Category: 9. Environment
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Costs of natural disasters set to increase with continued rise in CO2 and global temperature
Number of Billion Dollar Disasters in the US between 1980 and 2021 vs change in Global Temperature. Credit: The Journal of Climate Change and Health (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.joclim.2022.100201 Scientists have long predicted that global climate change could fuel an increase in the frequency and severity of natural disasters including hurricanes, heatwaves and cold snaps, droughts and…
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Bacteria resistant to ‘last resort’ antibiotic found in LA County wastewater
Wastewater treatment facility. Credit: Hasan Zulic Bacteria that render colistin, a “last resort” antibiotic, ineffective are lurking in SoCal’s wastewater. While bacteria resistant to colistin have been found elsewhere in the world, this marks the first detection in Los Angeles wastewater. The bacteria and associated genes that provide resistance to colistin were discovered at the…
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In rush to fight climate change, cities coordinate to battle heat with trees
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain From Seattle to Palm Beach, Florida, city leaders agree that urban areas need more trees to alleviate the effects of climate change. Amid the growing attention to tree canopy—and an infusion of federal funding—more than a dozen cities are convening to share ideas and plan the urban forests of the future.…
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Acres of LA County sewage sludge threaten to contaminate Tulare Lake floodwaters
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Here at the western edge of the Tulare Lake Basin dwells a smelly industrial site the size of 150 football fields. Roughly eight times a day, its operations are replenished with a truckload of human waste from the residents of Los Angeles County. Since 2016, the Tulare Lake Compost facility has…
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Methane big part of ‘alarming’ rise in planet-warming gases
A person picks through trash for reusable items as a fire rages at the Bhalswa landfill in New Delhi, April 27, 2022. Rising methane levels in the atmosphere in 2022 again played a big part in an overall increase in the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, according to the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric…
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French study warns of pesticide traces in water
Credit: CC0 Public Domain France’s public health watchdog said Thursday mass testing of drinking water revealed traces from a banned pesticide in half the samples, showing how potentially harmful chemicals persist in the environment. The National Agency for Food, Environment and Workplace Security (ANSES) began a testing regime in 2019 to identify around 200 complex…
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Weaving Indigenous and western ways of knowing can help Canada achieve its biodiversity goals, say researchers
Gathering at a scientific field station for a Water Ceremony led by the Women’s Council of Grand Council Treaty #3. Credit: IISD-Experimental Lakes Area, Author provided The health of wildlife in Canada is socially, culturally and economically important to Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. But in this time of heightened ecological threats, exacerbated by a dizzying…
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Often overlooked, ‘residual emissions’ are critical to fighting climate change
Sectoral breakdowns of residual emissions at mid-century in the most ambitious scenarios. Data are for Annex I countries that featured projections with quantified sectoral breakdowns. Year depicted is 2050 for all countries besides Sweden, which has projections for 2045 when it reaches net zero. Finland has a target of net zero at 2035 but includes…
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US forests face an unclear future with climate change
A stressed forest in Colorado. Credit: William Anderegg When you walk through a forest, you are surrounded by carbon. Every branch and every leaf, every inch of trunk and every tendril of unseen root contains carbon pulled from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. And as long as it stays stored away inside that forest, it’s not…
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National corridor project aims to save Chile’s endangered huemul deer
Endemic to Chile and Argentina, the huemul deer (Hippocamelus bisulcus) is an endangered species, threatened by habitat loss, poaching, diseases and climate change. With only about 1,500 individuals still left in the wild, the huemul population has been reduced to only a small fraction (as little as 1%) of what it once was. In Chile,…