Extinction VCC News

[Apr. 09, 2026] Rice's whales are on the course to extinction: As emphasized by Oliver Milman in his article “Rice’s whales existed before humans. Now Trump could make them extinct published in the Guardian, there are only 50 of these whales left, and all of them are in the Gulf of Mexico. The scraping of all protections for these whales by the U.S. President puts this small group of high risk.

[Apr. 09, 2026] Climate Change Can Cause Extinction: In an article titled “Mass drowning of chicks puts emperor penguins at risk of extinction” and published in the Guardian, Damian Carrington reports about a mass drowning of emperor penguin chicks that resulted from massive melting of sea ice in the course of a changing climate. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has declared the species officially in danger of extinction.

[Apr. 02, 2026] Freshwater Fish Populations are crashing: Billions of fish make epic migrations. Such fish migrations happen in rivers across the world, but many are rapidly collapsing. Damian Carrington in an article in the Guardian refers to the Global Assessment of Migratory Freshwater Fishes which indicates that freshwater fish populations worldwide have crashed by about 81% since 1970. This report was discussed at the recent COP15 of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals held on 23-29 March 2026 in Campo Grande, Brazil.

Platform News

[Apr. 19, 2026] Earth Energy Imbalance is Increasing Rapidly: Finally the extreme increase in the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is slowly starting to make headlines - far too late, though. The article “ What are zettajoules – and what do they tell us about Earth’s energy imbalance?” by Jonathan Watts published in the Guardian explains some of the basics. Importantly, the EEI double within only 13 years. In another article by Watts also in the Guardian and titled “ Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high” the author points out that the World Meteorological Organization warned that Earth is struggling with a record energy imbalance, which is warming the oceans to unprecedented levels, making weather more extreme and threatening health and food supplies. Considering that Earth is more like a pool house with a very large pool than a greenhouse, the ocean is only delaying the heating of the atmosphere but not preventing it.