In The News

Grist: Climate Change Is Here

Eric Holthaus July 27, 2018
Climate change and warming temperatures intensify wildfires in Greece and the American West, flooding in Northeast America, heavy rainfall and unbearable temperatures in Asia. In Greece, people tried to escape fires by running into the Aegean Sea and at least 80 died. Heavy rain in Laos caused a hydroelectric dam under construction to fail, forcing entire communities forced to evacuate with...

Khaleej Times: UAE Tows Icebergs From Antarctica

Emirates News Agency July 16, 2018
The United Arab Emirates has launched a website to showcase a project that entails towing icebergs from Antarctica to the coasts of UAE. The hope is to use icebergs as new sources of water for the arid region and attract positive press coverage. Researchers aim to collaborate to conduct water research and create technology that will minimize ice melting during transport and reduce costs. “A...

Foreign Affairs: How Xi Jinping Views the World

Kevin Rudd May 31, 2018
Chinese President Xi Jinping is prominent among world leaders because of the size and continued growth of the Chinese economy as well as the nation’s military presence, role in development, and regional interests. Writing for Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd describes Xi’s interests as seven concentric circles: His primary goal is keeping the Chinese Communist Party in power for the long term, making...

Japan Times: Tourism Takes Its Toll on Coral

Jessica Kozuka April 24, 2018
Coral growth is a delicate process, depending on marine microeukarvotes living inside the marine networks. Coral dies without the photosynthetic organisms. The UN Environment Program recommends a dive site be limited to 6,000 visitors per year to remain healthy. Concerned that Japan’s coral reefs receives little monitoring, a marine scientist at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology...

CNBC: China Refuses to Be the Globe's Trash Dump

Yen Nee Lee April 19, 2018
The world’s largest importer of waste changed its mind and stopped taking in 24 types of scrap. China’s ban on waste imports went into effect this year and Europe, Japan and the United States are scrambling: Europe considers a tax on plastics, Britain looks for other export destinations, and the United States tries to convince China to reverse the ban. “China was the dumping ground for more than...

Asian Age: EU to Ban Palm Oil in Biodiesel

Sudheer Mopperthy April 16, 2018
Palm oil transformed from an alternative energy that could reduce carbon emissions to an eco-nightmare and mass burning of rainforest habitat to make room for more plantations: “One of the biggest issues raised was that using palm oil for biodiesel is an inefficient use of agricultural land,” notes Sudheer Mopperthy for the Asian Age. Likewise the European Union went form a pledge that 10 percent...

ScienceDaily: Agricultural Production vs. Biodiversity

April 9, 2018
Increased land use by the agriculture industry reduces wildlife and biodiversity. A team of German researchers based at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research relied on global datasets quantifying the needs of major crops with geographical distribution of animals and their other requirements, and “found that 88 percent of the biodiversity that is expected to be lost under future agricultural...