VEN Blog

Image: from the 11th annual edition of the Imperva Bad Bot Report. CLICK to Download report The internet now makes up around 7.4 per cent of global emissions – with half of that made up of bots. But it’s possible to track the perpetrators of bot-related energy waste By Andrew Irvin and Maria Pia Dunne, […]

Graph: from Fact-checking reduces the propagation of false news in social networks, Emeric Henry, Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, Sergei Guriev 21 May 2020 Mark Zuckerberg says time to ‘get back to our roots’ around free expression but opponents argue ‘ordinary citizens should be very concerned’ Dan Jervis-Bardy, Ben Doherty and Sarah Basford Canales Wed 8 Jan 2025 […]

Climate and Environmental Protest as a Percentage of all Protest and Response rates to such protest. Source: Data on climate and environmental protests, and response types was obtained via ACLED. Separate data on killings in absolute numbers was obtained from Global Witness. From Berglund, O., Franco Brotto, T., Pantazis, C., Rossdale, C. and Pessoa Cavalcanti, […]

16 December 2024 Isabelle Gerretsen, Martha Henriques, Katherine Latham, Lucy Sherriff and Jocelyn Timperley in BBC.com Global temperatures rose and extreme weather ramped up, but there were also some significant breakthroughs for the climate this year. Here are seven quiet wins that may have gone under your radar in 2024. It’s been another tough year […]

Image: Global EV outlook 2024 with EV sales set to reach 17 million from International Energy Agency report in evboosters. Australia still an outlier but new legislation and available new models will see a rapid uptake in 2025 [Ed]. By Mike Foley in the Brisbane Times January 6, 2025 The cost-of-living crisis rear-ended new car […]

By Angela Symons & Euronews Green Published on 30/12/2024  Climate anxiety is very real, but these good news stories from 2024 prove there is hope for our planet. Eco-anxiety, climate doom, environmental existential dread – as green journalists, we see these terms used a lot – and often feel them ourselves. While there’s a lot to […]

Image: UK how sustainable is your university rankings from people and planet.org survey University bans on big oil firms at recruitment fairs rise by 30% Survey finds post-1992 universities leading the way on sustainability and ethics Matthew Taylor Fri 20 Dec 2024 The Guardian More universities are banning fossil fuel companies from recruitment fairs in […]

Nine of our best climate change stories from 2024 Published on 23/12/2024, in Climate Home News This year we investigated governments, corporations and NGOs in the climate space, and brought you on-the-ground reporting from Africa, Asia and the Middle East see original article for images Pilgrims receive a spray of water from volunteers in Mecca […]

OECD’s Pisa program will measure the ability of students to take action in response to climate anxiety and ‘take their position and role in the global world’ Petra Stock Tue 24 Dec 2024 in The Guardian “It’s going to get hot and everything’s going to be on fire and the oceans will rise,” says a […]

YOUTUBE LECTURE  

Graphic: Increasing insurance (un)natural disaster events, Source: Gallagher Re Let’s hope so. Shrinking coverage and rising temperatures are a risky combination. By Mark Harris A Financial Storm Is Brewing 1. A growing protection gap. Adding up losses from Nat Cats and subtracting the amount that was insured gives your “protection gap.” This intuitive interactive tool […]

Article from We Don’t Have Time – Paid partnership with AgniTerra Accelerating the energy transition: Why next-generation geothermal is essential for a sustainable future The next generation of geothermal energy is cheap, clean, and effective – and can be implemented almost anywhere on earth. The problem? It’s not scaling nearly as quickly as needed. AgniTerra, […]

Image: the cost to society from a ton of CO2—termed the social cost of carbon (SCC) – measures the economic and social effects of a change in climate. (from below article from UHN – University Health Network – Toronto, Canada. 2019) Date: December 17, 2024 Source: University of California – Davis Summary: The social cost […]

Australians are gripped by feelings of doom about the state of the world. It’s time to throw the phone away Peter Lewis To be active citizens worthy of our mandate, we need to not just react to the things in front of us but to find the time to reflect and question our own place […]

From: Andrew J. Wilson, R. Daniel Bressler, Catherine Ivanovich, Cascade Tuholske, Colin Raymond, Radley M. Horton, Adam Sobel, Patrick Kinney, Tereza Cavazos, Jeffrey G. Shrader. Heat disproportionately kills young people: Evidence from wet-bulb temperature in Mexico. Science Advances, 2024; 10 (49) High heat is preferentially killing the young, not the old, new research finds In […]

Image from Rakesh R. Nair et al. Leaftronics: Natural lignocellulose scaffolds for sustainable electronics. Sci. Adv. 2024. Fig. 1. Lignocellulose quasi-fractals and their coating. (A) Magnolia LS quasi-fractal structure at different magnifications. Scale bars from left to right: 20 mm, 5 mm, 1 mm, and 200 μm [scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image]. (B) Fabrication process […]

Image: Developing countries now account for about 75% of emissions, and an overwhelming 95% of global emissions increases, according to the Climate Leadership Council. The answer isn’t as obvious as you might think. It depends on whether your priority is climate justice or cutting carbon. By Mark Harris December 8, 2024 in Anthropocene c It’s […]

Image: Why did our emissions stop dropping in 2020? … its because the only really big cuts so far have happened in the land sector — by felling fewer trees, and planting more. These six charts tell the story of Australia’s (slow) progress on climate change By national science and environment reporter Michael Slezak in […]

Image: US States making laws against peaceful protest by climate activists Nina Lakhani 12 dec 2024 in Guardian Down to Earth Newsletter Back in early August, I reported on the arrest of two climate activists outside the New York headquarters of Citibank, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel financiers and target of a campaign […]

Disinformation can make it hard for people to distinguish and act on accurate advice. And this can mean life or death when it comes to natural disasters like bushfires By Ika Trijsburg, University of Melbourne and John Richardson, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience 11 December 2024 Australia isn’t immune to disaster disinformation   The 21st […]