Pressure Systems edition
Global Soil Crises and El Niño Extremes Strain Climate Models
September 3, 2026
What this edition shows
Mongolia's Convention to Combat Desertification and a millennium-peak El Niño converge with new studies showing forest carbon overestimation, exposing deep fault lines in global climate projections. Meanwhile, urban flooding in Canadian cities and ongoing fossil fuel expansions highlight a widening chasm between institutional paralysis and the material realities of ecological breakdown.
Reporting and analysis behind this edition 9 sources
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A global gathering to tackle the planet’s soil crisis is underway in Mongolia
This year’s Convention to Combat Desertification focuses on rangelands and attempts to address an overlooked solution to climate change.
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Study highlights a new blind spot in current climate models
A new study suggests climate models may be overestimating how much carbon forests will absorb in a warming world, raising the possibility that global temperatures could rise even more than current projections anticipate.
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Closing the Loop, Reclaiming the Soil
Closing the Loop, Reclaiming the Soil Example The theme of this August issue brings a smile of gratitude, because of the long history between the Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network (PAN) and Food First, and the way this moment reclaims the soil and closes the loop on our shared history. From Foo…
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Why the extremes of climate breakdown will continue to take us by surprise
The relentless heatwaves that have hit the northern hemisphere this summer have made the climate threat real for many – but preparation and adaptation will take us only so far
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The world’s biggest trees could hold the secret to coping with drought
Chui Wui Jing/Shutterstock Rising more than 70 metres above the rainforest canopy, a giant skyscraper of a tropical tree can seem almost invincible. Some have survived centuries of storms, droughts and competition. Large trees face a formidable engineering challenge, lifting water tens of metres fro…
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Canada isn’t short on climate solutions, it’s short on leadership
Our political leaders lack the courage to stop expanding the fossil fuel industry in the middle of a climate emergency.
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'Planète plastique': Can we get plastic pollution under control?
In his book, journalist Rémy Bourdillon examines the origins and consequences of this ubiquitous material.
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El Niño is now stronger than at any point in the last 1,000 years, study finds
“One more warning sign here of what we're facing in a warmer world.”
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How cities can use rain gardens to help prevent flooding
A rain garden in Calgary, Alberta. A rain garden, or bioretention cell, is a shallow sloped area filled with plants and soil. (Maureen Flynn-Burhoe), CC BY The Canadian capital of Ottawa was bombarded with 167 millimetres of rain in five hours earlier this summer in what the city called a one-in-200…