Climate Change

by Roee Ruttenberg Images from the European Space Agency show how pollution levels in China dropped between December 2019 and March 2020, as much of the country responded to COVID-19 and went into lockdown. Production halted, so emissions halted. It…

By Claudia Ituarte-Lima Claudia Ituarte-Lima, Stockholm University, Sweden and University of British Columbia, Canada Claudia Ituarte-Lima is researcher on international environmental law at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and affiliated senior researcher at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and…

  The 17 goals agreed by the global community to reduce poverty and create a sustainable planet are the responsibility of all people, wherever they are in the world, according to the United Nations. The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs…

As the human onslaught against life on Earth accelerates, no part of the biosphere is left pristine. The simple act of consuming more than we actually need drives the world’s governments and corporations to endlessly destroy more and more of…

By Countercurrents Collective The world’s tropical forests are no longer carbon sinks because of human activity, and these forests now emit more carbon than these are able to absorb from the atmosphere as a result of the dual effects of…

By Ramesh Jaura An eminent Buddhist philosopher and nuclear disarmament advocate has tabled four critical initiatives to “contribute to the creation of a sustainable global society where all can live with dignity and a sense of security”. The initiatives cover…

Thwaites, in West Antarctica, is the world’s most dangerous glacier. As of January 15th, scientists have labeled it: “A Climate Time Bomb.” Thwaites is crumbling apart on the underneath side where warm ocean currents circulate, which is clear evidence that…

Throughout the world, mega droughts are hitting hard with a ferocity not seen in decades and in some cases not seen in centuries. It’s not merely coincidental that as global warming accelerates droughts turn more vicious than ever before. All…

There is a significant body of evidence that human extinction is now imminent; that is, it will occur within the next few years and possibly this year: 2020. There is also a significant body of evidence that human extinction is…

Economists used to admire scientists. Now they ignore them at our peril. Katherine Trebeck for openDemocracy Back in the 1800s, scholars in the field of economics cast an envious glance at their colleagues in science. They envied physics, with its…