Amazon river dolphins are showing alarming levels of contamination mainly because of illegal panning for gold, conservationists say. Researchers measured contamination levels in 46 of these large freshwater creatures known for long, bottle-like snouts in major basins of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru.
About 50,000 people were ordered to flee their homes north of Los Angeles on Thursday as a fast-moving wildfire driven by high winds erupted and raged out of control. The so-called Tick Fire near Santa Clarita, about 55km north of Los Angeles, broke out in the early afternoon and quickly consumed 5,000 acres, fire officials said.
Brazil has collected more 600 tons of oil from its northeastern beaches since Sept. 12, the government said, more than double an estimate of oil and sand collected by state-run oil company Petrobras.
Thousands of farmers drove their tractors into German cities on Tuesday, in protest at the government's new agricultural policies which they say will hurt their livelihoods and make them scapegoats for climate change.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro questioned whether a far-reaching oil spill on the nation’s northeastern shore may have been a criminal act designed to harm a major oil auction scheduled for November.
The threat of climate change has overtaken the prospect of nuclear war as the most pressing concern facing humanity, a former Colombian president and Nobel peace laureate warned on Monday.
The main cruise ship operators in French waters have agreed on measures to limit pollution caused by their vessels, including hooking up to the power grid instead of keeping their engines running during stopovers.
Ship-owners say they are trying to cut their heavy-polluting industry's impact on the environment by using cleaner energy - but some have stalled over limiting the speed of ships.
A new technique for analyzing satellite images may help scientists detect and count stranded whales from space. Researchers tested a new detection method using Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite images from Maxar Technologies of the biggest mass stranding of baleen whales yet recorded. It is hoped that in the future the technique will lead to real-time information as stranding events happen.
One of the whale populations taken to the edge of extinction by commercial hunting in the early 20th Century has essentially recovered its numbers. It's estimated the humpbacks that frequent the southwest Atlantic once totaled perhaps 27,000 animals.