atmosphere

Our Broken Planet: How to heal our rainforests

Breathe in. Breathe out. The oxygen flowing through your body is the result of photosynthesis: the natural process through which living things convert sunlight into energy. About 30% of land-based photosynthesis happens in tropical rainforests. Rainforests are also great at sucking up excess carbon from the atmosphere – something we know we’ve got to do more of.

But in recent years, rainforests have been getting constricted: shrinking in size and choked up with smoke.

Listen to this podcast from the National History Museum to find out what’s going on and how we can help rainforests breathe deeply again.

Health Impacts of Climate Change

The debate about whether climate change is a real phenomenon – and whether humankind is responsible for the alarming rise in greenhouse gas (GHG) levels – is largely a thing of the past. Three decades of research has put forth what most scientists consider incontrovertible proof that escalating levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) are a direct result of human activities ranging from deforestation to emissions from energy production, industry, and agriculture.