English references

Neonicotinoid insecticides are a major driver of pollinator decline. Due to their persistence and mobility in soil, they can contaminate non-target vegetation through runoff or dust, reaching pollinator resources. However, predicting soil contamination is challenging, especially where pesticide use data is lacking. This study assessed the potential of using proxies such as cropping history and landscape structure to predict neonicotinoid content in soils. We analyzed seven neonicotinoids in 86 sites in agricultural landscapes of Belgium.

Some narratives in international development hold that ending poverty and achieving good lives for all will require every country to reach the levels of GDP per capita that currently characterise high-income countries. However, this would require increasing total global output and resource use several times over, dramatically exacerbating ecological breakdown. Furthermore, universal convergence along these lines is unlikely within the imperialist structure of the existing world economy. Here we demonstrate that this dilemma can be resolved with a different approach, rooted in recent needs-based analyses of poverty and development. Strategies for development should not pursue capitalist growth and increased aggregate production as such, but should rather increase the specific forms of production that are necessary to improve capabilities and meet human needs at a high standard, while ensuring universal access to key goods and services through public provisioning and decommodification. At the same time, in high

This article examines the technocentric bias that characterizes climate mitigation literature, focusing on the reports of the IPCC's Working Group III. This bias stems from structural features of the scientific field that prioritizes innovation, leading to the overrepresentation of technological solutions in climate research. Funding mechanisms further reinforce this tendency by incentivizing collaboration with industrial R&D, creating a self-reinforcing loop in which scientific authority and industrial interests converge. The IPCC's institutional positioning—as a policy-relevant yet politically cautious body—amplifies this dynamic by favoring allegedly “cost-effective” technological pathways that lack practical feasibility.

We develop roadmaps to transform the all-purpose energy infrastructures (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, industry, agriculture/forestry/fishing) of 139 countries to ones powered by wind, water, and sunlight (WWS). The roadmaps envision 80% conversion by 2030 and 100% by 2050. WWS not only replaces business-as-usual (BAU) power, but also reduces it ∼42.5% because the work: energy ratio of WWS electricity exceeds that of combustion (23.0%), WWS requires no mining, transporting, or processing of fuels (12.6%), and WWS end-use efficiency is assumed to exceed that of BAU (6.9%). Converting may create ∼24.3 million more permanent, full-time jobs than jobs lost. It may avoid ∼4.6 million/year premature air-pollution deaths today and ∼3.5 million/year in 2050; ∼$22.8 trillion/year (12.7 ¢/kWh-BAU-all-energy) in 2050 air-pollution costs; and ∼$28.5 trillion/year (15.8 ¢/kWh-BAU-all-energy) in 2050 climate costs. Transitioning should also stabilize energy prices because fuel costs are zero, reduce power d

The floods displaced more than 80,000 people, led to over 150,000 being injured and, on the 29th of May, to 169 fatalities with 44 people still missing (Governo do Estado de Rio Grande do Sul, 2024). Essential services were also disrupted, leaving 418,200 households without electricity and over a million consumer units without water. Dozens of municipalities lost telephone and internet services.

Joint committee on national security strategy criticises ‘severe dereliction of duty’ by ministers as threat grows

Countries should move from coal to renewable energy without shifting to gas as a “transition” fuel to save money, as high gas prices and market volatility have made the fossil fuel an expensive option, analysis has found. Natural gas has long been touted as a “transition” fuel for economies dependent on coal for their power needs, as it has lower carbon dioxide emissions than coal but requires similar centralised infrastructure, and gas-fired power stations take only a couple of years to build. Earlier this year, before Russia invaded Ukraine, the European Commission angered green campaigners by including gas as a “bridge” to clean energy in its guidebook for green investment.

If someone has planted a time bomb in your home, you are entitled to dismantle it. The same applies to our planet

Scientists have warned that hydrogen could be a significant “indirect” contributor to the greenhouse effect when it leaks through infrastructure and interacts with methane in the atmosphere.

The potent greenhouse gas methane is spewing out of natural gas infrastructure across the European Union because of leaks and venting. Using an infrared camera, non-profit Clean Air Task Force (CATF) found methane seeping into the atmosphere at 123 oil and gas sites in several countries this year. Methane, the biggest cause of climate change after carbon dioxide (CO2), is the main component of natural gas and over 80 times more potent than CO2 in its first 20 years in the air.

Traceable evidence of the impacts of climate change on humanity, the data sheet with scientific references