Why people stay in disaster-prone cities
Oct 08, 2017 02:48 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
The 2017 hurricane season has brought unprecedented destruction to the Caribbean and southern United States. As millions of people around the world have watched these events unfold from afar, no doubt some have found...
The immense challenge of desertification in sub-Saharan Africa
Oct 05, 2017 03:43 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Today, dry areas represent more than 41% of land on the globe and they are home to more than two billion people. They are the stage for the ongoing process of land degradation that is aggravated by climate fluctuations ...
Fine-particulate pollution: can we trust microsensor readings?
Sep 27, 2017 16:12 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Last May, Paris City Hall launched Pollutrack, a fleet of micro-sensors placed on the roofs of vehicles traveling throughout the capital to measure the level of fine particles present in the air in real time. A year early,...
How hurricanes such as Irma and Maria can devastate the Caribbean marine environment
Sep 25, 2017 11:54 am UTC| Nature
Hurricane Irma one of the strongest on record to hit the Caribbean recently scoured the islands leaving catastrophic damage in its wake. And just as we began to piece together the devastating and potentially longterm...
Q&A: how cities can recover from natural disasters
Sep 22, 2017 03:29 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
In the space of a month, hundreds of lives have been lost due to natural disasters. Mexico was hit by two high-magnitude earthquakes within two weeks, while swathes of the US and the Caribbean have been severely damaged or...
In the Caribbean, colonialism and inequality mean hurricanes hit harder
Sep 21, 2017 14:42 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Hurricane Maria, the 15th tropical depression this season, is now battering the Caribbean, just two weeks after Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc in the region. The devastation in Dominica is mind-boggling, wrote the...
Even when it's sitting in storage, coal threatens human health
Sep 14, 2017 01:20 am UTC| Health Nature Economy
President Trump and his appointees have pledged to end what they call the war on coal policies designed to reduce the health and environmental impacts from producing and burning coal, such as toxic air pollution and mine...
South Africa’s plan to move away from coal: 8 steps to make it succeed
Germany lowers voting age to 16 for the European elections
IceCube researchers detect a rare type of energetic neutrino sent from powerful astronomical objects