Climate-Environment friendship

  Nearly two-thirds of 1.2 million people polled worldwide say humanity faces a climate emergency, according to a UN survey, the largest of its kind ever undertaken. Young and old, rich and poor, respondents in 50 nations home to more than half the global population also chose from a score of policy options to tackle the problem, researchers at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the University of Oxford reported Wednesday. The findings suggest the grassroots global climate movement that surged onto the world stage in 2019 -- led, in part, by a then 16-year  Greta  Thunberg of Sweden -- is still gaining momentum, even if a raging pandemic has obscured its scope. "Concern about the climate emergency is far more widespread than we knew before," Stephen Fisher, a sociologist at Oxford who helped design the survey and process the data, told AFP in an interview. "And the large majority of those who do recognise a climate emergency want urgent and comprehensive action....

  The number of oceanic sharks and rays worldwide has fallen by 71 per cent over the last 50 years, according to a study which found that some formerly abundant, wide-ranging species -- including the Great Hammerhead -- have declined so steeply that they are now classified as critically endangered. The study, published in the journal Nature, found that three quarters of ocean shark and ray species face an elevated risk of extinction. The researchers noted that in the Indian Ocean, shark and ray abundance has declined continually since 1970 — falling by 84.7 per cent in total. They found that since 1970, relative fishing pressure — exploitation of fish stocks relative to the number of fish left — has increased 18-fold, adding that the catch limits are now urgently needed to "avert population collapse". The team, including researchers from the University of Exeter in the UK, warns that extinction among these species would jeopardise the health of ocean ecosystems and food secur...

....WILL IT USHER IN A NEW COMMITMENT TOWARDS CLIMATE CHANGE? The Biden administration is planning to host the world leaders in a climate summit on the Earth Day, according to people familiar with the matter— a sign of the new President’s commitment to not just rejoin the Paris carbon-cutting accord but also strengthen it. The US hosted meeting on April 22 could be virtual, one of the people said, similar to a United Nation’s climate summit in December, which featured six hours of remarks from the world leaders. However, they only offered incremental steps to combat climate change. The US-organised event, which could be announced next week as part of a package of climate-related policies, is likely to focus on major world emitters of greenhouse gases. Biden has made climate change one of his main priorities, and has set a goal of achieving a zero-emission energy grid by 2035, and carbon net-neutrality by 2050. WHY CLIMATE CHANGE SHOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY? 1. RISING TEMPERATURES: The y...

  In a bid to highlight the need to save the world's tallest mountain from turning into a dumping site,the trash collected from Mount Everest is all set to be transformed into art, and will be displayed in a nearby gallery. Tommy Gustafsson, the project director and co-founder of the Sagarmatha Next Centre, a visitors’ information centre and a waste up-cycling facility,said,foreign and local artists will not only be engaged in creating artwork from the waste materials, locals will also be trained to turn the trash into treasures. “We want to showcase how you can transform solid waste to precious pieces of art … and generate employment and income as well,” Gustafsson said. Used oxygen bottles, torn tents, ropes, broken ladders, cans, and plastic wrappers discarded by the climbers and the trekkers, litter the 8,848.86 metre-tall peak and the surrounding areas The Sagarmatha Next Centre, which has taken up the initiative, is located at an altitude of 3,780 metres at Syangboche, on the...

 1,000 grams   - of CARBON DIOXIDE is emitted in an hour during a video call meeting, claims a new study. Switching off your camera during a web call can reduce a person's carbon footprints by 96 per cent, it adds. In other words, it can save up to three gallons of water and an area of land about the size of an iPad Mini. According to researchers, streaming content in standard definition rather than in high definition, while using apps, such as Netflix or Hulu, could also bring an 86 per cent reduction. Reducing data download will also lessen the demand of water and land. The study is believed to be the first to analyse water and land use associated with the internet infrastructure. For the study, the team estimated the carbon, water and land footprints associated with each gigabyte of data used in YouTube, Zoom, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and 12 other platforms, as well as in online gaming and miscellaneous web surfing. As expected, the researchers found that t...

Experts believe that 2021 will be the first year, where the three main economies or trading blocs of the world — the US, the European Union (EU) and China — will refocus their efforts in fighting the climate change. The US is expected to re-join the Paris Accord and host an international climate summit early in the year. Similarly, the EU member states are expected to finalise their plans to accelerate the transition towards a greener and a more digital economy by the end of April this year. The EU Commission is also expected to release the first tranche of grants and loans worth around 0.5% of Eurozone GDP (or 5% over five years) to speed up the process.

  One lakh school students from across the country on Monday submitted a signature petition urging the Ministry of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries to pass draft rules to ban the use of all animals in circuses. The students, from both private and government schools, in the petition said "circuses are notoriously cruel where animals are continuously chained or confined to small, barren cages and deprived of veterinary care and adequate food, water, and shelter". "We young people know circuses are no fun for animals! Animals don't want to be caged, chained or beaten. Circuses can have willing human-only performers instead," said Sitara Priyanth, a class 5  student , who took part in the signature campaign. According to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, if the rules are passed, India would join Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Greece, Guatemala, Italy, and Malta in banning the use of animals in circuses. "Sensitive animals exploi...

  Climate activist Greta Thunberg has featured on a set of stamps issued by Sweden's postal service.She will join a hall of fame of Swedish personalities— from Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Greta Garbo, who have been depicted on the country's postage stamps. The stamps that went on sale from PostNord on Thursday, show Thunberg in her familiar yellow raincoat, standing on a rocky coast looking out at a flock of birds. Other stamps in the collection have an environmental theme, including depictions of Swedish mountains, lakes and forests. Thunberg rose to global fame in 2018, after she began skipping school to protest with a homemade sign, outside the Swedish parliament in Stockholm, demanding that her government take action on climate change. Within months, more than two million students in 135 countries had set up their own picket lines, joining Thunberg's ‘School strike for the climate’ campaign. In 2019, Thunberg took a break from school to travel the world by car, train and boat...

  Forests and other land ecosystems today absorb 30 percent of humanity's CO2 pollution, but rapid global warming could transform these natural 'sinks' into carbon 'sources' within a few decades, opening another daunting front in the fight against  climate  change, alarmed researchers have said. Climate  sceptics often describe CO2 as "plant food", suggesting that increased greenhouse gas emissions will be offset by a massive upsurge in plant growth. But the new study shows that beyond a certain temperature threshold -- which varies according to region and species -- the capacity of plants to absorb CO2 declines. Under current greenhouse gas emission trends, plants across half the globe's terrestrial ecosystem could start to release carbon into the atmosphere faster than they sequester it by the end of the century, researchers reported this week in Science Advances. Ecosystems that store the most CO2 -- especially tropical and boreal forests -- could l...

  The world's vital insect kingdom is undergoing “death by a thousand cuts,” the world's top bug experts said. Climate change, insecticides, herbicides, light pollution, invasive species and changes in agriculture and land use are causing Earth to lose probably 1% to 2% of its insects each year, said University of Connecticut entomologist David Wagner, lead author in the special package of 12 studies in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences written by 56 scientists from around the globe. The problem, sometimes called the insect apocalypse, is like a jigsaw puzzle. And scientists say they still don't have all the pieces, so they have trouble grasping its enormity and complexity and getting the world to notice and do something. Wagner said scientists need to figure out if the rate of the insect loss is bigger than with other species. “There is some reason to worry more,” he added, “because they are the target of attack” with insecticides, herbicides a...

  The Sun goes down And the Moon comes up The cycle continues.. But the fire in your eyes never  goes down. How do I know? It stares at me so. And in my heart I feel it all rising The air unbreathable, overrun  with smoke The temperature unbearable An overdose of heat. Tell me why your determination is so. You want to be great. You want to be Me. Tell me why do you show such ignorance. Indifference to your childhood – for you only get one. You want to earn, But first you have to learn. This is the problem with you, now. I see that you can’t be fixed. My creation is undeniably flawed. I wish I could keep you somewhere close to me, So you don’t create any trouble for me. Oh! You want to be free, I see. I have checked after you for years now. But the fire in your eyes has sealed  your fate. Why in the world would you provoke Mother Nature Please, I beg of you. Do not take me lightly, For I am your God. I see that you’ve made her eternally sick, Unable to fight back. Ear...

  Earth's rising fever hit or neared record hot temperature levels in 2020, global weather groups reported Thursday. While NASA and a couple of other measurement groups said 2020 passed or essentially tied 2016 as the hottest year on record, more agencies, including the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, said last year came in a close second or third. The differences in rankings mostly turned on how scientists accounted for data gaps in the Arctic, which is warming faster than the rest of the globe. “It's like the film 'Groundhog Day.' Another year, same story — record global warmth,” said Pennsylvania State University  climate  scientist Michael Mann, who wasn't part of the measurement teams. “As we continue to generate carbon pollution, we expect the planet to warm up. And that's precisely what we're seeing.” Scientists said all you had to do was look outside: “We saw the heat waves. We saw the fires. We saw the (melting) Arctic,” said NASA top  ...

   At least 50 countries committed to protecting 30% of the planet, including land and sea, over the next decade to halt species extinction and address climate change issues, during a global summit Monday aimed at protecting the world's biodiversity. About 30 leaders, government officials and heads of international organizations participated in the One Planet Summit, which was being held by videoconference because of the coronavirus pandemic. Top U.S. officials were notably absent, as were the leaders of Russia, India and Brazil. French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, which was launched in 2019 by Costa Rica, France and Britain to set a target of protecting at least 30% of the planet by 2030, has now been joined by 50 countries. A 2019 U.N. report on biodiversity showed that human activities are putting nature in more trouble now than at any other time in human history, with extinction looming for over 1 million speci...

Mumbai on Friday once again  recorded an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 317 which was worse than that of Delhi, an official of the India Meteorological Department said. On Thursday too, the city's AQI was worse than that of the national capital. The quality of air was worst in Colaba in south Mumbai on Friday as per the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR-India). With AQI of 352, the air quality in the area fell in the "very poor" category. Bandra Kurla Complex, a business district, recorded AQI of 346, Malad 338 and Andheri 333. Delhi on Friday reported AQI of 221, the IMD official said. Mumbai witnessed light showers on Friday morning followed by hazy air during the whole day. "It is due to the interaction of western disturbances and easterly waves. Both the weather systems are strong and deep," said a senior official of the Met department. "A thick band of clouds extending from coastal Karnataka and Goa to Konkan area is there. ...

  The year 2020 was the eighth-warmest since 1901 but it was "substantially lower" than the highest-warming observed in 2016, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday. “During the year, the annual mean land surface air temperature across the country was 0.29 degree Celsius above normal (based on the data of 1981-2010),” the IMD said in a statement on Climate of India during 2020. The five warmest years on record in order were: 2016 (+ 0.71 degree C), 2009 (+0.55 degree C), 2017 (+0.541 degree C), 2010 (+0.539 degrees C), and 2015 (+0.42 degree C).  12 out of the 15 warmest years since 1901 were during the last 15 years — between 2006 and 2020, according to the IMD data.

Researchers from the University of California, unveils the mystery behind how plants perceive and react to light across a wide spectrum. New research published in Nature Communications Biology shows how plants can respond to blue light in particular by revealing the structure of cryptochrome-2, the molecule that reacts to blue light. New research from Prof. Nitzan Shabek's laboratory in the Department of Plant Biology, College of Biological Sciences explains the concept by exaggerating the study. According to Shabek, plants don't have dedicated light-detecting organs, like our eyes. They do have a variety of dedicated receptors that can sense almost every single wavelength. One such is the blue light photoreceptors called cryptochromes. When the cryptochrome detects an incoming photon, it reacts in a way that triggers a  unique physiological response. Cryptochromes probably appeared billions of years ago with the first living bacteria and they are very similar across bacteria, ...

GREEN campaigner  Greta  Thunberg has stopped buying new clothes as she officially enters adulthood. In an interview marking her 18th birthday she said: "I don't need new clothes. "I know people who have clothes, so I would ask them if I could borrow them or they have something they don't need. "The worst-case, I guess I'll buy second-hand." The Swede also said she bears no grudge against people who fly regularly while claiming to care about the planet. "I don't care," she said. "But there is a risk when you don't practise as you preach what you are saying won't be taken seriously." She told the Sunday Times her ideal birthday gift would be for people to do more for the planet, and some lights for her bike.

Researchers from Pune have discovered a species of Indian Muraingrass along the Western Ghats. Ischaemum janarthanamii, named after M K Janarthanam, a professor of Botany at the Goa University, the new species, belonging to Genus Ischaemum,was identified after undertaking thorough morphological studies of the samples collected from the laterite surfaces on the outskirts of Goa’s Bhagwan Mahavir National Park. Apart from being of economic significance, as it is commonly-used as fodder, this species has fought harsh conditions to survive in this ecologicallysensitive region, say scientists Did You Know India is home to around 61 out of the 85 species of Ischaemum known globally. Incidentally, the Western Ghats are abundant with approximately 40 species belonging to this genus.