As a carbon sink, seagrass has other advantages too. It’s unlikely to catch fire and release large quantities of carbon back into the atmosphere at once, for example. But it is vulnerable to other threats. Increased coastal erosion can muddy the waters, making it more difficult for Posidonia to photosynthesize. Cruise ships dropping anchor can […]
Read MorePowered by solar energy, these bores have had just as much effect as the original breaching of the bund, but they’re not subject to the same climatic vicissitudes. As a result, the saltwater wetlands are flourishing. “Before the bores, the wetlands were more than half-infested in weeds,” says Kennedy from BirdLife Australia. Now, tens of […]
Read MoreIt started at a hackathon a few years ago near Trafalgar Square, in London. Raphaël Haupt and James Farrell got to talking about how to use the growing popularity of blockchain and cryptocurrencies to help combat climate change. The result was Toucan, a project founded by the duo, which aims to revolutionize carbon offsetting. To […]
Read MoreIt’s a sweltering summer in Australia, and the corals on the Great Barrier Reef are showing early signs of stress. The authority that manages the largest coral reef system in the world is expecting another bleaching event in the coming weeks—if that happens, it will be the sixth time since 1998 that spikes in water […]
Read MoreThere is an insidious irony to climate change: as it gets hotter, more and more people are cranking up their air conditioners, which in turn contributes to global warming. Air conditioner (AC) sales are booming worldwide, especially in emerging economies such as China, India and Indonesia where rising incomes make them more affordable and a […]
Read MoreThe large marsh grasshopper was once ever-present across Eastern England’s wetlands. But after decades of habitat destruction, these handsome insects are now fragmented and locally extinct, holding out in the wettest fens, valleys, and peat bogs of the New Forest and Dorset. Now, London-based Citizen Zoo is trying to bring them back—and it’s planning to […]
Read MoreEurope is slowly catching up, both in terms of battery production and recycling, with car manufacturers leading the charge to reclaim the valuable materials.The IEA forecasts that recycling could meet up to 12 percent of the EV industry’s demand for lithium, nickel, copper and cobalt by 2040. The Volkswagen Group—which includes Audi, Porsche and other […]
Read MoreConcrete: upon this rock-like composite we have built our church – and our houses, roads, bridges, skyscrapers, and factories. As a species we consume more than 4.1 billion tonnes of the stuff every year, more than any other material except water. (You’re almost certainly sitting or standing on it right now.) That’s a problem, because […]
Read MoreThe First Street Foundation study points out that insurers could offer discounts to homeowners who take steps to fortify their homes, which would help make disasters less damaging. Moore said Florida once was a leader when it came to measures like building codes, although that has changed in recent years. The state also had lacked […]
Read MoreWe need to make the exterior parts of buildings that people focus on more interesting, so that people want to protect rather than replace them. But most people aren’t architects or city planners—they can’t change the designs of what’s being made. Indeed, we have a public who feel utterly powerless, and a construction industry that […]
Read MoreYour city isn’t prepared for what’s coming. The classical method for dealing with stormwater is to get it out of town as quickly as possible, with gutters and sewers and canals. But more and more, that strategy is breaking down: As the atmosphere warms, it can hold more moisture, spawning ever-wetter storms that overwhelm this […]
Read MoreExtreme heat kills roughly half a million people worldwide each year, but at the current rate of global warming, it could be close to five times as deadly by 2050. Then there are the indirect health risks of climate change: chaotic weather and higher temperatures generate deadly natural disasters, bring diseases into new areas, and […]
Read MoreIf you ever watch a duck float across a pond, gobbling up the vegetation coating the surface, that bird is way ahead of its time. The buoyant greenery is azolla, a tiny fern that grows like crazy, doubling its biomass as quickly as every two days to conquer small bodies of water. The duck doesn’t […]
Read More“Degradation means that you still have standing forest, but you are losing some of the structure, some of the functioning,” says Armenteras Pascual. “You might even look and think it’s really a beautiful forest, but it’s not so healthy.” Being degraded also makes a forest more prone to wildfire. And once a part of the […]
Read MoreThat is certainly the case in Yemen, on the south flank of the Arabian Peninsula, where the desert sands have a new look these days. Satellite images show around 100,000 solar panels glinting in the sun, surrounded by green fields. Hooked to water pumps, the panels provide free energy for farmers to pump out ancient […]
Read MoreFighting off rising seas without reducing humanity’s carbon emissions is like trying to drain a bathtub without turning off the tap. But increasingly, scientists are sounding the alarm on yet another problem compounding the crisis for coastal cities: Their land is also sinking, a phenomenon known as subsidence. The metaphorical tap is still on—as rapid […]
Read MoreLike a nice wool blanket can help a human baby stay warm and healthy, so too does a baby white spruce get protection from a blanket of snow. At the same time, by preventing the chill of winter from reaching the ground, the snow blanket helps thaw permafrost, or frozen soil packed with ancient plant […]
Read MoreThis story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Ariana Tibon was in college at the University of Hawaii in 2017 when she saw the photo online: a black-and-white picture of a man holding a baby. The caption said: “Nelson Anjain getting his baby monitored on March 2, 1954, by […]
Read MoreTo achieve real climate solutions, changing behavior and developing technology is not enough, says Michal Nachmany, founder and CEO of the environmental nonprofit Climate Policy Radar. “A lot of this is policy,” she says. We need better laws, policies, and regulations, as well as needing to hold policymakers and corporates to account, because they’re not […]
Read MoreYour city is a scab on the landscape: sidewalks, roads, parking lots, rooftops—the built environment repels water into sewers and then into the environment. Urban planners have been doing it for centuries, treating stormwater as a nuisance to be diverted away as quickly as possible to avoid flooding. Not only is that a waste of […]
Read More
