International

"Climate change poses a health threat through increasing weather disasters and extreme heat, the UN said Thursday, calling for better warning systems that could be weaved into public health policy."

"With last year’s undersea volcano injecting massive amounts of water high into the atmosphere, scientists were bracing for a big Antarctica ozone hole this fall. But it didn’t happen. Instead this year’s ozone hole was about average size for the last 20 years, even a bit smaller than 2022’s, according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

"Pope Francis said on Wednesday that he will attend the COP28 climate conference starting next month in Dubai, the first time a pontiff will be at the U.N. environmental meeting since they began in 1995."

"Humanity is messing with the Earth’s “salt cycle,” with potentially dangerous consequences for drinking water supplies, crop production, and ecosystems. That’s according to a new study published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment on Tuesday."

"The container shipping lines that carry the bulk of global trade are betting on greener technologies, but there are still reasons those wagers could fail."

"Chemical recycling — an umbrella term used to describe processes that break plastic waste down into molecular building blocks with high heat or chemicals and convert them into new products — will not help reduce plastic pollution, but rather exacerbate environmental problems, according to a new report by nonprofit environmental advocacy groups Beyond Plastics and the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN)."

It was the dead of night when the ship caught fire, Patrick Aganyebi remembers, but the flames made it seem as bright as day. ... Five workers were killed and two others presumed dead in the blast on the Trinity Spirit, a rusting converted oil tanker anchored 15 miles (24 km) off the coast of Nigeria that pulled crude oil from the ocean floor."