreversibly, in some cases – affected ecosystems around the globe. Sadly, though, it is not the only phenomenon that’s altering our natural world. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem …
Possible hints of life found on distant planet – how excited should we be?: The exoplanet K2-18b might host a water ocean. Credits: Illustration: NASA, CSA, ESA, J. Olmsted (STScI), Science: N. Madhusudhan (Cambridge University) Data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has shown that an exoplanet around a star in the constellation Leo …
The materials used by humans now weigh more than all life on Earth – here’s four graphs that reveal our staggering impact on the planet: Yantian Port, Shenzhen City, China. Weiming Xie/Shutterstock The extent of humanity’s influence on the planet has become increasingly clear in recent years. From the alarming accumulation of plastic waste in …
What are meteorites? I visit and study the craters they’ve left across our planet: Impact cratering, caused by meteorites colliding with planetary surfaces, is one of the most fundamental cosmic processes. Eshma/Shutterstock Tens of thousands of asteroids – that we know of – are roaming our solar system. These are building blocks made up of …