EcoWatch

By Olivia Rosane and Cristen Hemingway Jaynes Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and is responsible for around one-third of current global heating. Atmospheric methane concentrations have increased by 256 percent since pre-industrial times. Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide but lasts for far less time in the atmosphere; over a 20-year period, methane traps 86 times more heat per unit of mass than CO2.

A new peer-reviewed study has linked pesticides as a likely cause to a mass die-off of Western monarch butterflies that occurred in 2024. In January 2024, researchers found hundreds of dead or dying monarch butterflies near the Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary in California, where Western monarch butterflies typically overwinter.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is home to many species of rare and endangered wildlife, such as mountain gorillas, eastern lowland gorillas and bonobos. But the country has plans to open more than half its land — including 306 million acres of intact tropical forest and vital gorilla habitat — to oil and gas drilling.

World hunger fell overall last year, but continued to rise in most of Africa and western Asia, according to a new report — The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) — published by five specialized UN agencies and released Monday by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Roughly 8.2 percent of the world’s population — about 673 million people — suffered from hunger in 2024, a press release from FAO said.

A beneficial bacterial probiotic is restoring hope for mitigating disease spread in corals off the coast of Florida. In a new study, scientists have investigated the effectiveness of a compound produced by the probiotic strain MCH1-7 for combating the deadly stony coral tissue loss disease. MCH1-7 was first uncovered by scientists from the Smithsonian Marine Station in 2018 and was found on a coral colony that had naturally resisted an outbreak of stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD).

Earth Overshoot Day is the point in the year when human demand for materials obtained from nature exceeds what the Earth can naturally regenerate in one year. For 2025, Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 24, the earliest it has been since the event was first calculated in 2006. The Earth Overshoot Day was first launched in 2006 by Andrew Simms, an author, political economist and campaigner, in collaboration with Global Footprint Network, as reported by Sustainability Magazine.

According to new map data from Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), more than 73 million people living in the U.S. are exposed to tap water with toxic levels of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The data revealed that PFAS levels in tap water across the U.S. are higher than the safety thresholds set for these compounds by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for 79% of congressional districts.

Renewable energy sources, such as solar power and battery storage, have helped keep power on in New England, even during peak demand on the hottest day of summer. According to a recent report from the nonprofit Acadia Center, more than 5 gigawatts of behind-the-meter solar provided additional support during peak demand times, despite the temperature in New England exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit on June 24.

Extreme heat, excessive rainfall, ongoing droughts — these conditions are now considered the new normal, according to the latest State of the UK Climate report from the UK Met Office. The report highlights several alarming trends, including warming at the rate of 0.25°C per decade in the UK. The past three consecutive years have ranked within the top five warmest years ever recorded in the UK, with records dating back to 1884.

Climate change is bad for food production in more ways than one. Aside from stress from extreme heat, drought and flooding, climate change is also decreasing the nutrient value in crops, according to a new study.