Please invest in Our Daily Planet today, by making a one time or monthly contribution.
We do not charge our readers a subscription fee for our content. We want to continue to grow our readership, particularly among millennials and public servants. Voluntary contributions from readers will help us employ interns and freelance journalists, expand our content, and reach a larger audience.
If you make a contribution of $150 or more, you will become an official “Friend of the Planet” and receive a Friend of the Planet T-shirt or water bottle.
By Amy Lupica, ODP Daily Editor New research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that without the world’s complex ecosystems and wildlife, human activity would have already pushed the global average temperature past 1.5 degrees Celsius. Findings from scientists working with Conservation International (CI) spotlight the role forests, oceans, and more […]
Continue Reading 431 words
To meet the goals of the Paris agreement, experts say the world must invest in removing carbon from the atmosphere in addition to cutting emissions. But that can be a tall task as crucial carbon sinks fall victim to human activity and rising temperatures. The U.K. is facing this challenge head-on and has launched a series of carbon sequestration trials using trees, peat, rock chips, and charcoal.
Why This Matters: Carbon sinks are declining worldwide.
Continue Reading 536 words
A team of scientists from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Birdlife International, and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) used satellite data to build a map of forests that have been regenerated around the globe since 2000 and determined that when added together it equals an area the size of France. Those new forests “have the […]
Continue Reading 177 words
Corporations attempting to reduce their carbon footprint in the short run are restoring forests as a way of offsetting the carbon they release into the atmosphere. But some of these initiatives may be less effective than advertised. They are alleged to have inflated the amount of carbon saved from corporate ownership or claimed to protect land that was never under threat of logging.
Why this Matters: In 2020, companies bought more than 93 million carbon credits, equivalent to the pollution from 20 million cars in a year, a 33% increase over 2019.
Continue Reading 418 words
On the first day of President Biden’s Global Climate Summit, the United States, Britain, and Norway announced that they are teaming up with the world’s most influential companies to incentivize nations to protect tropical forests by mobilizing at least $1 billion this year for large-scale projects.
Why This Matters: Tropical forests are one of the world’s largest carbon sinks and one of the most quickly deteriorating.
Continue Reading 472 words
By Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer Last summer, Florida created its first aquatic preserve in over 30 years. The Nature Coast Aquatic Preserve protects about 400,000 acres of seagrass just north of Tampa on Florida’s Gulf coast. These are part of the Gulf of Mexico’s largest seagrass bed and borders other existing preserves, creating a […]
Continue Reading 570 wordsSubscribe to the email that top lawmakers, renowned scientists, and thousands of concerned citizens turn to each morning for the latest environmental news and analysis.
