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By Linda Bilmes, co-author of Valuing U.S. National Parks and Programs: America’s Best Investment President Joe Biden calls climate change “the existential crisis of our time” and has taken steps to curb it that match those words. They include returning the U.S. to the Paris Agreement; creating a new climate Cabinet position; introducing a plan to slash fossil fuel […]
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As the earth grows warmer, some of its cold-weather creatures are struggling to survive, and in response, nature is showing us what it does best: adapting. The “pizzly bear,” which won out over the name “grolar bear,” is a polar bear/grizzly bear hybrid becoming more and more common in Canada.
Why This Matters: The polar bear may be the next victim of the ongoing biodiversity crisis.
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Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, a lifelong diplomat from the United Republic of Tanzania, in late 2019 assumed the role of Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), in the countdown to the Convention’s 2020 Conference of the Parties with the potential for the sixth wave of mass extinctions hanging in the balance.
Continue Reading 288 wordsThis year was supposed to be a big one for biodiversity with the Conference of the Parties for the Conference on Biodiversity meeting in the fall in China, of all places, and then the pandemic struck and pushed the meeting back by a year. Nevertheless, the evidence of the importance of conserving nature and ensuring we do not experience a mass extinction crisis became even clearer, especially when compounded with warming across the planet.
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This week, the Trump administration adopted a new rule that narrows the definition of what qualifies as a habitat under the Endangered Species Act. The new definition only allows “critical habitat” for plants and animals at risk to be protected under the Act.
Why This Matters: By slicing away at the places that the Endangered Species Act applies, more activities that further degrade the habitat will likely be able to proceed.
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The 2019-2020 Australian bushfire season burnt more than 18 million hectares across the country, destroyed more than 2,000 homes, and claimed the lives of 34 people and about one billion animals. The devastation was gutwrenching and a wake-up call to the entire world that climate change is our greatest existential threat. Yet as fire crews […]
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