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Japanese scientists are preparing to launch a satellite that will use a 300-meter electromagnetic tether to snag orbiting trash left over from past satellites and space missions. The magnetic field will slow the trash, causing it to gradually fall closer to Earth and eventually burn up in the atmosphere. It's thought there are tens of millions of trash fragments in orbit around the Earth.

The hollowing out of the natural world is being driven primarily by human activity, according to the scientists, with a growing global population leading to rising demand for food, goods and natural resources - leaving less land and sea as the preserve of the natural world. The paper also warns that this collapse in global biodiversity will in turn have "grave impacts" on human populations.

Scotland is banning GMO crops in a bid to protect its "clean and green brand," angering farmers and scientists who say the ban panders to unwarranted consumer concerns and has no basis in science. "Cultivation of GM crops would harm our environment and our reputation," counters Scottish Green lawmaker Alison Johnstone. The Independent (London) (tiered subscription model) (8/9) 

Nuclear energy's resilience was never more apparent than during the COP21 climate talks in Paris. It was there that a famed environmentalist and the one who has cautioned against the effects of global warming said that the carbon-free energy form should figure a lot more prominently into utility power generation. Read more: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2016/02/11/scientists-say-climate-change-should-propel-nuclear-energy-to-prominence/#ixzz40U6A0Uhv

Worldwide levels of carbon dioxide - the gas scientists say is most responsible for global warming - reached a significant milestone for the month of March, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday. The global monthly average for carbon dioxide hit 400.83 parts per million in March, the first time the average surpassed 400 ppm for an entire month since such measurements began in the late 1950s, NOAA said.

Global carbon dioxide levels averaged 400.83 parts per million in March, marking the first time that atmospheric carbon has remained above the 400 ppm threshold for an entire month, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "It's both disturbing and daunting," said NOAA chief greenhouse gas scientist Pieter Tans. 

As a punishing drought continues to grip California and other areas, scientists are exploring hardy succulents as a pathway to genetically engineer plants to use less water. Agave and other succulents such as the prickly pear, pineapple and vanilla have evolved to perform a different kind of photosynthesis that enable their survival in semiarid environments. These species absorb most of their carbon dioxide at night rather than during the day, as most plants do, meaning less water evaporates off the leaves through transpiration. 

Steve Davis is a climate energy scientist at the University of California Irvine. He and his colleagues wanted to see whether outsourcing manufacturing to China--which happens to be good for our wallets--is also good for the planet. Spoiler alert: doesn't look like it.

Scientists are still trying to unravel the damaging effects of ground-level ozone on life on earth. But as the world warms, their concerns about the impact of this highly toxic, pollution-caused gas are growing.

Since 2014, oil companies reported that they used more than 20 million pounds and 2 million gallons of chemicals in their operations, including at least 16 chemicals the state of California classifies as carcinogens or reproductive toxicants under the state's Proposition 65 law. That recycled wastewater was then sold to irrigation districts largely in Kern County. The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has allowed the practice for at least four decades and only recently required the oil companies and water districts to disclose the details. EWG detailed its findings in a report released Wednesday, two days before a public meeting of an expert panel convened to study the practice's safety. Although scientists don't know whether using oil field wastewater to grow crops poses a health risk to people who eat the food, the water board has refused to halt the practice until the expert panel releases its findings.

The Science Based Targets initiative announced that 155 companies are now participating in its program to establish emissions goals in line with what scientists say is necessary to keep global warming below the 2 degrees Celsius threshold.

Plastic Soup Foundation (PSF), a Dutch nonprofit, and New York-based Parley for the Oceans announced Tuesday a partnership to tackle the issue of microfiber pollution and to create a global alliance of companies, governments, NGOs and scientists. Microfibers - tiny, often synthetic threads shed from laundry, industrial clothing manufacturing and fishing nets - have been found in alarming numbers in recent studies of microplastic pollution.

Turn off your air conditioner and stay cool in your shirt instead. That's the idea behind a new plastic-wrap-like material that Stanford University scientists say could be made into "cool" clothing, the use of which could slash emissions and energy consumption in buildings. If woven into fabric, the wearable cloth could keep humans cool on the hottest of days, eliminating the need to adjust the thermostat or crank up a fan. That could make a dent on a major source of U.S. greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

Communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel development are taking a stand against dangerous fossil fuel projects. Take a look at the big fight in the small town of Kalama, Washington. The Chinese government is planning to build the world's largest methanol refinery to convert fracked natural gas to liquid methanol for export to China to make plastics. From a greenhouse gas perspective, this fight is a big deal. The methanol refinery alone would use more natural gas than all industry in Washington combined. Flip it around: If we win this one battle and stop the methanol refinery, we stop the equivalent of doubling industrial natural gas usage in Washington State. While the gas industry tries to spin natural gas as clean, new science shows just the opposite. The bulk of natural gas is methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Methane leakage from gas wells and pipelines led scientists to conclude that fracked gas can be as bad coal for our climate. And it gets worse. Gas production in North America relies heavily on fracking, a process famous for polluting air and water, endangering the health of nearby residents.

Rising temperatures and changing precipitation are taking a toll on coffee farms worldwide, including the plantations around Mount Kilimanjaro. If the world hopes to sustain its two billion cup-a-day habit, scientists say, new climate-resilient species of coffee must be developed.

Global trade has made it easier to buy things. But our consumption habits often fuel threats to biodiversity - such as deforestation, overhunting and overfishing - thousands of miles away. Now, scientists have mapped how major consuming countries drive threats to endangered species elsewhere. Such maps could be useful for finding the most efficient ways to protect critical areas important for biodiversity, the researchers suggest in a new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. For example, the maps show that commodities used in the United States and the European Union exert several threats on marine species in Southeast Asia, mainly due to overfishing, pollution and aquaculture. The U.S. also exerts pressure on hotspots off the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and at the mouth of the Orinoco around Trinidad and Tobago. European Union's impacts extend to the islands around Madagascar: Réunion, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The maps also revealed some unexpected linkages. For instance, the impact of U.S. consumption in Brazil appears to be much greater in southern Brazil (in the Brazilian Highlands where agriculture and grazing are extensive) than inside the Amazon basin, which receives a larger chunk of the attention. The U.S. also has high biodiversity footprint in southern Spain and Portugal, due to their impacts on threatened fish and bird species. These countries are rarely perceived as threat hotspots.

pilot project that sought to demonstrate that carbon dioxide emissions could be locked up by turning them into rock appears to be a success. Tests at the CarbFix project in Iceland indicate that most of the CO2 injected into basalt turned into carbonate minerals in less than two years, far shorter a time than the hundreds or thousands of years that scientists had once thought such a process would take. Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/iceland-carbon-capture-project-quickly-converts-carbon-dioxide-stone-180959365/#GpYzrDcLOjF1tUZx.99 Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

Global cloud patterns have changed since the 1980s, and scientists have found these shifts are consistent with predictions from climate model simulations.

Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880, according to scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The six-month period from January to June was also the planet's warmest half-year on record, with an average temperature 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the late nineteenth century.

The amount of carbon in the atmosphere will hit 400 parts per million this year and will remain above that level for many decades to come, scientists say. The milestone is being reached sooner than expected, raising questions about the planet's ability to avert catastrophic climate change.