Australia is home to a remarkable share of the world’s biodiversity, but this unique natural heritage is under threat. Habitat destruction, climate change, and invasive species are driving more species toward extinction. In 2023 alone, 144 new species and ecosystems were added to the threatened list. Many more, especially marine and lesser-known species, face similar risks. As climate change reshapes ecosystems, urgent action is needed to halt the decline and secure species’

The Medieval Warm Period (750 and 1350 AD) was a regional climate event driven by natural factors such as solar radiation and volcanic activity, not greenhouse gases. While some areas like Europe and parts of Australasia experienced warmer temperatures, others remained cooler. This warming helped some human societies thrive but caused drought and collapse elsewhere. Unlike today's globally consistent and human-driven climate change, the Medieval Warm Period was uneven and nat

Since modern humans emigrated from Africa, we have experienced dramatic climate shifts, from intense warming during the Last Interglacial to deep freezes like the Last Glacial Maximum and the Little Ice Age. These transitions shaped migration routes, enabled ocean crossings, and pushed people to adapt by relocating, innovating, or retreating into refuges. But unlike the gradual changes of the past, today’s warming is faster and human-driven, threatening the limits of our adap

For over 3.5 billion years, life on Earth has evolved through a balance of species emergence and extinction. But when extinctions outpace the formation of new species, mass extinction events occur. Earth has experienced five such events since the Cambrian period. Today, driven by human activity (including habitat loss, pollution, and climate change) species are disappearing at rates up to 10,000 times higher than normal, signalling that a sixth mass extinction may already be