In Menindee, New South Wales, millions of dead fish have been found in the Darling River. Local authorities and scientists say the die-off event is likely due to high temperatures and low oxygen levels as water from recent floods recedes. The dead fish are primarily bony herring, or bony bream, and also include murray cod, […]
Quick Key Facts What Are ‘Pollinators’? A pollinator transports pollen from the stamen (male part) of the flower of a plant to the stigma (female part) of the original or another flower. Moving the pollen is necessary to fertilize the plant so that it can produce fruit, seeds and new plants. While the pollen of […]
Torrential storms soaked California and set off flooding across the state this weekend. The heavy rainfall was caused by one of the many atmospheric river events to hit the state this winter. Californians have seen hundreds of inches of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains and rain elsewhere in the state since January. Atmospheric rivers, long, narrow bands of moisture in the atmosphere that extend from the tropics, are responsible for most of the flood damage in the United States.
Your child could go to gym class on Monday morning and play soccer on a field that was sprayed over the weekend with 2,4-D, a toxic weedkiller that has been investigated as possibly causing cancer. Alternatively, the school grounds may have been treated with a lower-toxicity weedkiller. Or maybe the grounds were managed with safe, nontoxic products and techniques.
Two new studies highlight the vulnerability of California forests. Climate change, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, has heated the atmosphere faster than conifer forests in the Sierra Nevada mountains can adapt, shifting their ideal elevation 600 feet above where it was nearly a century ago, according to a study published in PNAS Nexus.
Humans have been drinking coffee for hundreds of years, and in that time the rich, aromatic beverage has become not only a way to start the day, but part of culture all over the world. Coffee is so much a part of some people’s routine that they couldn’t imagine the day without it. But with […]
The phenomenon known as red tide — caused by large amounts of the toxic algae Karenia brevis — has come earlier than usual to Florida this year, and in concentrations that are higher than normal. The harmful algae produce brevetoxins that can kill marine life and pose health problems for humans, reported BBC News. The […]
A major 20-year-long study has revealed devastating impacts on native plants in UK and Ireland from climate change and agricultural activities. The findings show that native plants are now outnumbered by non-native species. The study, called the Plant Atlas 2020, was conducted by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) with the help of […]
Does it matter if countries meet their existing climate pledges, even if they currently aren’t enough to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels?