Human activities have been significantly impacting the natural world, leading to a range of environmental problems like habitat destruction, climate change, and pollution. These issues, in turn, threaten biodiversity, ecosystem health, and human well-being. From the recent scientific articles, let’s see the current situations of the earth.
The five biggest threats to our natural world … and how we can stop them https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/14/five-biggest-threats-natural-world-how-we-can-stop-them-aoe
From Pollution to Solution: a global assessment of marine litter and plastic pollution
https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/8047115
https://www.unep.org/interactives/pollution-to-solution
Biodiversity: Around one-quarter of freshwater animals threatened with extinction
Sayer, C.A., Fernando, E., Jimenez, R.R. et al. One-quarter of freshwater fauna threatened with extinction. Nature 638, 138-145 (2025).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08375-z
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08375-z
Environment High concentrations of nanoplastic particles found across the Atlantic
ten Hietbrink, S., Materić, D., Holzinger, R. et al. Nanoplastic concentrations across the North Atlantic. Nature 643, 412–416 (2025).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09218-1
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09218-1
Climate change: Whales faeces record warning-related toxic signal blooms
Lefebvre, K.A., Charapata, P., Stimmelmayr, R. et al. Bowhead whale faeces link increasing algal toxins in the Arctic to ocean warming. Nature (2025).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09230-5
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09230-5
Ecology: Inhibiting locust swarm behaviour
Guo, X., Gao, L., Li, S. et al. Decoding 4-vinylanisole biosynthesis and pivotal enzymes in locusts. Nature (2025).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09110-y
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09110-y
More general information:
Biodiversity: state of habitats and species https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/topics/in-depth/biodiversity
Biodiversity – our strongest natural defense against climate change https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/biodiversity
Human Impacts on the Environment https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/resource-library-human-impacts-environment/
Human impact on the environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_impact_on_the_environment