Some 6.1 tonnes of ivory is burned in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Friday as part of efforts to deter poachers. The country has lost 90% of its elephant population in the last thirty years and the ivory was destroyed in an attempt to reduce the demand for it. The tusks, carvings and jewellery was confiscated from traffickers travelling to Asia … Read More
Amazon rainforest and Great Barrier Reef need better care, say scientists
Research published in journal Science shows local protection of three world heritage sites is too weak and leaves them at risk of ‘unfolding diaster’ Continue reading…
Why Ocean Health Is Better And Worse Than You Think
The good news is the world’s oceans have not experienced the extinctions that have occurred on land. But as ecologist Douglas McCauley explains in a Yale Environment 360 interview, marine life now face numerous threats even more serious than overfishing. BY FEN MONTAIGNE
Arctic sea ice hits record low
Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has fallen to the lowest recorded level for the winter season, according to US scientists.
Cyclone Pam and DigitalGlobe FirstLook coverage
This last weekend Tropical Cyclone Pam struck the Islands of Vanuatu in the South Pacific causing widespread devastation. We were asked by a GEB reader whether the satellite imaging companies would be collecting and publishing satellite imagery of Vanuatu. DigitalGlobe has a subscription service called ‘First Look’ that provides access to timely satellite imagery for disaster zones. It is targeted … Read More
El Niño has arrived, says NOAA
After several months of speculation due to borderline conditions in the Pacific Ocean, El Niño is finally here, according to scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center. They issued an El Niño advisory on March 5, 2015. While El Niño events typically trigger changes in the weather across the globe, the current El Niño event … Read More
Jet Fuel from Algae?
We believe we have found a recipe that could open a new door to producing jet fuel from ocean algae. We are not claiming some Rumplestiltskinesque hay-into-gold finding—but rather a first step worth exploring. We took a closer look at a certain type of algae, which contain a class of fascinating and overlooked chemical compounds that most algae do not … Read More
California fault lines and earthquake probabilities
We have in the past looked at the some of the California fault lines where earth quakes are likely to occur. A recent story in the news is that a recent report by the Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities (WGCEP) shows that the probability of an 8.0 magnitude earthquake happening in the next 30 years in the California region … Read More
Many California Farms and Orchards Idled By Drought, NASA Maps Show
In 2014 — the driest year ever recorded in California — farms and orchards in the state’s Central Valley took a major hit Enlarge