Few of us cook with palm oil or have ever even seen the stuff. Nevertheless, half of the world’s consumer products include it as an ingredient and the global market for palm oil could be as high as $50 billion. The palm oil industry has been tied to environmental destruction in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia and has been found to be complicit in human rights violations.
deforestation
Pakistan’s Green Tsunami
Pakistan has a terrible history of environmental degradation. Since it became an independent country in 1947, almost all of its primary forests have been cut down while its population has grown by an unbelievable 600 percent.
The State Of The Birds
The North American Bird Conservation Initiative recently released its annual “State of the Birds’ report, which is a comprehensive analysis of North American birds. And as with many other things these days, we’re not doing well.
Fir Trees And Butterflies
We have done a number of stories about the sad state of the monarch butterfly and how their numbers have dropped from a billion to only 33 million as of a couple of years ago. Biologists in the U.S. have been trying to restore the summer habitat of the butterflies by urging the planting of milkweed, which is the primary host plants for monarch butterfly caterpillars.
Primates And Toucans As Climate Allies
Many of us have a soft spot for primates and toucans. These charismatic creatures are prized for their intellect and beauty. But did you know they also play a vital role in combating climate change?
The Missing Sink
One of the puzzles of atmospheric chemistry is why carbon dioxide concentrations in our atmosphere aren’t rising even faster. Our activities emit some 37 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. About 45% stays in the atmosphere, 25% is taken up by the oceans. The rest is a bit of a mystery.
Counting Trees
A new satellite study led by Yale University and published in the journal Nature calculates that there are more than three trillion trees on Earth. This is seven and a half times more than previous estimates, which had calculated just over 400 billion trees worldwide.
Meat Consumption & Biodiversity
Several studies warn that the current loss and decline of species is contributing to what appears to be the beginning of earth’s sixth mass extinction. More than 400 species have gone extinct in the last 100 years. And scientists suggest up to 37 percent of the world’s species could go extinct within the next 35 years.
The First Mass Extinction Since Dinosaurs
Earth’s current biodiversity is the highest in the history of life – ever. It’s the product of three and a half billion years of evolution. But a new study warns that a tipping point is on the horizon.
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