Transition énergétique ?

La planète se mobilise pour le Earth Hour. Pendant une heure, des millions de personnes et des monuments emblématiques seront plongés dans le noir… Pour attirer l’attention sur l’urgence climatique. À Bruxelles, l’Atomium ou encore la Grand-Place participeront à cette action lancée par le WWF, qui fête cette année sa 20e édition.

When James Prescott Joule lent his name to a unit of energy, he could not have foreseen today’s alarming calculations

Paul R. Ehrlich will be remembered as a scientist whose books about population and threats to the environment shaped the idea of limited growth in the modern era.

Most research on “forever chemicals” focuses on how best to remove them from the environment. But solutions to tricky problems often emerge from the most unexpected of places—as demonstrated by a new study that instead redirects the pollutants into becoming tools for extracting precious lithium. In a recent Nature Water study, a team led by Rice University researchers describes a novel way to use spent perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, to recover lithium from high-salinity brine pools. The team tapped into the fluorine content inside PFAS leftovers, using it to attract lithium from briny water. Remarkably, the team was able to collect lithium fluoride at 99% purity and confirmed that the sample was pure enough to boost the stability and performance of lithium-ion batteries.

The Gulf Stream is part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The AMOC is a tipping element and may collapse under changing forcing. However, the role of the Gulf Stream in such a tipping event is unknown. Here, we investigate the link between the AMOC and Gulf Stream using a high-resolution (0. 1°) stand-alone ocean simulation, in which the AMOC collapses under a slowly-increasing freshwater forcing. AMOC weakening gradually shifts the Gulf Stream near Cape Hatteras northward, followed by an abrupt northward displacement of 219 km within 2 years. This rapid shift occurs a few decades before the simulated AMOC collapse. Satellite altimetry shows a significant (1993–2024, p < 0.05) northward Gulf Stream trend near Cape Hatteras, which is also confirmed in subsurface temperature observations (1965–2024, p < 0.01). These findings provide indirect evidence for present-day AMOC weakening and demonstrate that abrupt Gulf Stream shifts can serve as early warning indicator for AMOC tipping.

As reported by the Guardian, scientists just published a warning that Earth is approaching a point of no return. A new study in the journal One Earth shows multiple climate systems — the Greenland ice sheet, the West Antarctic ice sheet, boreal permafrost, the Amazon rainforest — are all much closer to collapse than previously thought. “Research shows that several Earth system components may be closer to destabilising than once believed,” the researchers urged. “While the exact risk is uncertain, it is clear that current climate commitments are insufficient.”

Le réchauffement a dépassé 1,5°C durant douze mois, et a peut-être déjà passé définitivement ce seuil de sécurité. Il a accéléré et a progressé dernièrement à 0,31°C par décennie, augmentant le ris…

Continued global heating could set irreversible course by triggering climate tipping points, but most people unaware

Les pesticides chimiques de synthèse sont une bombe chimique à retardement. Et cette bombe chimique est en train de décimer tout le vivant. Quand va-t-on prendre la mesure de ce qui est en train de se passer? ✴️ Dans cette nouvelle étude, entre 2023 et 2025, les scientifiques de l’Earth and Life Institute de l’UCLouvain ont échantillonné 86 parcelles agricoles en Wallonie, en analysant les 30 premiers centimètres du sol.

The world endured its costliest wildfire on record in 2025, its sixth-deadliest heat wave, and four floods or storms that caused at least 1,000 deaths.