protecting

Methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, is a larger climate problem than the world anticipates, and cutting its emissions will be crucial to slow global warming, a new United Nations report warns. The greenhouse gas is many times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the planet, and its concentration in the atmosphere is increasing faster than at any time since record keeping began in the 1980s. Methane is much more than a climate problem, though, and this is where the report gets interesting. As methane emissions are reduced, the world reaps several benefits quickly, for health as well as the climate. In most cases, the benefits of taking action far outweigh the cost – in fact many of them make money. The report’s lead author Drew Shindell, a climate scientist and physicist,...

Humans are dismantling and disrupting natural ecosystems around the globe and changing Earth’s climate. Over the past 50 years, actions like farming, logging, hunting, development and global commerce have caused record losses of species on land and at sea. Animals, birds and reptiles are disappearing tens to hundreds of times faster than the natural rate of extinction over the past 10 million years. Now the world is also contending with a global pandemic. In geographically remote regions such as the Brazilian Amazon, COVID-19 is devastating Indigenous populations, with tragic consequences for both Indigenous peoples and the lands they steward. My research focuses on ecosystems and climate change from regional to global scales. In 2019, I worked with conservation biologist and strategist ...

Tag: protecting

Why Aren’t More Companies Reducing Methane, It’s Crucial For Protecting Climate And Health, And It Can Pay For Itself

Protecting half of the planet is the best way to fight climate change and biodiversity loss – we’ve mapped the key places to do it