A new report published by many agencies of the United Nations – including the FAO, the UNEP and the UNESCO – shows that maintaining healthy oceans is a vital topic for climate change mitigation. Indeed, more than half of the carbon dioxide captured by Nature is captured by oceans and seas. Coastal ecosystems like mangroves […]
Healthy oceans matter in climate Read More »
To the latest report of the European Environment Agency, climate change “poses a grave threat” to the snows of the Alps, and thus will decrease the amounts of water received by many rivers like the Danube, Rhine, Po and Rhone. At the center of Europe the Alps – like the Himalayas are for Asia –
The Alps are endangered by climate change Read More »
The UNEP Billion Tree Campaign‘s goal was to plant seven billion trees before the Copenhagen meeting in December. To today’s news the goal was reached as China planted 2.6 billion trees to support the campaign. This shows at least two things : when China starts on something, it is unstoppable. The country’s efforts on climate
The Billion Tree Campaign is a huge success Read More »
To the pictures taken by satellites the annual rate of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest have dropped by no less than 46 percent this year. If these figures were confirmed by ground data this would prove significant. These figures are the lowest since record keeping begun 21 years ago and can be explained by the
Deforestation in Brazil decreases by 46 percent Read More »
We have seen it before, biodiversity is impressively rich in places where Mankind isn’t too much present. Indeed, the WWF wrote in December 2008 that the Greater Mekong is a biodiversity treasure. Now the organization notes : Over 350 new species including the world’s smallest deer, a “flying frog” and a 100 million-year old gecko
350 new species discovered in Eastern Himalayas Read More »
Science Magazine published an interesting article on how deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest provides only a temporary increase of living conditions to local populations. To the article: (…) on the basis of an assessment of 286 municipalities in different stages of deforestation, we found a boom-and-bust pattern in levels of human development across the
Local populations don’t profit from deforestation Read More »
Images are worth thousands of words. So when I found on VeoVerde a series of photographs from the NASA depicting the deforestation of the Amazonian rain forest I thought I should share them with you. The picture on the left (0.4 Mo ; 465*3000 px) is a collage of nine photographs and shows the horrifying
The deforestation of the Amazon in pictures Read More »
Thanks to CleanTechnica I discovered a fantastic study from Yale University explaining that even the most polluted ecosystems can recover within our lifetimes. This should be a major call for action to our governments. Even if this is very good news for the environment as a whole, this doesn’t include climate change as greenhouse gases have a
The environment can recover from pollution Read More »
On June 5th, for World Environment Day, the French photographer Yann Arthus Bertrand released globally a brilliant environmental film, Home. It is available for free on Youtube in many languages. To the message carried by this film, we have ten years to change the way we live and avoid the worse with “the depletion of natural
HOME : a must watch movie Read More »
The billion tree campaign from the United Nations Environment Program announced it yesterday: four billion trees have been planted so far. This happens only a few months after reaching the three billion hallmark… After reaching the one billion mark in 2007, the UNEP decided to plant seven billion around the world before the Copenhagen meeting
Four billion trees… Read More »
