Understanding the sand mining crisis in India’s rivers
India's rivers are facing an alarming crisis due to rampant and often illegal sand mining, which is threatening the survival of endangered species and disrupting the delicate ecological balance of these vital waterways. Sand has become a precious commodity in India due to the burgeoning construction industry's insatiable demand. This has...
Current in Planet
Is this about to be Britain’s rainiest summer for more than a century?
The Met Office has warned the UK government and nationwide transport officials to start preparing for the wettest summer in over 100 years. If you’re living in the UK right now, you’re probably wondering where the glorious sun is hiding. After an particularly miserable spring, Brits everywhere have been forced to...
Climate change is making plane turbulence worse
While storms and undulating mountain winds can affect the amount of turbulence we experience on flights, there’s one other factor that is being worsened by climate change. For now, it’s completely undetectable to pilots. By now, you’ve probably heard about the Singapore Airlines flight that encountered severe turbulence and suddenly...
Unpredictable weather decimates India’s salt production
India's salt production, concentrated in Gujarat's salt pans, is facing a grim future due to erratic weather patterns, putting the nation's self-sufficiency in salt at risk. For centuries, the Agariya community in Gujarat's Kachchh district has relied on the region's arid climate and vast salt marshes to produce salt, a...
The fight to save the African Penguin
The African penguin, ‘Spheniscus demersus’ is an iconic species native to the coasts of South Africa and Namibia. These charismatic birds face a multitude of threats, primarily from human activities and climate change. In the last century, the African penguin’s population has plummeted, pushing them dangerously close to extinction. Human activities...
Could record-breaking global temperatures finally be dropping?
Predictions from the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service suggest our year of prolonged planetary heat is coming to an end. Still, this news doesn’t indicate that climate change is easing up. As we emerge from what felt like an especially long winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it might be easy...
Will the growth of offshore oil scupper COP28 pledges?
The recent surge in offshore oil projects raises concerns about the possibility of achieving numerous COP28 pledges. Let's look at the stats. ‘Deepwater is back in vogue’. Those remarks by Pablo Medina, Head of New Ventures at Welligence, highlight the oil and gas industry's narrow focus. It is no secret that companies in the industry view potential new oil supplies purely in terms of profit, disregarding the environment. The pandemic and...
Venezuela the first country in modern history to lose all its glaciers
The South American nation was home to six glaciers in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida mountain range, five of which have disappeared within the last century. Its only remaining one, known as La Corona, has now shrunk so much due to climate change that scientists have reclassified it as an ice field. Venezuela’s single remaining glacier, known as La Corona, has shrunk so much that scientists have reclassified it as...
Scientists expect temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C
Hundreds of experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believe that global heating will blast past internationally agreed targets, with disastrous consequences for humanity and the planet. According to a recent report, hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect our planet to breach the internationally agreed 1.5C threshold by 2027 and temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C above pre-industrial levels this century. This is due to emissions...
Thousands of free trees given to Belgian citizens in new initiative
The local council in Belgium’s capital city is handing out 2,000 trees to residents with a garden or unpaved space available to plant them in. Aiming to create a greener urban landscape in Belgium’s capital city, Antwerp’s local council is embarking on a project that invites citizens to get involved in re-greening their surroundings. Through an initiative named ‘Neighbourhood in Bloom’ (Buurt in Bloei), Antwerp will see its residents gifted 2,000...
