Nature is reacting to climate change. We see altered behaviour and movement among plants and animals; flowers change flowering period and owls get darker body colour, due to warmer winters. So, how does the future for biodiversity look like? Will plants and animals be able to adjust quickly enough to survive the changing temperatures, precipitation…

University of California, Berkeley, engineers have created a new way to remove contaminants from storm water, potentially addressing the needs of water-stressed communities that are searching for ways to tap the abundant and yet underused source of fresh drinking water. Using a mineral-coated sand that reacts with and destroys organic pollutants, the researchers have discovered…

As humans put more and more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, the Earth warms. And the warming is causing changes that might surprise us. Not only is the warming causing long-term trends in heat, sea level rise, ice loss, etc.; it’s also making our weather more variable. It’s making otherwise natural cycles of weather more…

The researchers estimated that, at that point, 175 million people could become deficient in zinc, and 122 million people could become protein-deficient. Researchers also said 1.4 billion women of childbearing age and children under 5 who are now at high risk of iron deficiency could have their iron intakes reduced by 4 percent or more….

The monsoon rains upon which farmers in the southwestern state depend for their food and livelihoods dumped two-and-a-half times the normal amount of water across the state last week, according to Indian meteorologists. It is difficult to attribute any single extreme weather event—such as the Kerala flooding—to climate change, said Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate…

Throughout the alluvial plains of Amazonia, there are immense forests that are flooded for almost half the year. These Amazonian wetlands encompass a wide array of types of vegetation in or near stream gullies, including blackwater (igapó) and whitewater (várzea) inundation forest, swamp (pântano), white sand savanna (campina), and mangrove (mangue) types. According to a…

Air pollution shortens human lives by more than a year, according to a new study from a team of leading environmental engineers and public health researchers. Better air quality could lead to a significant extension of lifespans around the world. This is the first time that data on air pollution and lifespan has been studied…

The Environmental Protection Agency openly admits in its proposal for new emission guidelines that the plan could lead to up 1,400 more premature deaths a year. A 289-page EPA report released Tuesday provides details on the impact of the Trump administration’s Affordable Clean Energy rule, which would reverse Obama-era cuts to power plant carbon pollution….

The Carrizo Plain National Monument is a little-known ecological hotspot in Southern California. Though small, it explodes in wildflowers each spring and is full of threatened or endangered species. A long-term study led by the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley tracked how hundreds of species in this valley fared during the…

Under the EPA’s new plan, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that help form smog would be cut between one percent and two percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. Under Obama, the agency projected its policy would reduce those pollutants by 24 percent and 22 percent, respectively, by the end of the next decade. EPA…