Problem

CLICK HERE - Fourth National Climate Assessment

washingtonpost.com - by Kayla Epstein - August 9, 2019

. . . Last year’s National Climate Assessment, compiled by the Trump administration, warned that heat-related deaths would continue to increase. Climate change would cause illnesses such as asthma and hay fever to become more severe, while wildfires and pollution also posed a risk to respiratory health. Rising temperatures would alter the geographic distribution of disease-carrying insects and pests, endangering new populations.

“Climate change is a public health crisis,” Vijay Limaye told The Post. “The science is really strong in telling us that with climate change accelerating, we expect heat waves to be more frequent, more intense and longer.”

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A manatee swims in blue-green algae, which has invaded Florida's waterways and put freshwater species at risk. PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL NICKLEN, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION

CLICK HERE - STUDY - The global decline of freshwater megafauna

nationalgeographic.com - by Stefan Lovgren - August 8, 2019

SOME HAVE SURVIVED for hundreds of millions of years, but many of the world’s freshwater megafauna—including sumo-sized stingrays, colossal catfish, giant turtles, and gargantuan salamanders—may soon find themselves on the brink of extinction, according to a new study published.

For the first time, researchers have quantified the global decline of freshwater megafauna—including fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals—and the results paint a grim picture. In four decades since 1970, the global populations of these freshwater giants have declined by almost 90 percent—twice as much as the loss of vertebrate populations on land or in the oceans.

GOMA/The Democratic Republic of Congo - Henry Bongyereirwe/UNICEF

thenewhumanitarian.org - by Amy Daffe - August 1, 2019

. . . One year into the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the epidemic is accelerating . . .

. . . Instead of working with local leaders, outsiders arrived spreading messages that have left communities with more questions than answers. Information has not been well-tailored to different community contexts nor appropriately adapted to local languages or social norms.

As a result, cases are being hidden in communities and worryingly the contacts of those that die are largely unknown, making tracing difficult.

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This is where the world could support new forests. The map excludes existing forests, urban areas, and agricultural lands. J. BASTIN, ET. AL., SCIENCE 365, 76, 2019

CLICK HERE - STUDY - The global tree restoration potential

nytimes.com - by Somini Sengupta - April 25, 2019

. . . What if we grew new forests on vacant city lots, old industrial buildings — even golf courses?

For the first time, scientists have sought to quantify this thought experiment. How many trees could be planted on every available parcel of land on Earth, where they could go, and what impact could that have on our survival?

They concluded that the planet could support nearly 2.5 billion additional acres of forest without shrinking our cities and farms, and that those additional trees, when they mature, could store a whole lot of the extra carbon — 200 gigatons of carbon, to be precise — generated by industrial activity over the last 150 years.

Parts of the study — led by researchers at ETH Zurich, a university that specializes in science, technology and engineering — were immediately criticized.