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(THE CONVERSATION) From climate change to omnipresent plastic waste, 2019 delivered a lot of discouraging environmental news. Several special reports this year from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change documented how global warming is altering the planet's lands, forests, oceans and frozen regions.

Another U.N. report warned that the Earth is losing species at an alarming rate, with around 1 million animal and plant species facing extinction. Key causes include changes in...