The Real Case for Saving Species: We Don’t Need Them, But They Need Us

YaleEnvironment360

Conservationists argue that humans need to save species in order to save ourselves. The truth is we could survive without wild species — but they can’t survive without us, and the moral argument for protecting them and the beauty they bring to the world is overwhelming. Story here.

Red-winged blackbird. A PinP photo.

Trump’s Justice Dept. Sues California to Stop Climate Initiative From Extending to the Province of Quebec.

The New York Times

The Trump administration took another legal shot at California on Wednesday, suing to block part of the state’s greenhouse gas reduction program and limit its ability to take international leadership in curbing planet warming emissions. Story here.

Understanding extinction — humanity has destroyed half the life on Earth

CBC Radio

A PinP photo.
There's less life overall, and much of it is domesticated plants and animals instead of wildlife.  More here.

Much of the Earth is still wild, but threatened by fragmentation

PHYS ORG 

Seismic lines dissect northern Alberta, Canada.
Photo by Roland Roesler

Half of the Earth's land surface not covered with ice remains relatively wild—but many of these "low human-impact" areas are broken into small, isolated pieces, threatening their future. Story here.

RELATED:

The more we carve up natural landscapes with roads and fields, the closer we’re pushing large predators like lions and wolves, toward extinction. by Larry Powell

Ban oil, gas, bottom trawling in CANADA'S marine protected areas, panel urges

THE STAR

Image by NOAA.

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A panel that has spent the year studying marine protected areas (MPAs) in Canada says no oil and gas development, seabed mining, or bottom-trawling fishing should be allowed within their boundaries.

More here.

RELATED:
New research finds that “marine reserves” – tracts of ocean where fishing is banned – are protecting fish, the coral reefs where they live and vast undersea "gardens," a lot more than once thought. By Larry Powell.

Powerful storms may be causing offshore ‘stormquakes’

ScienceNews

Ocean waves by Fir0002

Strong ocean swells hammer ridges in the seafloor and produce the earthquake-like shaking.

More here.

Amazon Watch: What Happens When the Forest Disappears?

YaleEnvironment360

Amazon fires, August 2019, some deliberately set to make way for agriculture.
Satellite image taken by MODIS.

At a remote site where the world’s largest rainforest abuts land cleared for big agriculture, Brazilian and American scientists are keeping watch for a critical tipping point – the time when the Amazon ceases to be a carbon sink and turns into a source of carbon emissions. Story here.