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All of the emotions we know of just happen to be emotions humans feel. But our emotions help us understand other animals' pleasure, pain, sexuality, hunger, frustration, self-preservation, defense of territory and of young.

If there's two things we need more of in this world, it's condoms and trees. Each one is pretty important for survival, and seem to be in dwindling supply. I mean, judging by the record high STD rates, not nearly enough people are using condoms.

Possible responses to climate change have always taken two forms, which among specialists are called "mitigation" and "adaptation." Then former would be attempts to slow the pace of climate change, while the latter would be attempts to deal with whatever change will happen.

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Despite all the negative media and attitudes, Rio's Olympic Opening Ceremony provided a peek into one of the many reasons the Cidade Maravilhosa gets its name and an impressive environmental trait that not many other cities can claim.

Climate change is making heat waves stronger and more frequent, air pollution worse, and allowing vector-borne diseases to expand their range. It's also compromising our drinking water, causing more extreme weather events, and impacting our mental health.

Throughout history, people living near any sea coast have relied on fish as a key dietary staple. Middens of kitchen and household wastes left behind on all continents provide strong evidence of the long and deep linkages between people of the shores and the sea.

It's always heartening to see people rally together to save an animal.

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As we celebrate the international day of the world's indigenous peoples, we must address how indigenous peoples are robbed of their right to sustainable development, now and in the future.

As a scientist, explorer and conservationist, I have spent much of my professional life in the rainforests of the world trying to understand and preserve these incredible and irreplaceable ecosystems. To many it seems unusual that a former NFL cheerleader would choose to go and live in some of the most remote places on earth and brave all the undeniable challenges and occasional dangers of living in a tropical rain forest.

I was a child of the early 1980s. Looking back, perhaps with a certain ethereal fondness, it seemed like life was simpler, values were different, people were more in tune with their surroundings; and certainly, more in-tune with each other (no cell phones here!).

The numbers are unambiguous: When it comes to a carbon tax, there's no escaping the fact that ExxonMobil still funds legislators who don't favor it and, by the same token, doesn't support many who do.

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It is our nature and perhaps destiny to discover more of the capacities of chemistry, but it is both a practical and a moral imperative that we do so with care, wisdom, gratitude, and awe.