A new report in the journal Science reveals that early humans across the globe were changing their environments as far back as 10,000 years ago. “We can see that there was global environmental impact by land use at least 3,000 years ago,” says Gary Feinman, MacArthur Curator of Anthropology at the Field Museum Pennsylvania , […]

Problematic deforestation continues, but the “lungs of the earth” are still breathing. “A picture is worth a thousand words” is one of the dumbest aphorisms ever coined. Speaking as a former television producer, I’d say a picture takes a thousand words to explain. Take this much-circulated NASA satellite photo showing vast smoke plumes over the […]

“As of August 16, 2019, satellite observations indicated that total fire activity in the Amazon basin was slightly below average in comparison to the past 15 years.” NASA’s caption: “As of August 16, 2019, satellite observations indicated that total fire activity in the Amazon basin was slightly below average in comparison to the past 15 […]

NEW DELHI: The rebound in monsoon rainfall has created ideal conditions for agriculture for the rest of the year with accelerated planting and much more water in reservoirs, which officials said would lead to record food production this year.  Rainfall in August has been 35% above normal so far, which has further improved crop planting […]

The Great Barrier Reef is not dead, is not dying and is not even on life support, federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley has declared after her first official visit to the World Heritage-listed site. Returning from a snorkelling trip to Moore and Flynn reefs offshore from Cairns, Ms Ley was happy yesterday to broadcast the […]

The dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice through climate change has only a “minimal influence” on severe cold winter weather across Asia and North America, new research has shown. The possible connection between Arctic sea-ice loss and extreme cold weather—such as the deep freezes that can grip the USA in the winter months—has long been studied by […]

The findings of a new study challenge predictions from computer models that freshwater will become scarcer in African drylands as climate change reduces rainfall. Groundwater reserves in Africa are estimated to be 20 times larger than the water stored in lakes and reservoirs above ground. These are the freshwater stores that flow in rocks and sediment […]

Most of the ice currently melting on Greenland only formed during the last few hundred years. A new paper (Axford et al., 2019) reveals NW Greenland’s “outlet glaciers were smaller than today from ~9.4 to 0.2 ka BP” (9,400 to 200 years before 1950), and that “most of the land-based margin reached its maximum Holocene […]