Author: Ranveer Kumar

The tropical water at the equator is renowned for having the richest diversity of marine life on Earth, with vibrant coral reefs and large aggregations of tunas, sea turtles, manta rays and whale sharks. The number of marine species naturally tapers off as you head towards the poles. Ecologists have assumed this global pattern has remained stable over recent centuries — until now. Our recent study found the ocean around the equator has already become too hot for many species to survive, and that global warming is responsible. In other words, the global pattern is rapidly changing. And as species flee to…

Rich profits from the prized nut have failed to benefit those finding them. Now cooperatives hope to shake up the system On a steamy March morning, Edivan Kaxarari walks with a few other villagers in single file down a trail in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil’s Rondônia state, near the border with Bolivia. His sister-in-law Cleiciana carries her 11-month-old son in one arm and a rifle in the other, and his brother Edson clears the path ahead with a machete. It is hunting season for the seeds of the Amazonian Brazil nut tree. Brazil nuts have never been successfully cultivated at scale on farms,…

Ten species have been left in “regulatory purgatory,” according to the lawsuit.   The Biden administration is continuing to field lawsuits filed over Endangered Species Act decisions made by the Trump administration. The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Thursday over its failure to provide protections under the Endangered Species Act for 10 species “it admitted needed them,” according to the organization. Among the species are the monarch butterfly, which in December the Trump administration decided that adding it to the list of threatened species was “warranted but precluded.” This meant that while the monarch…

(Bloomberg) –The White House is considering a pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions by 50% or more by the end of the decade, according to people familiar with the deliberations, a target that would nearly double the country’s previous commitment and require dramatic changes in the power, transportation and other sectors. The emissions-reduction goal, which is still being developed and subject to change, is part of a White House push to encourage worldwide action to keep average global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels, according to the people. The administration of President…

Ángel León made his name serving innovative seafood. But then he discovered something in the seagrass that could transform our understanding of the sea itself – as a vast garden Growing up in southern Spain, Ángel León paid little attention to the meadows of seagrass that fringed the turquoise waters near his home, their slender blades grazing him as he swam in the Bay of Cádiz. It was only decades later – as he was fast becoming known as one of the country’s most innovative chefs – that he noticed something he had missed in previous encounters with Zostera marina: a clutch…

Globally, only one in 50 new cars were fully electric in 2020, and one in 14 in the UK. Sounds impressive, but even if all new cars were electric now, it would still take 15-20 years to replace the world’s fossil fuel car fleet. The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will not feed in fast enough to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years. Tackling the climate and air pollution crises requires curbing all motorised transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible. Focusing solely on electric vehicles is slowing down the race to zero emissions.…

‘Unimaginable amounts’ of water will flow into oceans if that temperature rise occurs and ice buffers vanish, warn UK scientists More than a third of the vast floating platforms of ice surrounding Antarctica could be at risk of collapsing and releasing “unimaginable amounts” of water into the sea if global temperatures reach 4C above pre-industrial levels, UK scientists say. Researchers from the University of Reading said that limiting the temperature rise to 2C could halve the area at risk and avoid a drastic rise in sea levels. The findings, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggest that 4C warming could leave…

The film gets some things wrong, but it exposes the grim ecological destruction of the Earth’s oceans When the BBC made a film about the crisis in our oceans, it somehow managed to avoid naming the greatest cause of their ecological destruction: the fishing industry. The only significant sequence on fishing in 2017’s Blue Planet II was a heartwarming story about how kind Norwegian herring boats are to orcas. It presented industrial fishing not as the greatest threat to sealife, but as its saviour. It’s as if you were to make a film about climate breakdown without revealing the role of fossil fuel…

The vaccine stimulated a set of one-in-a-million immune cells. A new vaccine for HIV is raising excitement after its first in-human trials showed 97% success at stimulating a rare set of immune cells that play a key role in fighting the virus. The vaccine approach is a new attempt to head off the fast-mutating human immunodeficiency virus, which has eluded vaccines in the past because it attacks part of the immune system directly and is good at evading other immune defenses. Developed by scientists at Scripps Research in San Diego and the nonprofit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the vaccine is in Phase I…

It’s become so common, perhaps you’ve stopped noticing how often your local weather forecast is “above normal.” It’s noted during extreme heat in the summer, when mild temperatures persist through the winter, or when nights don’t cool down like they used to. But on May 4, the hotter Earth will officially become the new normal. That’s when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) releases its once-a-decade update to “climate normals.” They are the 30-year averages for temperature and precipitation that local meteorologists rely on as the baseline for their forecasts. To be sure, some updates will be minuscule. But the…