Category: Community_Land_Water_CN TRANSPORTATION_CARS_MN

Nauru, lying about halfway across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean between Australia and Hawaii, is the world’s smallest island nation. But in the emerging industry of deep-sea mining, it punches far above its weight.

Climate scientists and marine advocates are calling on governments worldwide to look beyond green policymaking when it comes to climate change. They say a critical shade is missing in the fight against global warming.

Earth’s ongoing climate crisis has put a trio of critical stony coral species on a path towards an uncertain future that could have dire ramifications for their underwater biodomes, according to new research released Monday.

To help limit climate change, the city of Pittsburgh intends to plant 100,000 new trees by 2030. The effort will focus on bringing more shade to low-income neighborhoods that lack green space. But some residents are hesitant about new trees because of past problems.

You may have noticed that it’s been a tad bit zesty outside this week—New York City has been under a heat advisory since Monday as record-breaking temperatures have made the city feel like the gooey, trash-filled center of a hot pocket (and it’s even worse in other parts of the country). If you have access to air conditioning or one of the city’s cooling centers, then you’ve likely planted your sweat-stained butt there. But the city has its own “natural air conditioning units” as well—and all you have to do is spend some time in nature to access them.

Climate change raises the risk from failing sewage systems. So Catherine Coleman Flowers is working for a new way to deal with waste.

It’s a warm June afternoon, and in a thicket of elm and willow trees, a magpie chatters. A beetle crawls over a leaf. The forest, next to an 18-story building and a train line, is about the size of a nearby basketball court; before it was planted in 2018, the area was a parking lot.

Once again, California is in a drought. Much of Northern California and the Central Valley are experiencing “acute water supply shortfalls,” and the Sierra Nevada snowpack, a critical water source for Californians up and down the state during the dry season, is all but gone already—just 6% of normal for this time of year.

For more than a century, the core mission of the National Park Service has been preserving the natural heritage of the United States. But now, as the planet warms, transforming ecosystems, the agency is conceding that its traditional goal of absolute conservation is no longer viable in many cases.

The White House today released its “America the Beautiful” initiative for a locally led and voluntary effort to reach the U.S. goal to conserve 30 percent of the country’s lands and waters by 2030. In January, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order committing the United States to this goalin order to ensure healthy lands, waters, ocean and wildlife and stave off the precipitous decline in global biodiversity.