14/10/2021 Scientists warn against global warming effect of hydrogen leaks: last year, the European Commission presented a hydrogen strategy, saying that clean hydrogen could meet 24% of the world’s energy demand by 2050 and help decarbonise hard-to-abate industrial sectors like steel and chemicals. Hydrogen only releases water vapour when burned, prompting policymakers to put their hopes into the new gas as a way of tackling climate change. But hydrogen itself is an indirect contributor to global warming, said Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a US-based non-profit group.
04/10/2021 Two years of house arrest and now six months in prison: lawyer Steven Donziger was convicted on Friday October 1 for a minor offense of contempt of court. With her decision, the American judge Loretta Preska gives satisfaction to the oil company Chevron and to the judge Lewis Kaplan. Attorney Kaplan is a former tobacco industry attorney known for his pro-Chevron statements and interests. Attorneys Kaplan and Preska have ties to the Federalist Society, an ultra-conservative and libertarian organization, which Senator Sheldon Whitehouse explains “is the relay of powerful interests, which do not simply seek to ‘reorganize’ the justice system, but to acquire control for the benefit of their interests. “
03/10/2021 Supergroups of humpback whales observed near South Africa coast, publications about this exceptional behavior have multiplied and supergroups have been observed near Australia. “It appears to be due to the growth in the humpback whale population,” says Dave Cade. The Stanford University biologist earlier this year published a study on the amount of food and vocalizations humpback whales emit in these supergroups.
30/09/2021 Australia’s Daintree – the world’s oldest tropical rainforest – has been returned to its Aboriginal custodians in a historic deal. The Unesco World Heritage site is over 180 million years old and has been home to generations of Aboriginal people. The Eastern Kuku Yalanji people will now manage the national park with Queensland’s state government.
30/09/2021 In September, food prices rose 33% worldwide compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. We are now reaching levels not seen since 2011. The causes of this record increase are well known: high transport prices, natural disasters having affected harvests, shortage of labor…
30/09/2021 80 kilometers North of Timbuktu, the region of Lake Faguibine was previously known for the richness of its environment. Wood, animals, fish, cereals were exported throughout the country, as far as Algeria, Mauritania and the Ivory Coast. But since the 1970s, long episodes of drought have gradually transformed the lake into sand dunes. The gradual withdrawal of the waters has caused the cessation of fishing and the fall of pastoral and agricultural activities. The sand swallows up the dwellings in the villages of Bilal Bancor, Bintagoungou and Mbouna.This scarcity of land and pastures is also fueling persistent disputes between farmers and herders. Mahamadou Ousmane, farmer, observes: “Between pastoralists and farmers, there is not a day without conflict. Because the space is small, everyone wants to use it. This is the reason for the tensions. “
23/09/2021 Hundreds of civil society groups, academics and social movements are boycotting the first UN global food summit amid growing anger that the agenda has been hijacked by an opaque web of corporate interests.
22/09/2021 Infants have more microplastics in their faeces than adults, a study has found. Human exposure to microplastics is a possible health concern, but little is known about its extent. In a small study, researchers from New York University School of Medicine discovered that infants have 10 to 20 times higher microplastic concentrations in their stool than adults, specifically when it comes to PET (polyethylene terephthalate) microplastics. These are used mainly in the production of textile fibres, water bottles and mobile phone cases, for example.
22/09/2021 Russia has endured its worst forest fire season in the country’s modern history, according to recent data from the Russian Forestry Agency analysed by Greenpeace. Analysis shows over 18.16m hectares were destroyed in 2021, an absolute record since satellite monitoring began
17/09/2021 After more than two years of investigations, the Romanian NGO Agent Green published a report in mid-August denouncing Ikea’s management of its 50,000 hectares of forests in Romania. According to her, clear cuts at the foot of the Carpathians are causing landslides that risk endangering the primary forest and the inhabitants.
15/09/2021 On September 15, 2021, Greenpeace celebrates its 50th anniversary. From its first action in 1971 through the fight against climate change, nuclear power and GMOs, the NGO has worked to raise awareness around the world. Back in pictures on emblematic actions.
14/09/2021 Global Witness annual report says 2020 sets new record for human rights defenders murdered: 227 environmental activists, including 23 women, were killed.
01/09/2021 At least 30% of the world’s tree species face extinction in the wild, according to a new assessment. They range from well-known oaks and magnolias to tropical timber trees. Experts say 17,500 tree species are at risk – twice the number of threatened mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles combined.
01/09/2021 Emaciated seabirds are turning up dead on Western Alaska beaches for fifth straight summer.
31/08/2021 Monsoon floods in India: experts say the annual floods are getting worse because of climate change. Authorities released water at one dam, fearing the walls would collapse. Tens of thousands of people are stuck in villages cut off by the floods and the Assam governments said more than 400,000 had been moved to higher ground.
31/08/2021 [Glacier in the Rockies, Canada] has retreated horizontally 200 metres in the last year, 10 times faster than the last half century of retreat,” Pomeroy said, adding he is “stunned and horrified.”
28/08/2021 Fires rage in Bolivia’s Chiquitania region.
27/08/2021 The manatee population off the coasts of Florida had been dying off at an ‘unprecedented rate’, and officials say this could be a result of their collapsing ecosystem.
26/08/2021 A controversial 933 km-long line planned to run through the Amazon rainforest, Brazil’s Grain Railway, is one of a package of railway infrastructure projects which the UK-based Climate Bonds Initiative is considering for green certification. The Ferrogrão, as it is known locally, will run north from Sinop in the heart of the soy- and maize-growing state of Mato Grosso to the port of Miritituba on the Tapajos river, an Amazon tributary. The chosen route runs close to indigenous areas of the Munduruku, Kayapo and Kayabi peoples, and cuts through the Jamanxim national park, a protected area. To permit this route the Brazilian government introduced a law to reduce the park limits, but this has been suspended by the Supreme Court.
26/08/2021 Canada, the world’s biggest canola grower and a major wheat producer, forecasts a 26% drop in supplies of its main crops as drought ravages output and inventories shrink.
25/08/2021 Last year was the warmest on record across Europe, breaking the previous high mark by a considerable distance, say scientists.Temperatures across the region were more than 1.9C above the long-term average between 1981 and 2010.
22/08/2021 In politically polarized Argentina, progressive Peronists see Nordelta as the enclave of an upper class eager to exclude common people – and with tongue only partly in cheek, some have portrayed the capybaras as a rodent vanguard of the class struggle. “My total support for the Peronist carpinchos of Nordelta recovering
their habitat,” tweeted one internet wag.
22/08/2021 Brazil is experiencing the worst drought in its history. As expected, the level of precipitation is lower than the average normally observed in this season. 40% of the national territory suffers in August from lack of rain and in some regions of the states of Minas Gerais and São Paulo, the drought is classified by the National Center for Monitoring and Warning of Natural Disasters (Cemaden) at an “exceptional” level, the highest. A nature article states that Mexico and Brazil are experiencing one of the worst water crises in almost a century.
20/08/2021 Rain falls on peak of Greenland ice cap for first time on record. Precipitation was so unexpected, scientists had no gauges to measure it, and is stark sign of climate crisis. Scientists say blazes in Siberia have produced 800 megatons of carbon dioxide since early June, nearly double a record set just last year
18/08/2021 Swedish mountain shrinks by two metres in a year as glacier melts. Researchers say climate change is driving the melting, which has seen Kebnekaise lose more than 20 metres in height since the mid-1990s
14/08/2021 As a symbol of the 500-year anniversary of the fall of the Mexica Empire under Spanish troops, a group of Zapatistas demonstrated in Madrid on Friday to say that “they have never been conquered.” Advertisements This August 13, just five centuries after Mexico was conquered, a group of Zapatistas and various collectives organized a demonstration at Puerta del Sol in the Spanish capital. They joined their voices to sing slogans of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), a Mexican anti-colonial movement that from its beginnings in 1994 until 2006 was military; but since then has put down his arms to bet on political ideas.
06/08/2021 Signs of Gulf Stream collapse seen by scientists. A major shift in the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic currents would be what some scientists call a tipping point. If it fails, cascading consequences are expected. And not only on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, the ocean in which these currents operate: this could have an impact on other key points on the planet, such as the Amazon rainforest or the monsoon. However, a team of scientists observed that we are much closer to this threshold than we thought.
03/08/2021 Macaques at Japan reserve get first alpha female in 70-year history. Yakei took top spot after roughing up Sanchu, the alpha male who had been leader of ‘troop B’ on the island of Kyushu for five years
19/07/2021 A monkey researcher fights to protect threatened and endangered primates. Andie Ang helps to build rope bridges in Singapore and is working to launch primate exchanges with other nations to keep imperilled species safe.
06/07/2021 As climate warms, a rearrangement of world’s plant life looms
05/07/2021 Chile: autochtone Mapuche elected president of constituent assembly. “This is the first time that citizens have been able to elect a body to write” a Constitution, Claudio Fuentes, a professor at Diego Portales University (UDP), told AFP. This assembly, which will work on the new Basic Law for a minimum of nine months, a maximum of twelve, is also egalitarian. At the end of the vote on 15th and 16th May, the new Constituents appeared to be very heterogeneous. Independent candidates represent 40% of those elected, to the detriment of the lists put together by the traditional parties. For many analysts, this Constituent Assembly “resembles real Chile”, with environmental activists, community leaders, lawyers, professors, journalists, economists, but also housewives.
02/07/2021 41 million people in 43 countries are currently on the brink of famine, up from 27 million in 2019.
02/07/2021 Wales puts an end to all new road projects
“We need to stop spending money on projects that encourage more people to drive, and spend more money to maintain our roads and invest in real alternatives that give people meaningful choice.”
01/07/2021 Video: Icebergs Alive – Iceberg flux 1976-2019
24/06/2021 Climate-change induced starvation of hundred of thousands in Madagascar. The U.N. World Food Program says southern Madagascar is in the throes of back-to-back droughts that are pushing 400,000 people toward starvation, and have already caused deaths from severe hunger.
23/06/2021 Whatever the pace of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the devastating impacts of global warming on nature and the humanity that depends on it will accelerate, assure hundreds of scientists attached to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. climate change (IPCC).
It will become painfully palpable long before 2050. “Life on Earth can recover from major climate change by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems,” the 137-page technical summary notes. Humanity cannot. ” The draft report drafted by the IPCC oscillates between an apocalyptic tone and the hope offered to men to change their destiny with immediate and drastic measures. The comprehensive 4,000-page evaluation report, much more alarmist than the previous one from 2014.
23/06/2021 To face with climate change, “genetic diversity of plants” more efficient than GMOs says american genetist Randall Wisser.
22/06/2021 The Artic is melting dangerously fast: Images here
19/06/2021 The Goldman Foundation has named the six 2021 recipients of its Environmental Advocacy Award, each of whom has contributed in their own country and in their own way to defending living environments and their future.
17/06/2021 Researchers have recently found that several long-lasting human-made contaminants have been building up in Arctic lakes, polar bears and ringed seals and other wildlife. These contaminants belong to a family of chemicals called polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and are used in food packaging, waterproof clothing and firefighting foams. The true number of PFAS that exist is hard to pin down, but estimates suggest there are more than 4,700 types, as industry continues to make new ones.
10/06/2021 Read the IPBS report on “Biodiversity and Climate Change”.
02/06/2021 Sri Lanka faces an environmental disaster as a ship full of chemicals starts sinking. The ship, the X-Press Pearl, was carrying 1,486 containers. Eighty-one of those were dangerous goods containers, including 25 tons of nitric acid. At least one container has leaked nitric acid.
01/06/2021 Worrying levels of mercury have been observed in rivers and fjords from Greenland’s glacial melting waters, according to a recent study. A toxic metal that accumulates in wildlife and indigenous peoples’ organisms.
31/05/2021 Here, we use empirical data from 732 locations in 43 countries to estimate the mortality burdens associated with the additional heat exposure that has resulted from recent human-induced warming, during the period 1991–2018. Across all study countries, we find that 37.0% (range 20.5–76.3%) of warm-season heat-related deaths can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change and that increased mortality is evident on every continent
29/05/2021 Remains of 215 indigenous children found at former residential school in Canada. A report found more than 4,100 children died while attending residential school. The deaths of the 215 children buried in the grounds of what was once Canada’s largest residential school are believed to not have been included in that figure and appear to have been undocumented until the discovery.
29/05/2021 Melting ice in the Arctic Ocean is causing cold and snow waves in Western Europe, according to a recent scientific study. Because without pack ice, the water evaporates and the moisture-laden air travels.
28/05/2021 In many villages in France, people have intensified the struggle to protect trees.
22/05/2021 20 companies produce 55% of the world’s plastic waste
18/05/2021 In Albania, farmers enthusiastically grow a plant that was once considered undesirable. Because by drawing heavy metals like nickel, the Alysson of the walls, “hyperaccumulator”, cleans the land. The experiment is carried out by local and French scientists.
17/05/2021 Scientists say ice equivalent to 1-2 metres of sea level rise is probably already doomed to melt. Rising temperatures caused by the climate crisis have already seen trillions of tonnes of Greenland’s ice pour into the ocean. Melting its ice sheet completely would eventually raise global sea level by 7 meters.
16/05/2021 An early heat wave has passed through several parts of Russia, causing forest fires. Russia is one of the countries most affected by fires resulting from climate change.
04/05/2021 Since the military coup in Burma on February 1, pressure has been mounting on the Total group. And for good reason: the French oil company has been operating a gas field off the Burmese coast since 1998. Pro-democracy activists are asking foreign groups, in particular Total and the American Chevron, to suspend their activities to stop providing financial support to the junta – which is defended by Total CEO Patrick Pouyanné, who simply claims to be fulfill its obligations to the Burmese state. Internal documents, to which Le Monde had access, tell another side of the story. They shed light on the financial package around the 346 km submarine gas pipeline that connects the Yadana field to Thailand. This pipe doesn’t just carry gas: it is the heart of a system where hundreds of millions of dollars from gas sales are diverted from Burmese state coffers to the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) , a public company with opaque management, controlled by the military.
03/05/2021 The population of Australia’s only unique seal has fallen by more than 60% in just four decades, with experts worried about the fate of the species, according to a study of the number of pups born at breeding sites.
30/04/2021 Brazilian Amazon released more carbon than it absorbed over past 10 years. International team of researchers also found that deforestation rose nearly four-fold in 2019
11/04/2021 Diclofenac was approved in Spain and Italy despite being banned in Asia after it had wiped out millions of birds. The anti-inflammatory agent diclofenac has already been banned in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh after it was found to kill vultures that ate the carcasses of cattle treated with the drug. Tens of millions of vultures are believed to have died in this way with some species declining by a staggering 99.9% in parts of south Asia.
08/04/2021 A new study is shedding light on just how much ice could be lost around Antarctica if the international community fails to urgently rein in planet-heating emissions. The study, published Thursday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that over a third of the area of all Antarctic ice shelves — including 67% of area on the Antarctic Peninsula — could be at risk of collapsing if global temperatures soar to 4°C above pre-industrial levels.
07/04/2021 Greenland: Left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit party wins election. The electoral victory is setback for mining companies eager to push ahead with the extraction of rare earth metals under the Arctic island.
07/04/2021 As climate change melts sea ice earlier in the year, polar bears have begun to hunt for meals on land, like bird eggs. They’re not very good at it, a new drone-based study reveals. That could be another bad omen for the bears’ ability to survive a changing world, scientists say.
07/04/2021 Despite pandemic shutdowns, carbon dioxide and methane surged in 2020. Carbon dioxide levels are now higher than at anytime in the past 3.6 million years.
06/04/2021 The growing energy consumption and associated carbon emission of Bitcoin mining could potentially undermine global sustainable efforts. By investigating carbon emission flows of Bitcoin blockchain operation in China with a simulation-based Bitcoin blockchain carbon emission model, we find that without any policy interventions, the annual energy consumption of the Bitcoin blockchain in China is expected to peak in 2024 at 296.59 Twh and generate 130.50 million metric tons of carbon emission correspondingly. Internationally, this emission output would exceed the total annualized greenhouse gas emission output of the Czech Republic and Qatar. In French.
05/04/2021 Using the Global Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), researchers studied the latitudinal position of 48,661 species between 1955 and 2015, representing nearly 20% of all marine species identified. “We found a one-third decrease in all species at the equator,” one of the study’s authors, Mark Costello, a researcher at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, told Reporterre. The decline is particularly significant for pelagic species, which live in waters close to the surface and are more mobile than those living in the depths.
26/03/2021 African elephants are officially threatened with extinction. In the savannah, their population has declined by at least 60% in fifty years, and in forests by more than 86% in thirty-one years, due to poaching and habitat loss.
25/03/2021 Since then, the company has continued to operate. According to the NGO Justice for Myanmar, Total paid more than $229 million in taxes to the Burmese state in 2019, including $51 million to the Ministry of Finance and $178.6 million to the military-controlled Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).
24/03/2021 Tens of thousands of farmers are camped out at the gates of New Delhi to protest laws that put them at the mercy of large agribusiness groups. More than 110 days after the start of the campement, nothing has changed, and the peasant movement has become the longest in the country since its independence.
23/03/2021 A Honduran Indigenous activist who helped led a fight against the construction of a dam has been killed. Cerros Escalante led a local group called “Communities United,” which was active in hamlets near the Rio Ulúa and which opposed the El Tornillito hydroelectric dam.
17/03/2021 Bottom trawling releases as much carbon as air travel, landmark study finds : Bottom trawling, a widespread practice in which heavy nets are dragged along the seabed, pumps out 1 gigaton of carbon every year, says the study written by 26 marine biologists, climate experts and economists and published in Nature on Wednesday.
17/03/2021 Humanity’s management of fresh water even has an effect on sea level rise, says Florence Habets: “The creation of artificial lakes has significantly reduced the rise in ocean levels. On the other hand, with the pumping of groundwater, water that had been stored for a long time and then released, and which therefore contributed to the rise of the seas levels”. Thus, the anthropoization of global water stocks is part of a broader movement to artificialize the water cycle.
17/03/2021 Sperm whales in 19th century shared ship attack information, study found
15/03/2021 Most polar bears to disappear by 2100, study predicts
15/03/2021 The series of severe droughts and heatwaves in Europe since 2014 is the most extreme for more than 2,000 years, research suggests.
The study analysed tree rings dating as far back as the Roman empire to create the longest such record to date. The scientists said global heating was the most probable cause of the recent rise in extreme heat.
11/03/2021
The animals face a grim future as habitat loss is exacerbated by the pandemic’s impact on tourism, which is pushing landowners to sell off areas for development, and a growing trend towards a sedentary lifestyle among the pastoralist Maasai people, says the new 10-year management plan. Increased and unregulated grazing in the Amboseli national park is destroying plant and animal diversity, aggravating conflicts between humans and wildlife and intensifying the negative effects of climate crisis with flooding and drought.
10/03/2021 Trees lost to drought and wildfires are not returning. Climate change is taking a toll on the world’s forests – and radically changing the environment before our eyes
10/03/2021 Over the past 15 years, several studies have shown the continued presence of chemical and radioactive elements in the environment of Narbonnais, France. Worse, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) has reported abnormally high lung cancer mortality in the city of Narbonne since 2004.
09/03/2021 The actual level of radioactivity during the nuclear tests in Polynesia has been underestimated, LeMonde published, Disclose investigation
02/03/2021 Gulf Stream ocean current at its lowest point in 1,000 years. Atlantic ocean circulation, one of the components of the Gulf Stream, has decreased by 15% in recent decades, probably due to global warming.
23/02/2021 More than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since it won the right to host the World Cup 10 years ago, the Guardian reveals.
17/02/2021 Cetaceans’ culture; in French here
Like us, sperm whales have families, they have strong affiliations with a few individuals and they are extremely social. Such a social environment is the perfect substrate for culture.
17/02/2021 Overall, the global energy transition dynamics can only be achieved through the intensification of mining operations around the world and thus lead to an increase in water consumption.
12/02/2021 Eight children who claim they were used as slave labour on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast have launched legal action against the world’s biggest chocolate companies. They accuse the corporations of aiding and abetting the illegal enslavement of “thousands” of children on cocoa farms in their supply chains.
12/02/2021 Despite state repression, farmers angry at the deregulation of the agricultural sector have never been more numerous around the Indian capital. Many supply the “autonomous republic” with rotations. Behind the fight against shameful reform are decades of resentment.
10/02/2021 Plastics: ‘It is no longer possible to clean up the oceans’, say French researchers
09/02/2021 A group of Inuit hunters have braved nearly a week of freezing temperatures to blockade a remote iron mine in northern Canada, in protest over an expansion plan they say will harm local wildlife.
08/02/2021 Indian Farmworkers Blockade Roads as Mass Protests Show No Sign of Slowing Down: In India, farmworkers blockaded roads across the country as they continue a historic mass protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reforms that seek to deregulate agricultural markets. Tractors, trucks and tents blocked traffic for several hours Saturday as the U.N. urged authorities to respect the right to peaceful assembly.
31/01/2021 Sea lions are dying from a mysterious cancer.
Now, after two decades of study, an all-star team of marine mammal pathologists, virology experts, chemists and geneticists say they’ve connected two surprising culprits: herpes and toxic chemicals, like DDT and PCBs, that poisoned the California coast decades ago.
27/01/2021 Land ice facing the worst-case scenario
According to a study by the University of Leeds, the rate of cryosphere melting increased by 65% between 1994 and 2017. A figure that confirms the worst-case scenario on the rise of the oceans envisaged by IPCC scientists.
25/01/2021 Vreni Huussermann, a life in the service of Patagonian biodiversity
22/01/2021 In South Tyrol, on the Italian side of the border, the town of Malles Venosta resists the giants of industrial apple cultivation by defending a pesticide-free territory
21/01/2021 Members of the Auyu tribe of Papua, Indonesia, are demanding a halt to the operations of palm oil company PT Indo Asiana Lestari (IAL), which appears to be gearing up to clear their ancestral forests.
20/01/2021 ‘One of a kind’: calls to protect Alabama’s 60,000-year-old underwater forest
20/01/2021 For commodities, the year begins with a bang after a 19% decline in 2020
20/01/2021 In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), some 40 of the pygmies have been massacred last week in an attack attributed by the authorities of Ituri province to allied Democratic Forces (ADF) fighters against the village of Abembi.
19/01/2021 After two months of protests against the liberalisation of the agricultural sector, farmers have been granted a freeze by the Indian Supreme Court. Not enough for farmers, who demand the outright withdrawal of three relevant laws. Massed around New Delhi with impressive logistics, the farmers do not intend to back down.
13/01/2021 A ‘ghastly future of mass extinction’ and climate disruption‘
New scientific report comes months after the world failed to meet a single UN Aichi biodiversity target, created to stem the destruction of the natural world, the second consecutive time governments have failed to meet their 10-year biodiversity goals
13/01/2021 Feminist anthropologist and writer campaigning in Uganda
In an election campaign that has become increasingly violent, Nyanzi is standing to be the elected MP for Kampala, as part of the growing nationwide opposition to the 35-year presidency of Yoweri Museveni.
12/01/2021 Britain is one of the biggest producers of plastic waste in the world, second only to the US. It exports about two-thirds of its plastic waste.
08/01/2021 Climate crisis: 2020 was joint hottest year ever recorded
The Arctic and northern Siberia saw particularly extreme average temperatures in 2020, with a large region 3C higher than the long-term average and some locations more than 6C higher. This resulted in extensive wildfires, with a record 244m tonnes of CO2 released within the Arctic Circle.
06/01/2021 What We’ve Lost: The Species Declared Extinct in 2020
06/01/2021 Workers on farms supplying world’s biggest meat firms in Brasil allegedly paid £8 a day and housed in shacks with no toilets or running water
23/12/2020 5 things you need to know about carbon inequality
The world’s richest 10% of people were responsible for more than half of the carbon added to the atmosphere between 1990 and 2015.In those 25 years alone, they blew one third of our remaining global 1.5C carbon budget, compared to just 4 percent for the poorest half of the population. The richest 1% of the world’s population were responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity.
22/12/2020 Norway’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled not to overturn the Norwegian government’s approval of new licenses for offshore oil drilling in the fragile Arctic region.
21/12/2020 India: workers exploited trash iPhone factory.
“Irate workers trashed Karnataka’s treasured #iPhone factory (Wistron Infocomm) in Kolar district at 6.30 am on Sat. Sources say all electronics goods ransacked. This could be the end of iPhone manufacturing in KA.”
21/12/2020 The NGO Mighty Earth on Monday (December 21st) published data from its tool to monitor deforestation related to soybeans and livestock. They reveal that many western and asian companies associated with large farms that have cleared dozen of thousands hectares of forest.
“The LDC group, Europe’s number one poultry company behind the brands Le Gaulois, Maître Coq, or Marie, is complicit in this deforestation by selling chickens fed brazilian soybeans,” the organisation accuses.
19/12/2020 On the way the French administration deal with forests
18/12/2020 Using barrier modelling and extensive field ground-truthing, the study estimated that there are least 0.74 barriers per km of stream, and produced the first comprehensive pan-European barrier inventory, the AMBER Barrier Atlas. “The extent of river fragmentation in Europe is much higher than anyone had anticipated”, says Barbara Belletti, a river geomorphologist who led the study at Politecnico di Milano and is now at CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research. In French.
12/12/2020 Newspapers are talking about the Phonegate
10/12/2020 Glyphosate would create biomarkers in the body that are passed down from generation to generation
10/12/2020 “Every time we update the list, we confirm what we already know, we lose biodiversity at an unprecedented rate,” warns Craig Hilton-Taylor, president of IUCN’s Red List Unit. Species loss is now between 100 and 10,000 times faster than the natural extinction rate. “
07/12/2020 Water is now traded in Wall Street. A threat to his status of “common“.
06/12/2020 Namibia: Threat of Fracking Looms Large Over Okavango Delta and Other Conservation Areas. Read the National Geographic detailed analysis on this topic.
01/12/2020 Understanding parasites is urgent because the climate emergency could wipe out one in three parasites, according to another paper, published in Science Advances in 2017
30/11/2020 Australia under extreme heatwaves once more. The heat has been more notable than the bush fires at this point, with Sydney seeing back-to-back days with temperatures exceeding 104 degrees (40 Celsius) over the weekend, a feat that had not been accomplished during the month of November in 160 years of record-keeping.
30/11/2020 Shell in court over claims it slowed fossil fuels phase-out; it has broken Dutch law by knowingly hampering the global phase-out of fossil fuels, in a case that could force the company to reduce its CO2 emissions.
14/11/2020 Super-rich are preparing to protect themselves from climate change and any new health emergency. Interest soars in range of products from bunkers with purified air to evacuation and medical services
24/10/2020 Natural disasters have almost doubled in the last 20 years: In these disasters, 1.23 million people have died, approximately 60,000 for each year, and more than four billion people have been affected. Moreover, fatality rates in developing countries have been much higher, at least four times higher than developed countries.
23/10/2020 Even though the civilization has emitted about 7% less CO2 because of the Covid crisis this year; the CO2 concentration is still rising in the atmostphere (altough at a lower pace)
23/10/2020 South African environmental activist shot dead in her home: Fikile Ntshangase had opposed plans to extend the Somkhele coal mine because of its environmental impact
20/10/2020 Total [French oil company] ’s Uganda oil projects ‘hurt tens of thousands’: NGOs
The human rights of thousands of people in Uganda and Tanzania and the biodiversity of the region have been threatened by the oil projects of French oil giant Total in the East African region, says a report.
15/10/2020 Kayrros Surveillance Technology Reveals Dramatic and Unexpected Annual Increase in Large Methane Leaks
About methane emissions: currently there is uncertainty about the quantity of methane emitted from offshore global oil and gas infrastructure.
14/10/2020 “Last year in Beijing, during a heatwave, 50% of the power capacity was going to air conditioning,” says John Dulac, an analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA). “These are ‘oh shit’ moments.”
There are just over 1bn single-room air conditioning units in the world right now – about one for every seven people on earth. Numerous reports have projected that by 2050 there are likely to be more than 4.5bn, making them as ubiquitous as the mobile phone is today. The US already uses as much electricity for air conditioning each year as the UK uses in total. The IEA projects that as the rest of the world reaches similar levels, air conditioning will use about 13% of all electricity worldwide, and produce 2bn tonnes of CO2 a year – about the same amount as India, the world’s third-largest emitter, produces today.
13/10/2020 
13/10/2020: Image of tiger hugging tree wins 2020 wildlife photographer award
30/09/2020: The Arctic hasn’t been this warm for 3 million years – and that foreshadows big changes for the rest of the planet
The ice today covers only 50% of the area it covered 40 years ago in late summer.
25/09/2020 Major legal victory for endemic species in Ecuador and the Rights of Nature, in French here
21/09/2020: In less than 40 years, the sea level has risen by 1.4cm. This spill has consequences on ocean currents, upsetting the climate balance.
The total melting of Antarctic ice would cause the sea level to rise by 57 meters; that of the Greenland ice would make the seas rise by 7 meters.
Antarctic ice is melting 6 times faster than 40 years ago. Between 1979 and 1990, the continent would have lost an average of 40 billion tonnes of ice mass per year, but as of 2009 this loss increased to 252 billion tonnes each year.
17/09/2020: The massive fires (from West Coast of the US) are also throwing off significant amounts of pollutants. Satellite readings taken over the last week show high-altitude concentrations of carbon monoxide that are more than 10 times above normal, according to NASA.
15/09/2020: Where does the heat go?
Only approximately 1% of this heat resides in the atmosphere. The vast majority of excess heat (89%) is absorbed by the ocean. New assessments of borehole measurements show that the land heating is 6%. About 4% of excess heat causes loss (melting) of both land ice and floating ice.
Orcas are very intelligent and curious mammals. So it’s no wonder they follow a boat closely, interacting with the rudder, but they never make such attacks. Their behavior is considered “very unusual” and “disturbing” by scientists, who believe that the orcas may be aware that human activity is disturbing their ecosystem.
The Spanish maritime authorities recommend that ships “keep their distance” from cetaceans. But reports from sailors around the Strait of Gibraltar in July and August suggest it could be difficult.
10/09/2020: World’s wildlife populations fell 68% since 1970: WWF
The thirteenth edition of WWF’s biennial flagship publication gives an overview of the state of the natural world through the Living Planet Index (LPI), which tracked almost 21,000 populations of more than 4,000 vertebrate species between 1970 and 2016. The LPI revealed a 68% average decline in global vertebrate species populations between 1970 and 2016.
Wildlife populations found in freshwater habitats fell by 84% – the starkest average population decline in any biome, equivalent to 4% per year since 1970.
30/08/2020 How the Amazon rainforest could self-destruct Climate change, along with the fires and other man-made forces, appear on the verge of triggering a significant change in the Amazon’s weather system.
01/09/2020: the Earth’s ice continues to melt. The rate of ice loss has risen by 57% since the 1990s, from 0.8 to 1.2 trillion tons of ice per year, according to the report.
23/07/2020 : Plastic pollution flowing into oceans to triple by 2040: study
The amount of plastic waste flowing into the ocean and killing marine life could triple in the next 20 years, unless companies and governments can drastically reduce plastic production, a new study published on Thursday said.