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Watching a pet dog run free can be a source of joy for many people. But letting your dog off the leash is not so good for wildlife, especially if you’re in an area set aside for native species.

The fall of President Bashar al-Assad has left a critical question: After a half-century of brutal dynastic rule has come to an end, who speaks for Syrians now?

In the early hours of December 3 1984, 27 tonnes of toxic gas methyl isocyanate leaked from a storage tank at Union Carbide Corporation’s pesticide plant on the outskirts of the central Indian city of Bhopal. Amnesty International estimates that more than 22,000 people have died as a result of…

Extensive flooding of the River Thames and its tributaries across south-east England in February 2014 was caused by extraordinary weather conditions. Very heavy rain had fallen on ground already saturated by multiple storms since the previous December. Hundreds of residents were evacuated and the flooding damaged thousands of homes and…

It is a common refrain to say that geopolitics gets in the way of climate action. From the war in Ukraine to trade tensions, each year seems to bring another immediate priority that diverts focus from the imperative to act on climate change.

Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Our planet’s future hangs in the balance due to the unabated greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. Treating these emissions as something that can be owned and exchanged in a market has been touted as a solution since the early 1990s, when UN negotiations to agree a limit to…

What legal obligations do states have to fight climate change? Should high-emitting countries be held responsible for the harm they’ve caused? And should states safeguard the climate for future generations?

A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted by something. That might be a person’s lifestyle, a product’s supply chain, an organisation, or an activity. Everything from a banana to a ship has a carbon footprint.

The Cairngorms national park has some of Scotland’s wildest rivers. The Spey, Dee and Tay are famous for salmon fishing. The mountain headwaters of these rivers have reliably provided cold, clean water and suitable rearing habitat for Atlantic salmon for thousands of years. These are among the least disturbed, most…

It was a story that pulled at the heartstrings. In 2018, an orca called Tahlequah was seen dragging the corpse of her newborn baby calf for 17 days, over 1,000 miles along the coast of North America. Eventually, Talequah let the baby go (happily, she’s had another baby since), but…