Through the analysis of satellite imagery and on-the-ground reporting, Bloomberg reports on the devastating situation in Gaza for its people and environment, and for any future life in and around the region. The article is a sweeping indictment of all the consequences: “In the towns and cities, collapsing buildings have left at least 55 million metric tons of rubble […] and released toxic dust and smoke into the air.” “[W]aste water flows through streets and farmland. That mixes with heavy metals, including lead, mercury and cadmium, which have leaked from unexploded ordnance and other war remnants.” “[D]rug-resistant pathogens emerge from the polluted soil and unsanitary conditions, and toxic chemicals spread on the wind, in water, by migrating wildlife and the movement of people and vehicles.” The consequences are not confined to the region, with “about 84,000 cubic meters of sewage […] ending up in the Mediterranean Sea each day in July [2025].”

Last year, China installed more wind turbines and solar panels than the rest of the world combined. In his photojournalistic newsletter, Alan Taylor shared a catalogue of photos showcasing the staggering scale of China’s solar panel installation.

Unlike Attenborough’s other films, which mostly celebrate the wonders of life’s diversity, Ocean (2025, 1 h 35 min) focuses on the devastating destruction of our world’s vital marine ecosystems. The film rightly addresses the main problem: overfishing and the fishing industry’s destructive techniques. The film advocates marine protected areas (MPAs), fishing techniques that do not involve discarding three-quarters of the catch, and highlights the importance of the ocean in binding carbon dioxide.

Sound artist Ludwig Berger (based in the Palatinate Forest-North Vosges Biosphere Reserve, Germany) wants us to listen to our surroundings: to the insects, the trees and the mud volcanoes. In his latest film, Crying Glacier (2023, 14 min), film director Lutz Stautner (from Cologne, Germany) documented Berger. Like so many others, the Morteratsch glacier in the Swiss Alps is dying. Berger’s sound recordings of the creaking, cracking and rippling are his way of preserving sounds that could soon disappear from this world forever. The shortfilm can watched in the Op-Docs section of the New York Times.

Former US president Jimmy Carter placed 32 solar pannels, a novel technology at that time, on the rooftop of The White House. Seven years later they were removed by Ronald Reagan. With Donald Trump now withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, many historic parallels can be seen.

After many years of devastating wildfires in California, the latest blazes hit Altadena and Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, the first to hit a major city, causing thousands to flee. In the wildfire-prone landscape, it was only a matter of time before one reached the city, echoeing @PerthshireMagsce’s description in the (now deleted) 2022 viral tweet. The term pyrocene, proposed in 2015 to describe an epoch “characterised by the influence of human-caused fire activity on Earth”, is becoming increasingly apt. The widely shared photos by Ethan Swope (Instagram) show the terrifying scenes of burning landscapes and cityscapes, but at the same time have a beauty that calls into question the adequacy of these photos.

An often overlooked fact is the disastrous environmental impact of Russia's war on Ukraine. So far it has caused more than 180 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emissions. The displacement of more than 6 million Ukrainian citizens has added another 3.3 million tonnes.  
Ukraine’s long agricultural tradition and its famous fertile Chernozem soil, which feeds people in 100 countries, has also been severely affected by Russian aggression. With the devastation of Ukrainian territory, 30% of which is now covered with deadly mines, the war can be described as ecocide.

The quote is from Greta Thunberg, during a magnificent speech in the House of Parliament, United Kingdom, in April 2019.

The Pew Research Center released a chart (page 9) illustrating the percentage of people who perceive global climate change as a major threat to their country, segmented by political orientation: left, center, and right. This reveals intriguing differences among countries. In nations like South Korea, France, and Italy, climate change is widely regarded as common sense, almost irrespective of political affiliation. Conversely, in the United States, Australia, and Canada, views on this issue are heavily influenced by political orientation. Another noteworthy finding is Israel, which stands out as the only country where neither side of the political spectrum views climate change as a major threat. Additionally, it is unique in that the center demonstrates more concern about climate change than the left and right, whereas in other countries, the perceived threat tends to increase from right to left.

The results can be viewed as part of the broader phenomenon of the politicization of science. The graphic, also available on Wikimedia Commons, has been utilized in several other Wikipedia articles.

The study itself also examined numerous other factors such as gender and age, and compared people’s views on climate change to the spread of false information, cyberattacks, the global economy, and infectious diseases.

Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winning “The Sixth Extinction” and “H is for Hope”, writes about the devastating effects of climate change on the Greenland ice sheet. The consequences of its melting will be global, ranging from the obvious rise in sea levels to difficult-to-model effects on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) (also listen to "The Hole in the Map of the World" from the September–October 2024 issue of Wired at New York Times Audio). The gripping (and long) article tells the story of Eismitte, explains the mechanism of feedback loops and ice cores.

Thomas Flight, who usually analyses films on his wonderful YouTube channel, lives in Asheville, North Carolina, USA, which was hit by Hurricane Helene in late September 2024. In his most recent video, Flight reflects on the depiction of disasters in social media, news and documentaries. While these images may inform and raise awareness, they all fail to do so adequately.

Kimmerer argues that “the most profound act of linguistic imperialism was the replacement of a language of animacy with one of objectification of nature, which renders the beloved land as lifeless object, the forest as board feet of timber.” Her main point of argument is the use of it in the English language for „being[s] of the living earth”. Derived from the Potawatomi “Aakibmaadiziiwin” (a being of the earth), she suggests the pronoun ki. She believes that words matter, and that a more inclusive pronoun could unlock a new (and ancient) way of thinking that puts human exceptionalism aside and brings us closer to the “commonwealth of life.” Kimmerer acknowledges that Russian  – and German too – does ”embrac[e] animacy in its structure” (by not using it pronouns for animals), but still argues for our reflection on language because it “reveals unconscious cultural assumptions and exerts some influence over patterns of thought.”

Utilising 150,000 data points from climate proxies, including fossils and statistical methods such as data assimilation, a team of scientists led by Emily J. Judd has produced the most rigorous reconstruction of Earth‘s past temperatures to date. The timeline illustrates the historical temperature fluctuations and the correlation between rapid changes in temperature and mass extinctions. The previous higher temperatures may be misinterpreted as evidence against the current climate debate; however, they demonstrate that humans evolved in an icehouse climate. The unprecedented change in temperature also raises concerns, as it indicates that the average temperature could reach 17 °C, which has not been seen for 5 million years.

What does more harm: Killing animals (or being vegetarian) or abusing animals (or being vegan)? Along two articles, PJ Vogt and the author of the articles, Annie Lowrey, discuss our irrational relationship with animal rights.

The first story is about the Turkey Trot festival in Yellville, Arkansas, where the annual tradition of dropping about 10 turkeys from a plane has drawn national criticism. But what is more brutal: Dropping birds that cannot fly from a plane, or the 45 million turkeys killed in the US every year (and mostly from the surrounding area).

The second article looks at the systemic issues that lead to animal suffering. Because organic certification rules (in the US) prohibit the use of antibiotics, cow 13039 suffered from “eye cancer” and was not treated properly. This raises the question of whether to prioritise the health of consumers (who want to avoid milk contaminated with antibiotics) or animal welfare.

Bill McKibben, author of the The End of Nature (the book which is regarded as the first book on global warming written for a general audience), uses the newsletter “The Crucial Years” to directly talk about “Working on Winning the Climate Fight”

This episode of The Daily looks at how air conditioning has become both our answer to a warming planet and a major obstacle to actually tackling it. When Willis Carrier invented the first version of air conditioning in 1902 (to control the moisture content of printed documents), it suddenly made places like Las Vegas, Dallas and Houston, which had previously been almost uninhabitable, attractive places to live (often requiring an additional artificial water supply). Because energy was cheap, buildings could be inefficient: glass instead of stone, air conditioning instead of windows, and less clever architectural features like window awnings. Many people now live in these "greenhouses", which are not only very vulnerable to power outages, but also contribute to 30 per cent of greenhouse gases in the United States.

South African photographer Dillon Marsh combines photography with computer-generated images of material extracted from the landscape he portrays. In the series For What It’s Worth, the artist visits former copper, diamond, gold, and platinum group metal mines that are now scars on the landscape to create salient visualisation of extraction. 

The Palabora mine, pictured above, is almost 2 km wide and over 800 m deep. 4.1 million tonnes of copper have been mined here, but this total is dwarfed by the massive hole left behind.

One of the most striking and instructive graph in the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report: It lists the potential contribution to net emissions reductions by 2030 for different migration options in sectors such as energy, AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses), buildings, transport and industry. In addition to the width of the bars, it also shows colour ranges for the cost of the reduction potential of the options.

The areas with the highest potential contributions are solar and wind energy, halting deforestation, better agriculture, strengthening ecosystems and hydrogen in industry.

Wind and solar energy are cheap up to 2 GtCO₂-eq per year, while the often-promised carbon capture is expensive from the outset and has very little potential.

The graphic is part of the Summary for Policymakers in “Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”.

Throughout history, civilisations have fallen and sometimes almost disappeared altogether. Paul Cooper tells their stories, but always in relation to our own time: how similar was the Bronze Age’s dependence on the eponymous metal to today’s dependence on oil? Could the Vikings’ refusal to adapt in Greenland be similar to today's inactivity? And how could the Sumerian’s change in diet be a role model for us today?

The disappearance of the indigenous people of Easter Island is particularly instructive: in contrast to the commonly told fable of a society responsible for its own downfall, Paul Cooper tells of their fate as the result of Western imperialism.

As well as being interesting, the podcast is excellently produced – often with multiple narrators and music from the time of the story. In this interview, Cooper talks about his “catalogue of the worst leaders”, which is also available as a book.

Since 2004, Brooklyn-based artist Rachel Sussman has explored harsh climates from Antarctica to the Mojave Desert to photograph the world’s oldest living organisms. This includes Pando, an aspen colony in Utah with a root system around 80,000 years old, and the Llareta plants in South America, which grow 1.5 cm annually and live for over 3,000 years. Despite their longevity, such ecosystems face threats from climate change and human activity.

Her photographs are meditations on “deep time” – timescales that are outside of our human, physiological experience of time – and often show the most versatile adaptation to the harsh climate conditions these organism are living in.

Agnes Denes (*1931 in Budapest) is a pioneer in conceptual, environmental and ecological art. One of her most striking installations is “Wheatfield - A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan” from 1982. During a three month period the artist and volunteers planted a wheat field in one of the last undeveloped sections of Manhattan. An area right next to the Twin Towers and Wall Street called Battery Park City. The artist gained more attention recently, but is still overlooked in her prophetic art.

Nick Newman captures a billboard advertising the release of the new Diablo IV computer game while New York is being hit by heavy smoke from wildfire smoke in Canada.

In this article Rebecca Solnit shifts the perspective on climate change: Instead of framing the shift towards a green future as abundance to austerity, we should look at it as freeing from a flagellating state. By getting rid of “deadly emissions[…], nagging feelings of doom and complicity in destruction.” We could shift to a “sense of security, social connectedness, mental and physical health, and other measures of well-being are often dismal.” She shows how this would be an opportunity for “a sense of meaning, of deep connection and generosity, of being truly alive in the face of uncertainty. Of joy.”

November 2022 hatten Aktivisti der Letzten Generation im Wiener Leopold Museum das Schutzglas eines Klimt-Bildes mit Öl beschüttet und sich daran festgeklebt. Der Museumsdirektor Hans-Peter Wipplinger hatte die Aktion damals als inhaltlich richtig aber formell kontraproduktiv kritisiert.

Nun hat das Museum eine eigene Form der Aufmerksamkeitsgenerierung gefunden und 15 Kunstwerke schief aufgehangen. Die Neigung der Bilder skaliert dabei mit dem Temperaturanstieg in den entsprechend gezeigten Orten.

Churchill is a town in northern Canada that is famous for migrating polar bears. The shortfilm (14’, 2022) documents clash between human infrastructure and animal, but also the tourism resulting from the spectacle. It leaves you with the question who the nuisance is.

The film is produced by The New Yorker and is available on Vimeo and YouTube.

The shortfilm (2022, 25′) documents walrus haulouts – large gatherings of walruses seeking refuge on shore when their search for remaining sea ice forces them to swim much farther and farther distances.

The marine biologist Maxim Chakilev records these dramatic gatherings in Cape Serdtse-Kamen, Russia. Living together with the scientist in a small, wooden hut surrounded by thousands of walruses, the film team captures the intense atmosphere and suffering of the animals. And the helplessness of Maxim.

The film is produced by The New Yorker (which provide valuable background information on the film), is shortlisted for the 2023 Oscars and premiered 2022 at Berlinale. It is currently disabled on YouTube, which might be due to the Oscar nomination, but is still available at Yahoo.

A team of scientists from the University of Würzburg published an updated estimates of weight of biomass on earth by category. Wild land mammals have a total biomass of 22 million tons. Marine mammals account for 40 million tons. These numbers are far overshadowed by 390 million tons of human biomass and 630 million tons of livestock and other hangers-on such as urban rats.

Reading the list of numbers in the article makes me wish for a visualisation, that would make the relations and categories much clearer.

But at the very end, the article reveals another insight. But this time, it’s about the thinking of one of the involved scientists, which could be read as representative of Western thinking about nature in general: “We can only conserve what we understand, and we can only truly understand what we can quantify.”

Light pollution is an often overlooked environmental problem. In his “The Darkness Manifesto”, the Swedish ecologist Johan Eklöf describes the various problems the lid-up night sky has for animals and plants. But also the effects of screens and other light sources for humans.

It might not look like much but it's probably the most defining number of our time, one that will shape this century and many beyond it. It is the amount, in parts-per-million, of carbon dioxide in our planet's atmosphere. This project by Julian Oliver and Gardan Savičić displays this number on your smartphone.

The warming stripes by Ed Hawkins achieved what only few images and even less data visualisations did: they became an icon. Due to their simplicity they managed the gap between science and pop culture. They communicate their message without any explicit legend and reached a point where the pure display conveys a political message. And when the Reading FC football club wore the warming stripes on their jersey, they might have triggered the first climate change conversation during live commentary of a football match.

Some Brazilian scientists fear that the Amazon may become a grassy savanna — with profound effects on the climate worldwide.

The story behind an ambitious new global agreement to protect biodiversity.

Marius Michusch photographs three police officers protecting Bagger 288 from protesters in the Lützerath open pit mine.

Der russische Angriffskrieg in der Ukraine hat bloßgelegt, was Klimaforscher_innen schon lange kritisierten: die Abhängigkeit von fossilen Energien (und von totalitären Regimen). Die ewigen Verschleppungstaktiken beim sozial-ökologischen Umbau der Gesellschaften hin zu einer nachhaltigeren Form des globalen Miteinanders können wir uns nicht mehr leisten. Wie lassen sich die miteinander verschränkten Krisen aus Krieg, Klimakrise und der Gefahr autoritärer, faschistischer Bewegungen analysieren und beantworten?

Scenarios about our future are generated with models that calculate climate impacts based on various variables like energy mix, policy decisions and population development. What if you could set these variables and let the simulation evolve? The planetary crisis panning game Half Earth Socialism allows for just that. Using the open-source model Hector, Francis Tseng and Son La Pham (with the help of other designers, researchers, and artists) created a format that kept me engaged for 4 hours straight with the myriad of tweaks and trade-offs of climate policy. The game is lovingly designed and embellished with myriad narrative details and an entertaining political embedding by borrowing from the book Half Earth Socialism. And when no settings you try, works out, a look at this IPCC figure might help.

No greater challenge faces humanity than reducing emissions without backsliding into preindustrial poverty. One tiny country is leading the way.

Filmmakers travel to six continents and 20 countries to document the impact humans have made on the planet.

Alle Gründe von #1 bis #100 auf einer Seite oder – der Übersicht halber – sortiert in sieben farbig markierten Kategorien angezeigt.

Menschen, die gegen Flut und Feuer kämpfen, können es sich nicht leisten, die Hoffnung zu verlieren. Warum also sollten wir das tun?

The scientific evidence is clear: the only celestial body that can support us is the one we evolved with.

Unsere Vorstellungen von Klima und Klimawandel stammen aus Bildern – Bildern, mit denen Wissenschaften ihre Erkenntnisse sichtbar machen. Diese Bilder müssen gedeutet und kritisiert werden, um ihre Aussagekraft und Intentionen offenzulegen.