environment

In the global energy mix, renewable energy sources have gone from 19% in 2000 to over 30% in 2023, thanks to the increase in solar and wind energy, going from 0.2% in 2000 to 13.4% in 2023 .Thus, last year, the carbon intensity of global electricity generation reached a new historic low, 12% lower than the peak in 2007.The fifth Global Electricity Review by the Ember energy expert group was responsible for reporting these data.The document covers electricity data from 215 countries, as well as the latest 2023 data for 80 countries accounting for 92% of global electricity demand.For the first time - the report certified - the global energy system was able to count on almost a third of electricity generated from clean sources. Inside the relationship we read that “the renewable energy revolution, led by solar and wind, is breaking all records and favoring increasingly cleaner electricity production” and that “the world is now at an inflection point where solar and wind...

Voices are being raised in favor of the law on nature restoration, to push the European Union to approve the text without mincing words:in recent days, 11 EU Environment Ministers have in fact signed and sent a letter to their colleagues from the 27 to exert pressure and hold their counterparts to account regarding a law that they define as «essential for adapt to the impacts of climate change and to safeguard European food security."While waiting for the meeting of the Environment Council of the European Union, scheduled for next 17 June, the agreements on the law on the restoration of nature are in fact still stalled.The reason behind the substantial block in the negotiations lies in the ritual opposition of those countries that believe that the law would lead to a series of excessive economic losses, among these, as expected, there is also Italy, with the Meloni government which is voting systematically against all environmental protection regulations.In the past, however...

For the first time, an orangutan was observed and documented who used the leaves of a plant to heal a wound by applying certain substances directly to the lesion:this is the case of Rakus, a Sumatran orangutan who was caught while applying chewed plant residues with antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties directly to the face, probably scarred during a clash with a rival.This is reported by the analyzes included in a peer-reviewed study published on Scientific Reports Of Nature.The research team, in 21 years of observations in the Gunung Leuser national park in Indonesia, had never seen other specimens self-medicating using this plant:"As far as we know, this is the first documented case of active wound treatment with a plant species with medical properties by a wild animal,” said senior study author Caroline Schuppli, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. The observations, as reported by research, began in 1994 and took place in th...

One additional death every three days:This is how we can summarize what emerges from a new study that he calculated the increase in mortality from 1985 to 2018 within the Veneto red area:the area which includes 30 municipalities and the provinces of Vicenza, Padua and Verona where PFAS substances have poisoned hundreds of thousands of people.The research - conducted by scientists from the University of Padua, subjected to peer review and published in the scientific journal Environmental Health – was commissioned by the Veneto region and thanks to the contribution of the Statistical Service of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità and the NO PFAS Moms group, it highlighted how in 34 years it is as if the total population of the municipality of Orgiano and Asigliano had disappeared, demonstrating for the first time the causal association between exposure to Pfas and elevated risk of death from cardiovascular diseases.“The result was heavy,” commented a spokeswoman for...

A new study recently published in the prestigious journal Science confirmed that the strategies of conservation they work in protecting biodiversity.In particular, the analysis considered 186 case studies to evaluate the impact of the interventions conservation globally over the last century.Specifically, the research highlighted the effectiveness of various strategies conservation, such as controlling invasive species, restoring habitats and creating protected areas, in different geographic locations and in different ecosystems and political systems.The actions of conservation, it turns out, have improved or slowed the decline of species in over two thirds of the cases analyzed.“Our study shows that when conservation actions work, they really work – said Jake Bicknell, co-author of the work and conservation scientist at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom – in other words, they often lead to outcomes for biodiversity that they are not just a little bett...