A new study attributes nearly 1.7 million deaths worldwide to second-hand smoke. The estimate counts non-smokers who die after exposure to other people's smoke, a toll that places passive smoking among the largest preventable health risks on the planet. The authors hope the numbers will push governments toward stricter smoke-free rules.
For over a decade, the world has been trying to limit global warming to 1.5°C. That is no longer possible, according to a new United Nations report. We will likely pass 1.5°C in 2030. That is not good news for anyone, least of all Australia’s Pacific Island neighbours, who face rapidly rising seas.
A new study suggests that El Niños, the natural climatic chaos agents that appear periodically and drive up global temperatures, are becoming stronger because of human-caused climate change. El Niños are more than 36 per cent stronger than they were before the Industrial Age began in the mid-1800s, with a 16 per cent increase in just the past 40 years suggesting that the trend is accelerating, according to a recent study in the journal Science.
Kim Stanley Robinson's novel The Ministry for the Future depicts a catastrophic heatwave in India that kills millions. Scientists warn that such extreme weather events are becoming a real possibility rather than fiction. These predictions suggest more frequent floods, storms, and droughts.