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Global warming is a result of the increased emission of greenhouse gases. The consequences of this climate change threaten society, biodiversity, food and resource availability. The consequences include an increased risk of cardiovascular (CV) disease and cardiovascular mortality. In this position paper, we summarize the data from the main studies that assess the risks of a temperature increase or heat waves in CV events (CV mortality, myocardial infarction, heart failure, stroke, and CV hospitalizations), as well as the data concerning air pollution as an enhancer of temperature-related CV risks. The data currently support global warming/heat waves (extreme temperatures) as cardiovascular threats. Achieving neutrality in emissions to prevent global warming is essential and it is likely to have an effect in the global health, including the cardiovascular health. Simultaneously, urgent steps are required to adapt the society and individuals to this new climatic context that is potentially harmful for cardiovascular health. Multidisciplinary teams should plan and intervene healthcare related to temperature changes and heat waves and advocate for a change in environmental health policy., (Copyright © 2023 Sociedade Portuguesa de Cardiologia. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.)

Simple Summary: During overwintering diapause, the gynes of paper wasps (Polistes sp.) are mainly dormant in sheltered hibernacles, protecting them against predators and adverse weather conditions but hardly against low temperatures. By measuring the temperature inside hibernacles occupied by species from both Mediterranean (Italian; P. dominula, P. gallicus) and temperate (Austrian; P. dominula) climates (mean hibernacle temperatures: 8.5 °C and 3.2 °C, respectively), we were able to calculate the energetic demand of overwintering. The cumulative energetic costs differed between the populations. Costs were lowest for the P. dominula population from the cooler Austrian winter climate and significantly higher in P. dominula and P. gallicus from the warmer Italian climate. The lower costs of the temperate species were a result of the lower winter temperature and physiological acclimation processes. Energetic calculations with an assumed temperature increase of up to 3 °C due to climate change predict a dramatic increase of up to 40% in overwintering costs in all species. Gynes of paper wasps (Polistes sp.) spend the cold season in sheltered hibernacles. These hibernacles protect against predators and adverse weather conditions but offer only limited protection against low temperatures. During overwintering diapause, wasps live on the energy they store. We investigated the hibernacles' microclimate conditions of species from the Mediterranean (Italy, P. dominula, P. gallicus) and temperate (Austria, P. dominula) climates in order to describe the environmental conditions and calculate the energetic demand of overwintering according to standard metabolic rate functions. The temperatures at the hibernacles differed significantly between the Mediterranean and temperate habitats (average in Austria: 3.2 ± 5.71 °C, in Italy: 8.5 ± 5.29 °C). In both habitats, the hibernacle temperatures showed variance, but the mean hibernacle temperature corresponded closely to the meteorological climate data. Cumulative mass-specific energetic costs over the studied period were the lowest for the temperate P. dominula population compared with both Mediterranean species. The lower costs of the temperate species were a result of the lower hibernacle temperature and acclimation to lower environmental temperatures. Model calculations with an increased mean temperature of up to 3 °C due to climate change indicate a dramatic increase of up to 40% in additional costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing consumption is both necessary to end extreme poverty 1 and one of the main drivers of greenhouse gas emissions 2 , creating a potential tension between alleviating poverty and limiting global warming. Most poverty reduction has historically occurred because of economic growth 3-6 , which means that reducing poverty entails increasing not only the consumption of people living in poverty but also the consumption of people with a higher income. Here we estimate the emissions associated with the economic growth needed to alleviate extreme poverty using the international poverty line of US $2.15 per day (ref.  7 ). Even with historical energy- and carbon-intensity patterns, the global emissions increase associated with alleviating extreme poverty is modest, at 2.37 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year or 4.9% of 2019 global emissions. Lower inequality, higher energy efficiency and decarbonization of energy can ease this tension further: assuming the best historical performance, the emissions for poverty alleviation in 2050 will be reduced by 90%. More ambitious poverty lines require more economic growth in more countries, which leads to notably higher emissions. The challenge to align the development and climate objectives of the world is not in reconciling extreme poverty alleviation with climate objectives but in providing sustainable middle-income standards of living., (© 2023. The World Bank.)

The potential of mitigation actions to limit global warming within 2 °C (ref.  1 ) might rely on the abundant supply of biomass for large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) that is assumed to scale up markedly in the future 2-5 . However, the detrimental effects of climate change on crop yields may reduce the capacity of BECCS and threaten food security 6-8 , thus creating an unrecognized positive feedback loop on global warming. We quantified the strength of this feedback by implementing the responses of crop yields to increases in growing-season temperature, atmospheric CO 2 concentration and intensity of nitrogen (N) fertilization in a compact Earth system model 9 . Exceeding a threshold of climate change would cause transformative changes in social-ecological systems by jeopardizing climate stability and threatening food security. If global mitigation alongside large-scale BECCS is delayed to 2060 when global warming exceeds about 2.5 °C, then the yields of agricultural residues for BECCS would be too low to meet the Paris goal of 2 °C by 2200. This risk of failure is amplified by the sustained demand for food, leading to an expansion of cropland or intensification of N fertilization to compensate for climate-induced yield losses. Our findings thereby reinforce the urgency of early mitigation, preferably by 2040, to avoid irreversible climate change and serious food crises unless other negative-emission technologies become available in the near future to compensate for the reduced capacity of BECCS., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

A recent article in Development explores the molecular mechanisms behind embryonic diapause, a state of suspended development induced by nutrient deprivation. The study, conducted on mice, reveals that protein and carbohydrate depletion activate the nutrient sensors Gator1 and Tsc2, leading to embryonic diapause. The researchers also discuss the potential applicability of their findings to other mammalian species, including primates. The study expands our understanding of the role of mTOR in diapause and sheds light on how environmental stresses inhibit mTORC1 activity. [Extracted from the article]

Climate change is one of humanity's most serious threats, putting at risk the functioning of the natural systems that sustain human health. (1,2) In the Anthropocene, human activities have significantly [...]

The diagnosis of dengue infection is still a critical factor determining success in the clinical management and treatment of patients. Here, the development of microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (μPADs) utilizing a sandwich immunoassay on wax patterned paper functionalized with anti-dengue NS1 monoclonal antibodies for point-of-care detection of dengue NS1 (DEN-NS1-PAD) is reported. Various assay conditions, including the length of the channel and diluent, were optimized, and the response detected by the naked eye and digitized images within 20–30 min. The DEN-NS1-PAD was successfully tested in the field for detecting dengue NS1 in buffer, cell culture media, and human serum. The limit of detection (LoD) of the DEN-NS1-PAD obtained with the naked eye, scanner, and a smartphone camera was 200, 46.7, and 74.8 ng mL−1, respectively. The repeatability, reproducibility, and stability of the DEN-NS1-PAD were also evaluated. High true specificity and sensitivity in the serum of pediatric patients were observed. These evaluation results confirm that the DEN-NS1-PAD can potentially be used in point-of-care dengue diagnostics, which can significantly impact on the spreading of mosquito-borne diseases, which are likely to become more prevalent with the effects of global warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aeration, as a process in pulp and paper wastewater treatment, uses the greatest share of the energy. Therefore, if the energy efficiency of the treatment has to be improved, the focus must be on aeration. A key finding from the trials conducted for this paper, with effluent from a paper and pulp mill, was that the oxygen transfer coefficient could be doubled and the chemical oxygen demand could be decreased by 25%, if the effluent was pre-treated with 30 mg/l of aluminium coagulant (equivalent to 9.4 tonnes per day of AVR to 20000 cubic metres of effluent). Decrease in oxygen requirement implies decreases in aeration energy use. Pulp and paper mill effluents are not as biodegradable as municipal sewage, and the improvement in oxygen transfer properties of the effluent will have a positive influence over a longer period of time in the biological treatment. If the sludge is digested anaerobically, pre-treatment will also result in doubling the potential for methane generation. A holistic analysis of modifications to processes entails a study of the economic and environmental consequences as well. While the economic aspect is beyond the scope of this paper, only the net global warming as an environmental impact category has been studied, by taking recourse to specific emission coefficients. Of the four dosages of ferric aluminium sulphate considered in this analysis, the net greenhouse gas emissions are the least – 426 kg carbon dioxide equivalent per day when the daily consumption is 9.4 tonnes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the severe impacts of climate change on human health, socioeconomic development and the natural environment, the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change has failed to reach its [...]

Palaeorecords suggest that the climate system has tipping points, where small changes in forcing cause substantial and irreversible alteration to Earth system components called tipping elements. As atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise as a result of fossil fuel burning, human activity could also trigger tipping, and the impacts would be difficult to adapt to. Previous studies report low global warming thresholds above pre-industrial conditions for key tipping elements such as ice-sheet melt. If so, high contemporary rates of warming imply that exceeding these thresholds is almost inevitable, which is widely assumed to mean that we are now committed to suffering these tipping events. Here we show that this assumption may be flawed, especially for slow-onset tipping elements (such as the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) in our rapidly changing climate. Recently developed theory indicates that a threshold may be temporarily exceeded without prompting a change of system state, if the overshoot time is short compared to the effective timescale of the tipping element. To demonstrate this, we consider transparently simple models of tipping elements with prescribed thresholds, driven by global warming trajectories that peak before returning to stabilize at a global warming level of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. These results highlight the importance of accounting for timescales when assessing risks associated with overshooting tipping point thresholds.

The South African government's response to the universal crisis of global warming has resulted in the creation of the National Climate Change Response White Paper, a proposed country-wide course of action that would aid in the stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions and intervene in current harmful environmental practices. The role of communication and the media is crucial to the success of any policy implementation as well as of the establishment of an 'action-inspired' mind-set amongst citizens that will bolster lifestyle change to support the cause. This paper will assess the National Climate Change Response White Paper in conjunction with climate change coverage from the South African daily online news source, News 24. Additionally, films released from the Bjerkness Centre for Climate Research and discussion surrounding youth's use of relatable mediums to invoke lifestyle change from Lindie Buirski, Head of Environmental Capacity Building, Training and Education in the City of Cape Town's Environmental Resource Management (ERM) Department, will aid in analysis. Moreover, they will serve to bolster the argument of communications' critical role in realizing any goals set forth by the government. The paper will close by offering proposed climate-change directed development projects for the South African context and will refer to current international successful examples of media use to carry the message of climate change, while inviting audience input, participation, and most importantly, action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human society is dependent on nature 1,2 , but whether our ecological foundations are at risk remains unknown in the absence of systematic monitoring of species' populations 3 . Knowledge of species fluctuations is particularly inadequate in the marine realm 4 . Here we assess the population trends of 1,057 common shallow reef species from multiple phyla at 1,636 sites around Australia over the past decade. Most populations decreased over this period, including many tropical fishes, temperate invertebrates (particularly echinoderms) and southwestern Australian macroalgae, whereas coral populations remained relatively stable. Population declines typically followed heatwave years, when local water temperatures were more than 0.5 °C above temperatures in 2008. Following heatwaves 5,6 , species abundances generally tended to decline near warm range edges, and increase near cool range edges. More than 30% of shallow invertebrate species in cool latitudes exhibited high extinction risk, with rapidly declining populations trapped by deep ocean barriers, preventing poleward retreat as temperatures rise. Greater conservation effort is needed to safeguard temperate marine ecosystems, which are disproportionately threatened and include species with deep evolutionary roots. Fundamental among such efforts, and broader societal needs to efficiently adapt to interacting anthropogenic and natural pressures, is greatly expanded monitoring of species' population trends 7,8 ., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

In many developing countries, aquaculture is key to ensuring food security for millions of people. It is thus important to measure the full implications of environmental changes on the sustainability of aquaculture. We conduct a double meta-analysis (460 articles) to explore how global warming and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) impact aquaculture. We calculate a Multi-Antibiotic Resistance index (MAR) of aquaculture-related bacteria (11,274 isolates) for 40 countries, of which mostly low- and middle-income countries present high AMR levels. Here we show that aquaculture MAR indices correlate with MAR indices from human clinical bacteria, temperature and countries' climate vulnerability. We also find that infected aquatic animals present higher mortalities at warmer temperatures. Countries most vulnerable to climate change will probably face the highest AMR risks, impacting human health beyond the aquaculture sector, highlighting the need for urgent action. Sustainable solutions to minimise antibiotic use and increase system resilience are therefore needed.

Research reported during the past decade has shown that global warming is roughly proportional to the total amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. This makes it possible to estimate the remaining carbon budget: the total amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide that can still be emitted into the atmosphere while holding the global average temperature increase to the limit set by the Paris Agreement. However, a wide range of estimates for the remaining carbon budget has been reported, reducing the effectiveness of the remaining carbon budget as a means of setting emission reduction targets that are consistent with the Paris Agreement. Here we present a framework that enables us to track estimates of the remaining carbon budget and to understand how these estimates can improve over time as scientific knowledge advances. We propose that application of this framework may help to reconcile differences between estimates of the remaining carbon budget and may provide a basis for reducing uncertainty in the range of future estimates.

Abstract: Currently there are several methodologies available for estimating the carbon footprint of products. In this study a comparison has been made between the outcomes and the implications of three different methodologies applied to office paper: (1) the ISO 14040/14044 standards limited to the analysis of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the corresponding impact category global warming; (2) the PAS 2050; and (3) the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) framework. The carbon footprint of office paper from cradle-to-costumer is 4.64, 4.74 and 4.29gCO2eq per A4 sheet according to, respectively, the ISO 14040/14044 standards, the PAS 2050 and the CEPI framework. The ISO 14040/14044 standard methodology allows the quantification of 98% of the total GHG emissions with the smallest effort in data collection. The major hot spots are the stages of eucalypt pulp and office paper production and chemical and fuel production for all methodologies. General methodologies such as those analysed in this study are not enough for the comparison of products. More specific rules, such as Product Category Rules, that limit the degree of freedom in the choice of the functional unit, system boundary, allocation rules, data quality, between others, should be developed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The combination of anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis technologies could be a novel energy-biochar production system to maximize energy and nutrient recovery from pulp and paper mill sludge. Herein, the life-cycle energy production and emissions reduction of sludge treatment from a typical pulp and paper mill were investigated, in which alternative uses of biogas for industrial or household application, in different regions of the world, were assessed. The three scenarios considered for different end-uses of biogas are: (A) biogas for vehicle fuel in the transportation sector in Sweden, (B) biogas for heat and electricity in the power sector in Brazil, and (C) biogas for cooking in households in China. The results of Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment (E-LCA) show that for all these three scenarios, the use of biogas and pyrolysis gas contributes most to emissions mitigation, while the dewatering and drying processes carried out on the sludge, contribute the most to the environmental emissions. Addition of biochar to the soil, contributes significantly to a reduction in global warming by sequestering carbon in the soil. Compared to scenarios B and C, Scenario A, in which biogas substitutes gasoline in transportation, and heat from combusted pyrolysis gases is used for district heating in Sweden, demonstrates the highest environmental performance for all the evaluated impact categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding environmental determination of crop yield plays a critical role in agricultural. management in resource-limited areas. The climatic transition zone was a naturally ideal place to study. the relations between environmental factors and crop yield, due to its large annual variability of climatic factors and high speed of temperature increase under global warming. Our objectives were to identify the most critical environmental factor in determining spring wheat yield and analyze the convergence and divergence of water-yield relations for spring wheat in a typical climatic transition zone (semi-arid area). The study was conducted at two locations, Dingxi and Pengyang in Northwest China, with a long-term experiment (1987-2018) and two short-term irrigation experiments. Meanwhile, data of water use and spring wheat yield was collected from a series of previously published literature in the study area. The highest spring wheat yield was obtained under year pattern with higher soil water content at sowing (SWCS) and lower atmospheric dryness condition (ADC, the difference between reference evapotranspiration and precipitation during spring wheat growing season). SWCS was more important than precipitation during the growing season (PGS) in determining spring wheat yield in the study area. The relations between available water supply, water use, and spring wheat yield were convergence. However, SWCS had an impact on the relationship between yield and PGS and SWCS-yield relation was affected by ADC. We concluded that precipitation in 7 months before sowing was the dominant factor determining spring wheat yield in the climatic transition zone under global warming whereas the impact of high atmospheric evaporative demand resulted from the increasing temperature on crop yields and SWCS-yield relation must be taken into account for the analysis of environmental determination of spring wheat yield., (© 2021. The Author(s) under exclusive licence to International Society of Biometeorology.)

Night-time provides a critical window for slowing or extinguishing fires owing to the lower temperature and the lower vapour pressure deficit (VPD). However, fire danger is most often assessed based on daytime conditions 1,2 , capturing what promotes fire spread rather than what impedes fire. Although it is well appreciated that changing daytime weather conditions are exacerbating fire, potential changes in night-time conditions-and their associated role as fire reducers-are less understood. Here we show that night-time fire intensity has increased, which is linked to hotter and drier nights. Our findings are based on global satellite observations of daytime and night-time fire detections and corresponding hourly climate data, from which we determine landcover-specific thresholds of VPD (VPD t ), below which fire detections are very rare (less than 95 per cent modelled chance). Globally, daily minimum VPD increased by 25 per cent from 1979 to 2020. Across burnable lands, the annual number of flammable night-time hours-when VPD exceeds VPD t -increased by 110 hours, allowing five additional nights when flammability never ceases. Across nearly one-fifth of burnable lands, flammable nights increased by at least one week across this period. Globally, night fires have become 7.2 per cent more intense from 2003 to 2020, measured via a satellite record. These results reinforce the lack of night-time relief that wildfire suppression teams have experienced in recent years. We expect that continued night-time warming owing to anthropogenic climate change will promote more intense, longer-lasting and larger fires., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

The impact of climate change on the Earth's environments has been widely discussed, although there is still little consensus on the degree of influence, and to what extent the effects are positive, negative or neutral. Predicting the impacts of climate change on organisms and their response to this process has been a growing challenge for ecologists in recent years. In this review, we surveyed the published research on the relationship between lizards and global climate change. We surveyed the keywords "climate change" and "warming", combined with "lizard*" (there is, all words with this prefix), in three reference databases. We identified 401 relevant papers, and analyzed in further detail the group of studies (59 papers, 14.7% of the total) that developed thermoregulatory models to predict the persistence of lizards in a scenario of global warming. These 59 papers focused on species of 13 lizard families found on five continents. Overall, 62.5% of the papers that predicted the impacts of climate change on lizards indicated negative effects, while 21.9% reported positive effects, and 15.6%, a neutral scenario. The lizards identified as the most vulnerable to warming were tropical, viviparous, and thermoconformers, whereas species adapted to cooler climates would be the most likely to benefit from warming. On a broader scale, however, this scenario would lead to competition between lowland and highland lizards, for example, for thermally favorable areas. We conclude that it will be important to develop more detailed models that contemplate the specific features of each group for the development of more reliable predictions, in addition to the need for social conservation projects and the systematic identification of priority areas for conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tropical forests make an approximately neutral contribution to the global carbon cycle, with intact and recovering forests taking in as much carbon as is released through deforestation and degradation. In the near future, tropical forests are likely to become a carbon source, owing to continued forest loss and the effect of climate change on the ability of the remaining forests to capture excess atmospheric carbon dioxide. This will make it harder to limit global warming to below 2 °C. Encouragingly, recent international agreements commit to halting deforestation and degradation, but a lack of fundamental data for use in monitoring and model design makes policy action difficult.

Parties to the 2015 Paris Agreement pledged to limit global warming to well below 2 °C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C relative to pre-industrial times 1 . However, fossil fuels continue to dominate the global energy system and a sharp decline in their use must be realized to keep the temperature increase below 1.5 °C (refs. 2-7 ). Here we use a global energy systems model 8 to assess the amount of fossil fuels that would need to be left in the ground, regionally and globally, to allow for a 50 per cent probability of limiting warming to 1.5 °C. By 2050, we find that nearly 60 per cent of oil and fossil methane gas, and 90 per cent of coal must remain unextracted to keep within a 1.5 °C carbon budget. This is a large increase in the unextractable estimates for a 2 °C carbon budget 9 , particularly for oil, for which an additional 25 per cent of reserves must remain unextracted. Furthermore, we estimate that oil and gas production must decline globally by 3 per cent each year until 2050. This implies that most regions must reach peak production now or during the next decade, rendering many operational and planned fossil fuel projects unviable. We probably present an underestimate of the production changes required, because a greater than 50 per cent probability of limiting warming to 1.5 °C requires more carbon to stay in the ground and because of uncertainties around the timely deployment of negative emission technologies at scale., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Active transportation is defined as self-propelled, human-powered transportation modes, such as walking and bicycling. In this article, we review the evidence that reliance on gasoline-powered transportation is contributing to global climate change, air pollution, and physical inactivity and that this is harmful to human health. Global climate change poses a major threat to human health and in the future could offset the health gains achieved over the last 100 yr. Based on hundreds of scientific studies, there is strong evidence that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to global climate change. Climate change is associated with increased severity of storms, flooding, rising sea levels, hotter climates, and drought, all leading to increased morbidity and mortality. Along with increases in atmospheric CO2, other pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter (e.g., PM2.5) are released by combustion engines and industry, which can lead to pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases. Also, as car ownership and vehicle miles traveled have increased, the shift toward motorized transport has contributed to physical inactivity. Each of these global challenges has resulted in, or is projected to result in, millions of premature deaths each year. One of the ways that nations can mitigate the health consequences of climate change, air pollution, and chronic diseases is through the use of active transportation. Research indicates that populations that rely heavily on active transportation enjoy better health and increased longevity. In summary, active transportation has tremendous potential to simultaneously address three global public health challenges of the 21st century., (Copyright © 2021 by the American College of Sports Medicine.)

Africa is forecasted to experience large and rapid climate change 1 and population growth 2 during the twenty-first century, which threatens the world's second largest rainforest. Protecting and sustainably managing these African forests requires an increased understanding of their compositional heterogeneity, the environmental drivers of forest composition and their vulnerability to ongoing changes. Here, using a very large dataset of 6 million trees in more than 180,000 field plots, we jointly model the distribution in abundance of the most dominant tree taxa in central Africa, and produce continuous maps of the floristic and functional composition of central African forests. Our results show that the uncertainty in taxon-specific distributions averages out at the community level, and reveal highly deterministic assemblages. We uncover contrasting floristic and functional compositions across climates, soil types and anthropogenic gradients, with functional convergence among types of forest that are floristically dissimilar. Combining these spatial predictions with scenarios of climatic and anthropogenic global change suggests a high vulnerability of the northern and southern forest margins, the Atlantic forests and most forests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where both climate and anthropogenic threats are expected to increase sharply by 2085. These results constitute key quantitative benchmarks for scientists and policymakers to shape transnational conservation and management strategies that aim to provide a sustainable future for central African forests.

For the estimation of global karst carbon sink, a few conventional methods usually require the parameters that are difficult to measure, resulting in the big cost. Moreover, under the constraints of incomplete and timeliness issues in the collection of data over a large region, it has remained a challenge for these methods to study global karst carbon sink. Therefore, this paper proposes estimating the global karst carbon sink, and analyzing the suitability of the response surface methodology and the fluctuating variation of karst carbon sink in global karst regions from 1951 to 2050. This paper shows that the proposed method can reduce the time of numerical calculation and is suitable for application in global weathering models; The global karst carbon sink in the future changes not only displays an upward trend but also exposures its fluctuating trend largely. This fluctuation is probably due to global warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]