Environment

After a summer of record-breaking heat, vast swaths of the United States are now grappling with extreme cold as a brutal Arctic blast brings snow squalls, deadly ice and life-threatening wind chills.

Residents of Rarotonga are being asked to conserve water as dry El Niño conditions are likely to persist in the Southern Cook Islands.

In the delicate balance between development and environmental conservation, the idyllic Keylakunu Island in the Haa Dhaalu Atoll of the Maldives finds itself at the center of a compelling debate.

Farallones de Cali National Park, located on Columbia's Pacific coast, will undergo long-term habitat restoration.

Cook Islands' environmentalists are tackling the plastics problem in their remote environment by asking schoolchildren for help.

Dozens of volunteers used strainers to sift sand at beaches in northwestern Spain on Tuesday to collect millions of tiny plastic pellets that have washed up in recent days, endangering wildlife.

Some Pacific nations are feeling the bite of El Niño through dry conditions, while others in drought get relief through above average rainfall.

A new study published today in the journal Nature offers an unprecedented view of previously unmapped industrial use of the ocean and how it is changing.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute have developed a synthetic pathway that can capture CO2 from the air more efficiently than in nature.

Mining giant Glencore’s operations in Peru and Colombia continue to threaten Indigenous communities and cause extensive environmental damage despite the company’s public pledges to mitigate harms, according to three new reports by advocacy organizations. European banks are also among the top investors in these mines, according to their findings. The Switzerland-based miner has a long history of human and environmental rights abuses. In the past decade, it has been entangled in land rights violations, numerous bribery and corruption investigations, court cases, and denunciations by local and international officials, including the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and the environment.

The following is Mongabay’s annual recap of major tropical rainforest storylines.

This year, the list is more concise than in the past. While the data is still preliminary, it appears that deforestation declined across the tropics as a whole in 2023 due to developments in the Amazon, which has more than half the world’s remaining primary tropical forests.

Some of the other big storylines for the year: Lula prioritizes the Amazon; droughts in the Amazon and Indonsia; Indonesia holds the line on deforestation despite el Niño; regulation on imports of forest-risk commodities; an eventful year in the forest carbon market; rainforests and Indigenous peoples; and rampant illegality.

Community's outcry over disputed land ownership, rising taxes, and restricted access echoes in heated meeting

In 1946, the US began its nuclear testing on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands – a terrifying thought for many Australians. Some 75 years on, the evidence shows their fears were well-founded.

A rare phenomenon known as “industrial snowfall” appears to have occurred near Heathrow airport earlier this year, according to a study.

The searing heat from wildfires can transform metals found naturally in the soil into cancer-causing airborne particles, according to a new report.

A volcano in southwest Iceland erupted on Monday night, after weeks of seismic activity.

The scientists who study terns, puffins, and other seabirds are trying to get fisheries managers to heed their warnings.

A program in the United Arab Emirates is growing corals native to the Persian Gulf that have evolved to withstand high temperatures.

Delegates from 200 nations at COP28 released the final draft of a global agreement that solidifies the transition away from fossil fuels.

This past summer in the Arctic was the warmest since 1900, contributing to disasters across the wider region, including flooding in Juneau, Alaska and a record wildfire season in Canada.

Here's how climate change is harming people's health across the world today, and what countries might expect in the future.

At the COP28 climate summit, Brazil proposed a $250 billion mechanism, "Tropical Forests Forever", for conserving tropical rainforests

Cadman Glacier in Antarctica retreated 5 miles in just 2.5 years, causing its ice shelf to collapse, according to scientists who used satellite images and ocean measurements. Higher ocean temperatures likely hastened the glacier's deterioration, which contributes to global sea level rise. This indicates potential similar threats for neighboring glaciers.

Peru has lost 56% of its tropical glaciers in the last six decades due to climate change, according to a new government inventory released on Wednesday.

The U.S. Coast Guard said Monday that an estimated 1.1 million gallons of crude oil has leaked into the Gulf of Mexico near a pipeline off the coast of Louisiana.