The California condor’s return from near extinction is threatened by persistent exposure to lead-based bullets, despite intensive efforts to treat and care for poisoned birds each year, scientists say. Lead poisoning in the condors is now “of epidemic proportions,” said Myra Finkelstein, a research toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz and the principal author of a…
Andrew Revkin reflects on the end of the “Rio+20” United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in his Dot Earth blog from the New York Times. Ilan Safit, a colleague of mine at Pace University who teaches philosophy and religious studies with a focus on the environment, sees the focus of Rio and related discussions as…
Global warming may cause more extinctions than predicted if scientists fail to account for interactions among species in their models, Yale and UConn researchers argue in Science. Phoebe Zarnetske, the study’s primary author, said the complexity of “species interaction networks” discourages their inclusion in models predicting the effects of climate change. Using the single-species, or…
East Asia’s status as the world’s main “extinction hotspot” is confirmed in the new Red List of Threatened Species, unveiled at the Rio+20 sustainable development meeting. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which compiles the list, says it shows the importance of nature for human wellbeing. One of the themes of the Rio…
The Emperor penguin’s future is looking bleak if global temperatures continue to rise and melt sea ice, scientists have warned. At nearly four feet tall, Antarctica’s largest sea bird became a global icon thanks to films like March of the Penguins and Happy Feet, but if temperatures continue to rise, it faces extinction. Unlike other…
Governments are set to weaken pledges on boosting access to water and energy after a new draft negotiating text was issued at the Rio+20 meeting. The text was issued by the Brazilian host government after it assumed leadership of the talks from the UN. It affirms that nations must not slide back on prior pledges…
Little has been done to protect marine life since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, conservation scientists conclude. On pledges to protect key habitat and restrict the size of fishing fleets, they say progress has been “pitiful”. Their analysis is carried in the journal Science and is being discussed during final preparations for the Rio+20 summit….
The final round of negotiations leading up to next week’s Rio+20 summit begins with countries very much at odds on key issues. The draft agreement would improve energy, water and food security in poorer countries, phase out fossil fuel subsidies and boost ocean protection. But with three days of negotiations left, only 20% has been…
Natural fluctuations alone do not explain warming in the upper layers of the planet’s oceans, confirms a new computer modeling study. The ingredient necessary to fully account for rising water temperatures in the last 50 years? Humans’ greenhouse gas emissions. While attributing global warming to humans is hardly a new conclusion, this study adds to…
A study of rocks in Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Syria provides powerful support for the theory that a major impact helped wipe out mammoths and other megafauna, and destroyed a major prehistoric culture. They’ve discovered melt-glass material dating back nearly 13,000 years, and formed at temperatures of 1,700 to 2,200 degrees Celsius. The new data…