We're kidding ourselves if we think we can 'reset' Earth's damaged ecosystems
May 30, 2016 00:14 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Earth is in a land degradation crisis. If we were to take the roughly one-third of the worlds land that has been degraded from its natural state and combine it into a single entity, these Federated States of Degradia would...
Climate change, tourism and the Great Barrier Reef: what we know
May 27, 2016 08:49 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
The removal of an entire section on the Great Barrier Reef from an international report on World Heritage and climate change has been justified by the Australian government because of the impact on tourism. The Guardian...
Antarctica may not be as isolated as we thought, and that's a worry
May 27, 2016 06:19 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
For a long time, we have thought of Antarctica as isolated from the rest of the world. The continent is entirely surrounded by the Southern Ocean, which heaves with giant waves whipped up by intense winds, and is home to...
El Niño is over, but has left its mark across the world
May 25, 2016 23:57 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature
The 2015-16 El Niño has likely reached its end. Tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures, trade winds, cloud and pressure patterns have all dropped back to near normal, although clearly the events impacts around the...
Why we need better ways to cut greenhouse gases from agriculture
May 24, 2016 05:08 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Although 177 countries signed the Paris Agreement to reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in April 2016, the reductions they have pledged so far are not enough. To stand a chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees...
Why has climate change disappeared from the Australian election radar?
May 23, 2016 09:33 am UTC| Insights & Views Politics
Two weeks into a protracted election campaign, it is looking ever-more likely that climate change is to be placed way down the order of business at least for the major parties. The contest over climate change that...
The paradox of peak-based ozone air pollution standards
May 20, 2016 10:10 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
And when she was good, she was very, very good, But when she was bad she was horrid. Henry Wadsworth Longfellows poem may have befit Houstons air around 1999, when the city briefly ranked as the New U.S. Smog...
Johannesburg in a time of darkness: Ivan Vladislavić’s new memoir reminds us of the city’s fragility
Economist Chris Richardson on an ‘ugly’ inflation result and the coming budget
Biden administration tells employers to stop shackling workers with ‘noncompete agreements’
Labour can afford to be far more ambitious with its economic policies – voters are on board
IceCube researchers detect a rare type of energetic neutrino sent from powerful astronomical objects