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5 Mins Read Faced with a lack of regulation and unenthusiastic governments, ingenious activists across Asia are finding localised and creative ways to fight against plastic waste, and winning. Every year, we create 380 million tonnes of plastic worldwide, and the demand for plastic is still on the rise amid rapid development and population growth. On our current […]
4 Mins Read Valentina Giannella and Lucia Esther Maruzzelli, authors of the book “We Are All Greta” and “Green Nation Revolution” offer advice on what everyone can do for the climate movement whilst stuck at home during the pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic has been keeping half of humanity on lockdown. For those of us fortunate enough to do […]
4 Mins Read By: Hannah Thomasy The rapid changes happening in the Arctic Ocean, including increasing freshwater input, could dramatically affect its ability to store carbon. Historically, scientists have believed that the Arctic Ocean will be an important carbon sink in the coming years—ice melt will increase the surface area that’s exposed to the air, facilitating carbon uptake from […]
5 Mins Read By: Kate Wheeling Researchers find that a pulse of volcanic activity spanning several hundred years released as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as anthropogenic emissions projections for the 21st century. Many of Earth’s most severe extinction crises have coincided with some of its largest volcanic events. At the end of the Triassic era (some 202 […]
5 Mins Read By: Judith Lewis Mernit The mishandling of COVID-19 has unfolded just as the response to global warming has — only at a faster clip. Matthew Ballew chooses his words carefully. As a deadly pandemic disables the world’s economies and confines people in their homes (if they have them), he worries about coming off tone-deaf or worse […]
4 Mins Read By: Mark Kaufman The American economy has seriously sputtered during the coronavirus pandemic, but the planet’s relentless warming trend hasn’t. After Earth experienced its second-hottest year in 140 years of record-keeping in 2019, the first few months of this year have either broken historic monthly records, or come close. January 2020 was the warmest January on record. February 2020 was the second hottest such month on record. […]
7 Mins Read By: Evelyn Nieves Already at high risk of disease and early death, workers are especially prone to respiratory illnesses, setting them up for the worst ravages of the coronavirus. Sixteen men tending budding grapes on a farm in the Sacramento Delta hit the fields by sunrise, arriving in packed cars and vans. As Americans shelter […]
5 Mins Read By: Damian Carrington Destruction of wildlife and the climate crisis is hurting humanity, with Covid-19 a ‘clear warning shot’, say experts. Nature is sending us a message with the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis, according to the UN’s environment chief, Inger Andersen. Andersen said humanity was placing too many pressures on the natural […]
4 Mins Read By: Shannon Osaka Scientific warnings are being ignored, misinformation is spreading, and prominent Republicans have said that addressing the problem is either too expensive or too difficult. No, this isn’t climate change: This is the new reality of the novel coronavirus, the deadly pandemic sweeping the planet. Over the past several weeks, as global cases of […]
5 Mins Read By: Dana Nuccitelli Climate solutions are expensive investments in the short run but will yield huge long-term savings, according to new research by Project Drawdown. A respected research group, Project Drawdown, finds that deploying solutions consistent with meeting the Paris climate targets would cost tens of trillions of dollars globally. But crucially, those outlays would also yield […]
6 Mins Read After decades of scientific consensus on the dangers of unabated climate change, the world is now finally waking up to the need to take action. But when it comes to policy-making – implementing climate adaptation, mitigation, resilience and disaster relief measures – the world is struggling to agree on responsibility. We know that climate action […]
5 Mins Read By: Owen Jones No Cobra meetings, no sombre speeches from No 10, yet the consequences of runaway global heating are catastrophic. It is a global emergency that has already killed on a mass scale and threatens to send millions more to early graves. As its effects spread, it could destabilise entire economies and overwhelm poorer […]
4 Mins Read By: Covering Climate Now The same forest destruction that accelerates climate change can also encourage the emergence of diseases such as the coronavirus, Indigenous Peoples’ leaders said March 13 in New York, as they criticized Cargill and other multinational companies for replacing forests with soy, palm and cattle plantations. “The coronavirus is now telling the […]
3 Mins Read By: Jamie Margolin In this op-ed, a Zero Hour co-founder says we should treat both crises like the emergencies they are. You know that gnawing feeling of “oh, God, we’re in the midst of something horrible” you have because of the coronavirus? Are you looking around at this crisis sweeping across the world and feeling helpless because […]
3 Mins Read By: Delilah Friedler A new study breaks down how Lyft and Uber contribute to climate change. For climate-conscious Americans, cars are tough: we can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em. Yet while ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft are reducing reliance on car ownership, they’re hardly solving our problems. According to a report released […]
3 Mins Read A new report by a commission convened by the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, and the medical journal Lancet has called for urgent and dramatic changes to protect children’s health and futures from the climate crisis. In addition to finding that every single country in the world is failing to keep children’s health and futures […]
4 Mins Read By: Jessica Murray Activism can be lonely in rural areas, but social media lets lone children’s voices be amplified. In a remote village in north Norfolk, nine-year-old Amelia Bradbury has been standing alone outside her school gates every Friday for months. Like hundreds of thousands of young people across the world, she is following Greta Thunberg’s […]
9 Mins Read By: Amy Westervelt Some media companies are creating, not just running, misleading climate ads. Chevron has been all over social media recently with an advertising campaign that asks consumers to test how much they know about “clean energy.” Viewers are beckoned to an interactive quiz that turns out not to be interactive at all, simply a vehicle […]
5 Mins Read As Joaquin Phoenix accepted the Academy award for best actor for the 2019 film Joker at the Oscars ceremony, he addressed the crowd with a winning speech that placed a much-needed spotlight on global inequalities. While there is no doubt that Phoenix is not the only figure to raise awareness on issues such as human […]
3 Mins Read Ash and silt will choke underwater ecosystems. By: Doug Johnson As wildfires ravage Australia’s land and forests, so far killing an estimated one billion terrestrial animals, researchers worry marine and freshwater species will become invisible victims. More than 17.1 million hectares of land have burned across the country, with the worst fires currently raging in New […]
5 Mins Read By: Kathleen E. Bachynski As we enter a new decade, headlines from across the world make all too clear that the effects of climate change are not just looming. They’re here, they’re now, and they’re devastating communities on every continent. For example, in Australia, unprecedented fires have emitted roughly 400 million tons of carbon, killed at least 25 people, […]