Great Barrier Reef outlook now 'very poor', Australian government review says

Five-yearly report says climate change is escalating the threat and window of opportunity for action is now

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391-Year-Old Bonsai Tree Survived Hiroshima Bombings and Keeps Growing

This Hiroshima bonsai tree, now in the U.S. National Arboretum, survived the atomic bomb in 1945, but its history was only revealed in 2001.

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India’s Biggest Online Retailer Will Stop Using Throwaway Plastic Packaging

India's biggest online retailer is giving itself less than two years to stop using single-use plastic when shipping its products. Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce company owned by Walmart, said Thursday it would eliminate single-use plastic in packaging by March 2021. It also committed to "move towards 100% recycled plastic consumption" in its supply chain by the same date.

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Florida declares emergency as state braces for Hurricane Dorian

President Trump declared a state of emergency in Florida on Friday, preemptively easing federal recovery efforts expected for Hurricane Dorian.

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The Frightening Spread of Toxic Algae

Climate change is accelerating the spread of lethal algal blooms in American waterways—with devastating results for humans and animals alike.

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Russia pushing 'unsuitable' nuclear power in Africa, critics claim

Moscow aiming to win influence by wooing African states with nuclear energy

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How to keep buildings cool without air conditioning – according to an expert in sustainable design

Air conditioning requires energy, and contributes to global warming – here are five ways of cooling which won't cost the planet.

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Leonardo DiCaprio's Earth Alliance just pledged $7 million to preserve the Amazon

The Earth Alliance environmental foundation, backed by Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, has pledged more than $7 million in aid to help repair the fire-ravaged Amazon.

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Bernie Sanders Proposes Huge Renewables Build-Out and Publicly Owned Power

Senator Bernie Sanders, a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidacy, on Thursday released his long-awaited climate platform. The document adopts the "Green New Deal" moniker and calls for a climate and justice-centered revolution “from the Oval Office to the streets.”

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All eyes are on the Amazon fires in Brazil, but Bolivia is burning too

All eyes are on Brazil, as the fires in the Amazon continue to burn. But Bolivia is on fire too — and one activist tells us it has left 1.5 million hectares in tatters, 500 animal species in trouble, and firefighters stretched for resources.

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Scientists successfully fertilize northern white rhino eggs

Researchers have successfully fertilized several northern white rhino eggs with the sperm of the last two bulls, Suni and Saut, both now deceased.

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The World’s Forests Will Collapse If We Don’t Learn To Say ‘No’

An alarming study has shown that the world’s forests are not only disappearing rapidly but that areas of “core forest” — remote interior areas critical for disturbance-sensitive wildlife and ecological processes — are vanishing even faster. Core forests are disappearing because a tsunami of new roads, dams, power lines, pipelines and other infrastructure is rapidly slicing into the world’s last wild places, opening them up like a flayed fish to deforestation, fragmentation, poaching and other destructive activities.

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Plants are going extinct up to 350 times faster than the historical norm

Human-driven land clearing and climate change are sending plants extinct at a rapid rate, risking a devastating biodiversity crash.

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Canada will ban 'harmful' single-use plastics as early as 2021

Justin Trudeau said his government is drawing inspiration from EU in planning ban on water bottles, plastic bags and straws

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Why climate change is so hard to tackle: Our stubborn energy system

Our dependence on fossil fuels has remained about the same for 30 years.

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Amazon fires are destructive, but they aren't depleting Earth's oxygen supply

If the Amazon rainforest functions as our planet's lungs, what do raging wildfires threaten? An atmospheric scientist explains why the fires, though devastating, won't suffocate life on Earth.

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Indonesia picks site for new capital as Jakarta sinks

A jungle-covered area on the east of Borneo island is set to be transformed into Indonesia's new capital city, the country's President Joko Widodo has announced.

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Insect-based food 'better for pets than top steak'

Pet owners are being urged by vets to feed their dogs and cats on a diet rich in insects. The British Veterinary Association (BVA) says some insect-based foods may be better for pets than prime steak. The vets expect resistance from some pet lovers, but they say surveys suggest many would accept insect-based food.

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Cuba drastically reforms fishing laws to protect coral reef, sharks and rays

Cuba has introduced sweeping reforms of its fishing laws in a move seen as smoothing the way for possible collaboration with the US on protecting their shared ocean, despite Donald Trump’s policy of reversing a thaw in relations.

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Crows love cheeseburgers. And now they’re getting high cholesterol.

But it’s not clear that eating ‘people food’ is necessarily bad for urban birds.

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Nestlé plan to take 1.1m gallons of water a day from natural springs sparks outcry

Opponents fighting to stop the project say the fragile river cannot sustain such a large draw

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Summer on the Swollen Great Lakes

The lakes rose this year to levels not seen in decades. A 1,234-mile drive around one of them revealed what all that water has left behind — vanishing beaches, closed roads, new islands.

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India Develops the World's First Iron-ion Battery

A research team from India's IIT (Institute of Technology) Madras has officially developed the world's first iron-ion battery.

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A Trailblazing Plan to Fight California Wildfires

Throughout the twentieth century, federal policy focussed on putting out fires as quickly as possible, but preventing megafires requires a different approach.

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Dogs Are Doggos: An Internet Language Built Around Love For The Puppers

DoggoLingo is a rising language on the Internet that's full of cutesy suffixes and onomatopoeias. It might even change the way you talk to your pet.

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Your heart’s best friend: Dog ownership associated with better cardiovascular health

Owning a pet may help maintain a healthy heart, especially if that pet is a dog.

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Scientists say sustainable forestry organizations should lift ban on biotech trees

Look at anything made from trees—a ream of paper, a cardboard box, lumber—and it's probably stamped with the logo of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or an equivalent organization. These nonprofits certify that forests are managed sustainably, and one common requirement is no genetically modified (GM) trees. But that ban hinders research and should change, researchers say in today's issue of Science. The technology, they argue, has important potential to remedy many pressing problems facing forests.

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Heat stress that killed thousands of salmon in Alaska is a sign of things to come, scientist warns

Scientists believe heat stress killed thousands of salmon in an Alaskan river last month. From July 7 to 11, communities along the Koyukuk River experienced sustained air temperatures of over 30 C, well above the seasonal average highs of less than 20 C. Shortly after the heat wave, locals began reporting an unusual number of dead chum salmon washing up on the banks of the river.

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Can you cool a house without air conditioning?

As summer temperatures rise, more buildings are installing energy-hungry air conditioners – a major contributor to climate change. But are there other ways to cool buildings down?

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Archeology site sheds light on Aboriginal Australians 50,000 years ago

A site unearthed in the Kimberly region of Western Australia offers glimpses into First Nations life before and after the Ice Age.

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$10M first-of-its-kind geothermal pilot project underway in Alberta

A $10-million geothermal project under construction in central Alberta is being hailed as a "game-changer" because it doesn't need to use fracking or water and creates no greenhouse gas emissions. Alberta Infrastructure Minister Prasad Panda called the pilot project a "game-changer" after visiting its site near Rocky Mountain House on Wednesday.

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More U.S. Towns Are Feeling The Pinch As Recycling Becomes Costlier

When curbside recycling caught on in the 1970s, it was mostly about cans, glass, cardboard and paper. That's how Donald Sanderson remembers it. Sanderson is 90 years old, an earnest man with a ready smile. Every Thursday in Woodbury, N.J., where he lives, he hauls a big blue recycling bin out to the curb. Recycling is close to his heart. "I guess you could say I'm the father of recycling," he says. "I don't know if that's good or bad."

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Traces of new dark matter candidate could be found in crystals deep inside the Earth

Although it outnumbers regular matter by a ratio of five to one, dark matter is frustratingly elusive. Many experiments have been and are being run to try to hunt down different types of candidate particles, but so far no direct trace has been found of any of them. Now, researchers from Max Planck have proposed a new hypothetical particle that might be behind dark matter – the superheavy gravitino – and outlined just how we might find them.

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The World's Largest Electric Vehicle Is a Dump Truck

While electric vehicles are quickly proliferating throughout the world, most electric engines are still relegated to smaller vehicles. The serious work, some argue, is still done by gas guzzling diesel engines. But then there's the Elekto Dumper—the world's largest EV—which flouts the rule that EVs can't handle serious work.

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Broccoli Is Dying. Corn Is Toxic. Long Live Microbiomes!

As food writer Mark Bittman recently remarked, since food is defined as “a substance that provides nutrition and promotes growth” and poison is “a substance that promotes illness,” then “much of what is produced by industrial agriculture is, quite literally, not food but poison.” Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. Eliminating pesticides and transitioning to organic regenerative farming can get us back on track to nutritious food, restore microbiomes and protect our health. Let’s break all this down, and then talk solutions.

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The Amazon is burning and smoke from the fires can be seen from space

Smoke from record wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest blanketed São Paulo on Monday and could be seen from space.

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Big Beef Says Eating More Meat Can Save the Planet. That's Bullshit.

North American ranchers and lobbyists are pushing back against a United Nations’ report pointing the finger at the global North’s huge appetite for meat and dairy for fueling climate change. But science shows that raising cows sustainably, with a low or carbon-neutral footprint, is the exception, not the rule.

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New artificial compound eye could improve 3-D object tracking

If you've ever tried to swat a fly, you know that insects react to movement extremely quickly. A newly created biologically inspired compound eye is helping scientists understand how insects use their compound eyes to sense an object and its trajectory with such speed. The compound eye could also be used with a camera to create 3-D location systems for robots, self-driving cars and unmanned aerial vehicles.

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‘Ethical’ eggs could save male chicks from mass slaughter

Scientists find ways to sex chicks before they hatch

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Mega-Trees Are the New Weapon Against Climate Change

Scientists caution that we probably can’t “plant our way out” of the climate crisis, but growing big trees and keeping them around is an important piece of the puzzle.

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California approves solar+school buses

California regulators have approved utility an SDG&E proposal to install 3,000 to 6,000 medium and heavy vehicle charging stations, as well, a vehicle to grid pilot where 10 school buses will be tested for use as grid assets.

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Humans migrated to Mongolia much earlier than previously believed

Stone tools uncovered in Mongolia by an international team of archaeologists indicate that modern humans traveled across the Eurasian steppe about 45,000 years ago, according to a new University of California, Davis, study. The date is about 10,000 years earlier than archaeologists previously believed.

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Virgin plastic pellets are the biggest pollution disaster you’ve never heard of

Some 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a township adjacent to a state forest, oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell is building a sprawling new plant to support what it sees as the future of its business: making millions of tons of new, virgin plastic.

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Archaeologists find richest cache of ancient mind-altering drugs in South America

When José Capriles arrived in 2008 at the Cueva del Chileno rock shelter, nestled on the western slopes of Bolivia’s Andes, he didn’t know what he would find within.

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‘It’s All Driven by Salmon:’ The Push to Protect the Pitt River

The Coquitlam area river and its tributaries are under attack. But advocates are working to repair the damage.

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Bill Nye the Science Guy: ‘we need sweeping changes’

Legendary scientist, Bill Nye the Science Guy joins The Beat to discuss July being the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. Nye says Trump’s ‘bluster’ when it comes to climate change is ‘very troubling.’ Nye criticizes Trump’s administration, saying America should be ‘the world leader’ in addressing climate change, but instead is ‘taking extraordinary steps in the wrong direction.’

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The water is so hot in Alaska it's killing large numbers of salmon

Alaska has been in the throes of an unprecedented heat wave this summer, and the heat stress is killing salmon in large numbers.

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Fracking may be a bigger climate problem than we thought

The mysterious recent spike in methane emissions? It just might be US fracking.

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A Weather Station Above the Arctic Circle Hit 94.6 Degrees Fahrenheit

Amid the hottest month in recorded history, some records still stand out as absolutely jaw dropping. That’s definitely true of a measurement made in the Arctic this July.

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11 million new trees to be planted in England by water companies

'The water sector is committed to fighting climate change through becoming carbon-neutral by 2030'

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