Credit: Bibek Raj Shrestha
Over 20 Indonesian islands mysteriously disappear. One of the world s deadliest criminal syndicates rises to power. Eight cities the size of New York will be built every year for the next three decades. What connects them is sand, embedded in the concrete of nearly all of the world s buildings, roads, and cities, the glass in the windows, laptops and phone screens, and COVID-19 vaccine vials.
The unexamined true costs of sand - broadly, construction aggregates production has spurred a group of scientists to call for a stronger focus on understanding the physical dimension of sand use and extraction. They also suggest new ways to achieve economic and environmental justice.
Apr 14, 2021 05:57 AM EDT
Protected Areas
(Photo : Wikimedia Commons)
Protected areas, also known as conservation areas, are areas that have been designated as such due to their recognized environmental, ecological, or cultural values. Safe areas are classified according to their degree of security, which is determined by the authorizing legislation of each country or the international organizations rules. Additionally, protected areas are described as areas where human activity or, at the very least, natural resource use is limited.
Protected Areas Around the World
(Photo : Credit, S. Lewis.)
Nearly 55,000 protected areas around the world were studied by a group of experts. All of them were affiliated with Michigan State University to learn what it takes to successfully conserve their habitats - a crucial benchmark for protecting biodiversity and saving natural resources. They agree that it is important to conserve trees in urban areas that are most vulnerable to deforestatio
Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability Sue Nichols, nichols@msu.edu -
February 2, 2021
All that’s local is a lot more global, and scientists say solutions can only be found through broader views and collaborations nearby and far away.
California fires meet hurricanes, September 2020, image by NASA Earth Observatory, Joshua Stevens
Recent global calamities – the pandemic, wildfires, floods – are spurring interdisciplinary scientists to nudge aside the fashionable First Law of Geography that dictates “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.”
Geography, and by association, ecology, has largely followed what’s known as Tobler’s Law, which took hold in the early 1970s. But the
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IMAGE: Historic wildfires meet tropical cyclones across the United States, underscoring the vast expanse local events can have an impact. view more
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory, Joshua Stevens
Recent global calamities - the pandemic, wildfires, floods - are spurring interdisciplinary scientists to nudge aside the fashionable First Law of Geography that dictates everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.
Geography, and by association, ecology, has largely followed what s known as Tobler s Law, which took hold in the early 1970s. But then came the novel coronavirus apparently has leapt from wildlife meat markets in China to the world in a matter of months. Global climate change creates conditions ripe for infernos in the North American west and Australia. Extreme Ohio flooding in 2018 gave way to sediments and excessive nutrients to dump into the Gulf of Mexico to the tune of some 300 square kilometers.