Infographic showing the effects of water level change in the Caspian Sea area. (Naturalis)
German and Dutch scientists say the water level of the Caspian Sea, a land-locked lake with very salty water straddling Europe and Asia, has been dropping several centimeters per year since the 1990s. But that decline is accelerating at a pace that puts the 100 million residents in countries ringing the Caspian Sea at risk, according to a study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
“If the North Sea would drop two or three meters, access to ports like Rotterdam, Hamburg and London would be impeded,” warned Dutch geologist Frank Wesselingh of the Utrecht University. “Fishing boats and container giants alike would struggle, and all the countries on the North Sea would have a huge problem.”
The studies themselves are designed around basically answering straightforward Canadian questions, Dallimore explained.
That includes questions around the stability of offshore permafrost, Dallimore said along with learning more about under sea pingos and how landslides happen and whether they are a threat to producing a tsunami, for example. We actually know almost nothing about that environment, Dallimore said. We have very few surveys of that area because of course it s hard to get vessels up there to do research and very few documentations of actual processes … and even habitat assessments are very limited in the nearshore.
Dallimore said that although the nearshore environment and wildlife in the study areas are very important to residents of the regions, such as the Inuvialuit in the Western Arctic, the geoscience studies in that environment are extremely limited.
December 24, 2020
MANHATTAN, NY – MARCH 5: Mount Sinai Health System hospital located in Manhattan, NY, holds personal protective equipment (PPE) refresher training course for staff on March 5th, 2020. These courses are being held at the hospital since the outbreak of the Coronavirus in January. (MUST CREDIT: Sharon Pulwer for The Washington Post)
NEW DELHI – As coronavirus cases spread around the world earlier this year, Binish Desai found himself increasingly nervous. It wasn’t only the pandemic that worried him, but the waste it was generating.
Masks and protective gear were being used a single time and then discarded by the tons, eventually destined for landfills or bodies of water.
Five Years After Paris, Where Are We Now? Facing Urgent Choices
Climate experts point to some signs of hope, but add: ‘That is not nearly enough.’
December 23, 2020
Protesters gather in Paris during the COP 21 climate negotiations in December 2015. Credit: David Sassoon/Inside Climate News
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Five years ago, as negotiations for the Paris climate agreement ran into overtime, lights on the Eiffel Tower cut through the fog, signaling the urgency of reaching an accord: No Plan B, they cautioned.
Five years later, the global pact, signed by 197 countries, is still the only plan on the table, barring a wholesale move to another planet. It formally recognizes the serious threat of global warming and identifies solutions to prevent the worst-case outcome by capping warming at close to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
by David Suzuki on Wednesday Dec 16 2020
Photo of David Suzuki by Jennifer Roessler; David Suzuki Foundation
This is our last column for 2020. What a year it’s been! As if things weren’t bad enough on the environmental front record-breaking global temperature increases, the U.S. backtracking on ecological protections and policies and pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, a worsening biodiversity crisis and more the world was hit with a devastating pandemic. We’ve been brought to a tipping point.
A common thread through it all is the dangerous politicization, and often outright dismissal, of science.
Those who reject and protest the simple steps needed to stem the spread of COVD-19 have contributed to ensuring those measures must be strengthened and kept in place longer than they might have just as those who have cast doubt on climate science have ensured that resolving that crisis will be costlier and more painful than it coul