Source: Nepali Times Nepali researcher is still looking for answers to balancing nature conservation with human livelihoods t was a packed hall in the summer of 2019 at the 20th anniversary of the Student Conference on Conservation Science in Cambridge. An empty chair on the stage waited for one man. Hundreds of students and researchers excitedly anticipated the arrival of Sir David Attenborough. The British nature broadcaster and writer marked his 100th birthday this week,

Source: Tyndall Center Researchers warn that framing biodiversity loss as a national security threat relies on speculative migration projections and risks undermining the evidence-based policy required for genuine ecological restoration. Scientists have warned that a new UK Government report on global biodiversity loss and national security runs the risk of distorting evidence and driving ineffective policy by framing ecological degradation and its impacts on migration as a s

Source: Tyndall Centre Planning future reservoirs A significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions come from reservoirs and dams, and a new framework links those emissions directly to dam siting decisions. Here’s why it is a major step towards low-carbon hydropower, anywhere in the world. Reservoirs are a recognised source of greenhouse gases, but a new spatial planning framework shows how optimising where dams are built could substantially reduce emissions. Conventional appr

By Alberto Sclaverano Thrash (2026) opens with a caption that explains to us that “since 1980, the intensity, frequency, and duration of Atlantic hurricanes have increased 250%”. The increase in the number of violent hurricanes is a direct consequence of climate change, the film says. It is impossible not to think of the many hurricanes, whose names are at this point well-known around the world, that have plagued the US East coast during the last decades, and particularly t

How the Greenland film series could help us to appreciate the planet we have been gifted with By Alberto Sclaverano Released in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the sci-fi disaster movie, directed by genre specialist Ric Roman Waugh ( Angel Has Fallen , 2019), was a modest success. While it is not a movie explicitly related to climate change, it nevertheless offers a commentary on the beauty of our planet, a thing that many characters of the film really start to appreciate

Connecting the futures of jaguars, whales, and humans into one vibrant ecosystem By RAMESH JAURA Source: CMO COP15 Marking a watershed moment for global conservation, countries at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) united behind bold new protections for a host of threatened migratory species, including jaguars, sharks, and freshwater fish. Most significantly, they linked the fate of these

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists While most of us were prepping for the holiday season by baking cookies or readying ourselves for time with family, President Trump had different plans: just days before the end of the year, he issued a broad work-stoppage order against every major offshore wind project under construction. The cost of his latest attack on the industry, especially at the onset of a particularly cold winter? Less reliable power and higher prices for famili

Source: Tyndall Centre Key elements of climate action are difficult to reverse. From policies and technologies to the stories we tell ourselves, we are putting climate progress on a path where there is no turning back. Political efforts to weaken climate policy and discredit climate science have raised concerns about whether recent gains could stall or unravel. However, a new commentary in Nature Climate Change argues that ambitious climate action is underway: technological

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists Our Energy Sources Should Evolve Too Data centers for AI are driving huge increases in electrical load, and there’s currently not enough power on the grid to match the projected growth. The Trump administration, having hamstrung solar and wind , is now trying to promote new fossil gas generation as the solution. There is no shortage of reasons to be concerned about this pro-fossil preference—the toxic pollution , the costs of unreliab

Source: Tyndall Centre Researchers report that well-designed climate policies prevented more than three billion tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2022, demonstrating that policy design is critical to effective decarbonisation. Countries with stricter and better-targeted climate policies cut carbon emissions faster, according to a major new study . Involving researchers in the UK and EU, including academics from the University of East Anglia (UEA), the study draws on the most compreh

Source: Tyndall Centre A new global assessment of climate risks to biodiversity across more than 98,000 protected areas worldwide provides an open-access tool to support climate resilience planning. Scientists have published the most comprehensive assessment to date of how climate change threatens biodiversity in more than 98,000 protected areas worldwide, aiming to help conservationists build resilience in the face of accelerating climate impacts. The open-access tool – Wall

Film Review: the moving real story of Dian Fossey needs to be rediscovered By Alberto Sclaverano The 1988 American biographical drama adventure film Gorillas in the Mist is based on the life (and mysterious death) of primatologist Dian Fossey (1932-1985). The movie is made in a way that makes it accessible to teenagers: it offers a moving portrayal of a great female figure, a woman who will always be remembered as a key figure in XX Century primatology. The film is inspired b

Film Review: Fire and Ash, a visual-experience film with strong ecological messages By Alberto Sclaverano The third chapter in James Cameron's epic science-fiction saga follows the events of the previous movie, Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). Cameron seems to create a (very actual and sad) parallel between the desire for war and the destruction of the ecosystem. Much like on Earth, on Pandora, the ones who want to go to war and kill their counterparts are also the ones w

Source: Union on Concerned Scientists The Road to True Grid Resilience is Paved With Science and Community Voice Those of us who live in the central United States are all too familiar with extreme weather events and their implications for the electricity that powers our homes and businesses. Off the top of my head, I can think of several storms that cut the power to my home in Wisconsin, including a particularly severe form of thunderstorm called a derecho in June of 2022 .

Source: Union of Concerned Scientist Following a power outage during Hurricane Irma in 2017, I remember fumbling with my camping stove to cook instant oatmeal, squatting on the cold covered landing outside my apartment. The storm had already passed, but the disruption was just beginning. I fared comparatively well, losing power for roughly 24 hours (roughly 4 oatmeals, but who’s counting?) but the impact on the grid and community—with downed powerlines, short-term flooding,

Source: Tyndall Centre New data confirms that 2025 was the third-warmest year ever recorded, with scientists listing the rising concentration of greenhouse gases, driven by emissions, as the main cause of climate warming. 2025 is the third-warmest year on record in a series from 1850, following 2024 and 2023, according to new data released today. The three-year run of record warmest years saw 2025 conclude at 1.41±0.09°C above the 1850-1900 global average, according to the H

Biographical comedy-drama reminds us that everyone can make a difference By Alberto Sclaverano The 2000 movie Erin Brockovich is based on a true story that happened in the early 1990s in California. An unemployed single mother with three children and a lot of money problems to care about, discovered one of greatest fraud against consumer’s rights and people’ health in recent US history. Brockovich brought to light what the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) did to the r

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists Lessons Learned from the Lead-Acid Battery The atrocities of unregulated lead-acid battery recycling across Africa were recently investigated in a New York Times article. This account brought due attention to a pollution problem that has also resulted in a public health disaster here in the United States . Steps should be taken to clean up this industry, and lessons from this failure can help ensure better outcomes in other essential eff

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists On December 15, the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released its quadrennial report on World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development. What follows is a lightly-adapted version of the contribution on climate disinformation I was invited and honored to make. It seems especially salient towards the end of 2025, in which the Trump administration has removed access to climate information, repla

Source: Tyndall Centre A new study warns that climate change, sea-level rise and land subsidence will significantly worsen typhoon-driven flooding in Shanghai – highlighting the urgent need for stronger, layered defences in vulnerable delta cities. New research shows how the combination of extreme climate events, sea-level rise and land subsidence could create larger and deeper floods in coastal cities in future. The study focused on Shanghai, in China, which is threatened w