Behold the Biggest, Rarest Butterfly in the World
Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing butterfly.MassimilianoDoria/iStock/Getty This story was originally published by Undark. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The world’s butterflies are under intense pressure from habitat destruction and other environmental threats, with many populations dwindling rapidly and others vanishing before our eyes. One recent study found an estimated 33 percent decline in common butterflies in…
Federal Lands Are Becoming Tribal Lands Again
Bob Pennell/Mail Tribune/AP This story was originally published by High Country News and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The smell of scorched soil and burnt wood filled the air. Michael Rondeau, CEO of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, looked over the damage, clad in forest-green pants and…
“People Should Be Terrified”: One Teen’s Hunger Strike Over the Climate Crisis
A group of teenage climate change protesters gather in front of the White House in May 2019.Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty This story was originally published by the Guardian and is shared here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Food shortages, social disruption, and riots. That’s the future 19-year-old Giovanni Tamacas envisioned during the 10 days he…
The Shift Toward Renewable Energy Is Coming. Western States Aren’t Ready.
Gas wells and facilities spread out across the landscape at Jonah Energy field, on May 4, 2018 outside Pinedale, Wyoming.Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty This story was originally published by High Country News and is shared here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In 2018, record-setting federal oil and gas lease sales in the booming Permian…
Planting Trees Is Good. Eliminating Deforestation is Better.
erhui1979/Getty Every year, an estimated 15 billion trees are chopped down across the planet to make room for agricultural and urban lands and other uses. We’ve cut down so many, in fact, that what’s left is about half of the number of trees that the Earth supported before the rise of human civilization, and scientists…
Climate Change Is Taking a Bigger Toll on Our Food, Water, and Land Than We Realized
AP Photo/Noah Berger As the planet warms, parts of the world face new risks of food and water shortages, expanding deserts, and land degradation, warns a major new report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those effects are already underway, and some of them could soon become irreversible. The changing climate has already…