Stories written by Stephen Leahy
Stephen Leahy is the lead international science and environment correspondent at IPS, where he writes about climate change, energy, water, biodiversity, development and native peoples. Based in Uxbridge, Canada, near Toronto, Steve has covered environmental issues for nearly two decades for publications around the world. He is a professional member of the International Federation of Journalists, the Society of Environmental Journalists and the International League of Conservation Writers. He also pioneered Community Supported Environmental Journalism to ensure important environmental issues continue to be covered. | Web | Twitter |

BIODIVERSITY: Scientists Build a Macroscope of Life on Earth

By Stephen Leahy
Imagine looking at a Google Maps-like satellite image of the Amazon forest and with a mouse click find out what lives in that bit of forest - what tree and plant species are there, what animals, birds and insects.
James Lovelock to celebrate 90th birthday. - Courtesy of Sandy Lovelock

“I Hope We Are Civilized When Climate Disaster Hits”

By Stephen Leahy and - -
"It's like the pre-World War II calm," says British scientist James Lovelock in describing the human situation and lack of action to adapt to global climate change.

CLIMATE CHANGE: More Subsidies for Fossil Fuels in Recovery Plans

By Stephen Leahy
Despite the economic slow down, growing numbers of world leaders are calling for urgent action on climate change while many governments used their economic stimulus packages to increase subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

ENVIRONMENT: Extraordinary Abundance of Life in Oceans Past

By Stephen Leahy
Imagine large pods of mighty blue whales and orcas darkening the waters off Cornwall, England, while closer to shore blue sharks and thresher sharks chase herds of harbour porpoise and dolphins.
Australia, with its long history of bad-news invaders like rabbits and cane toads (pictured above), insists that visitors surrender all fresh food, animal and plant products. Credit: J. Polák

BIODIVERSITY: Alien Species Eroding Ecosystems and Livelihoods

By Stephen Leahy
Continent-hopping alien species are worsening poverty and threaten the agriculture, forestry, fisheries and natural systems that underpin millions of livelihoods in developing countries, warn biodiversity experts.

ENVIRONMENT: Deep CO2 Cuts May Be Last Hope for Acid Oceans

By Stephen Leahy
Ocean acidification offers the clearest evidence of dangers of climate change. And yet the indisputable fact that burning fossil fuels is slowly turning the oceans into an acid bath has been largely ignored by industrialised countries and their climate treaty negotiators, concluded delegates from 76 countries at the World Oceans Conference in Manado, Indonesia.
Urban smog in Beijing, China, 2003. Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego

CLIMATE CHANGE: Snow Cover Turning to Lakes in the Himalayas

By Stephen Leahy
As climate change takes hold, even the mighty Himalayas and Hindu Kush mountain ranges are now losing their snow and ice.
Acacia savannah in Zanzibar, Tanzania Credit: Public domain

AGRICULTURE: Foreigners Lead Global Land Rush

By Stephen Leahy
More than 20 million hectares of farmland in Africa and Latin America are now in the hands of foreign governments and companies, a sign of a global "land grab" that got a boost from last year's food crisis.
Acacia savannahs in Zanzibar, Tanzania. - Public domain

Foreigners Lead Global Agricultural Land Rush

By Stephen Leahy and - -
Corporations and governments with financial resources to spend are buying up agricultural land in poor countries as a means to ensure food and energy supplies.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Two-Degree Rise Ever More Likely, Scientists Warn

By Stephen Leahy
Climate scientists are calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels because humans are now pumping so much carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere that the '2-degree-C climate balloon' will burst otherwise, new studies show.
Western Shoshone leader Carrie Dann. Credit: Courtesy of Carrie Dann

RIGHTS: Indigenous Wisdom Against Climate Change

By Stephen Leahy
While industrialised countries like Canada continue to emit ever-higher levels of greenhouse-effect gases, indigenous peoples around the world are working to survive and adapt to an increasingly dangerous climate.
Projects to reduce deforestation, like this jungle burned for agriculture in southern Mexico, must include recognition of land rights, indigenous people say. Credit: Jami Dwyer

CLIMATE CHANGE: Burden Lies with Rich Polluters, Native People Say

By Stephen Leahy
Already suffering significant impacts from climate change, indigenous peoples at the close of an international summit here rejected the concept of carbon trading and offsets. Many also called for a moratorium on all new oil and gas exploration in their traditional territories and the eventual phase-out of fossil fuels.
Western Shoshone leader Carrie Dann. - Courtesy of the interviewee.

Indigenous Wisdom Against Climate Change

By Stephen Leahy and - -
Native peoples, with their ancestral links to the land, have learned some useful lessons over the millennia about how to fight and adapt to climate change.
Drought and hotter weather are making it very difficult to grow the staple crop of maize in most regions of Mexico. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

CLIMATE CHANGE: Native Peoples Sound Dire Warning

By Stephen Leahy
Humanity's hot carbon breath is not just melting the planet’s polar regions, it is disrupting natural systems and livelihoods around the world, indigenous people reported this week at a global meeting on climate change in Anchorage, Alaska.

ENVIRONMENT: Indigenous Peoples Demand Greater Role in Climate Debate

By Stephen Leahy
While indigenous peoples from around the world are meeting in this Alaskan city to seek a greater role in global climate negotiations, the rapidly warming Arctic is forcing some Inuit villages to be relocated.
A native of one of the islands of Carteret, in Papua-New Guinea, follows the coastline eroded by ever-higher tides. - Indigenous Summit

Indigenous Peoples Demand Greater Role in Climate Debate

By Stephen Leahy and - -
Indigenous organizations and communities want their voices heard in the international negotiations on how to deal with climate change.

ENVIRONMENT: Earth’s Arctic Freezer Turning Into Hothouse

By Stephen Leahy
The world is losing its northern freezer as Arctic winter ice is in sharp decline, NASA scientists reported this week. Even with below average winter temperatures, Arctic ice is thinner and covers less area than it did a decade ago.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Farming Could Be Friend or Foe

By Stephen Leahy
Don't forget about agriculture in the upcoming global negotiations to combat climate change, experts warn. Not only is farming most at risk in an increasingly variable and tempestuous climate, it is also a major emitter of greenhouse gases.
Tourism helps preserve Kruger Park in South Africa. Credit: Public domain

ENVIRONMENT: Can Ecotourism Be More Than an Illusion?

By Stephen Leahy
More than ever before, global tourism must play its part in sustainable development and poverty alleviation, stated experts at an international symposium in this Canadian city.
Tourism helps preserve Kruger Park in South Africa. - Public domain

Can Ecotourism Be More Than an Illusion?

By Stephen Leahy and - -
Tourism has a paradox at its core: it has revealed natural wonders that humanity realizes it cannot allow to disappear, but at the same time humanity has put those very natural wonders in danger, say experts.

CLIMATE CHANGE: In Search of a Green Economic Stimulus

By Stephen Leahy
The high-level scientific climate conference that concluded last week in Copenhagen warned that humanity is rapidly approaching an irreversible, 1,000-year-long climate catastrophe.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*