Environment

Climate change is likely to accelerate rates of chronic kidney disease worldwide as rising temperatures and heat stress harm kidneys, according to Business Insider. Citing new research from the University of Colorado published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, the article notes that: “A new type …

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade treaties have become notorious because they establish a separate and superior legal system for corporations; allowing them to sue governments for damages when democratic decisions result in a loss of profits.  If signed, to give just one …

Plankton – the tiny plants at the base of the food chain that provide half of the oxygen in the atmosphere – will survive climate change according to Scientists at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia and Imperial College London. According to Simon Levey from Imperial College London: “Ocean …

The World Bank has warned that the economy will ultimately be undermined by changes in the way water acts around the planet.  Shifting rainfall patterns will bring drought to regions that currently enjoy abundant rainwater; while other areas – like the UK – will be subjected to more frequent and …

The environment inside the buildings where we work is deteriorating as the impacts of climate change hit home.  According to Joshua Rapp Learn at Smithsonian: “Apart from the obvious rise in utility costs, the changing climate may also set off a whole host of other problems for those desk-bound among …

A reduction in the amount of oxygen dissolved in the oceans due to climate change is already discernible in some parts of the world and should be evident across large regions of the oceans between 2030 and 2040, according to a new study led by the National Centre for Atmospheric …

At the height of the Falklands War in 1982, Elvis Costello penned the lyrics of the song Shipbuilding.  The song reflected on the moral conflict that arose because the war saved some of the jobs in Britain’s fast declining shipyards.  The song asks us to consider whether our need to …

What do the Adriatic coast, Oman, Papua New Guinea and Caledonia have in common? They all have large deposits of Peridotite – a silicate rock that could play a huge part in mitigating climate change. Scientists at the Earth Science Research Centre at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman have been …

Large forests such as the Amazon rainforest act as the land-based lungs of the planet; absorbing carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen.  Within limits, this process can offset some of the carbon released into the atmosphere by human activity.  However, in a new paper in Global Change Biology, scientists from Stanford …

Those of us lucky enough to live in the developed economies of Western Europe have been fortunate enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change despite being largely responsible for it… until now.  But a new study in the journal Climatic Change has found that this is about to …