The expansion of UK airports could mean breaching climate targets, Climate Change Committee head David Kennedy has said. Ahead of a full report next summer that would examine the airport expansion plans…
If the wells are dry, it doesn’t matter how many hands on the pumps.
Kevin Frayer/AP
Jacob Schewe, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
There are already many countries where the scarcity of water affects people’s lives. While water for drinking may be first to come to mind, as agriculture is the largest use of water worldwide water scarcity…
Why has biodiversity been forgotten in climate negotiations?
Flickr/Dom Dada
The latest climate talks in Warsaw may have achieved little in the way of action on climate change, but they were even worse for biodiversity. In fact, since early climate talks in the 1990s, biodiversity…
European food politics began 2013 with the horsemeat scandal, and it is ending with meat and horsemeat still high on the agenda. The publication of the interim findings from the review chaired by Professor…
Eroded beaches in Surfers Paradise on Queensland’s Gold Coast, May 2013.
John Reid, Environment Studio, ANU School of Art
As the science on the coastal impacts of climate change gets stronger, the protections for Australia’s coastal communities are getting weaker. If that continues, everyone will pay. Along the eastern seaboard…
Protesters decry the weak outcomes of the Rio+20 Earth Summit in Brazil last year.
Wikimedia Commons/Aliencow
After a lifetime promoting sustainability – sadly, with limited success – last year I sat down to consider what will happen to my beloved world over the next 40 years. The main question I asked myself…
Firefighters battle a bushfire close to homes in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, in October this year.
AAP/Dan Himbrechts
Australians have always had to live with bushfires - but climate change is driving that fire danger even higher. And we’re not talking about a distant threat to future generations. According to real observations…
Old buildings are standing in the way of improving our cities.
Flickr/Becky EnVérité
Making Australian cities truly resilient to extreme events is being held back by archaic planning. The majority of buildings don’t fall under new sustainability and resilience regulations, meaning private…
Following typhoon Haiyan, the Philippines’ Department for Environment and Natural Resources has earmarked around US$8m to fund efforts to replant much of the affected coastal zone with mangrove forests…
SECURING AUSTRALIA’S FUTURE: As the Commission of Audit reviews government activity and spending, The Conversation’s experts take a closer look at key policy areas tied to this funding – what’s working…
Can environmental humanities help us understand the fame of Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta?
Alejandro Sosa Briceño
Have you watched the movie Grease recently? From one perspective, it is a schlocky film about coming of age in the 1950s. From another, it’s a striking representation of post-war America’s romance with…
Maria Island’s protected waters have given us insight into how species respond to warmer temperatures.
Paul Benjamin
Southeast Australia is an ocean warming “hotspot” – a region where temperature at the ocean’s surface is increasing more rapidly than elsewhere. That means this part of Australia is like an outdoor laboratory…
Dusty museum collections’ evidence of the past hold clues to the future.
Heather Kharouba
Natural history museum records are most often associated with preserved specimens, kept with information about the place and time of collection. From these we can generate a record of a species’ geographical…