“We are on the deathbed. Humanity cannot survive – the way it has been behaving with nature – for more than fifty years, sixty years, or, at the most, one hundred years, which is nothing. If the Third World War does not happen, then we will be committing a slow suicide. Within a hundred years, we will be gone. Not even a trace will be left.”¹ Osho

See also: Osho, “Religion: The Crimes Against Nature and the Environment”

And: Priests & Politicians: The Mafia of the Soul

It is becoming increasingly clear that humanity just doesn’t have the consciousness to prevent the inexorable destruction of the only home it has.

• Carbon Dioxide Levels in the Atmosphere
• The Human Population Clock is Ticking
• The Emissions Gap Report 2022

The Unfolding Story – 2025 – Updated Regularly: 

Read 2024 Edition HERE

October 5, 2025
The before and after images showing glaciers vanishing before our eyes
“In 2024, glaciers outside the giant ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica lost 450 billion tonnes of ice, according to a recent World Meteorological Organization report.
“That’s equivalent to a block of ice 7km (4.3 miles) tall, 7km wide and 7km deep – enough water to fill 180 million Olympic swimming pools.
“‘Glaciers are melting everywhere in the world,’ says Prof Ben Marzeion of the Institute of Geography at the University of Bremen. ‘They are sitting in a climate that is very hostile to them now because of global warming.’
“Switzerland’s glaciers have been particularly badly hit, losing a quarter of their ice in the last 10 years, measurements from GLAMOS revealed this week.
“‘It’s really difficult to grasp the extent of this melt,’ explains Dr Huss.
“But photos – from space and the ground – tell their own story.” – BBC

October 2, 2025
Eat Less Meat Is Still the Message From Flagship Diet Report
The authors say plant-heavy diets could save millions of lives and cut farm emissions, claims the meat industry has sought to undermine.

• The EAT-Lancet Commission has released a second version of its report, recommending that wealthy nations eat less meat and more plants to prevent premature deaths and cut farm emissions.
• The commission’s “planetary health diet” allows for flexibility and cultural diversity, and is not pushing veganism, but rather supporting the idea that animal-sourced foods should be optional and moderate.
• The report says that production of beef, goat and lamb must fall by one-third from 2020 levels through 2050, and that reducing food waste and increasing agricultural productivity are also crucial to achieving its goals. – Bloomberg

October 2, 2025
1,000 Swiss glaciers already gone, and the melting is speeding up
“Swiss glaciers lost nearly 3% of their volume in 2025, following a snow-poor winter and scorching summer heatwaves. The melt has been so extreme that some glaciers lost more than two meters of ice thickness in a single season. Scientists caution that the decline is destabilizing mountains, raising risks of rock and ice avalanches. Long-term monitoring efforts are now more critical than ever.” – ScienceDaily

October 1, 2025
California Sanctions Stark Disparities in Pesticide Exposure During Pregnancy
If you’re young, pregnant and Latina, chances are you live near agricultural fields sprayed with higher levels of brain-damaging organophosphate pesticides.
“A baby in the womb has few defenses against industrial petrochemicals designed to kill.
“Unborn babies’ nascent metabolic and detox systems lack the means to neutralize toxic exposures. And the placenta, which doctors once thought protected the fetus from most harmful substances, in fact admits hundreds of toxic chemicals. That leaves the fetal brain, which undergoes rapid changes as billions of cells acquire specialized roles and form trillions of connections, particularly vulnerable to neurotoxic pesticides.
“New research shows that some babies in California, a state that prides itself on environmental stewardship, face particularly high risks of exposure to organophosphates, petroleum-based insecticides with strong links to neurodevelopmental problems, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, lower IQ, cerebral palsy and altered brain size and structure.” – Inside Climate News

September 29, 2025
Indigenous Land Defender Killed in Ecuador as Government Cracks Down on Environmental and Human Rights Activists
Efraín Fueres was gunned down Sunday while marching in protest against high costs of living and government crackdowns that include freezing the bank accounts of activists and suspending a media organization.
“An Indigenous land defender was shot and killed on Sunday in Cotacachi, Ecuador, where he was marching in protest of high costs of living and government crackdowns on Indigenous and environmental activists.
“Efraín Fueres, 46, a community leader, was one of thousands of Ecuadorians who have taken to the streets over the past two weeks amid a wave of authoritarian moves by the government, including freezing activists’ bank accounts and suspending a media organization. The Indigenous Kichwa federation Chijallta FICI, which Fueres belonged to, released a statement condemning his killing and attributing blame to ‘military bullets.’
“‘Chijallta FICI denounces with deep pain and indignation the murder of our brother and respected community leader,’ the statement said, calling the killing ‘the most painful proof that the Government has opted for war and blood instead of listening to the just demands of the people.’
“Efraín Fueres, an Indigenous land defender, was shot and killed in Ecuador on Sunday. Credit: Marcos Colón
“Videos posted to social media show Fueres marching around 6:30 a.m. when he is gunned down. A military vehicle then approaches Fueres, who was lying in the street with a companion kneeling over his body. Armed officers then surrounded the men and began repeatedly kicking the companion.” – Inside Climate News

September 24, 2025
Fossil fuel burning poses threat to health of 1.6bn people, data shows
New interactive map tracking PM2.5 air pollution reveals 900m people in path of ‘super-emitting’ industrial facilities
“Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from fossil fuel burning, does not directly damage health, but leads to global heating. However, coal and oil burning for power generation, and the burning of fossil fuels in industrial facilities, pollute the air with particulate matter called PM2.5, which has serious health impacts when breathed in.
“A new interactive map from Climate Trace, a coalition of academics and analysts that tracks pollution and greenhouse gases, shows that PM2.5 and other toxins are being poured into the air near the homes of about 1.6 billion people. Of these, about 900 million are in the path of “super-emitting” industrial facilities – including power plants, refineries, ports and mines – that deliver outsize doses of toxic air.” – The Guardian

September 23, 2025
Scientists Predict Extreme Global Water Shortages by 2100
“Climate change could leave 74% of the world’s drought-prone regions at high risk of severe and prolonged droughts by the end of the century, new research suggests.” – Gizmodo

September 22, 2025
Nations’ plans to ramp up coal, gas and oil extraction ‘will put climate goals beyond reach’
New data shows governments now planning more fossil fuel production in coming decades than they were in 2023
“Governments around the world are ramping up coal, gas and oil extraction which will put climate goals beyond reach, new data has shown.
“Far from reducing reliance on fossil fuels, nations are planning higher levels of fossil fuel production for the coming decades than they did in 2023, the last time comparable data was compiled.
“This increase goes against the commitments that countries have made at UN climate summits to “transition away from fossil fuels” and phase down production, particularly of coal.
“If all of the planned new extraction takes place, the world will produce more than double the quantity of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with holding global temperature rises to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.” – The Guardian

September 18, 2025
Wildfire Smoke Set to Cause Mounting Deaths and Economic Losses
Premature deaths linked to particulate matter will keep increasing as the climate warms, according to a new study
Takeaways:

• Increased wildfire smoke could lead to 1.4 million premature deaths globally each year by the end of this century, according to a new study.
• Wildfire pollution could lead to over 71,000 premature deaths by 2050 in the US under a high emissions scenario, with the cost potentially reaching $608 billion a year by 2050.
• Scientists say that cutting planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and adapting by managing existing fuel in forests and educating people on how to protect themselves could reduce the risk of health impacts from wildfire smoke.  Bloomberg

September 18, 2025
Chaos Inside FEMA as Death Threats Distract From Hurricane Response
Internal documents show how online conspiracies and personal attacks disrupted FEMA during back-to-back hurricanes last year.
“Back-to-back Hurricanes Helene and Milton had sparked a torrent of online conspiracies, with FEMA officials enduring harassment and death threats, according to hundreds of pages of agency emails and other documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by Bloomberg News. The records shed new light on how disaster-related misinformation affects the government’s emergency response, sucks up internal resources, and puts staff at risk….
“Many of the attacks outlined in the documents have not previously been reported, including the doxxing of at least seven senior FEMA staffers….
High-profile figures including X owner Elon Musk and Trump, then in the late stages of his bid to retake the White House, repeated some of the false claims. Trump, for example, said multiple times during his campaign rallies FEMA was directing disaster funds to immigrants.”…
“Read More: Misinformation is Turning American Disasters Into Toxic Battlegrounds.” – Bloomberg

September 17, 2025
Top Scientists Find Growing Evidence That Greenhouse Gases Are, in Fact, a Danger
The assessment contradicts the Trump administration’s legal arguments for relaxing pollution rules.
“The nation’s leading scientific advisory body issued a major report on Wednesday detailing the strongest evidence to date that carbon dioxide, methane and other planet-warming greenhouse gases are threatening human health.
“The report, published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, is significant because it could complicate the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke a landmark scientific determination, known as the endangerment finding, that underpins the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is driving climate change.” – The New York Times

September 17, 2025
Climate Change Led to At Least 16,500 Heat Deaths in Europe This Summer
A new study tracked the effects of higher temperatures in hundreds of European cities.
“The true death toll is almost certainly higher, as the study only represents just under a third of Europe’s population, and other studies have found that more than 60,000 people were likely killed by extreme heat in Europe in the summer of 2022, and more than 47,000 people in 2023.” – Bloomberg

September 17, 2025
National Academies Publish New Report Reviewing Evidence for Greenhouse Gas Emissions and U.S. Climate, Health, and Welfare

• Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activities are increasing the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere….
• Improved observations confirm unequivocally that greenhouse gas emissions are warming Earth’s surface and changing Earth’s climate….
• Human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change harm the health of people in the United States….
• Changes in climate resulting from human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases harm the welfare of people in the United States….
• Continued emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities will lead to more climate changes in the United States, with the severity of expected change increasing with every ton of greenhouse gases emitted…. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
  

September 16, 2025
Fearing Retaliation, Scientists Are Struggling to Share Impacts of Federal Cuts
The Trump administration retaliated against scientists who stepped forward publicly to express concerns over federal policies. But many are still sharing their fears anonymously.
“Since January, the Trump administration has laid off thousands of scientists and staff and cut research funding for those who remain across the federal government. At the same time, department heads at different agencies—from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—directed scientists to halt much of the research on climate change and its ripple effects on U.S. residents, lands and seas.
“This summer, staff members from at least two agencies were put on leave after speaking out against these moves. Some were subsequently fired.
Paired with those aggressive pullbacks in federal funding for research, the administration has cultivated a widespread fear of retribution in the U.S. scientific community, one that jeopardizes free speech, experts say.”
“But many are still speaking up, albeit anonymously.” – Inside Climate News

September 16, 2025
It Isn’t Just the U.S. The Whole World Has Soured on Climate Politics.
How do we think about the climate future, now that the era marked by the Paris Agreement has so utterly disappeared?
“Perhaps it was always foolish to believe the world might fulfill the headline dream of Paris, and keep warming close to 1.5 degrees, and perhaps the promises to do so were always empty, as the most informed always suspected. Perhaps a hands-off green transition can still deliver relatively rapid decarbonization — or at least steer us clear of catastrophic warming scenarios. But as the planet races past targets that terrified so many into action not so long ago, on its way toward two degrees and the jagged future on the other side, I would rather it didn’t seem to be abandoning that secondary aspiration, that beyond the logic of national self-interest we still actually owe one another something: a better, more just, more equitable future for all.
“In March, the U.N. considered a resolution to establish an International Day of Hope and an International Day of Peaceful Coexistence. On both propositions, the United States voted ‘no.’”  The New York Times

September 11, 2025
Climate impacts are real — denying this is self-defeating
“In July, the administration of US President Donald Trump announced formally that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would seek to overturn its 2009 ruling that greenhouse-gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. The move would negate the legal foundation for many climate regulations.”
“To deny this science is to deny that these impacts exist, which is courting disaster. It will help no one in the long run — especially US businesses and consumers,” warns Nature. Scientists have pushed back against the Department of Energy’s critique of mainstream climate science, arguing that it is “misrepresenting, cherry-picking or outright ignoring evidence compiled by scientists around the world.” The United States is currently the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China. As Nature concludes, “What the United States does on climate will affect billions of people.” – Nature

September 10, 2025
Systematic attribution of heatwaves to the emissions of carbon majors
“Here we show that climate change made 213 historical heatwaves reported over 2000–2023 more likely and more intense, to which each of the 180 carbon majors (fossil fuel and cement producers) substantially contributed….
“Owing to global warming since 1850–1900, the median of the heatwaves during 2000–2009 became about 20 times more likely, and about 200 times more likely during 2010–2019. Overall, one-quarter of these events were virtually impossible without climate change. The emissions of the carbon majors contribute to half the increase in heatwave intensity since 1850–1900. Depending on the carbon major, their individual contribution is high enough to enable the occurrence of 16–53 heatwaves that would have been virtually impossible in a preindustrial climate. We, therefore, establish that the influence of climate change on heatwaves has increased, and that all carbon majors, even the smaller ones, contributed substantially to the occurrence of heatwaves.” – Nature

September 9, 2025
Antarctica’s frozen heart is warming fast, and models missed it
First long-term study on the East Antarctic interior ice sheet region reveals the Indian Ocean mechanism driving this change
“New research has revealed that East Antarctica’s vast and icy interior is heating up faster than its coasts, fueled by warm air carried from the Southern Indian Ocean. Using 30 years of weather station data, scientists uncovered a hidden climate driver that current models fail to capture, suggesting the world’s largest ice reservoir may be more vulnerable than previously thought.” – ScienceDaily

September 9, 2025
The ocean’s most abundant microbe is near its breaking point
“Tiny ocean microbes called Prochlorococcus, once thought to be climate survivors, may struggle as seas warm. These cyanobacteria drive 5% of Earth’s photosynthesis and underpin much of the marine food web. A decade of research shows they thrive only within a narrow temperature range, and warming oceans could slash their populations by up to 50% in tropical waters.”…
“Prochlorococcus is the most abundant photosynthesizing organism in the ocean, accounting for 5% of global photosynthesis. Because Prochlorococcus thrive in the tropics, researchers predicted that they would adapt well to global warming. Instead, a new study finds that Prochlorococcus prefers water between 66 and 86 degrees and doesn’t tolerate water much warmer. Climate models predict that subtropical and tropical ocean temperatures will exceed that threshold in the next 75 years.” – ScienceDaily

September 6, 2025
Satellites confirm 1990s sea-level predictions were shockingly accurate
“Satellite data reveals sea-level rise has unfolded almost exactly as predicted by 1990s climate models, with one key underestimation: melting ice sheets. Researchers stress the importance of refining local projections as seas continue to rise faster than before.” – ScienceDaily

September 5, 2025
Oceans could reach a dangerous tipping point by 2050
“UC Santa Barbara researchers project that human impacts on oceans will double by 2050, with warming seas and fisheries collapse leading the charge. The tropics and poles face the fastest changes, and coastal regions will be hardest hit, threatening food and livelihoods worldwide.” – ScienceDaily

September 4, 2025
The Doctor Trying to Cure Medicine’s Addiction to Disposables
The global healthcare system is built on throwaway gowns, plastic and instruments. Forbes McGain is finding solutions to cut down on waste — and save money.
“Fixing the problem won’t just require changing how hospitals run. It will mean upending multibillion-dollar markets: The global medical plastics industry alone is on track to surpass $87 billion by 2030. For decades, manufacturers equated disposability with safety — a narrative that built a global supply chain on fossil fuels and throwaway products. ‘If you’re a single-use company, you want to flog things,’ McGain says….
“‘That lifecycle is pretty crazy,’ he says. ‘It’s a very unsustainable, linear, non-circular model.’…
“US healthcare facilities generate an estimated 5.9 million tons of waste each year — almost 30% of it plastic. Intensive care units mirror that trend, with single-use items making up a third of their waste stream.” – Bloomberg

September 3, 2025
Central Asia’s last stable glaciers just started to collapse
“Snowfall shortages are now destabilizing some of the world’s last resilient glaciers, as shown by a new study in Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountains. Using a monitoring station on Kyzylsu Glacier, researchers discovered that stability ended around 2018, when snowfall declined sharply and melt accelerated. The work sheds light on the Pamir-Karakoram Anomaly, where glaciers had resisted climate change longer than expected.” – ScienceDaily

September 1, 2025
States now have a legal duty to prevent climate harm — justice is in reach
A July ruling from the International Court of Justice is clear: nations can face consequences if they don’t act on the climate crisis.
“Climate change is not a distant threat; it is our daily reality.
“But there is hope. At the end of July, in The Hague, the Netherlands, I bore witness to a historic moment. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered the advisory opinion that states have a legal duty to prevent climate harm and, importantly, that they can be held accountable for the consequences of their actions, through financial compensation or other forms of restitution.
“The ruling means that climate justice is no longer simply a moral obligation, but a matter of international law. This feels like a seismic shift. The relentless cries from front-line communities across the Pacific, who have long borne the brunt of a crisis we did not create, have been heard.
“The ICJ offered clarity on fossil fuels in particular: producing, licensing and subsidizing them could constitute an “internationally wrongful act” for which states can be held liable under international law. Nations have a duty to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions — and the court highlighted the legal liability that could arise from expanding fossil-fuel infrastructure in the face of clear scientific warnings.
“It is especially powerful that this legal breakthrough stems from the efforts of small island nations, launched by courageous Pacific youth in 2019, initially in Vanuatu then through cross-border collaborations.” – Nature

September 1. 2025
A monster seaweed bloom is taking over the Atlantic
“Sargassum has escaped the Sargasso Sea and exploded across the Atlantic, forming the massive Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt. Fueled by nutrient runoff, Amazon outflows, and climate events, these blooms now reshape ecosystems, economies, and coastlines on a staggering scale.” – ScoiencDaily

August 30, 2025
What 340 Billion Tons of Ancient Carbon Did to Earth’s Climate
A new study shows how thawing permafrost after the last ice age released enough carbon to change the atmosphere and why it matters today
“When soils thawed after the last ice age, they shaped the atmosphere that gave rise to agriculture, cities, and the long arc of human civilization. Now, as the same frozen landscapes soften again, we face the possibility that they could amplify the trajectory we’ve already set in motion….
“The story of permafrost thaw after the last ice age shows how quickly the Earth system can shift. The choices we make now will decide whether today’s thaw becomes another turning point written in the air above us.” – Medium

August 28, 2025
Collapse of critical Atlantic current is no longer low-likelihood, study finds
Scientists say ‘shocking’ discovery shows rapid cuts in carbon emissions are needed to avoid catastrophic fallout
“These show the tipping point that makes an Amoc shutdown inevitable is likely to be passed within a few decades, but that the collapse itself may not happen until 50 to 100 years later. The research found that if carbon emissions continued to rise, 70% of the model runs led to collapse, while an intermediate level of emissions resulted in collapse in 37% of the models. Even in the case of low future emissions, an Amoc shutdown happened in 25% of the models.
“Scientists have warned previously that Amoc collapse must be avoided ‘at all costs.’ It would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50cm to already rising sea levels.”

August 28, 2025
What New Orleans Taught Me About Climate, Justice, and the Future 
“Now, twenty years later, we do have the numbers. Climate Central’s new analysis shows that Katrina achieved its top wind speeds of 175 mph as a Category 5 storm over waters that were, on average, 1.6°F warmer because of climate change. That level of warming was up to 18 times more likely due to human influence, and it increased Katrina’s maximum sustained wind speed by about 5 mph. According to NOAA, that seemingly small increase could have driven Katrina’s damages 25% higher. What so many of us felt in our bones two decades ago, that Katrina was more than a storm, has since been validated by science….
“Katrina didn’t hit all communities equally (see how residents fought to reclaim heir homes despite being told not to return and read Robert Green’s powerful account of losing his family and rebuilding in the wreckage). In the Lower Ninth Ward, where I spent most of my time, people told me about the swamps and marshes that once surrounded their homes, of cypress stands thick with birds and fish, a living shield that softened storms when they were children. But now, the wetlands had died, and those protections had disappeared….
“For the Lower Ninth Ward, resilience hadn’t failed—resilience had been dismantled. The natural defenses that once gave protection had been taken away by decisions far outside of the community’s control. When the levees broke, those same communities, already robbed of their safety net, paid the highest price.
“Katrina showed me that climate change doesn’t just create disasters; it magnifies the injustices we’ve already allowed to exist.” – The Equation

August 27, 2025
Deforestation has killed half a million people in past 20 years, study finds
Localised rises in temperature caused by land clearance cause 28,330 heat-related deaths a year, researchers find
“Deforestation has killed more than half a million people in the tropics over the past two decades as a result of heat-related illness, a study has found.
“Land clearance is raising the temperature in the rainforests of the Amazon, Congo and south-east Asia because it reduces shade, diminishes rainfall and increases the risk of fire, the authors of the paper found.
“Deforestation is responsible for more than a third of the warming experienced by people living in the affected regions, which is on top of the effect of global climate disruption.
“About 345 million people across the tropics suffered from this localised, deforestation-caused warming between 2001 and 2020. For 2.6 million of them, the additional heating added 3C to their heat exposure.
“In many cases, this was deadly. The researchers estimated that warming due to deforestation accounted for 28,330 annual deaths over that 20-year period. More than half were in south-east Asia, owing to the larger populations in areas with heat vulnerability. About a third were in tropical Africa, and the remainder in Central and South America.” – The Guardian

August 18, 2025
Protect Antarctica — or risk accelerating planetary meltdown
To keep Earth habitable, humanity must recognize the value of Antarctica and seek to save it from irreversible damage.
“Far from being a remote, isolated continent, Antarctica is integral to Earth’s climate and life-support systems. Its vast ice sheet stores more than 90% of the planet’s surface fresh water and influences sea levels, circulation of the atmosphere and how much sunlight the planet reflects. Around Antarctica, the Southern “Ocean acts as the lungs of the deep sea, accounting for roughly 40% of the global ocean’s uptake of carbon dioxide emissions generated by human activities, shaping how seawater mixes and distributes nutrients to support marine life around the globe¹.
“Yet, many of these stabilizing features are showing signs of degradation. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is retreating, with widespread thinning of glaciers and ice shelves. Changes there are accelerating, as damage in one area exacerbates melting and stresses in others. And now, parts of the more stable East Antarctic Ice Sheet seem to be thinning, too²….
“Before this crucial reservoir of ice is lost, transforming the planet forever, it is essential that policymakers and others recognize Antarctica’s extraordinary economic value and seek to protect it. Environmental services, fisheries and tourism in Antarctica contribute more than US$180 billion to the global economy each year⁹. Yet, governments and businesses continue to undervalue these services, prioritizing political aims and short-term financial objectives (such as maximizing profit or gross domestic product) over sustaining the stability of the planet, which supports people’s lives and underpins all economies.” – Nature

August 16, 2025
The ocean’s fragile fortresses are crumbling under climate pressure
A pioneering study led by ICM-CSIC reveals how climate change may alter the structure, mineralogy, and microbiome of bryozoans, a key group of invertebrates responsible for creating underwater habitats.
“Mediterranean bryozoans, including the “false coral,” are showing alarming changes in structure and microbiomes under acidification and warming. Field studies at volcanic CO₂ vents reveal that these stressors combined sharply reduce survival, posing risks to marine ecosystems.” – ScienceDaily

August 14, 2025
Unprecedented climate shocks are changing the Great Lakes forever
“Extreme heat waves and cold spells on the Great Lakes have more than doubled since the late 1990s, coinciding with a major El Niño event. Using advanced ocean-style modeling adapted for the lakes, researchers traced temperature trends back to 1940, revealing alarming potential impacts on billion-dollar fishing industries, fragile ecosystems, and drinking water quality.” – ScienceDaily

August 7,2025
LOSING PROTECTION
The United States helped beat back malaria in Guinea. Now, the disease is set to soar
“The Trump administration has terminated much of the work of the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), launched 2 decades ago, which funded malaria control efforts for roughly half the Guinean population, including the bustling capital, Conakry. The U.S. has also threatened to dial down its contribution to the Global Fund to Fight HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which funds efforts in the remainder of the country (see map, below)….
“Malaria surges are also expected across the dozens of other countries where PMI has provided support, but the scale of the toll is hard to predict. In a modeling paper published in The Lancet in June, researchers at the Australia- and Tanzania-based Malaria Atlas Project estimated that if PMI had continued as usual, it would have prevented 13.6 million malaria cases and 104,000 deaths across sub-Saharan Africa this year, including 250,000 cases and 450 deaths in Guinea (see graphic, below.)…
“Says Regina Rabinovich, former head of the Gates Foundation’s infectious diseases division and a scholar in residence at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. ‘It’s a tragedy.’…
“Tears welled up in Camara’s eyes as he talked about the past 6 months, and in an emotional outburst, he suddenly switched from French, Guinea’s official language, to halting English. ‘I beg Donald Trump! People are gonna die!’ he shouted. ‘The small children, they die!’…
“Richard Reithinger, a former distinguished research fellow at RTI International, a nonprofit based in North Carolina that implemented the PMI-funded programs, says he expects the biggest problems in countries such as Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, and Mozambique, where the malaria burden was already high and funds for controlling the disease were insufficient even before the U.S. cuts. ‘Those are countries where I would expect increases in malaria incidence to be observed following this year’s transmission season,’ he says.” – Science

August 6, 2025
The Earth Is Drying Out and We Need to Act Urgently
Three-quarters of the global population, or about 6 billion people, live in areas where fresh water has dwindled since 2002.
“Measurements from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites suggest the continents have been losing fresh water at an alarming rate since 2002, according to a recent study in the journal Science Advances. Some parts of the planet are becoming wetter, especially in the tropics, but the drying parts are drying more quickly than the increasingly wet parts are getting wet. The drying parts are also spreading, gaining roughly two Californias’ worth of land every year and recently merging into “mega-drying” regions sprawling across vast stretches of continents.” – Bloomberg

August 5, 2025
Bird Flu on Dairy Farms May Be Airborne After All
Infectious bird flu virus was found in milk, on equipment, within wastewater and aerosolized in the air on California dairy farms
“‘There is a lot of H5N1 virus on these farms,’ says Seema Lakdawala, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the Emory University School of Medicine and senior author of the new study, which has yet to go through scientific peer review. ‘It is everywhere. We need to be expanding biosafety measures, biosecurity measures and trying to control where the virus is.’”…
“But with so much virus on affected farms, there’s a chance that future human-oriented mutations could arise, Lakdawala warns. She suspects the virus becomes aerosolized during both milking and cleaning….
“This is highlighting to me that we really need to work harder to get this entire outbreak under control,” she says. – The Scientific American

August 4, 2025
‘Grave, growing, and underrecognized danger:’ New report sheds light on plastic pollution
The plastic pollution crisis is costing the U.S. some $1.5 trillion in health-related costs every year – and the threat is only expected to grow
Digital IP remains with the company
“The ‘underrecognized’ and ‘grave and growing danger’ of pervasive global plastic pollution is a threat to human health throughout the course of our lives, a group of international researchers warned in a report released Monday.
“With production on track to nearly triple by 2060, plastic pollution is responsible for disease and death and is estimated to cost the U.S. some $1.5 trillion a year in health-related economic losses, they explained, with 8,000 metric tons of plastic waste invading our lands, our water sources, and even our own hearts and brains.” – Independent

July 29, 2025
Earth’s Wetlands Are Disappearing and Global Efforts to Save Them Are Unraveling
More than 170 countries have gathered to save critical ecosystems. But the U.S. was a no-show for most of the summit and Russia said it will withdraw from the wetlands treaty.
“Wetlands underpin all life on Earth, supplying fresh water, oxygen, habitat and food. Yet since 1970 more than 35 percent of wetlands have been lost or degraded at a pace three times faster than losses experienced within forests.
“The U.N. gathering known as the 15th meeting of the conference of the Contracting Parties of the Convention on Wetlands (COP15), one of the oldest global environmental protection treaties, comes just weeks after scientists released a dire warning about the destruction and declining health of global wetlands, describing the decline as an overlooked crisis that threatens food and water security, and worsens climate change….
“It also didn’t take long for geopolitics to roil the weeklong meeting.
“On the second day, the delegates from Russia announced the country’s intention to withdraw from the treaty—the first nation to do so. “The delegates claimed the conference had become politicized, and they left….
‘Two chairs marked ‘United States’ sat empty in the plenary hall for days because the country for the first time had not sent a delegation.
“On July 30, the second-to-last day of the summit, one U.S. representative finally arrived and delivered a striking message: In conference documents, the U.S. government wanted no mention of climate change; diversity, equity and inclusion; gender; the United Nations’ sustainable development goals; or ‘zero growth.’
“Because the United States did not participate in the normal convention process, its suggestions could not be integrated into official documents.” – Inside Climate News

July 27, 2025
Is the air you breathe silently fueling dementia? A 29-million-person study says yes
“Air pollution isn’t just bad for your lungs—it may be eroding your brain. In a sweeping review covering nearly 30 million people, researchers found that common pollutants like PM2.5, nitrogen dioxide, and soot are all linked to a significantly higher risk of dementia. The most dangerous? PM2.5—tiny particles from traffic and industry that can lodge deep in your lungs and reach your brain.” – ScienceDaily

July 27, 2025
Satellites just revealed a hidden global water crisis—and it’s worse than melting ice
Unprecedented continental drying driven by severe droughts and groundwater overuse are reducing freshwater and contributing to sea level rise.
“For over two decades, satellites have quietly documented a major crisis unfolding beneath our feet: Earth’s continents are drying out at unprecedented rates. Fueled by climate change, groundwater overuse, and extreme drought, this trend has carved out four massive ‘mega-drying’ regions across the northern hemisphere, threatening freshwater supplies for billions.” – ScienceDaily

July 26, 2025
The oceans are overheating—and scientists say a climate tipping point may be here
“In 2023, the world’s oceans experienced the most intense and widespread marine heatwaves ever recorded, with some events persisting for over 500 days and covering nearly the entire globe. These searing ocean temperatures are causing mass coral bleaching and threatening fisheries, while also signaling deeper, system-wide climate changes.”
“Marine heatwaves surged to record-breaking levels in 2023, disrupting ecosystems and fisheries across 96% of the ocean. Scientists warn this may mark the beginning of a fundamental climate shift.” – ScienceDaily

July 24, 2025
UN’s top court says failing to protect planet from climate change could violate international law
“The United Nations’ top court in a landmark advisory opinion Wednesday said countries could be in violation of international law if they fail to take measures to protect the planet from climate change, and nations harmed by its effects could be entitled to reparations.
Advocates immediately cheered the International Court of Justice opinion on nations’ obligations to tackle climate change and the consequences they may face if they don’t.
“‘Failure of a state to take appropriate action to protect the climate system … may constitute an internationally wrongful act,’ court President Yuji Iwasawa said during the hearing. He called the climate crisis ‘an existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.’
“The non-binding opinion, backed unanimously by the court’s 15 judges, was hailed as a turning point in international climate law.” – APNews

July 20, 2025
Superbugs could kill millions more and cost $2tn a year by 2050, models show
“The research, by the Center for Global Development thinktank, found the US, UK and EU economies would be among the hardest hit, prompting accusations that recent swingeing aid cuts are self-defeating.
“On Thursday, the UK government announced it was axing funding for the Fleming fund, which combats AMR in low- and middle-income countries, as part of wider aid cuts. The Trump administration has confirmed $9bn in cuts to its foreign aid budget, while a number of European countries have also reduced spending on overseas aid.” – The Guardian

July 17, 2025
The Petro-Bros are Selling You Out
How the hyper-masculine narratives of the fossil fuel industry lull us into climate inaction
“It is a paradox, experts and even some former industry analysts say, wrapped in a tangled web of patriotism and, at a deeper level, a hyper-masculinity that has been spun and weaponized by the oil and gas industry — and by their enablers in government, the media (including some podcasts, some quarters of the ad industry, news media, etc.) — into a narrative of freedom, independence, democracy, energy-security and prosperity.
“It’s the social sell of Trump when he says drill baby drill, when he disparages the wind and solar industries, or when he mocks electric vehicles and their drivers/owners. But it’s also the social sell of JD Vance when he makes fun of ‘childless cat ladies.’ It’s the social sell of Joe Rogan when he laments the erosion of American masculinity.
“These messages of culture and ideology are all connected to a story of nostalgia and pride. A story that sees energy in the form of fossil fuels, and freedom, at its core. It is the purported freedom of the American Dream, of big homes and big yards and big garages in the suburbs, and even of freedom from socialism and communism and indentured labour.” – Medium

July 16, 2025
Before Tropical Depression Chantal Swamped Hillsborough, the Town Had Been Counting on FEMA
The Trump administration canceled a FEMA program in April that would have funded upgrades to protect the town from flooding. Then the Eno River rose more than 20 feet.
“Hillsborough Utilities Director Marie Strandwitz (right) and Mayor Mark Bell summarized the extent of the damage from Tropical Depression Chantal—more than $1 million….
“In 2018, FEMA cited a study by the National Institute of Building Sciences showing that hazard mitigation saves an average of $6 for every $1 spent on federal grants disbursed for that purpose.” – Inside Climate News

July 10, 2025
Bigger crops, fewer nutrients: The hidden cost of climate change
“Climate change is silently sapping the nutrients from our food. A pioneering study finds that rising CO2 and higher temperatures are not only reshaping how crops grow but are also degrading their nutritional value especially in vital leafy greens like kale and spinach. This shift could spell trouble for global health, particularly in communities already facing nutritional stress. Researchers warn that while crops may grow faster, they may also become less nourishing, with fewer minerals, proteins, and antioxidants raising concerns about obesity, weakened immunity, and chronic diseases.” – ScienceDaily

July 8, 2025
Melting glaciers are awakening Earth’s most dangerous volcanoes
“As glaciers melt around the world, long-dormant volcanoes may be waking up beneath the ice. New research reveals that massive ice sheets have suppressed eruptions for thousands of years, building up underground pressure. But as that icy weight disappears, it may trigger a wave of explosive eruptions—especially in places like Antarctica. This unexpected volcanic threat not only poses regional risks but could also accelerate climate change in a dangerous feedback loop. The Earth’s hidden fire may be closer to the surface than we thought.” – ScienceDaily

July 3, 2025
When rainforests died, the planet caught fire: New clues from Earth’s greatest extinction
“When Siberian volcanoes kicked off the Great Dying, the real climate villain turned out to be the rainforests themselves: once they collapsed, Earth’s biggest carbon sponge vanished, CO₂ rocketed, and a five-million-year heatwave followed. Fossils from China and clever climate models now link that botanical wipe-out to runaway warming, hinting that losing today’s tropical forests could lock us in a furnace we can’t easily cool….
“Professor Mills added: ‘There is a warning here about the importance of Earth’s present day tropical forests. If rapid warming causes them to collapse in a similar manner, then we should not expect our climate to cool to preindustrial levels even if we stop emitting CO2.
“‘Indeed, warming could continue to accelerate in this case even if we reach zero human emissions. We will have fundamentally changed the carbon cycle in a way that can take geological timescales to recover, which has happened in Earth’s past.'” – ScienceDaily

July 3, 2025
Rainforest deaths are surging and scientists just found the shocking cause
Research reveals an underestimated and growing threat to tropical forests and the carbon they store.
“Tropical trees are dying faster than ever, and it’s not just heat or drought to blame. Scientists have uncovered a surprising culprit: ordinary thunderstorms. These quick, fierce storms, powered by climate change, are toppling trees with intense winds and lightning, sometimes causing more damage than drought itself. The discovery is reshaping how we understand rainforest health and carbon storage, as storms may be responsible for up to 60% of tree deaths in some regions. Researchers now warn that failing to account for this hidden force could undermine forest conservation and climate models alike.” – ScienceDaily

July 2, 2025
Antarctica’s ocean flip: Satellites catch sudden salt surge melting ice from below
“A massive and surprising change is unfolding around Antarctica. Scientists have discovered that the Southern Ocean is getting saltier, and sea ice is melting at record speed, enough to match the size of Greenland. This change has reversed a decades-long trend and is letting hidden heat rise to the surface, melting the ice from below. One of the most dramatic signs is the return of a giant hole in the ice that hadn’t been seen in 50 years. The consequences are global: stronger storms, warmer oceans, and serious trouble for penguins and other polar wildlife….
“It’s a feedback loop that’s speeding up climate change….
“Dr Alessandro Silvano from the University of Southampton who led the research said: ‘Saltier surface water allows deep ocean heat to rise more easily, melting sea ice from below. It’s a dangerous feedback loop: less ice leads to more heat, which leads to even less ice.
“‘The return of the Maud Rise polynya signals just how unusual the current conditions are. If this salty, low-ice state continues, it could permanently reshape the Southern Ocean — and with it, the planet. The effects are already global: stronger storms, warmer oceans, and shrinking habitats for penguins and other iconic Antarctic wildlife.'” – ScienceDaily

July 2, 2025
Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report
Water shortages hitting crops, energy and health as crisis gathers pace amid climate breakdown
“Drought is pushing tens of millions of people to the edge of starvation around the world, in a foretaste of a global crisis that is rapidly deepening with climate breakdown.
“More than 90 million people in eastern and southern Africa are facing extreme hunger after record-breaking drought across many areas, ensuing widespread crop failures and the death of livestock. In Somalia, a quarter of the population is now edging towards starvation, and at least a million people have been displaced.
“The situation has been years in the making. One-sixth of the population of southern Africa needed food aid last August. In Zimbabwe, last year’s corn crop was down 70% year on year, and 9,000 cattle died.
“These examples are just the beginning of a worldwide catastrophe that is gathering pace, according to a report on drought published on Wednesday. In regions across the world, drought and water mismanagement are leading to shortages that are hitting food supplies, energy and public health.” – The Guardian

July 1, 2025
Tracking sea ice is ‘early warning system’ for global heating – but the US is halting data sharing
News comes as research finds record lows of Antarctic sea ice had seen more icebergs splintering off ice shelves
“Dr Alex Fraser, a co-author of the research at the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership (AAPP), said NSIDC’s sea ice data was ‘our number one heart rate monitor’ for the state of the planet’s ice.
“‘It’s our early warning system and tells us if the patient is about to flatline. We need this data and now [the scientific community] will be forced to put together a record from a different instrument. We won’t have that continued context that we have had previously.’” – The Guardian

June 27, 2025
Only 3 years left: The carbon budget for 1. 5 °C is almost gone
“At current emission rates, we re just over three years away from blowing through the remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5 C. This new international study paints a stark picture: the pace of climate change is accelerating, seas are rising faster than ever, and the Earth is absorbing more heat with devastating consequences from hotter oceans to intensified weather extremes….
“Surplus heat accumulating in the Earth’s system at an accelerating rate is driving changes in every component of the climate system.” – ScienceDaily

June 26, 2025
‘We are perilously close to the point of no return’: climate scientist on Amazon rainforest’s future
Carlos Nobre, who has fought for decades to save the rainforest, says up to 70% of it could be lost if a tipping point is reached
“We estimate that a tipping point could be reached if deforestation reaches 20-25% or global heating rises to 2.0-2.5C [above preindustrial levels]…..
“Today, 18% of the Amazon has been cleared and the world has warmed by 1.5C and is on course to reach 2.0-2.5C by 2050.” – The Guardian

June 24, 2025
Ancient carbon ‘burps’ caused ocean oxygen crashes — and we’re repeating the mistake
“Today’s human-driven CO₂ emissions are skyrocketing at speeds hundreds of times faster than those ancient upheavals—raising urgent questions about how modern oceans, particularly coastal zones rich in marine life, might react….
Said senior author Isabel P. Montañez, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at UC Davis: ‘We’re creating a burp now and at a rate two, maybe three, orders of magnitude faster than in the past.'” – ScienceDaily

June 24, 2025
Extinction crisis’ could see 500 bird species vanish within a century – report
Researchers say urgent conservation efforts will be needed to mitigate the ‘shocking statistic’ that threatens to unravel ecosystems
“Birds such as the puffin, European turtle dove and great bustard will be among those to disappear from our skies if trends continue, according to the paper. Their loss threatens to unravel ecosystems across the globe.
“‘We face a bird extinction crisis unprecedented in modern times,’ said Kerry Stewart, lead author of the research from the University of Reading, who described the headline finding of the paper as a ‘shocking statistic.’ It is triple the number of birds that went extinct in the previous 500 years.
“The paper, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, examined data from nearly 10,000 birds (almost all of those known to exist) and used IUCN data to predict extinction risk. Habitat loss – driven mainly by the expansion and intensification of agriculture – emerged as the most significant driver of species extinction.” – The Guardian

June 23, 2025
123,000-year-old coral fossils warn of sudden, catastrophic sea-level rise
“Ancient coral fossils from the remote Seychelles islands have unveiled a dramatic warning for our future—sea levels can rise in sudden, sharp bursts even when global temperatures stay steady.” – ScienceDaily

June 21, 2005
The Ecofeminist Movement Is Surging. Here’s What Its Advocates Want
More women are connecting environmental degradation with attacks on women’s rights, seeing both as rooted in similar values. They’re drawing on personal experiences and reams of research to make their case.
“Ecofeminism, a theory that emerged in the 1970s, argues that the conquest of nature and the control of women stem from the same values. Brazil’s own history, ecofeminists argue, reflects this: During the 1964 to 1985 military dictatorship, the regime oversaw widespread gender-based violence and launched “Operation Amazonia,” a campaign to colonize the rainforest and eradicate its Indigenous residents.
“In the era of climate change, this theory is gaining traction and urgency from the Amazon to the Middle East. Armed with data and their own experiences, women in this new climate movement are pushing beyond calls to simply increase female leadership in forums like the United Nations’ climate talks. They want to take down the systems they see as root causes of climate change, including patriarchy, capitalism and extractivism—the global pursuit of natural resources for export.” – Inside Climate News

June 18, 2025
Is a monster web of ocean currents headed for collapse? The race is on to find out
Research ships rarely brave the Greenland Sea in winter. Early this year, scientists ventured into the ice-covered waters to capture crucial data about the planet’s future.
“But scientists are increasingly concerned that this crucial current system is weakening as the planet is getting hotter because of greenhouse-gas pollution building up in the atmosphere. Some computer climate simulations warn that the AMOC could reach a tipping point in the twenty-first century and lose much of its strength. This would have catastrophic impacts across the globe; one study published last year projects that temperatures in north-western Europe could drop by as much as 15 °C, plunging the region into a new ice age, while the southern hemisphere would suffer more severe warming¹. It also suggests that a near-collapse of the AMOC would drive disruptive changes in rainfall in the Amazon basin. ‘The effects of an AMOC collapse will be so extreme that it will be difficult for us to adapt,’ says physical oceanographer Henk Dijkstra at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, a co-author of the study….
“Several modelling studies in the past few years warn that the AMOC could weaken drastically in the near future — up to the point of causing a near-shutdown. A collapse would not happen abruptly but would take 50–100 years, says Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany. Beyond a crucial tipping point, however, a further decline is unstoppable. ‘I think there is a 50–50 chance that we will pass the tipping point this century,’ he says.” – Nature

June 17, 2025
Why the world cannot quit coal
“On the day the Paris climate pact was signed, nearly a decade ago, it seemed as if world leaders were finally on the same page. They agreed to pursue efforts to limit global warming to 1.5C, in an effort to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change…..
“Unfortunately for the plan to fend off climate change, those statements could not have been more wrong. Ten years after the signing of the Paris accord, demand for coal is still growing — and shows no signs of peaking…..
“The world’s energy needs are growing so quickly that the world simply needs more of everything, says Helm — more renewables, more nuclear, and more oil, gas and coal. ‘Very sadly, there isn’t a transition’ away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy, he says — instead, it is an increase, in all directions….
“How soon the world will reach peak coal — if ever — is still being debated. But its climate impact is clear: coal accounts for 30 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions since the industrial revolution. On top of that, coal mining is a significant source of methane, a potent warming gas. ‘I end up being rather frightened of what the future looks like,’ says Helm, the Oxford professor. ‘Everyone agrees we are on an unsustainable path . . . But they are not prepared to accept the consequences.’
“‘There is no peak coal,’ he adds. ‘The rate of growth will slow down. But if we carry on burning on the current level of coal, that is still a disaster.'” – The Financial Times

June 9, 2025
Why past mass extinctions didn’t break ecosystems—But this one might
“For millions of years, large herbivores like mastodons and giant deer shaped the Earth’s ecosystems, which astonishingly stayed stable despite extinctions and upheavals. A new study reveals that only twice in 60 million years did environmental shifts dramatically reorganize these systems once with a continental land bridge, and again with climate-driven habitat change. Yet the ecosystems adapted, with new species taking on old roles. Now, a third, human-driven tipping point threatens that ancient resilience….
“This resilience has lasted for the past 4.5 million years, enduring ice ages and other environmental crises up to the present day. However, the researchers caution that the ongoing loss of biodiversity – accelerated by human activity- could eventually overwhelm the system.
“‘Our results show that ecosystems have an amazing capacity to adapt. But the rate of change is so much faster this time. There’s a limit. If we keep losing species and ecological roles, we may soon reach a third global tipping point, one that we’re helping to accelerate, ‘ says Juan L. Cantalapiedra, researcher at MNCN in Spain and senior author of the study.” – ScienceDaily

June 9, 2025
‘Ticking timebomb’: sea acidity has reached critical levels, threatening entire ecosystems – study
Ocean acidification has already crossed a crucial threshold for planetary health, scientists say in unexpected finding
More on this story: How the ‘evil twin’ of the climate crisis is threatening our oceans
The world’s oceans are in worse health than realised, scientists have said today, as they warn that a key measurement shows we are “running out of time” to protect marine ecosystems.
Ocean acidification, often called the “evil twin” of the climate crisis, is caused when carbon dioxide is rapidly absorbed by the ocean, where it reacts with water molecules leading to a fall in the pH level of the seawater. It damages coral reefs and other ocean habitats and, in extreme cases, can dissolve the shells of marine creatures.
Until now, ocean acidification had not been deemed to have crossed its “planetary boundary”. The planetary boundaries are the natural limits of key global systems – such as climate, water and wildlife diversity – beyond which their ability to maintain a healthy planet is in danger of failing. Six of the nine had been crossed already, scientists said last year.”
However, a new study by the UK’s Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), the Washington-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University’s Co-operative Institute for Marine Resources Studies found that ocean acidification’s “boundary” was also reached about five years ago.
“Ocean acidification isn’t just an environmental crisis – it’s a ticking timebomb for marine ecosystems and coastal economies,” said PML’s Prof Steve Widdicombe, who is also co-chair of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network.” –The Guardian

May 30, 2025
The Economic Consequences of Ignoring Climate Change
Despite mounting evidence of global warming’s costs, the Trump administration has made multiple moves to avoid tracking climate-related economics.
“A recent report compiled by risk management experts with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the University of Exeter in England found that the global economy could experience a 50 percent loss in gross domestic product between 2070 and 2090 due to climate change, based on current emissions trends….
“In the U.S. alone, extreme weather costs roughly $150 billion each year from direct impacts such as damage to infrastructure, agricultural losses and widespread injuries, according to a 2023 federal assessment….
“At times, Trump has argued that climate impacts could be positive for people in the U.S.
“‘The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years … and you’ll have more oceanfront property,’ Trump said in an August discussion with Tesla owner Elon Musk. The Hill pointed out that sea levels are projected to rise between 10 to 12 inches over the next three decades, according to a 2022 federal report.” – Inside Climate News

May 30, 2025
Almost 40% of world’s glaciers already doomed due to climate crisis – study
“The loss will soar to 75% if global heating reaches the 2.7C rise for which the world is currently on track.
“The massive loss of glaciers would push up sea levels, endangering millions of people and driving mass migration, profoundly affecting the billions reliant on glaciers to regulate the water used to grow food, the researchers said.
“However, slashing carbon emissions and limiting heating to the internationally agreed 1.5C target would save half of glacier ice. That goal is looking increasingly out of reach as emissions continue to rise, but the scientists said that every tenth-of-a-degree rise that was avoided would save 2.7tn tonnes of ice.”– The Guardian

May 30, 2025
Earth’s Seasonal Rhythms Are Changing, Putting Species and Ecosystems at Risk
“As the planet warms, spring events like flowering, leafing and insect emergence are occurring earlier. At the same time, fall events like leaf coloring and migration are happening later.”
“Seasonality is rapidly changing due to local human impacts… forest clearing is shifting monsoon onset dates; dams are blocking seasonal river flows.”
“If seasonal changes lead to mismatches – such as when plants flower before their pollinators emerge – this could cause population declines and ripple through ecosystems.” These are not just scientific observations — they are signs that the biological heartbeat of the planet is becoming erratic. The consequences are cascading across ecosystems, threatening biodiversity at a global scale. –The Conversation

May 28, 2925
World faces new danger of ‘economic denial’ in climate fight, Cop30 head says
“André Corrêa do Lago, the veteran Brazilian diplomat who will direct this year’s UN summit, Cop30, believes his biggest job will be to counter the attempt from some vested interests to prevent climate policies aimed at shifting the global economy to a low-carbon footing….
“‘It is not possible to have [scientific] denialism at this stage, after everything that has happened in recent years. So there is a migration from scientific denial to a denial that economic measures against climate change can be good for the economy and for people.’
“The rise of populist politicians around the world has fuelled a backlash against climate policy, most clearly seen in the presidency of Donald Trumpin the US, where he has set about cancelling policies intended to boost renewable energy and cut greenhouse gases, and dismantling all forms of government-sponsored climate-related institutions, including scientific research labs.”– The Guardian

May 28, 2025
The ocean seems to be getting darker
“Ocean darkening occurs when changes in the optical properties of the ocean reduce the depth of its photic zones, home to 90% of all marine life and places where sunlight and moonlight drive ecological interactions….
“They found that between 2003 and 2022, 21% of the global ocean — including large expanses of both coastal regions and the open ocean — had become darker.
In addition to this, more than 9% of the ocean — an area of more than 32million sq km, similar in size to the continent of Africa — had seen photic zone depths reducing by more than 50metres, while 2.6% saw the photic zone reduced by more than 100m.
“However, the picture is not solely of a darkening ocean with around 10% of the ocean — more than 37million sq km — becoming lighter over the past 20 years….
“Dr Thomas Davies, Associate Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Plymouth, said: ‘There has been research showing how the surface of the ocean has changed colour over the last 20 years, potentially as a result of changes in plankton communities. But our results provide evidence that such changes cause widespread darkening that reduces the amount of ocean available for animals that rely on the sun and the moon for their survival and reproduction. We also rely on the ocean and its photic zones for the air we breathe, the fish we eat, our ability to fight climate change, and for the general health and wellbeing of the planet. Taking all of that into account, our findings represent genuine cause for concern.'” – ScienceDaily

May 26, 2025
This Century, the Sea Will Swallow Cities — Even 1.5°C Is Too Late.
“Even if emissions are dramatically reduced, sea level rise will become unmanageable within this century.”
Peter Potapov, the co-director of the Global Land Analysis and Discovery Lab at the University of Maryland, said in a statement.
New research led by Prof. Jonathan Bamber reveals a harsh truth: sea level rise is now inevitable — even if the world meets the 1.5°C climate goal. Low-lying countries like Bangladesh, unlike the Netherlands with its centuries of flood defense engineering, will face catastrophic impacts without the means to adapt. This inequality in adaptive capacity makes talk of “migration” and “resilience” feel hollow. Meanwhile, the world continues on a path toward 2.5°C of warming — a level that risks the collapse of Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, potentially leading to a 12-meter rise in sea levels. – The Guardian

May 22, 2025
Global Forest Loss Hit a Record Last Year as Fires Raged
Forests around the world disappeared at a rate of 18 soccer fields every minute, a global survey found. Fires accounted for nearly half of the losses.
“Loss of pristine rainforests alone reached 6.7 million hectares in 2024, nearly twice as much as in 2023, researchers at the University of Maryland and the World Resources Institute said in an annual update of the state of the world’s forests.…
“If this trend continues, it could permanently transform critical natural areas and unleash large amounts of carbon, intensifying climate change and fueling even more extreme fires,” Peter Potapov, the co-director of the Global Land Analysis and Discovery Lab at the University of Maryland, said in a statement.” – The New York Times

May 21, 2025
Wind-related hurricane losses for homeowners in the southeastern U.S. could be nearly 76 percent higher by 2060
New research finds that homeowners in Texas are predicted to be the hardest hit — along with those in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama
“A new study projects that wind losses for homeowners in the Southeastern coastal states could be 76 percent higher by the year 2060 and 102 percent higher by 2100.” – ScienceDaily

May 21, 2025
Earth may already be too hot for the survival of polar ice sheets, study says
If Earth stays at its current levels of warming — below policymakers’ goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius — polar ice sheets may melt, causing seas to rise and displacing coastal communities, a study finds.
“A group of scientists has demonstrated that if the world stays on course to warm up to 1.5 degrees — or even stays at its current level of 1.2 degrees above preindustrial levels — polar ice sheets will probably continue to quickly melt, causing seas to rise and displacing coastal communities, according to a study published Tuesday in Communications Earth and Environment.
“‘There was a kind of misunderstanding that 1.5 was going to solve all our problems,’ said Chris Stokes, a professor at Durham University in England who focuses on glaciers and ice sheets, and an author of the study. Now, the team surmised that limit is closer to around 1 degree Celsius.” – The Washington Post

May 20, 2025
Sea level rise will cause ‘catastrophic inland migration’, scientists warn
Rising oceans will force millions away from coasts even if global temperature rise remains below 1.5C, analysis finds
“The world is on track for 2.5C-2.9C of global heating, which would almost certainly be beyond tipping points for the collapse of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets. The melting of those ice sheets would lead to a ‘really dire’ 12 metres of sea level rise.
“Today, about 230 million people live within 1 metre above current sea level, and 1 billion live within 10 metres above sea level. Even just 20cm of sea level rise by 2050 would lead to global flood damages of at least $1tn a year for the world’s 136 largest coastal cities and huge impacts on people’s lives and livelihoods.” – The Guardian

May 19, 2025
Glaciers will take centuries to recover even if global warming is reversed, scientists warn
New research reveals mountain glaciers across the globe will not recover for centuries — even if human intervention cools the planet back to the 1.5 C limit, having exceeded it.
“‘Overshooting 1.5°C, even temporarily, locks in glacier loss for centuries. Our study shows that much of this damage cannot simply be undone — even if temperatures later return to safer levels. The longer we delay emissions cuts, the more we burden future generations with irreversible change.'” – ScienceDaily

May 14, 2025
How the World’s Most Powerful Corporations Have Fought Accountability for Climate Change
A new report draws on internal company documents and other public records to comprehensively outline the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long campaign to mislead the public and avoid paying for their products’ harms.
“The documents and records cited in the report, released Wednesday by the watchdog group Union of Concerned Scientists, have been reported on previously. But the report’s authors say they are the first to aggregate and analyze those documents in a comprehensive way.
“‘This report puts together, in one place, a powerful body of evidence about what the fossil fuel corporations knew—and when—about the climate impacts of their products, and what they did in spite of what they knew,’ said Kathy Mulvey, a report author and accountability campaign director for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS.
“Mulvey said the report should add heft to dozens of lawsuits pending worldwide against fossil fuel companies over their contribution to climate change.” – Inside Climate News

May 14, 2025
Car use and meat consumption drive emissions gender gap, research suggests
“Cars and meat are major factors driving a gender gap in greenhouse gas emissions, new research suggests.
“Men emit 26% more planet-heating pollution than women from transport and food, according to a preprint study of 15,000 people in France. The gap shrinks to 18% after controlling for socioeconomic factors such as income and education.
“Eating red meat and driving cars explain almost all of the 6.5-9.5% difference in pollution that remains after also accounting for men eating more calories and travelling longer distances, the researchers said. They found no gender gap from flying.” – The Guardian

May 13, 2025
Pharmaceutical Pollution Is Widespread Across the World’s Waterways
Antibiotics, antidepressants and other drugs frequently leach into the environment, where they can impact ecosystems and human health.
“Many of the world’s waterways are awash with varying levels of pharmaceuticals, according to a wide body of research. These medical byproducts come from all different sources, including industrial dumping and agriculture. They can even come from our own waste; peoples’ bodies don’t absorb all the medication they take, so much of it ends up in the sewage system, which then frequently releases into the environment.
“A new modeling study estimates that every year, thousands of tons of the most-used antibiotics are released into the world’s rivers from human consumption alone—and 11 percent of them reach the world’s oceans or inland sinks. Researchers have also discovered widespread contamination of aquatic ecosystems with antidepressants, heart medications and other drugs in recent years.
“Though levels of drug accumulation in watersheds are often low, even trace amounts can have profound impacts on wildlife and human health—and climate change could be making the problem worse.” – Inside Climate News

May 10, 2025
Silent Collapse of the World’s Fertile Lands
“About 86% of global croplands have experienced an increase in extreme climate stress over the past two decades, with fertile areas rich in soil organic carbon (SOC) being particularly at risk.”
“While overall surface exposure of croplands has decreased globally, areas with high SOC are increasingly exposed to extreme events such as high temperatures, strong winds, and intense precipitation.”
“A globally increasing exposure of SOC-rich croplands to climate extremes may accelerate soil degradation and threaten global food production.”
– Feng et al. (2025), Nature Communications

May 9, 2025
Unprecedented Climate Extremes Will Define the Lives of Today’s Children
“A new study published in Nature warns that more than half of the world’s children born in 2020 will experience unprecedented lifetime exposure to extreme climate events such as heatwaves, crop failures, floods, droughts, wildfires, and tropical cyclones.
Under current policies leading to 2.7°C of warming, the study projects a dramatic rise in exposure to life-threatening conditions. If global temperatures reach 3.5°C by 2100, 92% of people born in 2020 will face extreme heat waves, 29% will face crop failures, and 14% will encounter major river floods. These risks are disproportionately higher among socially vulnerable groups.
What today’s children are inheriting is not just a warmer world, but a deeply unjust one — a reality where the timing and place of one’s birth determines their right to a livable life.” – Grant et al. (2025), Nature

May 8, 2025
“The Smoke That Kills” — A Silent Toll from Climate-Driven Wildfires
“Wildfires intensified by climate change have silently claimed over 15,000 lives in the United States between 2006 and 2020, according to a new study. The economic toll? An estimated $160 billion.
As global warming fuels droughts and extreme heat, forests across the American West—especially in Oregon and California—are turning into tinderboxes. The primary killer is PM2.5, microscopic particles from wildfire smoke that penetrate deep into the lungs. These particles worsen existing health conditions and disproportionately threaten the vulnerable: children, the elderly, pregnant people, and outdoor workers.
“These numbers are really significant… This study drives home how far-reaching the impacts are.” — Jacob Bendix, Professor Emeritus, Syracuse University
The research demonstrates that climate change is not a distant threat but a deadly force already shaping mortality—with wildfires just one of its many faces. And unless emissions are drastically reduced, such deaths will only increase.” – AP News

May 7, 2025
Climate change: Future of today’s young people
Today’s vulnerable youth will be most affected by continued greenhouse gas emissions
“Climate scientists reveal that millions of today’s young people will live through unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves, crop failures, river floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical storms under current climate policies. If global temperatures rise by 3.5° C by 2100, 92% of children born in 2020 will experience unprecedented heatwave exposure over their lifetime, affecting 111 million children.
“Meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target could protect 49 million children from this risk.
This is only for one birth year. When considering all children currently between 5 and 18 years old, this adds up to 1.5 billion affected under a 3.5°C scenario — with 654 million children that could be protected by staying below 1.5°C.”
— ScienceDaily

May 7, 2025
Two-thirds of global heating caused by richest 10%, study suggests
Paper in Nature Climate Change journal reveals major role wealthy emitters play in driving climate extremes
“Wealthier groups bore more disproportionate responsibility still, with the richest 1% – those with annual incomes of €147,200 – responsible for 20% of global heating, and the richest 0.1% – the 800,000 or so people in the world raking in more than €537,770 – responsible for 8%.
“‘We found that the wealthiest 10% contributed 6.5 times more to global warming than the average, with the top 1% and 0.1% contributing 20 and 76 times more, respectively,’ they write in their paper, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Climate Change.” – The Guardian

May 6, 2025
Cutting greenhouse gases will reduce number of deaths from poor air quality
“Up to 250,000 deaths from poor air quality could be prevented annually in central and western Europe by 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced, say researchers.” – ScienceDaily

May 3, 2025
Killer fungi to spread as climate heats up
“Rising temperatures will drive the global spread of a killer fungus that infects millions of people a year, according to new research on how climate change is stoking severe disease threats. The Aspergillus family could expand its reach to more northerly swaths of Europe, Asia and the Americas, underscoring the stealthy menace of moulds already estimated to be a factor in 5 per cent of all worldwide deaths. “Climatic shifts are broadening the geographical reach of many potentially lethal pathogens, such as those borne by mosquitoes. Fungi are a particular peril, due to their hard-to-detect spores, a shortage of treatments for the diseases they trigger, and growing resistance to existing drugs. The world is now approaching a ‘tipping point’ in the proliferation of fungal pathogens whose habitats range from arid earth to warm damp corners of houses, warned Norman van Rhijn, co-author of the new Aspergillus research.
“‘We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of lives, and continental shifts in species distributions,’ said van Rhijn, a Wellcome Trust research fellow at Manchester university who specialises in fungal infections and microbial evolution. ‘In 50 years, where things grow and what you get infected by is going to be completely different.'” – Financial Times

May 2, 2025
75 percent of North America’s bird species are in decline, study says
Birds are rapidly vanishing from North America, with dramatic population losses in places that were once thought safe.
“Across North America, three-fourths of bird species are in decline, according to a sweeping study of avian populations published Thursday, the latest sign of a slow-moving extinction crisis that threatens entire ecosystems.
“The population losses among the continent’s birds — red-winged blackbirds belting conk-la-ree! in marshlands, chickadees gathering around suburban bird feeders, peregrine falcons swooping between skyscrapers — should serve as a canary in the coal mine for people who live alongside birds, scientists say.
“For a majority of bird species, the decrease observed between 2007 and 2021 was greatest in the places where they are most abundant, suggesting birds are struggling even in their strongholds.” – The Washington Post

May 2, 2025
Thousands of Falling Satellites Put the Atmosphere at Risk
“Decommissioned satellites, which vaporize when they plunge through the atmosphere, are threatening the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Last year, about 1,000 of them reentered, or about three a day. By 2035, the daily rate is estimated to rise as high as 50.” – Bloomberg

April 30, 2025
In two decades increasing urban vegetation could have saved over 1.1 million lives
“Increasing urban vegetation by 30% could save over one-third of all heat related deaths, saving up to 1.16 million lives globally from 2000 to 2019 according to a 20-year modelling study of the impact of increasing greenness in more than 11,000 urban areas.” – ScienceDaily

April 29, 2025
Common chemicals in plastic linked to over 350,000 deaths from heart disease
Researchers estimate that exposure to phthalates contributes to 13 percent of all heart disease deaths in people between ages 55 and 64 each year worldwide.
“A set of chemicals found in food packaging, plastics, and lotions and shampoos has been linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths from heart disease, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal eBioMedicine.
“These chemicals, known as phthalates (pronounced tha-lates), were responsible for more than 350,000 deaths worldwide in 2018, researchers found. About 75 percent of the deaths were in Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific — reflecting growing concern about the amount of plastic proliferating in developing countries.
“‘We think of plastics as an issue in high-income countries,”’said Leonardo Trasande, a professor at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine and one of the authors of the paper. ‘But what we’re seeing in the pattern geographically is disturbing.’
“While the researchers acknowledge that exposure to phthalates coincides with other risk factors — such as obesity and metabolic disorders — the findings add to the growing evidence that chemicals used in plastics come with serious health risks.” – The Washington Post

April 24, 2025
A Grim Signal: Atmospheric CO2 Soared in 2024
Scientists are worried because they can’t fully explain the big jump, but they think it might mean that carbon absorption by forests, fields and wetlands is slowing down—a major problem for the world.
“The latest anomaly in the climate system that can’t be fully explained by researchers is a record annual jump in the global mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured in 2024.
“The concentration, measured in parts per million, has been increasing rapidly since human civilizations started burning coal and oil in the mid-1800s from the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm.
“In recent decades, the increase has often been in annual increments of 1 to 2 ppm. But last year, the increase measured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Laboratory was 3.75 ppm, according to the lab’s early April update of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
“That brings the annual mean global concentration close to 430 ppm, about 40 percent more than the pre-industrial level, and enough to heat the planet by about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius).” – Inside Climate News

April 24, 2025
Trump Takes a Major Step Toward Seabed Mining in International Waters
A new executive order pits the United States against the rest of the world over the question of who can exploit mineral resources in shared waters.
“President Trump has ordered the U.S. government to take a major step toward mining vast tracts of the ocean floor, a move that nearly every other nation in the world considers off limits to this kind of industrial activity.
“The executive order, signed Thursday, would circumvent a decades-old international treaty that every major coastal nation except the United States has ratified. It is the latest example of the Trump administration’s willingness to disregard international institutions and is likely to provoke an outcry from the country’s rivals and allies alike.
“The order ‘establishes the U.S. as a global leader in seabed mineral exploration and development both within and beyond national jurisdiction,’ according to a text released by the White House.” – The New York Times

April 23, 2025
World’s largest bleaching event on record has harmed 84 percent of coral reefs
Bleached coral dies when exposed to heat stress for too long, threatening the bountiful marine ecosystem that depends on it for survival.
“Coral reefs around the world are losing their color at an unprecedented scale as a result of rising sea temperatures, federal marine scientists announced this week, with 84 percent of reefs exposed to bleaching levels of heat since 2023.
“The massive blow to marine habitats reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the highest share ever recorded — comes as the planet experiences its fourth global coral bleaching event, which occurs when bleaching is confirmed in every one of the oceans’ basins at once.
“NOAA says the latest global event began on Jan. 1, 2023, and mass bleaching has now been observed across at least 83 countries and territories, threatening marine life from Fiji to the Florida Keys to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
“‘The ongoing global coral bleaching event is the biggest to date,’ NOAA scientists said.” – The Washington Post

April 23, 202
World on course to trigger multiple climate ‘tipping points’ unless action accelerates
Multiple climate ‘tipping points’ are likely to be triggered if global policies stay on their current course, new research shows.
“Scientists assessed the risk of “tipping” in 16 different parts of the Earth system — ranging from the collapse of major ice sheets to the dieback of tropical coral reefs and vast forests.
“Based on current policies and the resulting global warming, their most conservative estimate is a 62% risk of triggering these tipping points on average….
“The study assessed tipping point probabilities in five different scenarios, known as shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). Professor Tim Lenton, from Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, said: ‘Climate tipping points could have devastating consequences for humanity.
“‘It is clear that we are currently on a dangerous trajectory — with tipping points likely to be triggered unless we change course rapidly.
“‘We need urgent global action — including the triggering of “positive tipping points” in our societies and economies — to reach a safe and sustainable future.'” – ScienceDaily

April 22, 2025

April 15, 2025
Scientists warn rising heat could cause more mental health disorders
High temperatures are already worsening mental health, from anxiety to schizophrenia
Extreme heat is putting people’s mental health at risk, an Australian study warns, linking rising temperatures to a growing burden of mental and behavioural disorders.
High temperatures are already contributing to thousands of cases of poor mental health each year, the study published in Nature Climate Change on Monday says. This toll could increase drastically by 2050 as the planet continues to warm.
“From mild distress to serious conditions like schizophrenia, rising temperatures are making things harder for millions,” Dr Peng Bi, lead author of the study from the University of Adelaide’s school of public health, says….
“It notes that heat currently contributes to an annual loss of over 8,450 healthy life years in Australia, or around 1.8 per cent of the country’s total mental and behavioural disorder burden.” Independent

April 12, 2025
Paris said au revoir to cars. Air pollution maps reveal a dramatic change.
Air pollution fell substantially as the city restricted car traffic and made way for parks and bike lanes.
“Airparif, an independent group that tracks air quality for France’s capital region, said this week that levels of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) have decreased 55 percent since 2005, while nitrogen dioxide levels have fallen 50 percent….
“Carlos Moreno, a professor at Paris’s Sorbonne University and a former adviser to the city, said Paris has developed ‘an urban policy based on well-being.'” – The Washington Post

April 8. 2025
3-Year-Old Girl Dies In Mexico’s First Human Case Of Bird Flu
Mexican health authorities say that the girl from the western state of Durango died early Tuesday after she was hospitalized with respiratory complications caused by the infection.
“Type A H5N1 influenza has been spreading through animals and some people in the United States. There have been 70 cases in that country since during the past year, according to the World Health Organization, though researchers and studies suggest that’s likely an undercount.
“The girl had been hospitalized in the neighboring state of Coahuila. Health officials had announced she was the country’s first human infection on Friday.”– HuffPost

April 8, 2025
Researcher calculated carbon footprints for extremely impoverished community, detailed how they absorb climate crises, argues for role of social work in addressing injustice
“In one of the most impoverished areas of Seoul, South Korea, residents live in precarious conditions: tiny micro-units often without bathrooms, kitchens, heating or cooling. The residents contribute the least among society to climate change yet suffer disproportionately due to historical and systemic inequalities.” – ScienceDaily

April 7, 2025
In Western Wildlife, Bird Flu Deaths Highlight Uncertainties
The closely-spaced deaths of two cougars in Washington state suggest the virus is likely more widespread than thought.
“The H5N1 strain, which was initially identified in domestic geese in China in the 1990s, had infected wild birds by 2002 and reached North America in 2021.
“Since then, the virus has caused the deaths of tens of millions of domestic chickens, geese, ducks, and turkeys in the U.S., contributing to the rise in egg prices. As of early March, it had killed at least 50,000 wild birds, according to estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey, and been detected in nearly 400 individual wild mammals, including felines, raccoons, rodents, seals, and skunks. Globally, H5N1 has killed thousands of mammals in mass mortality events, including sea lions in Peru and Chile and elephant seals in Argentina.” – UNDARK

April 5, 2025
Millions of Americans believe they’re safe from wildfires in their cities. New research shows they’re not
Many of the suburbs and cities hit hardest in recent years were caught off-guard, and key stakeholders are racing to understand the dynamics that drive these fires
Communities across the US that were once considered beyond the reach of wildfires are now vulnerable to disaster. As fires increasingly spread deep into neighborhoods, researchers estimate roughly 115 million people – more than a third of the US population – live in areas that could host the next fire catastrophe….
“Fire season, which was once confined to a window during the year when the weather was hot and dry, now started earlier and lingered longer, ultimately stretching further into the winter and autumn months when strong winds tended to whip through the west.
”Climate change is giving fires more time, and giving them more time gives them more access to bad conditions,’ Scott said.
“Temperatures and low humidity, which used to calm after the sun went down, were now continuing into the night. When fires are given more time to spread, they grow exponentially, according to Scott: ‘If you give a fire 10% more time to grow, it doesn’t just get 10% bigger – it gets 20 or 30% bigger.'” – The Guardian

April 3, 2025
Trump’s tariffs will deliver a big blow to climate tech
Broader economic anxieties and uncertainty over clean-energy subsidies are compounding industry fears.
“Experts fear that the US cleantech sector is especially vulnerable to a deep downturn, which would undermine the nation’s progress on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and undercut its leadership in an essential, growing industry.
“’It would be hard for me to think of cleantech or climate tech sectors that aren’t facing huge risks,’ says Noah Kaufman, senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, who served on the Council of Economic Advisers under President Joe Biden.
“’I think we’re a country without a federal climate strategy at this point, with an economy headed in the wrong direction, so I don’t see a lot of reason to be optimistic,’ he adds.” – MIT Technology Review

April 3, 2025
Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer
Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure
“Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company’s investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management.
“The core business of the insurance industry is risk management and it has long taken the dangers of global heating very seriously. In recent reports, Aviva said extreme weather damages for the decade to 2023 hit $2tn, while GallagherRE said the figure was $400bn in 2024. Zurich said it was “essential” to hit net zero by 2050….
“Nick Robins, the chair of the Just Transition Finance Lab at the London School of Economics, said: ‘This devastating analysis from a global insurance leader sets out not just the financial but also the civilisational threat posed by climate change. It needs to be the basis for renewed action, particularly in the countries of the global south.'” – The Guardian

April 2, 2025
Global economy could shrink 40% if planet warms by 4C, new study says
New modelling finds global economic losses could be four times higher than previously thought under 4C warming scenario
“A 4C rise in global temperatures could wipe out 40 per cent of the world’s economic output by the end of the century, according to a new peer-reviewed study that dramatically revises earlier estimates.
“The global economy is far more exposed to climate breakdown than previously thought, the study from the University of New South Wales concludes, making the case that rapid decarbonisation is not only an environmental imperative but an economic necessity as well.
“Previous modelling estimated global GDP losses at around 11 per cent under 4C of warming. The new figure – nearly four times higher – stems from correcting what the researchers call a key blind spot that has long shaped international climate policy.” – Independent

March 28, 2025
Arctic ends winter with lowest sea ice cover on record – scientists
“The new record shows how Arctic sea ice has ‘fundamentally changed’ from earlier decades, scientists said.” – Independent

March 26, 2025
Researchers’ breakthrough method reveals clouds amplify global warming far more than previously understood
“Now, researchers have developed a groundbreaking method that significantly improves accuracy in climate predictions. This led to a major discovery — that tropical cloud feedback may have amplified the greenhouse effect by a staggering 71% more than previously known to scientists.” – ScienceDaily

March 24, 2025
Trump wants Greenland. But much of the island is vanishing
‘”Picture yourself pouring a liter of water into the ocean, the stream quickly disappearing into the surf. Now imagine every person on Earth, all 8.025 billion of us, adding a liter of water to the ocean every 15 minutes, day in and day out, for the last 22 years,’ wrote Dr. Twila Moon, the deputy lead scientist and science communication liaison at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. ‘The steady and substantial influx of freshwater would change the ocean’s salt content, alter current patterns, and raise sea levels. This is what’s happening as the Greenland Ice Sheet shrinks.’” – Independent

March 20, 2025
Glacier meltdown risks food and water supply of 2 billion people, says UN
Unesco report highlights ‘unprecedented’ glacier loss driven by climate crisis, threatening ecosystems, agriculture and water sources
“Retreating glaciers threaten the food and water supply of 2 billion people around the world, the UN has warned, as current ‘unprecedented’ rates of melting will have unpredictable consequences.
“Two-thirds of all irrigated agriculture in the world is likely to be affected in some way by receding glaciers and dwindling snowfall in mountain regions, driven by the climate crisis, according to a Unesco report.
“More than 1 billion people live in mountainous regions and, of those in developing countries, up to half are already experiencing food insecurity. That is likely to worsen, as food production in such regions is dependent on mountain waters, melting snow and glaciers, according to the World Water Development Report 2025.” – The Guardian

March 20, 2025
Interior to open millions of acres in Alaska to drilling and mining
Trump officials said they would open up areas of Alaska that Joe Biden had made off-limits to oil and gas production, and allow for a gas pipeline to be built across the state.
“Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the department would allow oil and gas leases on 82 percent of the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, overturning protections that President Joe Biden finalized last year, and will reinstate a program to permit drilling in the 1.56-million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the country’s largest preserve of its kind.
“The department also will work to transfer federal land to the state to help construct a pipeline to transport liquefied natural gas for export to Asia and a road that is critical in operating a planned copper and zinc mine in northern Alaska. Nearly a year ago Biden administration officials blocked the land transfer for Ambler Road, which was slated to traverse Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, on grounds that it would harm the region’s Indigenous communities and wildlife habitat.” – The Washington Post

March 20, 2025
‘Don’t call it zombie deer disease’: scientists warn of ‘global crisis’ as infections spread across the US
A contagious, fatal illness in deer, elk and moose has taken hold in the US and is now reaching other countries. While it has not infected humans yet, the risk is growing
“Described by scientists as a “slow-motion disaster in the making”, the infection’s presence in the wild began quietly, with a few free-ranging deer in Colorado and Wyoming in 1981. However, it has now reached wild and domestic game animal herds in 36 US states as well as parts of Canada, wild and domestic reindeer in Scandinavia and farmed deer and elk in South Korea.” – The Guardian

March 19, 2025
In the Australian outback, climate change widens the racial divide
“Extreme heat is surging around the world as climate change drives up temperatures and threatens to force hundreds of millions of people from their homes by 2050. Poor countries will be affected the most.” – The Washington Post

March 19, 2025
UN report warns of a ‘frightening’ future: ‘Your five-year-old now faces a future with 7 times more heatwaves’
Scientists warn the impacts seen in 2024 will be impossible to reverse
“Record heat, melting glaciers, and oceans warming at an unprecedented pace made 2024 the hottest year ever recorded, delivering consequences that scientists warn are now irreversible for hundreds of years.
“Global temperatures soared past the critical 1.5C threshold above pre-industrial levels in 2024, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has confirmed. Earlier, a report from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service also confirmed it in January this year.
“But new details from the WMO’s State of the Global Climate report show how this heat reshaped the planet, unleashing permanent damage to oceans, glaciers, and ecosystems, and displacing millions from their homes.” – Independent

March 10, 2025
Microplastics hinder plant photosynthesis, study finds, threatening millions with starvation
Researchers say problem could increase number of people at risk of starvation by 400m in next two decades
“The pollution of the planet by microplastics is significantly cutting food supplies by damaging the ability of plants to photosynthesise, according to a new assessment.
“The analysis estimates that between 4% and 14% of the world’s staple crops of wheat, rice and maize is being lost due to the pervasive particles. It could get even worse, the scientists said, as more microplastics pour into the environment.
“About 700 million people were affected by hunger in 2022. The researchers estimated that microplastic pollution could increase the number at risk of starvation by another 400 million in the next two decades, calling that an ‘alarming scenario’ for global food security.” – The Guardian

March 7, 2025
Butterflies in the U.S. are disappearing at a ‘catastrophic’ rate
“The total number of butterflies in the contiguous United States has declined 22 percent over a 20-year period, according to a study in the journal Science, as shrinking habitat, rising temperatures and a toxic array of pesticides kill off the delicate insects….
“The crisis for butterflies is part of a troubling downturn in the number of bumblebees, fireflies and other insects that has been observed in Europe, the Caribbean and other places worldwide. It could signal a potential “bugpocalypse” that scientists are fiercely debating — a shift that may spell trouble for both nature and society.
“The loss of insects — “the little things that run the world,” as naturalist E.O. Wilson once put it — has dire implications for ecosystems in which birds and mammals rely on them for food and plants depend on them for pollination. Farmers and gardeners, meanwhile, may be losing allies that act as pollinators and natural pest control.
“David Wagner, a University of Connecticut entomologist not involved in the study, said butterflies act as a ‘yardstick for measuring what is happening’ among insects broadly. He called the new findings ‘catastrophic and saddening.’” – The Washington Post

March 6, 2025
Global sea ice hit ‘all-time minimum’ in February, scientists say
Scientists called the news ‘particularly worrying’ because ice reflects sunlight and cools the planet
“The agency found the area of sea ice hit its lowest monthly level for February in the Arctic, at 8% below average, and its fourth-lowest monthly level for February in the Antarctic, at 26% below average. Its satellite observations stretch back to the late 1970s and its historical observations to the middle of the 20th century.
“Scientists had already observed an extreme heat anomaly in the north pole at the start of February, which caused temperatures to soar more than 20C above average and cross the threshold for ice to melt. They described the latest broken record as “particularly worrying” because ice reflects sunlight and cools the planet.
“‘The lack of sea ice means darker ocean surfaces and the ability of the Earth to absorb more sunlight, which accelerates the warming,’ said Mika Rantanen, a climate scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.” – The Guardian

March 3, 2025
Rising Temperatures Are Scrambling the Base of the Ocean Food Web
“Humans are living in a plankton world. These minuscule organisms are spread across the oceans, covering nearly three-quarters of the planet, and are among the most abundant forms of life on Earth.
“But a warming world is throwing plankton into disarray and threatening the entire marine food chain that is built on them.
“‘Do you like breathing? Do you like eating? If your answer is yes for either of them, then you care about phytoplankton,’ said Jeremy Werdell, the lead scientist for the satellite program, called PACE, which stands for ‘Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem.’” – The New York Time

February 24, 2025
Arctic study urges stronger climate action to prevent catastrophic warming
Remember when 2 degrees Celsius of global warming was the doomsday scenario? Well, we’re now staring down the barrel of something much worse. From the fish on your plate to the weather outside your window, everything’s about to change. A new study underscores the grave risks posed by insufficient national commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” – ScienceDaily

February 21. 2025
The rising tide of sand mining: A growing threat to marine life
“Sand is the literal foundation of human development across the globe, a key ingredient of concrete, asphalt, glass, and electronics. It is relatively cheap and easily extracted….
“Sand mining across the world is being linked to coastal erosion, habitat destruction, the spread of invasive species and impacts on fisheries. Extracting sand can harm marine life by clouding water and riling sediment that can smother seagrasses and coral. Disrupting spans of ocean sand can fragment habitat, change the patterns of waves and other issues that can throw marine life into disarray.” – ScienceDaily

February 20, 2025
We’re Running Out of Chances to Stop Bird Flu
“If this outbreak isn’t controlled, the virus could mutate and plunge humans into a new public health emergency. And by all accounts, not enough is being done to control the outbreak. Unlike their peers in the poultry business, dairy farmers have no Red Book for dealing with bird flu….
“Unless something changes, the specter of bird flu’s devastation will hang over the United States indefinitely — as will the threat of other emerging diseases. Scientists have long considered bird flu, or H5N1, a leading candidate for causing a human pandemic. Since 2003 the virus has infected at least 954 people around the world and killed at least 464— an almost 50 percent mortality rate — mostly in people in proximity to infected birds….
“Unfortunately, such policies seem unlikely, given that the Trump administration has signaled its intent to soften its focus on infectious disease.” – New York Times

February 20, 2025
This company is trying to make a biodegradable alternative to spandex
“The global spandex market, valued at almost $8 billion in December 2024, is projected to grow between 2% and 8% every year over the next decade. That might be better news for your comfort than for the environment. Most stretch fabrics contain petroleum-based fibers that shed microplastics and take centuries to decompose. And even a small amount of plastic-based stretch fiber in a natural garment can render it nonrecyclable.” – MIT Technology Review

February 19, 2025
Global retreat of glaciers has strongly accelerated
“There are currently around 275,000 glaciers worldwide, in which huge quantities of fresh water are stored. But this reservoir is increasingly shrinking…..
“It is striking that ice loss has accelerated significantly in recent years. In the second half of the period under investigation (2012 to 2023), it was 36 per cent higher than in the period from 2000 to 2011….
“The loss of ice from the glaciers since 2000 has led to a rise in sea level of 18 millimetres. This makes the melting of glaciers the second strongest driver of sea level rise after ocean warming, well ahead of the mass loss of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.” – ScienceDaily

February 19,2025
‘Glacial fracking’: A hidden source of Arctic greenhouse gas emissions
“The Arctic is warming at four times the global average, and glaciers across the region are shrinking rapidly. As they melt, more methane could be released, creating a positive feedback loop — where warming melts glaciers, releasing methane, which in turn traps more heat in the atmosphere and accelerates further melting.
“Gabrielle warns that this process could have global climate consequences: ‘Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over short timescales. Even though these emissions are seasonal, they could add up as more glaciers retreat.'” – ScienceDaily

February 18, 2025
How the Oil Industry Turned Climate Change into a Partisan Issue
The climate policy pendulum is swinging back again with Trump in office. Money, lobbying and talking about red vs. blue states all play a role in the political and public divide.|In “1979, the scientific consensus that climate change posed a significant threat to the environment, the economy and society as we had come to appreciate them began to emerge.
“The Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate, commissioned by the U.S. National Research Council’s climate research board, concluded then that if carbon dioxide continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, there was ‘no reason to doubt that climate changes will result.’…
“But none of this came as a surprise to the oil industry. Working behind the scenes since the 1950s, researchers working for companies such as Exxon, Shell and Chevron had made their leaders well aware that the widespread use of their product was already causing climate change. And coinciding with the Ad Hoc Study Group’s work in the late 1970s, oil companies started making large donations to national and state-level candidates and politicians they viewed as friendly to the interests of the industry.
“The oil industry also implemented a disinformation campaign designed to cast doubt about climate science and, in many cases, about their own internal research. The strategy, ripped from the pages of the tobacco industry playbook, involved “emphasizing uncertainty” to cast doubt on the science and calling for “balanced” science to sow confusion.”

February 14, 2025
Scientists have a new explanation for the last two years of record heat
Rising temperatures are fueled, in part, by declining cloud cover — which could be a potential climate feedback loop.
“Earth’s overall energy imbalance — the amount of heat the planet is taking in minus the amount of heat it is releasing — also continues to rise, worrying scientists. The energy imbalance drives global warming. If it rises, scientists expect global temperatures to follow.
“Two new studies offer a potential explanation: fewer clouds. And the decline in cloud cover, researchers say, could signal the start of a feedback loop that leads to more warming.”– The Washington Post

February 14, 2025
Research reveals how Earth got its ice caps
“Benjamin Mills, Professor of Earth System Evolution in Leeds’ School of Earth and Environment, supervised the project. He added that the results of the research had important implications for global warming and the immediate future.
“‘There is an important message, which is that we should not expect the Earth to always return to a cold state as it was in the pre-industrial age,’ he said.
‘”Earth’s current ice-covered state is not typical for the planet’s history, but our current global society relies on it.
‘”We should do everything we can to preserve it, and we should be careful with assumptions that cold climates will return if we drive excessive warming before stopping emissions. Over its long history, the Earth likes it hot, but our human society does not.’ – ScienceDaily

February 13, 2025
World’s largely unprotected peatlands are ticking ‘carbon bomb’, warns study
Bogs and swamps are a colossal carbon store but their continued destruction would blow climate change targets
“Peatlands occupy just 3% of all land, but contain more carbon than all of the world’s forests. However, farmers and miners are draining the peatlands, releasing so much CO₂ that if they were a country, they would be the fourth biggest polluter in the world after China, the US and India.
“The first global assessment found that only 17% of the peatlands were within protected areas. This contrasted starkly with other valuable ecosystems such as tropical forests, where 38% were protected, and mangroves (42%).
“Protection was even lower than the 17% average in the three nations with the most peatlands: Canada, Russia and Indonesia.” – The Guardian

February 11, 2025
Bird flu strain that just jumped to cows infects dairy worker in Nevada
“A dairy worker in Nevada has been infected with a strain of H5N1 bird flu—genotype D1.1—that has newly spilled over to cows, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed….
“The bird flu strain H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, genotype D1.1 is the predominant strain currently circulating in wild birds in North America and was confirmed for the first time in cows in Nevada last week. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the new spillover was initially detected on January 31 via bulk milk testing. Until this point, the outbreak of H5N1 in dairy cows—which was declared in March 2024—was entirely caused by H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, genotype B3.13. The outbreak was thought to have been caused by a single spillover event from wild birds to cows in Texas in late 2023 or early 2024.” – ArsTechnica

February 11, 2025
The False AI Energy Crisis
“Over the past few weeks, Donald Trump has positioned himself as an unabashed bull on America’s need to dominate AI. Yet the president has also tied this newfound and futuristic priority to a more traditional mission of his: to go big with fossil fuels. A true AI revolution will need ‘double the energy’ that America produces today, Trump said in a recent address to the World Economic Forum, days after declaring a national energy emergency. And he noted a few ways to supply that power: ‘We have more coal than anybody. We also have more oil and gas than anybody.'” – The Atlanatic

February 7, 2025
An Arctic ‘beyond recognition’ by 2100
“In 2024, annual average global air temperatures surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time, triggering extreme weather events like record-breaking rainfall and flooding events in the Sahara Desert and extreme summer heat waves across the planet. However, global warming will not stop at this level. Based on the current pledges of countries for limiting their emissions of greenhouse gases, global temperatures are projected to reach 2.7 degrees Celsius beyond pre-industrial levels by the end of this century. This scenario would dramatically reshape the Arctic, the fastest-warming region of Earth….
“‘These changes will devastate infrastructure, ecosystems, vulnerable communities, and wildlife’: Julienne Stroeve, senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and professor at the Centre for Earth Observation Science at the University of Manitoba. ‘The Arctic is warming at four times the rate of the rest of the planet.'” – ScienceDaily

February 4, 2025
Temperatures at north pole 20C above average and beyond ice melting point
“’This was a very extreme winter warming event,’ said Mika Rantanen, a scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. ‘Probably not the most extreme ever observed, but still at the upper edge of what can happen in the Arctic.’…
“Burning fossil fuels has heated the planet by about 1.3C since preindustrial times, but the poles are warming much faster as reflective sea ice melts. The increase in average temperatures has driven an increase in fiercely hot summers and unsettlingly mild winters.” – The Guardian

February 4, 2025
Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist
The pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, according to renowned climate scientist Prof James Hansen, who said the international 2C target is “dead”.
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) defined a scenario which gives a 50% chance to keep warming under 2C – that scenario is now impossible,” he said. ‘The 2C target is dead, because the global energy use is rising, and it will continue to rise.’…
“The climate crisis has already supercharged extreme weather across the world with just 1.3C of heating on average in recent years destroying lives and livelihoods – 2C would be far worse.” – The Guardian

February 4, 2025
Half a degree further rise in global warming will triple area of Earth too hot for humans
“New assessment warns area the size of the USA will become too hot during extreme heat events for even healthy young humans to maintain a safe body temperature if we hit 2 degrees Celsuis above preindustrial levels. For those aged over 60, the same 2 degree rise would see more than a third of the planet’s land mass cross this critical ‘overheating’ threshold….
Dr Tom Matthews, lead author and Senior Lecturer in Environmental Geography at King’s College London said: ‘Our findings show the potentially deadly consequences if global warming reaches 2°C. Unsurvivable heat thresholds, which so far have only been exceeded briefly for older adults in the hottest regions on Earth, are likely to emerge even for younger adults. In such conditions, prolonged outdoor exposure — even for those if in the shade, subject to a strong breeze, and well hydrated — would be expected to cause lethal heatstroke. It represents a step-change in heat-mortality risk .'” – ScienceDaily

February 3, 2025
A new study projects that climate change could drive a $1.47 trillion decline in home values across the U.S. by 2055.
“Published by the climate risk modeling nonprofit First Street Foundation, the analysis found that population shifts and insurance costs will largely be to blame as consumers look for houses in areas that are less susceptible to extreme weather (though as studies show, there is no such thing as a “climate haven” anymore). The biggest projected population losses are set to occur in certain areas of New Jersey and California.” – Inside Climate News

February 3, 2025
Greenland ice sheet cracking more rapidly than ever, study shows
Crevasses increasing in size and depth in response to climate breakdown, Durham University researchers find
“The Greenland ice sheet – the second largest body of ice in the world – is cracking more rapidly than ever before as a response to climate breakdown, a study has found.
“Researchers used 8,000 three-dimensional surface maps from high-resolution commercial satellite imagery to assess the evolution of cracks in the surface of the ice sheet between 2016 and 2021.
“They found that the crevasses – the wedge-shaped tears that open in glaciers – had significantly increased in size and depth over the five years and at a faster rate than previously detected.
“’The biggest thing I was surprised about was how fast this was happening. One previous study showed changes over the scale of decades … and now we’re showing this happening on scales of five years,’ said Dr Tom Chudley, an assistant geography professor at Durham University and lead author of the study.” – The Guardian

February 3, 2025
How huge parts of the US could become uninhabitable within decades — even so-called ‘climate havens’
“It’s not just Florida and California — from poisoned water supplies to infrastructure issues to polar vortices, Holly Baxter speaks to experts about why the entire U.S. is being threatened by climate change, and why you can’t just move to Vermont to escape it.” – Independent

February 3, 2025
Our brains are filling with more and more microplastics, study shows
“A new study shows that microplastics are making their way into human brains — with potentially dangerous effects on people’s health andmental acuity.
“A paper published Monday in Nature Medicine found that the tiny fragments of plastic are passing the blood-brain barrier and into human brains, and the amount of microplastics in the brain appears to be increasing over time. The concentration of microplastics in analyzed brains rose by about 50 percent from 2016 to 2024.” – The Washington Post

January 30, 2025
Will bird flu spark a human pandemic? Scientists say the risk is rising
H5N1 is adapting to new mammalian hosts, raising the possibility of the virus spreading between humans.
“Ten months on from the shocking discovery that a virus usually carried by wild birds can readily infect cows, at least 68 people in North America have become ill from the pathogen and one person has died.
“Although many of the infections have been mild, emerging data indicate that variants of the avian influenza virus H5N1 that are spreading in North America can cause severe disease and death, especially when passed directly to humans from birds. The virus is also adapting to new hosts — cows and other mammals — raising the risk that it could spark a human pandemic.
“’The risk has increased as we’ve gone on — especially in the last couple of months, with the report of [some] severe infections,’ says Seema Lakdawala, an influenza virologist at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.” – Nature

January 30, 2025
Groundwater in Arctic is delivering more carbon into the ocean than was previously known
A relatively small amount of groundwater trickling through Alaska’s tundra is releasing huge quantities of carbon into the ocean, where it can contribute to climate change.
“Researchers found that although the groundwater only makes up a fraction of the water discharged to the sea, it’s liberating an estimated 230 tons of organic carbon per day along the almost 2,000-kilometer coastline of the Beaufort Sea in summer. This quantity of carbon is on par with what free-flowing rivers in the area release during summer months.
“‘This study shows that there’s humongous amounts of organic carbon and carbon dioxide released via fresh groundwater discharge in summer,’ said Cansu Demir, who led the research while she was completing her doctoral degree at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences. She is now a postdoctoral research associate at Los Alamos National Laboratory.” – ScienceDaily

January 28, 2025
2025 ‘Doomsday Clock’: This is how close we are to self-annihilation, scientists say
“Scientists and global leaders revealed on Tuesday that the ‘Doomsday Clock’ has been reset to the closest humanity has ever come to self-annihilation.
“For the first time in three years, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the metaphorical clock up one second to 89 seconds before midnight, the theoretical doomsday mark.
“‘It is the determination of the science and security board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that the world has not made sufficient progress on existential risks threatening all of humanity. We thus move the clock forward,’ Daniel Holz, chair of the organization’s science and security board, said during a live-streamed unveiling of the clock’s ominous new time.
“‘In setting the clock closer to midnight, we send a stark signal,” Holz said. ‘Because the world is already perilously closer to the precipice, any move towards midnight should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning. Every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.'” – ABCNews

January 28, 2025
Ocean-surface warming four times faster now than late-1980s
“This accelerating warming underscores the urgency of reducing fossil fuel burning to prevent even more rapid temperature increases in the future and to begin to stabilise the climate.” – ScienceDaily

27 January 2025
Extreme heat will kill millions of people in Europe without rapid action
Climate models predict that the number of heat-related deaths could soar in cities over the coming century, even when efforts are made to keep people safe.
“An extra 2.3 million people in European cities could die as a result of extreme temperatures — both hot and cold — by the end of the century if countries do not take action to mitigate climate change, according to a study that modelled the effects of rising temperatures.” – Nature

January 22, 2025
Brazil fires consumed wilderness area larger than Italy in 2024 – report
“After enduring its worst drought on record in 2024, Brazil closed the year with another alarming milestone: between January and December, 30.86m hectares of wilderness burned – an area larger than Italy. The figure published in a new report is 79% higher than in 2023 and the largest recorded by Fire Monitor since its launch in 2019 by MapBiomas, an initiative by NGOs, universities and technology companies that monitors Brazil’s biomes.” – The Guardian

January 21, 2025
A third of the Arctic’s vast carbon sink now a source of emissions, study reveals
“A third of the Arctic’s tundra, forests and wetlands have become a source of carbon emissions, a new study has found, as global heating ends thousands of years of carbon storage in parts of the frozen north.
“For millennia, Arctic land ecosystems have acted as a deep-freeze for the planet’s carbon, holding vast amounts of potential emissions in the permafrost. But ecosystems in the region are increasingly becoming a contributor to global heating as they release more CO₂ into the atmosphere with rising temperatures, a new study published in Nature Climate Changeconcluded.
“More than 30% of the region was a net source of CO₂, according to the analysis, rising to 40% when emissions from wildfires were included. By using monitoring data from 200 study sites between 1990 and 2020, the research demonstrates how the Arctic’s boreal forests, wetlands and tundra are being transformed by rapid warming.” – The Guardian

January 18, 2025
Peering Into a Bleak, ‘Uninsurable Future’
Property insurance premiums are skyrocketing in the face of climate shocks like the fires raging through greater Los Angeles.
“The fires have killed at least 27 people and destroyed more than 12,000 structures, including many homes in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades. Early estimates from AccuWeather project total damages and economic loss at $250 billion….
“In 2024, insured losses from natural disasters reached $140 billion as climate change ‘showing its claws,’ according to reinsurance company Munich Re. Consumers and companies alike are taking hits. For example, since 2021, at least nine property and casualty insurers have gone bankrupt in Florida, largely because they don’t have the money to pay out rising claims.
“‘We’re marching steadily towards an uninsurable future in this country and across the globe, because we’re not doing enough to deal with the underlying cause’” said Dave Jones, who served two terms as the California insurance commissioner, where he regulated insurers amidst some of the state’s most destructive wildfires.” – Inside Climate News

January 16, 2025
Thawing permafrost threatens up to three million people in Arctic regions
First comprehensive pan-Arctic study of social impacts of thawing permafrost soils
“Increasingly thawing permafrost soils not only pose a global threat due to the CO₂ and methane gas stored in them, but also have far-reaching implications for the approximately three million Arctic residents who live on permafrost soils…. They identified five key risks related to infrastructure, transport and supply, water quality, food security and health. The scientists found that the thawing permafrost posed an increased risk of exposure to infectious diseases and release of contaminants, and interruptions of supply routes.” – ScienceDaily

January 16, 2025
Economic growth could fall 50% over 20 years from climate shocks, say actuaries
“The stark warning from risk management experts the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) hugely increases the estimate of risk to global economic wellbeing from climate change impacts such as fires, flooding, droughts, temperature rises and nature breakdown….
“At 3C or more of heating by 2050, there could be more than 4 billion deaths, significant sociopolitical fragmentation worldwide, failure of states (with resulting rapid, enduring, and significant loss of capital), and extinction events.” – The Guardian

January 15, 2025
Age of the panzootic: scientists warn of more devastating diseases jumping between species
“Bird flu poses a threat that is ‘unique and new in our lifetime’ because it has become a ‘panzootic’ that can kill huge numbers across multiple species, experts warn. For months, highly pathogenic bird flu, or H5N1, has been circulating in dairy farms, with dozens of human infections reported among farm workers. It has now jumped into more than 48 species of mammals, from bears to dairy cows, causing mass die-offs in sea lions and elephant seal pups. Last week, the first person in the US died of the infection.

“This ability to infect, spread between, and kill such a wide range of creatures has prompted some scientists to call H5N1 a ‘panzootic’: an epidemic that leaps species barriers and can devastate diverse animal populations, posing a threat to humans too. As shrinking habitats, biodiversity loss and intensified farming create perfect incubators for infectious diseases to jump from one species to another, some scientists say panzootics could become one of the era’s defining threats to human health and security.” – The Guardian

January 10, 2025
2024 first year to pass 1.5C global warming limit
“The planet has moved a major step closer to warming more than 1.5C, new data shows, despite world leaders vowing a decade ago they would try to avoid this…. Global average temperatures for 2024 were around 1.6C above those of the pre-industrial period – the time before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels – according to Copernicus data. This breaks the record set in 2023 by just over 0.1C, and means the last 10 years are now the 10 warmest years on record.” – BBC

January 10, 2025
As fires rage, CA fears home insurance collapse
“JPMorgan doubled its prediction for the disaster’s total economic losses to $50 billion yesterday. Insured losses could surpass $20 billion, per JPMorgan, which would make it the costliest wildfire in US history.” – Morning Brew

January 10, 2025
The Insurance Crisis That Will Follow the Californian Fires
“Damages… now estimated to be up to a hundred and fifty billion dollars.”  – The New Yorker

January 10, 2025
World’s richest use up their fair share of 2025 carbon budget in 10 days
Emissions caused by wealthiest 1% so far this year would take someone from poorest 50% three years to create
“In less than a week and a half, the consumption habits of an individual from this monied elite had already caused, on average, 2.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, according to analysis by Oxfam GB. It would take someone from the poorest 50% of humanity three years to create the same amount of pollution.” – The Guardian

January 9, 2025
Floods, droughts, then fires: Hydroclimate whiplash is speeding up globally
“Hydroclimate whiplash – rapid swings between intensely wet and dangerously dry weather — has already increased globally due to climate change, with further large increases expected as warming continues, according to a team of researchers. Los Angeles is burning, and accelerating hydroclimate whiplash is the key climate connection.” – ScienceDaily

January 9, 2025
La Niña has arrived. Here’s what that means.
“But La Niña’s cooling effect will not be enough to prevent this year from becoming another of the warmest in human history, climate scientists predicted. This La Niña could instead demonstrate just how high the baseline of average global temperatures has shifted. ‘We’ve reached the stage where every year is an anomalously hot year,’ said Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “’They’re all different, statistically, than the climate we grew up with.'” – The Washington Post

January 9, 2025
U.S. Efforts to Cut Emissions Stalled in 2024 as Power Demand Surged
“America’s efforts to cut its climate change pollution stalled in 2024, with greenhouse gas emissions dropping just a fraction, 0.2 percent, compared to the year before, according to estimates published Thursday by the Rhodium Group, a research firm. Despite continued rapid growth in solar and wind power, emissions levels stayed relatively flat last year because demand for electricity surged nationwide, which led to a spike in the amount of natural gas burned by power plants. The fact that emissions didn’t decline much means the United States is even further off-track from hitting President Biden’s goal of slashing greenhouse gases 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Scientists say all major economies would have to cut their emissions deeply this decade to keep global warming at relatively low levels.” – The New York Times

January 6, 2025
‘Forever Chemicals’ Reach Tap Water via Treated Sewage, Study Finds
“As the world grapples with climate change, population growth and dwindling supplies of fresh water, more people are set to rely on treated wastewater to sustain their daily lives. But wastewater, even after treatment, contains high levels of harmful “forever chemicals” that are already contaminating the drinking water of millions of Americans, researchers said in a study published on Monday that analyzed wastewater samples nationwide. The study, led by researchers at Harvard and New York University, found elevated levels of six types of chemicals known as PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in the samples. The chemicals, which have been linked to cancer and other diseases, are known as forever chemicals because they don’t break down in the environment.” – The New York Times

January 6, 2025
Floods linked to rise in US deaths from several major causes
Study in Nature Medicine reveals potential deadly effect of large floods on injuries, infectious diseases, and other causes
“Over the last 20 years, large floods were associated with up to 24.9 percent higher death rates from major mortality causes in the U.S. compared to normal conditions. A new study demonstrates the sweeping and hidden effects of floods –including floods unrelated to hurricanes, such as those due to heavy rain, snowmelt, or ice jams.” – ScienceDaily

January 6, 2025
Earth shattered heat records in 2023 and 2024: is global warming speeding up?
Nature examines whether the temperature spike is a blip or an enduring — and concerning — trend.
“‘I would be very careful about saying this is clear evidence [of acceleration], but there might be something going on,’ says co-author Helge Goessling, a climate physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany.
“Global temperature spikes have happened before. Why are scientists so worried about this one?
“One reason is that global temperatures were off-the-charts hot in 2023, with an average 1.45 °C of warming above the pre-industrial baseline (see ‘Temperature surge’), shattering previous records. This level of warming is outside the range of what scientists expected on the basis of previous trends and modelling.” – Nature

January 6, 2025
Climate crisis ‘wreaking havoc’ on Earth’s water cycle, report finds
Global heating is supercharging storms, floods and droughts, affecting entire ecosystems and billions of people
“The climate crisis is ‘wreaking havoc’ on the planet’s water cycle, with ferocious floods and crippling droughts affecting billions of people, a report has found. Water is people’s most vital natural resource but global heating is changing the way water moves around the Earth. The analysis of water disasters in 2024, which was the hottest year on record, found they had killed at least 8,700 people, driven 40 million from their homes and caused economic damage of more than $550bn (£445bn).” – The Guardian