ecosystem
Valuable Wetlands Are Disappearing 3 Times Faster Than Forests, New Study Warns
Wetlands around the world are disappearing at an alarming rate. New research shows that these valuable ecosystems are vanishing at a rate three times that of forests. Unless significant changes are made, the disappearance of wetlands could cause severe damage…
Ocean Group Pledges to Clean up Five Trillion Pieces of Plastic Waste
The Ocean Cleanup has developed a new technology it says will be able to collect vast amounts of rubbish. The Ocean Cleanup has pledged to remove plastic waste from the world’s seas by 2050. It plans to start removing the five million…
Mosquitoes Could Spread Microplastics, Study Suggests
Microplastics, which get gobbled up by whales, deep-sea fish and plankton, have also turned up in the bodies of mosquitoes, scientists have revealed. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters, is the first to show that bits of…
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…
What’s Worse Than Palm Oil for the Environment? Other Vegetable Oils, IUCN Study Finds
Banning palm oil in favor of other vegetable oils deemed less destructive to the environment could lead to greater biodiversity losses, a new report says. The report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) comes amid mounting…
Fear of Humans Is Forcing Daytime Animals into Night Mode
Thanks to human activity, some daytime animals are switching over to the night shift. Justin Brashares noticed it first in 2013, when he was studying olive baboons in Ghana: during times that humans were around, the primates stayed up long…
Climate Change on Track to Cause Major Insect Wipeout, Scientists Warn
Global warming is on track to cause a major wipeout of insects, compounding already severe losses, according to a new analysis. Insects are vital to most ecosystems and a widespread collapse would cause extremely far-reaching disruption to life on Earth,…