Ecology
‘Turning CO2 into Useful Products Such As Concrete Will Incentivise Decarbonisation’
The University of Michigan says removing carbon dioxide from the air must be incentivised by turning the gas into a useful commodity. Its $4.5 million (£3.5m) ‘Global CO2 Initiative’ aims to reduce the equivalent of 10% of current atmospheric carbon…
The World Wildlife Fund Created a Fake Store to Call Out Singapore’s Ivory Laws
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) revealed on Tuesday that it is behind Ivory Lane, a fake store that the organization launched to draw attention to Singapore’s ivory laws. While Singapore banned commercial ivory in 1990, the WWF says the law…
Forecasting Coral Disease Outbreaks Could Buy Time to Save Reefs
Hawaii’s knobby finger coral careened toward extinction in 2015. The species was so rare that scientists could only find a few fragments in the wild, scattered across the seabed of Oahu’s Kaneohe Bay. It might have been a familiar story.…
Wild-Caught Elephants Can Die Up to 7 Years Earlier
For the study, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, researchers studied records of 5,000 timber elephants in Myanmar to understand the effects of capture. They determined that capturing and taming wild-caught elephants resulted in a median lifespan that is 3–7 years…
Geoengineering Would Hurt Earth’s Crops More Than It Would Help Them, Says Study
Think geoengineering is a great way to reverse the effects of climate change? Well, we might want to push pause on those plans. According to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, geoengineering could actually leave us worse off…
Japan Considers Adopting Daylight Savings Time for 2020 Summer Olympics
This summer’s deadly heatwaves in Japan have caused government and Olympic officials to consider the benefits of adopting daylight savings time for the 2020 Summer Olympics to ensure athlete safety. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has ordered his ruling party to…
Climate Change Threatens Champagne’s Unique Taste
Climate change is threatening regional culinary traditions from Tabasco sauce to maple syrup, and now you can add champagne to that list. Warmer temperatures and earlier harvests in the famous wine-making region are producing grapes with less acid, and acid…