Down To Earth

3 days ago | downtoearth.org.in | Nandita Banerji

On World Environment Day 2025, as governments and corporations tout green pledges, a quieter truth demands attention: Women across the globe — and particularly in climate-vulnerable countries like India — are bearing the brunt of a crisis they did little to cause. A growing body of research has highlighted that of its devastating impacts.

6 days ago | downtoearth.org.in | Mike Allen

Picture a place at the centre of a global seaweed revolution. I’ll bet the small English seaside town of Paignton in south Devon is not what comes to mind. A decade ago, I moved from the edge of Dartmoor to the coast. It was about a simple change in work-life balance, but what followed was more surprising. The kids were four and seven. I’d always tried to inspire them with my scientific research. Moving to Paignton and walking along Broadsands beach one day, I started noticing piles of seaweed.

1 week ago | downtoearth.org.in | Maina Waruru

Africa’s fight against plastic pollution is steadily gathering pace, the republic of Uganda being the latest and the 12th country in the continent to ban the use of single-use plastics, responsible for widespread pollution of the environment including waterbodies, cities, farmland and protected areas.

1 week ago | downtoearth.org.in | Rajat Ghai

Prominent activist from Sikkim, Gyatso Lepcha, has condemned a recent scaling up of the Khangchendzonga massif, sacred to the state’s indigenous peoples. Speaking to Down To Earth, he called it part of the ‘ongoing attack on the entire Himalayan range’. According to Lepcha, after emptying India’s plains and highlands, corporate interests are racing to empty the Himalaya by exploiting it commercially.

1 week ago | downtoearth.org.in | Nidhi Jamwal

Monsoon is on a record-breaking spree this year. On May 26, it arrived in Mumbai way ahead of its anticipated arrival on June 11. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), this is the earliest recorded arrival of the southwest monsoon in the country’s financial capital. With the arrival of the monsoon, the metropolis was pounded with heavy rainfall for two consecutive days, which led to breaking yet another record.