General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - December 2018

Dec 2018

Jun 18, 2019

Cod and Haddock Fishes Face Extinction

Research has indicated cod and haddock fishes face extinction as rising temperatures cut oxygen in the oceans. Marine zoologist Prof John Spicer said it was a "major cause for concern.
Many large species will almost certainly be the first casualties of our warming, oxygen-poor ocean.
The research was conduced by Prof Spicer's University of Plymouth team and the British Antarctic Survey. Experts analysed four types of crustacean, which are abundant off coast of the western Antarctic Peninsula.
They found when the gas in their water was reduced, they got smaller – supporting the theory that bigger sea creatures are more vulnerable to climate change.
The study, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, suggests that failure to control greenhouse gases will have a greater impact on marine ecosystems than previously feared.
Over the past 50 years, the oxygen in our oceans has decreased by around 2-5%.

World's Population to Go up by 2 Billion in next 30 Years

The world's population will increase to 9.7 billion by 2050, going up by 2 bn from the earlier 7.7 bn, shows a new United Nations report.
The global population could reach its peak around the end of the current century, with an estimated population of 11 bn.
India is projected to overtake China as the world's most populous country in next 8 years, according to the report. The global fertility rate, which fell from 3.2 births per woman in 1990 to 2.5 in 2019, will decline further to 2.2 in 2050. India's current total fertility rate stands at 2.2 births per woman.
Nine countries will make up more than half of the projected growth of the global population between now and 2050: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, the United Republic of Tanzania, Indonesia, Egypt and the United States of America.
The population of sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double by 2050, up 99%. Regions that may experience lower rates of population growth between 2019 and 2050 include Oceania excluding Australia/New Zealand (56%), Northern Africa and Western Asia (46%), Australia/New Zealand (28%), Central and Southern Asia (25%), Latin America and the Caribbean (18%), Eastern and South Eastern Asia (3%), and Europe and Northern America (2%).
People are growing older due to increasing life expectancy and falling fertility levels, and that the number of countries experiencing a reduction in population size is growing.
In 2019, life expectancy at birth in the least developed countries lags 7.4 years behind the global average, due largely to persistently high levels of child and maternal mortality, as well as violence, conflict and the continuing impact of the HIV epidemic.
The World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights, which is published by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, provides a comprehensive overview of global demographic patterns and prospects.

Jun 17, 2019

G20 Agrees to Tackle Ocean Plastic Waste

Group of 20 environment ministers agreed to adopt a new implementation framework for actions to tackle the issue of marine plastic waste on a global scale.
Environment and energy ministers of the Group of 20 major economies met in Karuizawa, northwest of Tokyo, ahead of the G20 summit in Osaka, western Japan, on June 28-29.
One of the top issues was ocean plastic waste as images of plastic debris-strewn beaches and dead animals with stomachs full of plastic have sparked outrage, with many countries banning plastic bags outright.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he wants his country to lead the world in reducing marine plastic trash, including developing biodegradables and other innovations.
The new framework is aimed at facilitating further concrete action on marine waste, though on a voluntary basis, after the G20 Hamburg Summit in Germany adopted the "G20 action plan on marine litter" in 2017.
Under the new framework, G20 members will promote a comprehensive life-cycle approach to prevent and reduce plastic litter discharge to the oceans through various measures and international cooperation.

Jun 16, 2019

Greenland Lost 2bn tons of Ice in One Day

In a sign that this year could set record loss of Greenland ice, researchers have found that on June 13, the island's ice sheet lost more than two gigatons (a gigaton is equal to one billion tons) of ice in just a day due to a widespread melting event.
Researchers found that the epic Greenland melt event was caused primarily by an atmospheric circulation in the Arctic and North Atlantic.
The sudden spike in melting on June 13 is comparable to some spikes seen seven years ago.
The Greenland melt season started very early this season, on April 30, which is the second earliest in a record that stretches back to 1980. On average, the melt season starts around May 26.
Scientists say one reason why melting has spiked this year is that Greenland experienced a dry and cold winter.

Jun 15, 2019

Russia Uncovers 40,000 Year-old Wolf Head

About 40,000 years ago, a wolf died in what we know as Siberia. Now its severed head was found, and because of the freezing conditions, it is so well preserved that its fur, teeth, brain and facial tissue are largely intact.
A Yakutia resident, Pavel Yefimov, found the head last summer on the banks of the Tirekhtyakh River, close to the Arctic Circle in the region of Yakutia.
The head was shown in public this week in footage provided to Reuters TV by the academy.

Jun 14, 2019

The Golden Cat Wears New Colours

Scientists have discovered that golden is no longer the only colour the elusive Asiatic golden cat can be associated with. Its coat comes in five other shades in Arunachal Pradesh.
The Asiatic golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) is listed as near threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of threatened species.
It is found across eastern Nepal through north-eastern India to Indonesia.
Indian scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), an international conservation charity, and University College London (UCL) have discovered six colour morphs of the golden cat in Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh.
The findings have contributed to an evolutionary puzzle because no other place on earth has so many colours of wild cats of the same species.

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