NuseReal

AI is reshaping wildlife conservation — "for better and worse" (LINK) — 22 April 2025.

— Scientists estimate less than 20% of insect species on Earth have been identified. After AI reviewed just a week's worth of camera trap footage in Panama, researchers say they found over 300 species previously unknown to science.

— "There is a tidal wave of enthusiastic research about the applications of AI and much less critical research that looks at the costs, environmentally and socially," said Hamish van der Ven, head of the Business, Sustainability, and Technology Lab at the University of British Columbia. The training process for an AI model, such as a large language model (LLM), can consume over a thousand megawatt hours of electricity.

— The less obvious problem, says Shaolei Ren, whose research focuses on minimizing the health impacts of AI, is the water consumption of data centers. Data centers house the infrastructure needed to provide the processing power for AI, and all the technology must be cooled down, usually via freshwater sourced from the local water supply.

There could be billions more people on Earth than previously thought: rural residents could be under-represented. — 20 March 2025 (LINK)

"The actual population living in rural areas is much higher than the global population data indicates — depending on the dataset, rural populations have been underestimated by between 53 percent to 84 percent." — (LINK)

Almost 200 countries from around the world had until 10 February 2025 to return their new climate roadmap to the UN. But almost all of them missed the meeting, raising fears of the major economies in their fight against climate change after Donald Trump's return to power. According to a UN database, only 10 signatories to the Paris Agreement had submitted their updated greenhouse gas reduction strategies by 2035 (article in French). — 16 February 2025 (LINK)

Earth is already shooting through the 1.5C global warming limit, two major studies show. — 15 February 2025 (LINK)

Citizen science helped expose the biggest wildlife die-off ever documented: that of the seabird the common murre, on the remote Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea, off the coast of Alaska. — 13 February 2025 (LINK)

— Alaska is known to be home to 8 million common murres across the state — a quarter of the species' world population. But that's not the case anymore. The common murre started washing up on beaches all over Alaska, starved, emaciated.

— The culprit — climate change. Researchers concluded that a 2014 heatwave in the waters of the north Pacific Ocean, known as The Blob, disrupted the common murre's food web. It created a catastrophic rippling effect, causing 4 million common murres to starve to death within just a couple of years.

What life on Earth will look like in 2100 according to AI: entire cities plunged underwater and millions of people perishing in the heat. — 1 February 2025 (LINK)

The planet had $58bn weather disasters in 2024, the second-highest on record (after 2023 which had $72bn!). — 27 January 2025 (LINK)

— The total damage wrought by weather disasters in 2024 was $402 billion, 20% higher than the 10-year inflation-adjusted average. Gallagher Re's historical database extends back to 1990.) A separate report issued January 18 by insurance broker Aon put the total damage wrought by weather disasters in 2024 at $348 billion, with 53 billion-dollar weather disasters.

Infomaniak data centre in Geneva used to heat 6,000 homes. — 27 January 2025 (LINK)

WEF Global Risks Report 2025: conflict, environment and disinformation top threats. — 15 January 2025 (LINK)

The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) drops the requirement to align with the Paris Agreement in order to participate: is set to undergo a significant restructuring in the way it functions and the requirements for participation, as well as a realignment of its key priorities, as more firms exit their key sub-alliance networks. — 7 January 2025 (LINK)

NYC is set to get a $3 billion, 80,000-acre offshore wind farm, its first. — 7 January 2025 (LINK)

— As of 2023, the global average LCoE of offshore wind farms was right around $75 per megawatt-hour. China spends around $65.7/MWh while the UK spends a bit less at roughly $50/MWh. Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands all have an LCoE of about $84/MWh. The United States pays a bit of a premium compared to the rest of the world, at around $89.33/MWh. NYC's new clean energy project will cost significantly more. Along with the lease, the company locked in a contract with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to deliver power at a strike price of $155 per megawatt-hour over the next 25 years — nearly double the national average.

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