Featured
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Obituary |
Diana Wall obituary: ecologist who foresaw the importance of soil biodiversity
Environmental scientist who revealed the crucial role of underground animals in sustainability.
- Richard D. Bardgett
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Perspective |
The refinery of the future
Efforts to find renewable alternatives to fossil fuels that might enable a carbon-neutral society by 2050 are described, as well as outlining a possible roadmap towards a refinery of the future and evaluating its requirements.
- Eelco T. C. Vogt
- & Bert M. Weckhuysen
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Correspondence |
Beware of graphene’s huge and hidden environmental costs
- Shijie Guo
- , Zihan Cai
- & Qingyuan Ding
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Correspondence |
Countering extreme wildfires with prescribed burning can be counterproductive
- David Lindenmayer
- & Philip Zylstra
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Book Review |
How rich is too rich?
Where should society draw the line on extreme wealth? A fresh account sets out the logic and suggests how to redress inequality.
- Lucas Chancel
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Editorial |
Support communities that will lose out in the energy transition
Climate campaigners and politicians rightly concentrate on the benefits of clean energy — but without more support for those who are adversely affected, the backlash will only grow.
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World View |
How to meet Africa’s grand challenges with African know-how
Simple measures to strengthen the interface between science, policy and society in African nations could help the continent leapfrog others in sustainable innovation and development.
- Alfred R. Bizoza
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News & Views |
Resilience lessons from ancient societies are still relevant today
What lessons can we learn from the factors that govern the resilience of human populations? A large-scale analysis examining ancient societies around the world provides a detailed look at what drives sustainability.
- John Haldon
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Correspondence |
Why it was right to reject the Anthropocene as a geological epoch
- Mark Maslin
- , Matthew Edgeworth
- & Philip L. Gibbard
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Correspondence |
Climate-targets group should rescind its endorsement of carbon offsets
- William R. L. Anderegg
- & Libby Blanchard
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Correspondence |
India’s 50-year-old Chipko movement is a model for environmental activism
- N. S. Prasanna
- & Gudasalamani Ravikanth
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Correspondence |
The Middle East’s largest hypersaline lake risks turning into an environmental disaster zone
- Alireza Mohammadi
- , Ali Azareh
- & Moslem Sharifinia
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Correspondence |
More work is needed to take on the rural wastewater challenge
- Jinlou Huang
- , Duo Li
- & Xiao Jin Yang
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News |
Nearly half of China’s major cities are sinking — some ‘rapidly’
Tens of millions of people in the country’s coastal lands might find their homes below sea level by 2120 owing to sinking and sea-level rise.
- Xiaoying You
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Correspondence |
Don’t dismiss carbon credits that aim to avoid future emissions
- Edward Mitchard
- , Peter Ellis
- & Roselyn Fosuah Adjei
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Correspondence |
Don’t underestimate the rising threat of groundwater to coastal cities
- Daniel J. Rozell
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Comment |
How a tree-hugging protest transformed Indian environmentalism
Fifty years ago, a group of women from the villages of the Western Himalayas sparked Chipko, a green movement that remains relevant in the age of climate change.
- Seema Mundoli
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Correspondence |
‘Global swimways’ on free-flowing rivers will protect key migratory fish species
- Twan Stoffers
- , Catherine A. Sayer
- & Fengzhi He
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Essay |
Are we all doomed? How to cope with the daunting uncertainties of climate change
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when thinking about the damage that might be wrought by global warming — but that is missing the point.
- Adam Sobel
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Correspondence |
Water shortages means greening southern European cities won’t be easy
- Jaime Madrigal-González
- , José Miguel Olano
- & Gabriel Sangüesa-Barreda
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Comment |
Why the world cannot afford the rich
Equality is essential for sustainability. The science is clear — people in more-equal societies are more trusting and more likely to protect the environment than are those in unequal, consumer-driven ones.
- Richard G. Wilkinson
- & Kate E. Pickett
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Book Review |
Act now to prevent a ‘gold rush’ in outer space
As private firms aim for the Moon and beyond, a book calls for an urgent relook at the legal compact that governs space exploration.
- Timiebi Aganaba
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News Feature |
How five crucial elections in 2024 could shape climate action for decades
Some of the world’s biggest carbon emitters are going to the polls this year — the results could determine whether humanity can correct its trajectory of dangerous global warming.
- Smriti Mallapaty
- , Jeff Tollefson
- & Nisha Gaind
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Outlook |
Robot, repair thyself: laying the foundations for self-healing machines
Advances in materials science and sensing could deliver robots that can mend themselves and feel pain.
- Simon Makin
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Correspondence |
Europe needs a joined-up approach for monitoring and protecting its forests
- Marco Ferretti
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Correspondence |
Triple win: solar farms in deserts can boost power, incomes and ecosystems
- Haimeng Liu
- & Jianguo Liu
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Book Review |
Greener cities: a necessity or a luxury?
Are urban trees and parks essential to improving the environment and human health — or just a sop to middle-class ideals of gentrification? Two books debate these opposing views.
- Timon McPhearson
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Editorial |
Calling all engineers: Nature wants to publish your research
Papers in engineering are under-represented, even neglected, in the journal. We want to change that.
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News |
Introducing meat–rice: grain with added muscles beefs up protein
The laboratory-grown food uses rice as a scaffold for cultured meat.
- Jude Coleman
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Analysis
| Open Access
Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system
Analyses of drivers of water stress are used to predict likely trajectories of the Amazon forest system and suggests potential actions that could prevent system collapse.
- Bernardo M. Flores
- , Encarni Montoya
- & Marina Hirota
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Correspondence |
Urban trees: how to maximize their benefits for humans and the environment
- Lina Tang
- , Guofan Shao
- & Peter M. Groffman
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Perspective |
Designing a circular carbon and plastics economy for a sustainable future
Four future greenhouse gas emission scenarios for the global plastics system are investigated, with the lead scenario achieving net-zero emissions, and a series of technical, legal and economic interventions recommended.
- Fernando Vidal
- , Eva R. van der Marel
- & Charlotte K. Williams
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Article |
Durable CO2 conversion in the proton-exchange membrane system
We develop a proton-exchange membrane system that reduces CO2 to formic acid at a catalyst that is derived from waste lead–acid batteries and in which a lattice carbon activation mechanism contributes.
- Wensheng Fang
- , Wei Guo
- & Bao Yu Xia
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Nature Careers Podcast |
Why we should think about more than cash when seeking to eradicate poverty
Catherine Thomas’s research explores different approaches to alleviating poverty, including cash transfers and psychosocial programs.
- Dom Byrne
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Editorial |
Cities matter to the world’s future — science must serve them better
From governance to climate impacts, the world’s urban environments face many difficulties. A new journal, Nature Cities, aims to bring together researchers who are rising to the challenge.
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Comment |
Impacts for half of the world’s mining areas are undocumented
As the race to extract minerals and metals for clean-energy technologies accelerates, researchers must take more steps to map and study mines globally.
- Victor Maus
- & Tim T. Werner
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Correspondence |
Panama says no to more mining — a win for environmentalists
- Juan Carlos Villarreal A.
- , Nelva B. Villarreal
- & Luis F. De León
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Obituary |
Saleemul Huq (1952–2023), climate visionary
A relentless climate scientist who was the voice of the voiceless in the global climate fight.
- Achala C. Abeysinghe
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Comment |
To build a better world, stop chasing economic growth
The year 2024 must be a turning point for shifting policies away from gross domestic product and towards sustainable well-being. Here’s why and how.
- Robert Costanza
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News |
Humans might have driven 1,500 bird species to extinction — twice previous estimates
Humans are probably responsible for the extinction of 12% of bird species, many of which were never documented.
- Gemma Conroy
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Article |
Country-specific net-zero strategies of the pulp and paper industry
A bottom-up assessment of the net greenhouse gas emissions of the pulp and paper industries of 30 countries from 1961 to 2019 leads to country-specific strategies to achieve net zero by 2050.
- Min Dai
- , Mingxing Sun
- & Yutao Wang
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Outlook |
Webcast: How water researchers are rethinking the global flood crisis
A panel of specialists discuss the latest insights on protecting people, habitats and infrastructure from the risks of flooding.
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Outlook |
How to take ‘forever’ out of forever chemicals
Stubborn compounds called PFAS in drinking water put health at risk. Technologies based on plasmas, pressure, sound or fungus could finally degrade these chemicals.
- Neil Savage
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Outlook |
Water: a source of life and strife
Water is an essential resource, but it can also cause conflict, expose people to pollution and put communities at risk in the form of flooding.
- Herb Brody
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Outlook |
Sizing up hydrogen’s hydrological footprint
The use of hydrogen as an energy carrier is essential to decarbonizing economies. Industrial policies and technology developments could trim the water consumption involved in producing the gas, minimizing its cost and environmental impact.
- Peter Fairley
