Environment
55% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030: “It’s a Herculean effort”
Interview with Prof. Nebojsa Nakicenovic, energy economist and systems analyst from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and Vienna University of Technology and Deputy Chair of the EU’s Scientific Advise Mechanism. The EU’s Scientific Advise Mechanism (SAM), comprised of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission (GCSA) and the Scientific Advice ...
Not going back to the way things were: climate change and Covid-19 recovery
Over the past year, the Covid-19 crisis has caused us to reflect on how we interact with our natural environment. As the world plans recovery from the pandemic and this November’s COP26 Climate Change Conference looms into view, now may be a key juncture in understanding how to best align these priorities – something that could have implications not just for the world in general, but for the media too.
Studying the exposome: ‘On the front line for people and the planet’
Climate and public health cannot be considered separately. The scientific community is increasingly talking about the need to study the so called exposome (the sum of all environmental factors we are exposed to) with the same level of attention with which the human genome has been studied up to now. A new European science network aims to respond to this multidisciplinary challenge.
Climate change & storytelling: challenges for the (post) Covid-19 era
End of 2019: Climate change, technological innovation and sustainability are among the priority subjects for the European Science-Media Hub (ESMH) to cover, as they get increasing attention in the media and they have a prominent place in the EU policy agenda. End of May 2020: European Parliament, Strasbourg: a hundred of young enthusiastic science communicators ...
COVID-19 and Climate Change: connected crises and lessons to learn
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about worldwide disruption. As societies tentatively begin to reopen, the pandemic holds lessons for how the world faces another globally existential threat, the climate crisis.
From COVID-19 to climate change: seeing the issues beyond the news cycle
While COVID-19 and climate change may appear to belong to different worlds, one can uncover direct causal links when looking through a Systems Thinking lens. In an age of uncertainty, how should journalists and science communicators approach and report about complex issues like climate change?
Changing environment, changing health
Our environment and health are closely intertwined, and we must equip future generations with adaptive capacities to achieve sustainable human wellbeing on all fronts. One such environment is our chemical one, present in the products we use, the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. Human biomonitoring - a scientific technique that allows us to assess whether and to what extent environmental substances have entered our bodies and how exposure may be changing over time - is a useful public health surveillance tool with which the real-life burden of exposure to chemicals can be assessed.
The Microbiome-gut-brain axis and the rise of psychobiotics
Communication between our gut and our brain is a two-way street. A large part of the signals being sent from our intestines to our brain is thanks to the bacteria living inside us, our microbiome. Our gut microbes have been linked to anxiety and depression, and research is underway to see whether we can manipulate our bacterial populations to benefit our mental health.
