Handwritten journals from 50s show how plastic problem has grown to global emergency A trove of data showing when the Atlantic began choking with plastic has been uncovered in the handwritten logbooks of a little-known but doggedly persistent plankton study dating back to the middle of the last century. From fishing twine found in the […]

New government report shows just how bad things have gotten in recent years. When I first moved to New Zealand 2.5 years ago, I was struck by a few things. For one, the wider public seem to know – and care – a lot about the environment. The people I met could tell me the […]

A new study by researchers from NASA has verified the accuracy of recent global warming figures. The team used measurements of the ‘skin’ temperature of the Earth taken by a satellite-based infrared measurement system called AIRS (Atmospheric Infra-Red Sounder) from 2003 to 2017. They compared these with station-based analyses of surface air temperature anomalies — […]

Drone imagery of coral patches along the coast of Maunalua Bay, Oʻahu, where researchers in the Marko Lab use coral DNA from filtered seawater to assess coral cover on local reefs. Photo courtesy of Patrick K. Nichols. Scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Biology have developed a technique for measuring the […]

Plastic floating in the sea is costing human society “hundreds if not thousands of billions of dollars” every year, including loss of tourism revenue and reduced productivity. The “perceived risk” of the contamination of seafood with microplastic may also be detrimental to the seafood industry, whilst the presence of marine litter can impact physical and […]

On March 17, 2002, the German-U.S. satellite duo GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) was launched to map the global gravitational field with unprecedented precision. The mission lasted 15 years, more than three times as long as expected. When the two satellites burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere at the end of 2017 and beginning […]

Thanks to campaigns, initiatives, and a number of eye-opening documentaries, awareness of pollution – particularly in our oceans – is on the rise every day. There’s a concerted effort, especially among the younger generation, to tackle pollution and waste, as well as the impact it’s having on climate change. When most of us think of […]

Your article (Plastic plague: tiny particles can reach anywhere on the planet, say scientists, 16 April) says that “about 335m tonnes of plastic is produced each year, and while it degrades extremely slowly it can be broken into smaller and smaller pieces”. It adds that these pieces are now being blown around the world by […]

Plastic ring carriers and shrink wrap will be removed from multipacks of all Diageo beer products, including Guinness and Harp. The maker of Guinness has announced it is ditching plastic beer packaging in favour of recyclable and biodegradable cardboard. Plastic ring carriers and shrink wrap will be removed from multipacks of all Diageo beer products […]

Permafrost samples suggest Arctic is 2 C warmer than previous record highs thousands of years ago New research suggests Canada’s Arctic is the warmest it has been in 10,000 years — and the temperatures are still climbing. The study was recently published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. Researchers studied permafrost samples in the Yukon […]