This blog was created because I'm very much concerned about our Planet and the many environmental issues which deserve being known by everybody. Some are real catastrophes while others are achievements of great importance for the survival of numerous endangered species or the health of the only planet we've got: E A R T H !
To my dear visitors and commenters
Hi, everybody!
I've noticed with lots of joy and happiness, that thousands of comments have been written in my posts. It's wonderful that so may people around the world appreciate my work. Therefore, I want to thank you for that and ,at the same time I want to ask you to be this blog's followers. It's fast and easy!
Make it be even more visited and spread all over the world! I'm a woman, a teacher of English in Portugal, and I've been away for quite a long time because of my father's health.
Unfortunately he died from Covid19 a few months ago. Now I felt it was time to restart my activity in this and other blogs I owe. I've recently created a new one in a partnership with a street photographer, Mr. Daniel Antunes. He's fabulous!
https://pandpbydandd.blogspot.com
I'd like you to visit it and, who knows, become our followers. The poems, chronicles and thoughts are all mine.
Thank you so much!
Kisses :-)
Authorities in Australia have raised the threat level for coral 'bleaching' in the Great Barrier Reef, after divers found that lots of coral had died.
The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest living structure, and is home to thousands of plants and animals - it is so big it can even be seen from space.
Divers have found that an increase in the sea's temperature has been putting the coral which grows there under a lot of stress causing 'bleaching', which means a loss of colour.
What is bleaching?
Many types of coral have a special relationship with tiny algae that live in the coral.
These tiny algae produce about 90% of the food the coral needs to grow, and give them their bright colours.
Bleaching happens when sea temperatures get too high or low, causing the algae to get 'stressed out' and leave the coral.
This turn the coral white and leaves it very vulnerable.
An increase of just one degree Celsius for four weeks can cause bleaching. If this continues for more than eight weeks, the coral can die.
Has this happened before?
In 2002 the surface temperature of the sea water in the Great Barrier Reef increased by around 2-3 degrees causing one of the worst bleaching incidents on record, affecting more than 60% of the coral.
While some coral reefs can recover from bleaching in a few years, others don't recover at all.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority have now raised the bleaching threat level, and have said that there is a very high risk of mass coral bleaching this month.
The Australian government said it is working closely with the marine rangers to help keep an eye on the coral for the next few months to see how it is doing.
Europe's rarest seabird will be extinct within 60 years, according to a new analysis.
The bird breeds in caves off Mallorca
Urgent action is needed to stop the Balearic sheerwater being drowned in fishing lines and nets, say scientists.
The bird breeds in the Balearic Islands, sometimes stopping off in British waters as it migrates north.
Research shows the global population is not sustainable in the long term. There are about 3,000 breeding pairs left.
The main threat to the bird is becoming entangled in fishing gear, according to findings published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Other risks include hunting by the likes of cats and other small mammals.
Prof Tim Guilford of the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford is co-researcher on the study.
He told BBC News: "The survival of adults from one year to the next and especially of young adults is much lower than we thought.
"The species is unsustainable - it is on the road to extinction."
Night fishing
Estimates suggest about half of deaths in adult birds are due to accidental capture in fishing lines and nets.
Fishing on the seabed is a particular risk as birds can become entangled and drown when lines are immersed, say researchers in the UK and Spain.
Changes such as setting fishing gear at night when the bird does not dive "could make a massive difference", said Prof Guilford.
"The science shows just how serious the problem is, but also that there is a technically simple solution - the setting of demersal long-lines at night," he added.
The Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus) is one of the rarest seabirds in the world.
The seabird is classified as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of species.
It breeds on cliffs and small islets and lays only one egg.
Agricultural activities are considered to be one of the main drivers to reduce poverty and improve food security among the planet's undernourished population, which is estimated to be 800-850 million people.
Climate change is widely expected to have a destabilising effect on food production systems, the authors observe, and previous studies have concluded that adaptation "will be required if food production is to be increased in both quantity and stability to meet food security needs during the 21st Century".
Co-author Julian Ramirez-Villegas from the University of Leeds, UK, said the study carried out by the CGIAR research programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) set out to quantify for the first time when changes to food production were likely to happen.
"Rather than focusing on what we need to do by a certain time, we know that there is a range of options and then we put deadlines on these options," he told BBC News.
The team assessed when areas growing nine of Sub-Saharan Africa's staple crops - which account for half of the region's food production - would have to undergo "transformational adaptation", which refers to a fundamental shift in an area's food production system. For example, stop growing crops and switch to livestock farming instead.
Dr Ramirez-Villegas said the study found that six of the nine crops assessed were "stable in respect to transformation and adaptation".
"It does not mean there will not be impacts, for example the yields might decrease," he added.
"But there are three - beans, maize and bananas - that are more unstable and are therefore projected to have large amounts of area under transformational change.
"In the case of beans, in particular, we see about 60% of the area in need of transformation and adaption (under a high warming scenario - +3.0C/5.4F) because the climate shifts away from the conditions were you can actually grow the crop."
'Climate-smart' crops
However, he added that it was not all bad news as technological advancements offered hope of increasing resilience to changes in the growing conditions.
One example was "climate smart" crop varieties. In 2015, researchers reported a breakthrough in the development of temperature-resilient beans that could help sustain a vital source of protein for millions of people around the globe.
"Also, in the longer term, where transformation is unavoidable, you can shift crops," Dr Ramirez-Villegas explained.
"Just because people are no longer able to grow one crop, it does not mean that people have no options. In most cases, we find that there are alternative crops that remain suitable for those places."
He said the team found that there were only "very specific pockets" where farmers would have to shift away from the nine staple crops that were assessed in the study.
"In those cases, livestock might constitute an alternative livelihood option, or people might completely change their livelihood by migrating, for example, or by completely changing the land-use," he suggested.
In order to maximise the options available to farmers to cope with projected climatic changes, Dr Ramirez-Villegas said that there were two areas that needed addressing.
"We need to work on the barriers to the adoption of technologies, as we know that in Sub-Saharan Africa, adoption levels are sometimes low," he observed.
"What we also need to do is to put planned adaptation into national development plans."
In a separate study, published in The Lancet, researched warned that climate change could be responsible for more than half-a-million deaths by the middle of the century.
The research was described as the strongest evidence yet that "climate change could have damaging consequences for food production and health worldwide".
Called MIKE (Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants), the latest data indicate that the rise in the numbers of elephant deaths, witnessed since 2006, peaked in 2011.
Since then the numbers have stabilised but the level remains "unacceptably high overall".
In 2015, the programme recorded the deaths of 14,606.
The researchers estimate that half of these were illegally killed putting the population well above the sustainability threshold, where deaths outweigh births.
"African elephant populations continue to face an immediate threat to their survival from unacceptably high levels of poaching for their ivory, especially in Central and West Africa where high levels of poaching are still evident," said John Scanlon, CITES Secretary General.
"There are some encouraging signs, including in certain parts of Eastern Africa, such as in Kenya, where the overall poaching trends have declined, showing us all what is possible through a sustained and collective effort with strong political support."
An elephant in Kruger National Park in South Africa, which saw a rise in killings in 2015
The mixed picture for the iconic species continued in Southern Africa. The overall levels of poaching remained below the sustainability threshold, but an upward trend in killing was seen in Kruger National Park for the first time.
CITES have demanded that the 19 countries most heavily involved in the killing of elephants or the consumption of ivory produce national ivory action plans to show how they plan to tackle the issue.
The seas around the UK and the rest of northern Europe take up a staggering 24 million tonnes of carbon each year.
Colder, stormy waters at higher latitudes tend to take up most carbon dioxide
It is a mass equivalent to two million double-decker buses or 72,000 747 jets.
The number was produced by scientists studying the movement of carbon dioxide into and out of the oceans.
The team, led by Heriot-Watt University and Exeter University, has produced a software "engine" that will allow other scientists to do the same for different parts of the globe.
"It's a software toolbox essentially, that we've made available," said Exeter's Jamie Shutler.
"We've used it for our own work. We've done extensive checking, and now we're putting it out there for everyone else to use."
The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by seawater acts as a moderator in the climate system.
It is estimated that a third of all human-produced CO2 emissions, from fossil fuel burning and the like, ends up in the oceans. Another third is taken up by land "sinks", with the rest remaining in the atmosphere.
Researchers are keen to understand how this budget might change over time.
