When December hits, Christmas celebrations start. But before you indulge too much in after work drinks or summer soirees, beware: new UniSA research shows that Christmas is the top time to tip the scales. In the first study of its kind, University of South Australia researchers found that compared to the yearly average, people’s alcohol intake in December was 70% higher, non-alcoholic drinks (like juice and soft drinks) were about 30% higher, and sweet and savoury snacks were about 10% higher.

For the first time, an international team of scientists [WC1] have calculated the total land area that the countries of the world have included in their individual plans for climate action, known as nationally determined contributions. The results show a big divide between the countries' expected land use and the actual potential of land to mitigate climate change.

Published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (JEEM), the study by researchers from the Institute of Economics and the Department of Excellence L’EMbeDS at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, the Department of Statistics at Penn State, and the Department of Economics at Northwestern, analyzed over 200,000 thunderstorm events in the United States between 1991 and 2019.

Greenhouse gas emissions from tourism have been growing more than 2 times faster than those from the rest of the global economy. The study tracked international and domestic travel for 175 countries to find tourism's carbon footprint is  9% of the world's total emissions.