Researchers of the University of Helsinki have resolved for the first time, how the ultrafine particles of atmosphere effect on the climate and health.
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Shipping traffic can be a major source of tiny plastic particles floating in the sea, especially out in the open ocean. In a paper published in the scientific journal
Environmental Science & Technology, a team of German environmental geochemists based at the University of Oldenburg s Institute of Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment and led by Dr Barbara Scholz-Boettcher for the first time provides an overview of microplastics mass distribution in the North Sea.
The scientists found that most of the plastic particles in water samples taken from the German Bight, an area in the south-eastern corner of the North Sea which encompasses some of the world s busiest shipping lanes, originate from binders used in marine paints. Our hypothesis is that ships leave a kind of skid mark in the water which is of similar significance as a source of microplastics as tyre wear particles from cars are on land, Scholz-Boettcher says.
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Credit: Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program
Urban areas are on the rise and changing rapidly in form and function, with spillover effects on virtually all areas of the Earth. The UN estimates that by 2050, 68% of the world s population will reside in urban areas. In the inaugural issue of
npj Urban Sustainability, a new Nature Partner Journal out today, a team of leading urban ecologists outlines a practical checklist to guide interventions, strategies, and research that better position urban systems to meet urgent sustainability goals.
Co-author Steward Pickett of Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies explains, Urban areas shape demographics, socio-economic processes, urban form, technologies, and the environment - both near and far. As the world becomes more urbanized, what we do in cities will be key to achieving global sustainability goals.There is great potential, but achieving it will require integrating knowledge, methods, and expertise from different disciplines
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IMAGE: Four different ways that local changes combine to result in global outcomes: aggregation, compensation, learning, and contagion view more
Credit: McGill University
In a world as diverse as our own, the journey towards a sustainable future will look different depending on where in the world we live, according to a recent paper published in
One Earth and led by McGill University, with researchers from the Stockholm Resilience Centre. There are many regional pathways to a more sustainable future, but our lack of understanding about how these complex and sometimes contradictory pathways interact (and in particular when they synergize or compete with one another) limits our ability to choose the best ones, says Elena Bennett, a professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University and the lead author on the paper. For this reason, we suggest that the global community needs to envision a diversity of desirable futures, nurture
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In mid-2020, amid public health crises, natural disasters, and protests calling for social justice, researchers at Stanford University, Resources for the Future, and ReconMR interviewed a random sample of 999 American adults to learn about climate opinions in the United States. With so many things to worry about in 2020, the researchers wondered, would concern about environmental issues drop?
As it turned out, Americans didn t push climate and energy to the backburner in fact, more Americans than ever consider climate change to be extremely personally important, and large majorities of Americans across the political spectrum want their leaders to take action to invest in clean energy and mitigate climate effects.