Sir David Attenborough has mastered the craft of storytelling. He has undoubtedly inspired generations of people around the globe to love and care for the natural world. And in doing so, he’s become one of the most recognisable – and most trusted – faces on our screens.

Now, he’s celebrating his 100th birthday and a lifetime of wildlife filmmaking. As part of The Conversation UK’s climate storytelling strand, four experts critique how he has influenced everything from conservation and documentary production to the communication of the biggest story of all – climate change.

Scientific insight

Ben Garrod, science broadcaster and Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Science Engagement at the University of East Anglia, has presented alongside Attenborough in several landmark documentaries. Here he reflects on Attenborough’s passion for furthering our scientific understanding of the natural world.

I once sat on a remote beach with Attenborough, near the very tip of South America. I can still clearly remember the warmth of the rounded, flat stones beneath me. We sat only a metre or so apart. We’d just spent the morning filming the excavation of the largest dinosaur ever discovered.

Over lunch, Attenborough had recalled we were close to a beach he’d filmed at years before, where grey whale mothers drew in close to shore with their calves to rub against the stone in the shallows to exfoliate their skin. As luck would have it, it was the perfect time of year and before long, there we were watching a mother and calf just a few metres offshore.

Facts and figures bubbled out of Attenborough excitedly, not at all like the calm and more measured way we’re all so used to. For those few minutes, he was childlike in his wonder and excitement at the scene in front of us and I marvelled at how he has not only maintained that love for the natural world for so long but how he has always so passionately shared it with the rest of us.

For a century now, Attenborough’s life has been intimately interwoven not only with humanity’s growing scientific understanding of the natural world but also its accelerating loss. Spanning over 70 years, Attenborough has been our most trusted and prolific mediator between scientific knowledge and the public.

His early landmark BBC series Life on Earth: A Natural History (1979) did something few academic texts ever could. It made the complexity of evolutionary biology accessible. Across his work, natural selection, adaptation, ecology and behaviour are not presented as intangible concepts but as organic processes shaping form, function and ultimately survival across the natural world.

In doing so, Attenborough helped normalise evolutionary thinking for hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide, embedding complex scientific principles into popular culture, right in our living rooms.

Central to his work has been a commitment to scientific accuracy. Attenborough’s programmes have been developed in close collaboration with academics and field researchers, ensuring narratives about animal behaviour, ecosystems and biodiversity reflect current evidence.

This relationship between science and storytelling has been crucial because rather than dumbing down complexity, Attenborough’s “everyday” approach demonstrates audiences can engage with content that could all too easily be written off as belonging to more academic and scientifically literate viewers.

The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.

Yet the tone of his work has changed. His early documentaries were characterised by a sense of abundance and discovery. Over time, as scientific evidence for biodiversity loss and climate change mounted, his work shifted accordingly. More recently, his documentaries increasingly shine a light on human impact, habitat destruction and extinction risk. This evolution of change in his own tone mirrors the science itself, highlighting Attenborough’s credibility as a communicator willing to adjust his message as the evidence demands.

Attenborough’s contribution to conservation has not come through activism alone. Research shows that an emotional connection to nature precedes any behavioural change. Attenborough has actively helped build the public conditions necessary for conservation policy and action by fostering wonder, curiosity and empathy for the natural world. His influence can be traced in the generations of scientists, conservationists and educators who cite his programmes as formative experiences.

For many, particularly those without access to wild spaces, Attenborough’s work provides an opportunity and gateway to encounter wild animals and remote ecosystems but also local habitats, helping give us all access to the wonder he perceives in the world around him.

As he turns 100, Attenborough’s legacy is surely inseparable from the global environmental challenges we now face. He has helped society understand not only how life evolved, but, more importantly, why it matters that we protect it now. In an era defined by ecological crisis, his work reminds us that scientific knowledge is most powerful when it connects people to the living world so strongly, it compels us to care enough to protect it, so that we might carry on his legacy and, just like him, act as stewards.

Natural history filmmaking

Jean-Baptiste Gouyon, Professor of Science Communication at the UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies, explains the impact Attenborough has had on natural history television.

In the early 1950s, television was taking off across Britain, but the BBC was still finding its visual voice. Its controller, Cecil McGivern, warned in June 1952 that there was “far too much emphasis…on the spoken word and far too little on the thing seen”. Most early television producers had come from BBC radio and initially made programmes that resembled radio with pictures.

Into this world stepped a young David Attenborough, unencumbered by a career in sound, ready to invent a new language for television and, in the process, reshape natural history filmmaking. At 26, he earned his first natural history credit as producer of The Coelacanth (1953), a 20-minute programme prompted by the capture of a live coelacanth “living fossil” fish off Madagascar.

Eschewing sensationalism, Attenborough tied the story to Darwin’s theory of evolution. This use of wildlife programmes to communicate scientific ideas became his trademark.

The programme blended prerecorded footage with live studio sequences featuring evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley, who used the coelacanth to illustrate life’s transition from sea to land.

With the Zoo Quest series (1954), Attenborough began reshaping wildlife television. For these programmes, he travelled to exotic places with staff from the London Zoo to capture animals for the collection. Each episode relied on prerecorded film linked by live studio sequences, allowing tighter narrative control. The hero in the films, shot by Charles Lagus, was Attenborough himself, who back in London also presented the studio sequences. By assuming all the roles of hero, producer, narrator and presenter, Attenborough became the central performer in the story.

From then on, Attenborough’s fluid on-screen performances gained him much acclaim. A very hard worker, he put much effort in producing highly detailed scripts, which left little to chance. Indeed, by the early 1960s, he had all but lost faith in live television, writing to a BBC colleague:

To begin with I got a tremendous kick out of the excitement of putting out programmes live. But it wore off after a bit and really, except for challenging interviews with lots of ‘immediacy’, I’m for film or some other sort of controlled recording process every time. It is so maddening to miss an effect because of some small mechanical hitch, as so often happens live.

Consistently high ratings encouraged others to emulate his method, and live formats became less fashionable. Film-based production also allowed programmes to be stockpiled, repeated and sold, supporting a more sustainable business model.

After Attenborough moved into BBC management in 1965, his goal was to turn natural history television into a science communication genre. He argued that it was “important” to move away from programmes that simply showcased the beauty of nature and instead engage viewers “to examine in a serious and critical way new trends and ideas in zoology”. Returning to hands-on programme-making a decade later, he embedded this vision in his magnum opus, Life on Earth (1979).

In the early 1950s, when Attenborough joined the BBC, natural history television had been mostly conceived of as a specialist genre catering for amateur naturalists to share in the aesthetic and emotional enjoyment of nature. By the 1980s, he had helped transform it into one of the most popular genres of TV programming and a powerful conduit for science communication. This influence continues in his later work, including Planet Earth II, Blue Planet II and Our Planet, which combine cinematic storytelling with urgent environmental themes.

As he celebrates his 100th birthday, Attenborough’s legacy endures, defining natural history television as one of the most powerful forms of science communication and inspiring generations to look at the living world with wonder and understanding.

Communicating research

Saffron O'Neill researches climate communication and public engagement. She explains the ways Attenborough has shaped climate communication techniques across the world.

Attenborough is one of the few voices on climate change that almost everyone is willing to listen to. Over seven decades, his work has transformed how scientific knowledge is communicated, combining advances in broadcasting with powerful storytelling.

Research by Climate Outreach in 2020 found that Attenborough is trusted by people across the political spectrum, from “progressive activists” to “backbone conservatives”. More than 95% of people surveyed recognise him and his programmes reach an exceptionally diverse audience, even in today’s competitive media landscape.

My colleague, PhD researcher Kate Holden, is exploring how young people engage with marine sustainability through online video, from traditional nature documentaries to YouTubers like MrBeast. Attenborough still stands out as an expert young people take seriously.

Part of his appeal lies in his willingness to meet audiences where they are, adapting to changing media habits. He joined Instagram in 2020 (breaking the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to reach one million followers) and has collaborated with Netflix to stream shows.

Attenborough has shown the power of the media to shape how we see the natural world. Although there is little evidence for the appealing notion that watching a documentary like Blue Planet II directly drives behavioural change (such as reducing peoples’ plastic consumption), nature documentaries can certainly drive both public and policy interest via increased media attention.

Engaging the public on climate and nature requires moving beyond a simple notion of “getting the message across” and towards recognising the complexity and power of storytelling. For this, Attenborough’s success is an invaluable model.

His programmes combine top-class storytelling with pioneering technology. The visual appeal of his richly crafted documentaries is matched by compelling stories about little-known species. His work forms a substantial archive of success – many of the most popular TV programmes of all time are his nature documentaries.

In a highly cited paper from 2007, a team led by environmental social scientist Irene Lorenzoni defined engagement with climate change. They claimed that: “It is not enough for people to know about climate change in order to be engaged; they also need to care about it, be motivated and able to take action.”

Early Attenborough programming focused on increasing peoples’ knowledge about the natural world and as part of this, implicitly providing a reason to care about it. Increasingly though, he has moved to a more explicit stance about the climate emergency and our moral and ethical duty to act. An analysis of Attenborough’s use of language carried out in the late 2010s demonstrates this. It shows how he now uses emotional appeals to action. During an appearance on the Outrage + Optimism podcast he said: “we have an obligation on our shoulders and it would be to our deep eternal shame if we fail to acknowledge that.”

When a communicator like activist Greta Thunberg makes an appeal to morality, it can polarise audiences. Attenborough’s broad popularity makes his message reach wider audiences. His trustworthiness, storytelling mastery and innovative use of technology helps explain why he continues to have such a lasting impact on science and environmental communication, seven decades after his first broadcast.

Speaking up about climate change

Chloe Brimicombe, Climate Scientist at the University of Oxford, explores whether Attenborough’s on-screen attention to the climate crisis could have started earlier.

In his early documentaries, Attenborough focused on the wonder of the natural world.

He did go on to warn of the dangers of how humans were damaging the environment, but much of his early messaging reflected the belief that climate change can be linked to overpopulation. This is not demonstrated by the evidence. In fact, the richest in society are the most polluting but the smallest population group.

However, in recent years his beliefs changed with the science and more of his films started to cover climate change directly. For example, Climate Change: The Facts in 2019 and Perfect Planet 2021.

Attenborough’s works are part of the culture of the UK and the world. In my own life Attenborough’s works have always been present. During my undergraduate degree at Aberystwyth University, I was shown Frozen Planet in a lecture about glaciers and ice sheets because my lecturer was featured in the series. That moment stuck with me as I started my career as a climate scientist.

During my PhD in environmental sciences at the University of Reading, my fellow researchers were all big fans of Attenborough and of what could be achieved through the power of documentary film-making. In 2025, I was lucky enough to attend the film premier of Ocean with David Attenborough, something I consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

As well as inspiring audiences with awe and wonder, documentaries can be an important way to communicate what is happening to our changing climate. They reach audiences that might not otherwise engage on the subject. Documentary making has drawn critique for focusing on a producer’s interest instead of capturing the scientific background behind a certain issue.

This has led to schemes such as the Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Scheme being setup to help bring scientists and documentary makers together.

In Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet (2020), he talks about the changes he has seen in the natural environment and his concern for the future of the planet. In the film Ocean with David Attenborough, the 2025 premier took place just before the UN’s ocean summit in Nice, France. This helped lead to real policy discussions and changes. That includes supporting the global ocean’s treaty, a landmark international agreement which creates a network of protected ocean sanctuaries.

Attenborough may have been late in communicating specifically on climate change. But, in recent years he has changed to being a strong advocate. Now, it’s time to make sure that message is heard and acted upon so that the world’s wonders remain for many generations to come.

The climate crisis has a communications problem. How do we tell stories that move people – not just to fear the future, but to imagine and build a better one? This article is part of Climate Storytelling, a series exploring how arts and science can join forces to spark understanding, hope and action.

Chloe Brimicombe, Postdoctoral Researcher, Climate Science, University of Oxford; Ben Garrod, Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Science Engagement, University of East Anglia; Jean-Baptiste Gouyon, Head of Department, Science and Technology Studies, UCL, and Saffron O'Neill, Professor of Geography, University of Exeter

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

On the western side of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, Australia, sits Myuna Bay, a quiet bay with meadows of seagrass waving beneath the water. The most common marine plant species you find there is Zostera muelleri. It has long ribbon-like leaves that grow from stems (called rhizomes) buried beneath the sediment and provides important shelter for small fish, shrimp and crabs.

Although Myuna Bay looks quite normal, it is actually a bit unusual. For decades, the nearby Eraring power station released warm water into the lake that was used to cool down their systems, causing water temperatures here to be consistently 1°C to 3°C higher than nearby sites.

This made the bay a rare natural laboratory for understanding what warming oceans might mean for coastal ecosystems.

In our new research, published today in the journal New Phytologist, we used this setting to investigate what happens to seagrass and the microbes living in the sediment when ocean temperatures increase in the way climate models predict they will in the future.

One of the most important coastal habitats

Seagrasses are often overlooked, but they are among the most important coastal habitats on Earth.

They are marine flowering plants that stabilise sediments, improve water clarity and provide food and shelter for many marine animals. They also store large amounts of carbon in the sediments beneath them, making them important for slowing climate change.

But seagrasses don’t function alone. Beneath the leaves, in the sediments, lives a hidden ecosystem of microbes: bacteria, fungi and other microscopic organisms that interact with the plant.

Just as plants on land depend on soil microbes, seagrasses rely on microbial communities in the sediment around their roots. These microbes carry out many important processes. Some provide nutrients that plants need to grow. Others break down organic matter or detoxify harmful compounds in the sediment.

In some ways, the relationship can be compared to the partnership between corals and the microscopic algae living inside them. Corals rely on those algae for energy, while seagrasses depend on microbes to help maintain a healthy environment around their roots.

But not all microbes are helpful. Some produce sulphide, a compound that can be toxic to seagrass roots when it accumulates in sediments. We are starting to find out that whether microbial communities help or harm the plant can depend strongly on environmental conditions, including increases in ocean temperatures due to climate change.

Simulating future ocean warming in the field

To understand how ocean warming might affect the relationship between seagrasses and microbes in the sediment under realistic future conditions, we designed a field experiment at Myuna Bay.

We collected seagrass plants and sediments from both warmer and “normal” temperature sites in Lake Macquarie. Some plants were grown in sediments with their microbial communities intact.

In other treatments, the sediments were heated to 121°C to disrupt the microbes; this reduces total bacterial abundance by more than 95%.

This allowed us to test how plants performed when the microbial community was intact versus when it had been disrupted. We then placed plants in pots with those different sediments and exposed the plants to warmer conditions at Myuna Bay, similar to those expected in the future.

After one month, we monitored how the plants responded. We measured how they survived, how many shoots they produced and how their biomass changed over time. At the same time, we analysed the bacterial communities in the sediment using DNA sequencing to see how they differed between treatments.

Looking beyond plants

When plants were grown in sediments from “normal” temperature sites, seagrass performed well whether the microbes were intact or disrupted. But when plants were grown in sediments from warmer sites, the outcome changed: plants growing with intact sediment microbial communities performed worse. These sediments from the warm areas also contained different bacterial communities, which may help explain the lower plant biomass we observed.

One possible explanation involves sulphide. In seagrass sediments, certain microbes produce sulphide as part of their metabolism. At high concentrations, sulphide can be toxic for seagrasses. Warmer temperatures may stimulate microbial activity, increasing sulphide production and tipping the balance from a supportive microbial community to one that harms the plant.

Our findings highlight an important idea: the impacts of climate change on seagrasses can’t be understood by looking at the plants alone. The microbial communities living in the sediment can also influence how these plants respond to warming.

This has important implications for conservation and restoration. Around the world, seagrass meadows are declining due to coastal development, pollution and climate change.

Restoration projects often focus on planting seagrass shoots or seeds. But the condition of the surrounding sediment, including its microbial community, may also determine whether restoration succeeds.

As oceans continue to warm, the future of seagrass meadows may depend not only on the plants we see when snorkelling, but also on the microscopic microbes living in the sediment beneath them.

Renske Jongen, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney; Ezequiel M. Marzinelli, Associate Professor, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney, and Paul Gribben, Professor, School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney

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For decades, Antarctica seemed to defy global warming. Since satellites began monitoring the poles in the late 1970s, the seasonal growth and retreat of Antarctic sea ice – frozen seawater that expands around the continent each winter – appeared remarkably resilient. It was often described as the “heartbeat of the planet”.

Unlike the Arctic, where sea ice declined rapidly as the planet warmed, Antarctic sea ice showed little overall loss. It even expanded between 2007 and 2015. But that resilience has now broken.

Since 2015, Antarctic sea ice has declined sharply. In 2023, winter sea ice extent fell to record lows — so far below the long-term average that scientists considered it an event with roughly a one-in-3.5-million probability of occurring by chance.

Antarctica was long considered a part of the climate system expected to change slowly. The speed of the recent sea ice decline has therefore come as a shock.

Scientists did expect Antarctic sea ice to shrink as the planet warmed, but not this quickly. The downturn over the past decade was not predicted by the climate models used to understand how the continent responds to warming. This makes the recent decline especially concerning: it suggests things may be unfolding faster, or in different ways, than our models can fully capture.

This matters because sea ice reflects sunlight back into space and helps drive ocean currents that lock away heat and carbon deep underwater. Its decline will have consequences for the climate and for Antarctica’s unique ecosystems that rely on it.

A fundamental shift

In our new scientific study, we show that the ocean around Antarctica has undergone a fundamental shift. Heat that had been trapped deep below the surface is now rising upwards, where it can melt sea ice.

The chain of events that triggered this change began decades ago. Around Antarctica, winds strengthened as a result of the ozone hole and greenhouse gas emissions. These stronger winds acted like a pump, gradually drawing warm, salty deep water closer to the surface.

For years, the sea around Antarctica – the Southern Ocean – was strongly layered, with cold fresh water sitting on top of warmer, saltier water below. That layering stopped the heat from reaching the surface.

But eventually the barrier weakened. By 2015, warmer deep water had risen close enough to the surface for storms and strong winds to churn it upwards.

The waters around Antarctica have since become trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle. Rising deep water brings heat and salt to the surface. The heat melts sea ice, while the extra salt makes the surface waters denser and easier to mix with warmer waters below. That allows even more heat to rise upwards, making it harder for new sea ice to form, and so on.

The consequences are not only physical. Antarctic sea ice supports one of the world’s most distinctive ecosystems. Algae grow on and under the ice, feeding krill, which in turn sustain penguins, seals, whales and seabirds. Low sea ice has already been linked to mass drowning of emperor penguin chicks – putting the entire species at risk. A long-term shift to lower sea ice cover would therefore reshape not only the climate itself, but also the living Southern Ocean.

This is not just a regional story. Antarctic sea ice acts like a mirror, reflecting sunlight and helping keep the planet cool. As it shrinks, more heat is absorbed by the ocean. At the same time, changes in the Southern Ocean circulation could reduce the ocean’s ability to store heat and carbon.

In the past, Antarctica helped buffer global warming. Our results suggest it may now be shifting in the opposite direction.

Whether this marks a permanent change remains uncertain. But if low sea ice conditions persist, the Southern Ocean could start to accelerate global warming rather than limit it.

Aditya Narayanan, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Southampton; UNSW Sydney; Alberto Naveira Garabato, Professor, National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, and Alessandro Silvano, NERC Independent Research Fellow in Oceanography, University of Southampton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Almost 60 countries, representing about a third of the global economy, met in the Colombian port city of Santa Marta last week for the first international summit on the transition away from fossil fuels.

It was hailed as a bold step to shift global dependence on hydrocarbons into an era of clean energy. The group of 57 countries, including Australia, Canada, Norway and Brazil, launched a new international process to coordinate the global phase out of coal, oil and gas. This historic shift brings us closer to the end of fossil fuels.

Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia’s environment minister and chair of the talks, said: “We decided that the transition away from fossil fuels could no longer remain a slogan but must become a concrete, political and collective endeavour.”

Here are five key developments from Santa Marta.

1. Moving beyond negotiating deadlocks

This meeting was a successful complement to the UN’s annual climate summits, not a replacement for them.

Decisions at UN climate meetings are made by consensus. Outcomes such as the 2015 Paris Agreement have huge legitimacy because they are agreed by nearly 200 countries. But the consensus rules also allow a handful of fossil fuel producers such as Saudi Arabia and Russia to block progress.

Holding a summit outside these formal UN talks brought much-needed fresh air to global climate diplomacy. Without petrostates blocking the way, willing countries were able to have pragmatic discussions about the legal, fiscal and economic measures needed for a coordinated wind down of fossil fuels.

These discussions will now feed back into the next UN climate talks, to be held in Turkey in November. They will, for example, raise expectations that countries include timelines to end fossil fuel use in national climate plans.

2. Paths away from coal, oil and gas

Working groups were established in Santa Marta to help countries develop national and regional plans to move away from fossil fuels, with targets and timelines to end the use of coal, oil and gas.

France launched its national roadmap at the summit, pledging to end the use of coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and gas by 2050. Europe’s second-largest economy plans to close its last coal-fired power plant next year, while replacing oil with electricity for transport and switching from gas to heat pumps for home heating. France wants two out of three new cars to be electric by 2030 and will ban the installation of gas boilers in new homes this year.

The ongoing US-Iran war has only added momentum for a shift to clean energy, as nations grapple with their dependence on imported fossil fuels amid the worst energy crisis in history.

Other nations are now expected to create plans to move away from fossil fuels and bring them to future summits.

3. A science panel to guide the transition

A new scientific panel launched in Santa Marta brings together experts in climate, economics, technology and law to advise policymakers as they draft plans to shift away from fossil fuels.

The panel will map out the most promising policies, regulations and financial arrangements to support the shift to clean energy. It is spearheaded by Professor Johan Rockstrom from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Ahead of Santa Marta, a global group of researchers released a report listing 12 high-level actions nations can take to support a fossil-fuel phaseout.

4. Tuvalu to host next summit, with Irish support

Tuvalu will host the next meeting on ending fossil fuels in 2027. As a low-lying island nation, Tuvalu’s future is threatened by sea-level rise. The Pacific nation has led global climate diplomacy for decades.

“If we are to address the climate change issue, we have to address the root cause, and the root cause is the fossil fuel industry,” said Maina Talia, Tuvalu’s climate change minister.

That there are plans for a second summit is meaningful in itself. A single conference could be a flash in the pan. But a series marks the birth of a new international process with buy in from both wealthy nations and developing countries. This year’s summit was co-hosted with the Netherlands and next year will be co-hosted with Ireland.

5. Toward a fossil fuel treaty

Today, fossil fuel producers plan to dig up more than double the amount of coal, oil and gas in 2030 than would be consistent with meeting shared climate goals.

Tuvalu is part of a growing bloc of countries, including 11 Pacific nations, that wants a new treaty to phase out fossil fuel production. Such a treaty would have three elements: ending fossil fuel expansion; phasing down existing production; and supporting a just transition to clean energy.

It would be similar to global agreements to phase out weapons, harmful substances or hazardous waste.

Climate diplomacy now runs at two speeds

We will only appreciate the full significance of the Santa Marta summit in history’s rear-view mirror.

But what is clear is that climate diplomacy now has two operating speeds. André Corrêa do Lago, who headed last year’s UN COP30 climate talks in Brazil, calls this “two-tier multilateralism”.

The first speed is that of the UN climate talks, which are slower and anchored in consensus. They ensure legitimacy, universality and collective direction.

But what the Santa Marta conference shows is the existence of a second, much faster speed available to any country wanting to rapidly move to end the use of fossil fuels, once and for all.

Wesley Morgan, Research Associate, Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This is our home. If we destroy it, and we can’t build it up, then that’s a part of the Earth that’s destroyed, and we won’t be able to get it back.

Matthew, aged ten, isn’t alone in feeling this way.

We interviewed 15 Australian primary school children aged between nine and 12-years-old about environmental change, which includes things such as pollution, climate change and deforestation.

Every child knew the environment was changing, and all of them had feelings about it too.

Worry was most common. We also heard sadness, anger and hopelessness.

These were thoughtful, complex responses from children paying attention to the world around them.

Most research focuses on teens and young adults

We have known for some time that environmental change profoundly impacts mental health. Eco-anxiety refers to worry about environmental decline. It is not a clinical diagnosis and sits within the range of normal emotions for most people.

Eco-anxiety is a rational response to a real threat. However, for some, it impacts functioning (such as sleep and cognition) and can cause significant distress.

Global studies, including a survey of 10,000 young people across ten countries have documented high rates of eco-anxiety in adolescents and young adults – 59% of respondents were very or extremely worried.

But to date, almost all eco-anxiety research has focused on young people aged 16-25-years-old.

The handful of studies conducted in primary school children only offer a preliminary picture, with small samples from Canada and the US.

The experiences of primary school children are therefore poorly understood.

Our interviews offer new insights into this overlooked group.

‘I’m gonna have to deal with it’

The Australian primary school children we interviewed were not vague about their fears.

They worried about animals going extinct, about rising sea levels, about whether the planet would be liveable when they grew up.

One 12-year-old described thinking about

what will happen when I’m older, and how I’m gonna have to deal with it.

They also understood that human activity played a large role and were frustrated that more hadn’t been done by governments and past generations. One ten-year-old told us:

(I’m) mad at the people who could have solved the problem before now, but they didn’t. They just thought “It’s fine, this problem doesn’t really matter”. And then look at the world now, it’s such a big problem.

Eco-anxiety also shaped children’s behaviours and thoughts.

Some attended protests, put up posters or reduced their plastic use, to help them feel calmer. This problem-focused coping can help reduce negative eco-emotions and build a sense of agency.

Importantly, for most children their worries about the environment were not persistent and did not affect their daily lives. We know from research on older children that eco-anxiety can increase over time; persistently high eco-anxiety can be linked to mental health concerns in young adults.

It’s crucial we understand what shapes the early development of these feelings and what makes them manageable.

A role for schools

One unexpected finding was how hopeful children were.

A third of children expressed genuine belief that the environment could recover. One ten-year-old told us:

I just think there’s a possibility that it can get better. And if we try hard enough, we’ll all get there eventually, and we can help it survive.

Hope seems to be more common in younger children than older children and can be protective. It offers the potential for children to channel concern into action rather than helplessness.

However, schools and parents need to create more opportunities for children to act, alongside acknowledging their fears.

Our ongoing research suggests that teachers regularly face children’s eco-emotions about environmental change – which might include curiosity or information-seeking – without adequate training or guidance.

One child in our study noted that her school “wasn’t doing it very effectively” and wanted teachers to take the topic more seriously.

Without the opportunity to discuss their feelings and with a heavy focus on individual actions (such as recycling) children can feel disproportionately responsible, which increases distress rather than reducing it.

Collective action, open discussions of emotions, and education that reflects the true extent of environmental change is likely to help children.

These feelings deserve to be taken seriously

The goal is not to eliminate eco-anxiety in children, but to keep it at a manageable level that doesn’t affect their ability to function in day to day life.

We can then help children to use eco-anxiety as a foundation for action.

It’s important to note we spoke to only 15 children, mostly from metropolitan areas. We cannot say how widespread these experiences are, or how they differ by age, gender, or location. Answering those questions requires more research over longer time frames and with bigger cohorts.

Children are watching, thinking and feeling things about the future of the environment. Those feelings deserve to be taken seriously.

Hannah Kirk, Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology, Monash University and Sashka Samarawickrama, PhD Candidate (Clinical Psychology), Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia is rich in minerals, metals, sun and wind. Iron ore, copper and critical minerals are all mined here and largely exported overseas to be turned into products such as steel, fertiliser, fuel and infrastructure. Mining and heavy industries create jobs and wealth. But their emissions are some of the hardest to cut.

This is changing. Steel can now be made without coal. Hydrogen can be made using water and renewable power rather than from gas.

The Australian government wants to create greener export industries. It hasn’t been easy. Green hydrogen is proving difficult to finance and scale, while the development of green iron is moving slowly. Interest has grown in green fuels such as biodiesel during this year’s energy crisis, but progress remains slow.

But hard doesn’t mean impossible. To make new exports competitive, policymakers should create green hubs close to renewables and where resources can be shared.

Precincts, not projects

To make enough green iron, green ammonia and green fuels to export, Australia will need large renewable energy zones, energy storage, hydrogen production, water supply and port infrastructure. Much of this already exists or is being scaled up. The problem is coordination.

If every company builds its own separate systems for power, water and transport, costs rise and land use expands. It’s cheaper and more effective to plan regional hubs where industries can share infrastructure, use renewable energy more efficiently and reduce environmental impact.

This isn’t new. Australia’s large, high-tech mining industry relies on hubs. Queensland’s port city of Gladstone is a hub for coal and gas exports, aluminium smelting and chemical manufacturing. These heavy industries use shared infrastructure such as ports, roads and power.

Countries such as China, Germany and the Netherlands are using this hub method as they rapidly scale up green exports.

The cost of green iron and steel depends not just on the technology used in furnaces, but on how well integrated the facility is. A waste stream from one plant can become an input for another. The intense heat produced by making green ammonia or clean fuels can be used for other processes such as preheating iron ore for ironmaking.

Our modelling shows integrating renewables, hydrogen and green iron at a proposed hub in South Australia can cut power costs 20–30% compared to standalone projects by avoiding overbuilding of electricity infrastructure. More cheap renewable power is used, less gas is required and emissions fall more rapidly.

Modelling of a separate hub in New South Wales shows similar benefits.

Future green hubs should be centred around a nature-positive philosophy, where industry and nature restoration sit side by side. Instead of approving projects one by one, planning happens across whole landscapes. Sensitive areas are protected from the start. Infrastructure is concentrated into shared corridors. Natural restoration is part of the plan.

Iron ore – or green iron?

Australia has long been a major iron ore exporter, but makes little iron or steel here.

If Australia moves rapidly, it could take more market share as buyers shift to clean options. German and Australian researchers are working to green the steelmaking process. One option is for Australia to make and export green iron as a precursor to steel.

This would be a surprisingly effective climate measure. Studies suggest Australia could singlehandedly reduce global emissions 4% if it turned its iron ore into green iron.

Is it possible?

Turning this vision into reality is not straightforward. Coordinated industrial hubs are difficult to deliver in Australia.

Fragmented regulations across agencies slow progress. Environmental approvals are typically done project by project rather than at a system level. Government-business collaboration is limited. Business models focus on individual projects rather than collaboration. Where technical solutions exist, institutional and commercial barriers can slow progress.

Here’s how to begin.

First, policymakers should identify optimal hub locations able to co-host mining, processing, green fuel production and renewable energy.

Second, plan the hubs at scale so environmental impacts can be managed and restoration work undertaken nearby.

Third, give the hubs clear, measurable emissions and nature goals. Set targets for emissions reductions, renewable and hydrogen use, water recycling, and ecosystem restoration at a regional scale. Track them over time.

Clear roles for government and industry

Governments have a key role in setting the direction of travel. This means selecting hub locations, coordinating land use and infrastructure planning, aligning approvals to allow system-level assessments rather than individual and investing in shared infrastructure.

They can also reduce risk by supporting early projects and broker agreements between companies. Long-term policy certainty will help unlock private investment.

Industry must respond by collaborating. This includes sharing infrastructure where it makes sense, coordinating across value chains, designing projects around environmental outcomes and working with communities as genuine partners.

Australia can punch well above its weight on green industry. If we succeed, our clean product exports will be a model for the future.

Changlong Wang, ARC ECR Industry Fellow in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Monash University and Rahman Daiyan, Associate Professor and Scientia Fellow in Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In 2024, the Western Australian Museum received a donation. It was a koala skull collected from Moondyne Cave in Margaret River by Lindsay Hatcher, an avid caver. There was something a bit odd about this skull, and we were able to put our finger in it.

This koala had dimples.

Koalas are iconic on Australia’s east coast, but they are regionally extinct in Western Australia today. Fossils tell a different story: koalas once lived across parts of WA, from the Margaret River region to as far north as Yanchep and as far east as Madura.

In our new study, published today in Royal Society Open Science, we show these WA koalas were not simply stray populations of the modern koala. They represent a distinct species that has been hiding in plain sight for more than a century.

Not like the koalas we know

Koala fossils in WA were first discovered in Mammoth Cave near Margaret River in 1910. But for the better part of a century, most specimens consisted of isolated jaws and teeth.

Over the past 25 years, however, two rare, more complete adult skulls were found in caves in the state’s south-west. Together with additional jaw, tooth and limb bones from multiple cave sites, these specimens allowed us to test a long-standing assumption: that WA’s fossil koalas belonged to the same species as modern koalas found in other states of Australia.

That assumption now appears false. Using detailed skull and tooth measurements, comparative anatomy and evolutionary analyses, we found the WA fossils consistently fall outside the shape range of modern koalas.

The most striking feature is a deep, rounded sulcus (groove) in the cheek region of the upper jaw, below the eye socket. This feature is far deeper than anything seen in living koalas and inspired the new species name: Phascolarctos sulcomaxilliaris, meaning “grooved maxilla” (maxilla is the name of the cheek bone).

The WA species also has a shorter, more robust skull, differences in the ear-bone region of the skull, and generally broader teeth.

What was the groove for? In living koalas, lip and nose muscles attach in the same general area. The exaggerated sulcus in the fossil species likely made space for larger muscles, potentially giving it a more mobile upper lip for manipulating tougher leaves or shoots, or enhancing nostril movement and smell.

The bones of the skeleton were also more long and thin, suggesting the WA koala was a more slender species.

A cave visit

While the donation of material by Lindsay Hatcher’s family kickstarted this project, three of us went to find out where exactly these fossils came from so that we could say how old they are.

Visiting the caves themselves was an adventure in its own right. With the help of the local cave researchers, Western Australian Speleological Group, we revisited Koala Cave in Yanchep, and Moondyne and Foundation Caves near Margaret River, to find out where these fossils came from.

Uranium-thorium dating of the newly described fossils, and radiocarbon dates for others, suggest our koala went extinct roughly 28,000 years ago. Around that time, the climate became colder and drier according to pollen records, and the south-west eucalyptus forests shrank dramatically for almost 10,000 years.

Koalas have a habit of eating themselves out of house and home, so as the shelter and food in their habitat declined, the extinction of this species was likely inevitable.

Reshaping koala history

This discovery matters for two reasons.

First, it reshapes koala history: the modern koala was not the only koala species in the recent past, and WA hosted its own distinctive lineage.

Indeed, four species of koalas are now known to have lived in Australia over the last few million years, including the living Phascolarctos cinereus in eastern Australia. One of these four species was the giant Pleistocene koala Phascolarctos stirtoni, nearly double the size of living koala.

Second, it is a deep-time reminder that koalas are tightly bound to forests. When those forests shrink fast enough, even adaptable mammals can vanish from entire regions. In a warming, drying Australia, understanding how past climate shifts transformed habitats helps us anticipate the risks facing the koalas that remain today.

The story of the WA koala is a lesson learned to protect the last living koala species. Protecting the eastern eucalypt forests from climate change and deforestation is paramount for the survival of koalas in the future.

Kenny Travouillon, Curator of Mammals, Western Australian Museum; Curtin University; Helen Ryan, Collections Manager (Palaeontology), Western Australian Museum; Kailah Thorn, Project Coordinator (Biodiversity), Western Australian Museum, and Natalie Warburton, Associate Professor in Anatomy, Murdoch University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Winter is coming, and the increased cost of living might have you worried about higher energy bills.

Most winter energy advice focuses on heaters and insulation but energy savings often come from places people rarely check. Small and inexpensive changes can reduce heat loss more than many standard upgrades.

Interestingly, most Australian homes lose heat in simple ways. Warm air escapes through tiny gaps, cold surfaces draw heat from the body and open-plan layouts let warmth drift away.

These issues are especially common in older homes and rentals, where people have limited control over insulation or window upgrades. The good news is that many of the biggest improvements cost very little and can be done in minutes.

Here are four quick fixes to winter proof your home.

Move furniture away from external walls

Beds and couches placed against external walls can make a room feel colder because you’re sitting next to a cold surface. They also block warm air from circulating properly.

Heating experts warn that placing large furniture or drapes in front of radiators or heat sources can cut their effectiveness significantly, because warm air gets trapped behind the furniture or curtains instead of moving through the room. Fire risk is also important when curtains are near heat.

Keeping clear space around heaters and external walls helps the room warm up faster and feel more comfortable, allowing the heat to circulate freely.

Create thermal zones inside your home

Heating an entire home is expensive and is often unnecessary. Creating small thermal zones can outperform costly whole home upgrades.

Closing internal doors, using curtains to section off areas or hanging a temporary fabric divider in open plan spaces slows the movement of warm air and reduces the space you need to heat. Official advice notes zoning can significantly reduce the need for heating in older homes.

Modern open-plan homes looks great but are harder to heat. Warm air can easily drift into hallways, stairwells and unused rooms. Creating a thermal zone in open plan houses can be as simple as closing a hallway door or hanging a curtain across a wide opening. Some households use tension rods and thick fabric to create temporary barriers able to be removed in summer.

Seal the gaps

Research from CSIRO shows one of the biggest ways Australian homes lose heat is through warm air leaking outside.

Warm air can escape in many ways. Bathroom exhaust fans, sliding glass doors, poor or missing door seals and wall penetration, such an opening in the wall from a large screws, are among the most common leakage points.

Finding and sealing these leaks matters because warm air naturally rises and escapes through any opening it can find, pulling cold air in your house from outside. Many of these gaps are easy to fix with removable draft stoppers, foam tape or putty that won’t damage surfaces, making them suitable for renters.

Small gaps around floors, skirting boards and power outlets can leak more heat than windows. These gaps are often only a couple of centimetres, or difficult to see, but together they create a surprising amount of air movement. Sealing them with cheap foam strips or silicone can significantly reduce heat loss and takes only minutes.

Use soft furnishings to reduce heat loss

Thick rugs, wall hangings and heavy curtains add insulation in places where homes lose heat fastest. Even a low-cost rug can reduce heat loss through timber or tile floors.

Building performance studies show internal surface temperatures strongly influence how warm a room feels, even when the air temperature is the same. Floors, especially timber and tiles, can be some of the coldest surfaces in a home. When you walk on a cold floor, your body loses heat quickly, making the whole room feel colder. A rug acts like a small insulation layer, raising the surface temperature and improving comfort without touching the thermostat.

Combine small actions for savings

None of these changes will transform a home on their own, but together they can make a noticeable difference. Sealing gaps reduces heat loss, zoning keeps warm air where you need it and soft furnishings improve comfort without extra energy use.

These strategies are accessible to almost everyone, including renters. With energy bills rising, these small changes won’t replace insulation or efficient heating, but they can make a home feel warmer and reduce energy bills during winter.

Niusha Shafiabady, Professor in Computational Intelligence, Australian Catholic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In the Strait of Gibraltar – a famous marine road connecting the Mediterranean and the Atlantic – lives a critically endangered sub-population of a few hundred long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas).

Despite their name, these dark and blubbery marine mammals aren’t technically whales – they’re large oceanic dolphins which are believed to have a navigator or lead for each pod. Hence the “pilot” part of their name.

There are two types of pilot whales – short and long-finned. They’re generally found in deep offshore waters but can appear in coastal areas. And like other dolphins, they use high frequency sounds to talk to each other in their pods. These clicks and squeaks travel shorter distances compared with the melodic songs of humpback whales.

And as a new paper led by Milou Hegeman from Aarhus University in Denmark and published in the Journal of Experimental Biology shows, the pilot whales that live in the Strait of Gibraltar are having to shout at the upper limit of their range in order to hear each other over human noises.

What’s making all that noise?

The ocean is full of sounds.

Some of these are natural, such as the sounds from fish, seals and waves. Other sounds are produced by human activities, either deliberately (for example seismic and sonar exploration) or unintentionally (for example, the sound of moving ships or other vessels).

The ocean continues to get noisier because of human-made sound – even in isolated Arctic regions. And because of its strategic location, the Strait of Gibraltar is especially noisy with the drone of cargo ships.

Spying on pilot whales

To investigate the communication and behaviour of the population of pilot whales in the Strait of Gibraltar, scientists used 6-metre poles to attach small tags to the creatures (kind of like an Airtag used to track your suitcase) with sterile suction cups positioned between the dorsal fin and blowhole.

Between 2012 to 2015, the steam attached tags to 23 different long-finned pilot whales who live in the region year-round.

These tags remained on pilot whales for up to 24 hours collecting sounds and tracking individual behaviour. The tags then floated to the surface where scientists could locate them using an antenna and collect the data from their diving activities.

More than 84 hours of recordings were made, with 1,432 pilot whale calls extracted. The tags also recorded ship noise in the area.

The researchers found there was a scarcity of pilot whale calls during periods of shipping noise. And the volume of the calls they did make were louder by about half the increase in background noise.

This means the animals are adapting to communicate in times when it is noisy – kind of like having a conversation in a crowded place and you having to raise your voice to be heard.

Other noises, other impacts

This study focuses on just one location in the ocean. But there’s increasing evidence that human-made noise is also impacting other species in other places.

For example, a 2012 study found that ship noise increases stress in right whales. Another study from 2024 found sea turtles travelling in the Galapagos were more vigilant because of increased ship noise.

But it’s not just ship noise that is impacting the animals that live in the ocean. Sonar disrupts whale diving behaviour and feeding behaviour, sometimes even potentially resulting in strandings.

Thankfully, work is being done to reduce noise pollution in the ocean – from building quieter ships to rerouting ship activity, helping ship operators drive more quietly and dialling down the noise from all human activities.

This new study is just one of many scientific contributions to learning more about our impact on our blue backyard. We can only protect what we know. And as we celebrate the 100th birthday of Sir David Attenborough, it’s worth remembering one of his many pieces of wisdom: “If we save the sea, we save our world”.

Part of this involves being more aware of sound in our sea. Because sometimes, it’s not always the visible impacts such as plastic pollution that need our attention. It might also be the impacts we can only hear.

Vanessa Pirotta, Postdoctoral Researcher and Wildlife Scientist, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

During the summer of 2019–2020, half of Australia’s third largest island was on fire. Kangaroo Island, also known as Karta Pintingga or Karti in local mainland Aboriginal languages, was one of the worst-hit places during the Black Summer fires. Two people lost their lives and almost all the remnant vegetation on the island burned.

In the wake of the fires, fears grew for unique species that live on the island, such as the green carpenter bee, a critically endangered dunnart, and the Kangaroo Island micro-trapdoor spider.

Increasingly unstable climate conditions are exacerbating fire risk across the globe. Since the Black Summer fires six years ago, we’ve seen many more megafires as far north as the Canadian Arctic. Every fire season in Australia brings more devastation as well.

In the months following the 2020 fires, we headed to Lashmars Lagoon on the Dudley Peninsula, eastern Kangaroo Island. Here, trapped within the mud, are thousands upon thousands of charcoal fragments built up over time from ancient fires. By analysing them we could reconstruct valuable long-term context for what’s happening today.

Our findings, now published in Global and Planetary Change, tell a complex 7,000-year-long story of how fire was shaped by the climate, vegetation and people.

A rare case study

To understand environmental change and how ecosystems cope with extreme events, we need perspectives longer than written observational records.

Studies of long-term fire histories from mainland Australia propose that Indigenous management reduced fuel loads, thereby reducing the occurrence and risk of bushfires.

After European colonisation, much of the Indigenous land management stopped. Since then, plant life in many parts of Australia has changed, exacerbating the risk and impact of wildfires.

But these changes also coincided with long-term fire suppression by the colonisers, landscape degradation and anthropogenic climate change. This makes it hard to untangle the exact effect of any one of these changes on fire regimes.

Kangaroo Island provides a rare chance to study the long-term fire history of an Australian environment that wasn’t managed by First Nations people in recent times. Early European colonisers in the 1800s noted Kangaroo Island’s thick scrub and lack of campfire and cultural burning smoke as evidence for lack of human habitation.

Indigenous oral histories also describe the departure of people from the island following isolation from the mainland. Archaeological work further supports the idea that the island was uninhabited for thousands of years.

Kangaroo Island is famed for its high biodiversity and unique ecosystems. There are 45 species of plants not found anywhere else. Have widespread wildfire events in the past contributed to this high biodiversity? Or are increasingly frequent fires threatening these remnant ecosystems?

This is where we come back to a seven-metre-long sediment core (a cylindrical sample) we collected after the fires in 2020.

Painting a detailed picture

We were not the first scientists to examine the mud from this site. Fifty years ago, Australian biologist Robin L. Clark established methods central to research in this field. She used fragments of charcoal and pollen grains found in the sediment of Lashmars Lagoon to paint a picture of past fire and vegetation.

We also used these techniques, combined with scientific advances in sediment dating, analysis and interpretation, to re-evaluate Clark’s hypothesis that fires became bigger after the departure of people from Kangaroo Island.

After a rigorous screening of archaeological data, we found the last reliable evidence for people living on the island was between about five and six thousand years ago. After people left, a more shrubby, denser vegetation established on the island.

Despite this, fire remained relatively rare and subdued in the landscape for a further 3,000 years under relatively wet climates. Then, fires increased over the last 2,000 years, culminating in prominent fire activity between 700 and 900 years ago.

This increase in fire activity coincided with a trend towards the climate becoming dryer, possibly due to changes in the southern westerly winds.

Crucially, this increase in fire activity is at odds with evidence from mainland Australia. Over the same 2,000-year period, fire activity in southeastern Australia was actually lower. This suggests the importance of Indigenous stewardship in suppressing bushfires, even when contending with the impacts of a drying climate overall.

Ultimately, our study has a message of optimism. Biodiversity on Kangaroo Island appears to have weathered major changes in climate and fire regimes in the past. However, questions still remain as to whether this unique environment can continue to withstand decreasing water resources and more frequent intense fires.

One thing is certain. With a rapidly changing climate, there is an urgent need to combine Indigenous wisdom, community engagement and western scientific evidence to conserve these unique ecosystems for future generations.

Haidee Cadd, Research Fellow, Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health, University of Wollongong; Jonathan Tyler, Lecturer, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Adelaide University , and Lucinda Duxbury, PhD Candidate, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Cities and towns are usually 1–3°C hotter than the surrounding countryside, because asphalt, concrete and brick absorb heat from the sun and radiate it slowly. Some cities can be as much as 7°C hotter. This effect is known as the urban heat island.

This can be dangerous, especially in hot countries. In very hot conditions, dehydration and heat exhaustion become real risks. If it gets too hot, it can be lethal.

There’s one simple antidote: urban trees. Authorities around the world have planted more trees to counteract the heat.

But how effective is this? How much hotter would our cities be without trees?

To find out, we analysed data from nearly 9,000 cities around the world, home to about 3.6 billion people. As our new research shows, trees almost halve how much heat is trapped by the urban heat island effect.

This cooling is welcome. But it is far from even. Wealthier, suburban and humid cities have more trees on average.

Why focus on trees?

Trees act like natural air conditioners. They shade the ground and stop asphalt and buildings from heating up in the first place. They also cool the air by releasing water vapour from their leaves in a process called transpiration, lowering surrounding temperatures. They can make a noticeable temperature difference, especially on sizzling summer days.

Trees offer a simple way to counteract urban heat. This matters. More than half the world’s population (55%) now live in urban areas according to the United Nations. By 2050, that figure is expected to rise to 68%. Cities are facing a hotter future, as climate change drives more intense and more frequent heatwaves. The urban heat island effect makes cities hotter still.

What did we do?

We wanted to know the answer to a simple question: how much hotter would cities be without trees?

To find out, we analysed global datasets of air temperature and fine-scale tree cover across almost 9,000 cities. Then we modelled a “what if” scenario, where all tree cover was removed, and compared it to current conditions.

This allowed us to estimate the real-world cooling effect trees provide for air temperature, which is the main way we perceive heat.

Most previous global studies have used surface temperatures, often from satellite data. But surfaces like roads and rooftops can become much hotter than the surrounding air above them, especially in direct sunlight. That can give an overestimate of how much cooling trees provide. Air temperature, by contrast, better reflects what people actually feel, making it a more reliable measure of heat.

So what effect do trees really have?

The effect was much larger than we had anticipated.

Globally, trees cut the urban heat island effect by almost 50%. Since the average urban heat island effect typically adds around 1–3°C, this translates into cooling of roughly 0.5–1.5°C in many cities.

For more than 200 million people, trees reduce local air temperatures by at least 0.5°C, enough to make a meaningful difference during extreme heat.

Cooling can vary a lot from place to place.

In hot, dry cities such as Phoenix in the United States, differences in tree cover can create clear differences in air temperatures. In more temperate cities like Lisbon in Portugal or Gothenburg in Sweden, the overall cooling is still significant, but generally smaller and more consistent across the city.

Trees are not evenly distributed

A city’s trees are not spread evenly. They’re often concentrated in wealthier neighbourhoods and suburban areas. Cities in cooler or more humid climates tend to have more.

Trees are scarcer in lower-income cities or in rapidly growing regions. This inequality is also visible in many cities. Leafy suburbs are usually several degrees cooler than nearby neighbourhoods with little vegetation.

There’s a strong link with wealth. In the United States, lower-income areas average 15% fewer trees than wealthier areas – and are 1.5°C hotter. This means the people who need free cooling from trees the most are often the least likely to receive it.

Planting more trees isn’t enough

Planting trees is often promoted as a simple solution to city heat. Trees are visible, relatively low cost and come with other benefits such as cleaner air and better mental health.

It’s no wonder authorities look to urban trees as a way to counteract the heat from escalating climate change. When you stand under a tree on a sweltering day, the cooling feels immediate and powerful.

But our study shows their effect is more limited in the face of climate change. The world’s current urban trees would, we estimate, offset just 10% of the extra heat expected by mid-century under moderate climate change scenarios. With ambitious planting, this could rise to around 20%.

While important, it’s not enough. A large majority of the extra heat will go unaddressed.

What else can be done?

If the world’s cities are to cope with rising temperatures, trees have to be seen as part of a broader strategy – not the whole answer.

Clever urban design can cut heat by using reflective materials, increasing green spaces and improving airflow between buildings. Green roofs and shaded streets can also make a difference.

New tree plantings should target hotter neighbourhoods with less existing tree canopy, as these will deliver the greatest benefits.

Of course, these measures don’t replace the need to tackle climate change directly by cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Using trees wisely

Billions of trees grow in the world’s cities. They are hugely valuable, acting to cool cities, support biodiversity and making urban areas more liveable.

The challenge for city residents and authorities is to use trees wisely. Plant them where they’re needed most and combine them with other methods of reducing heat. Trees are remarkable. But they can’t do it all.

Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez, Researcher in Urban Transformation, Western Sydney University; Rob McDonald, Research Scientist, City University of New York, and Tirthankar Chakraborty, Earth Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

If you’ve driven on regional Australian roads, you’ve likely seen the signs warning of kangaroos and other animals – the familiar “wildlife ahead” signs.

They are supposed to warn drivers of the dangers of wildlife on our roads, but collisions with animals are rising in Australia.

So how widespread is the problem? How can you reduce the risk? And what should you do if you do hit one?

A growing concern

Recent insurance data suggest the risk is higher than many people realise.

Tens of thousands of collisions with animals are recorded each year across Australia and the number appears to be rising.

According to NRMA Insurance claims data, there was a 21% rise in animal collision claims from 2024-2025.

The risk is not evenly spread. It varies by time of day, season and location, meaning there are periods when drivers are significantly more exposed.

Understanding when and where that risk is highest is the best way to avoid animals while driving.

How common are crashes with animals?

Insurance data provides the clearest indication of the scale of animal-vehicle crashes:

When and where is the risk highest?

There are distinct risk patterns when it comes to animal crashes and the strongest and most consistent pattern is time of day.

Crashes involving animals are heavily concentrated in low-light conditions (dawn and dusk), particularly from early evening through to midnight.

Analysis of serious crashes shows they are significantly over-represented between 6pm and 6am, with the highest risk typically in the evening (6pm–12am).

This pattern is closely linked to animal behaviour. Many large animals, including kangaroos, are most active at dusk and night, often moving to feed along roadside vegetation.

Reduced visibility also means drivers detect animals later, leaving less time to react.

Seasonal patterns also exist, though are less pronounced. Insurance data shows collisions increase through the cooler months, with a clear peak in mid-winter (June–July).

This is largely due to shorter daylight hours, which extend the time drivers are exposed to high-risk, low-light conditions.

Location matters, as well. Insurance data shows collisions are concentrated on regional and rural roads, where higher speeds, limited lighting and greater exposure to wildlife increase risk.

Insurer data consistently identifies specific hotspots across the country.

In New South Wales, the highest number of claims were recorded in Dubbo, Bathurst and Wagga Wagga. In Victoria, collisions are concentrated around Sunbury and Melbourne’s northern fringes, including rapidly growing outer suburban areas.

Some road users are more vulnerable and exposed than others. Motorcyclists are consistently over-represented in serious animal crashes and are more likely to suffer severe injury, a pattern observed internationally.

To swerve or brake?

There’s no silver bullet solution to animal-vehicle crash risk. It comes down to understanding the conditions that increase exposure, and how drivers respond in the moment.

Not all widely used measures work. Wildlife warning signs are common but evidence suggests they have limited impact: drivers become accustomed to them and often ignore them.

The safest response is not always clear.

Drivers confronted by an animal may brake or attempt to swerve, and the evidence on these decisions is more nuanced than some road safety messaging suggests.

Among crashes that led to hospitalisation, direct impacts were associated with higher injury severity (than swerving), while swerving was linked to a greater likelihood of rollover.

In other words, swerving does not necessarily eliminate the risk; it can change it from an animal impact to a loss-of-control crash, such as a rollover or collision with another object.

But not swerving does not guanrantee lowering the severity of occupant injuries.

The best advice is to reduce speed early which allows the driver to maintain control, particularly at dusk, dawn, night and in known wildlife zones. Lower speeds give drivers more time to brake safely and reduce the severity of both direct impacts and evasive manoeuvres.

What should you do if you hit an animal?

Dead or injured animals on the road can lead some drivers to stop, get out of the car, or try to move an animal. This can expose them to passing traffic and can prove fatal.

In many cases, the safest option is to call a wildlife rescue service and report the location, rather than intervening directly.

Play it safe

Animal crashes are inherently unpredictable. The most effective approach is to understand the patterns and risk factors and respond proportionately.

Reduce exposure to high-risk times where possible, and if not, remain vigilant in those conditions.

There is no single fix. The risk and outcome depends on when you drive, where you drive, and how you react in the moment.

Milad Haghani, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow in Urban Risk and Resilience, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The U.S. is in a bizarre situation in 2026: It’s facing a looming energy shortage, yet the Trump administration is making deals to pay offshore wind developers nearly US$2 billion in taxpayer money to walk away from energy projects.

These politically motivated moves are costing Americans far more than just the buyouts.

Communities have been laying the groundwork for offshore energy projects for years. Offshore wind development brings jobs and economic development that reshape regional economies, with the scale of public and private investment reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars over years. East Coast communities have built up ports to support the industry and launched job-training programs to prepare workers. Construction, maintenance and shipping businesses have sprung up, along with secondary businesses that support the industry.

Losing the projects, and the threat of losing other planned wind farms, will also likely mean higher energy prices. And while some offshore wind farms are moving ahead, developers must account for both lost momentum and increased uncertainty from the Trump administration.

As a result, Americans will bear the economic brunt of these decisions for decades ahead.

How America got to this point

To understand how the U.S. arrived in this predicament, let’s take a step back.

In March 2023, leaders from three U.S. federal agencies under the Biden administration met with the CEOs from American technology and manufacturing giants Microsoft, Amazon, Ford, GM, Dow Chemical and GE at the annual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, under the banner of “Affordable, Reliable and Secure American-Made Energy”.

They agreed on a key point: The nation was staring down a severe shortage of electrons to drive American business forward.

Fortunately, solutions abounded. Enormous amounts of onshore wind and solar power had been deployed during the previous five years. More than 80% of all new power additions to the U.S. grid had come from these two sources.

Particularly exciting were plans to build large offshore wind farms up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Taken together, the wind farms would generate 30 gigawatts of new power by 2030, enough to power more than 10 million homes and reduce volatility in energy pricing thanks to long-term power purchase agreements.

The U.S. had one small wind farm at the time, off Rhode Island, and two wind turbines off Virginia, but Europe had been operating large offshore wind projects for over two decades and was building more.

In the months following the 2023 meeting, leasing and permitting for the U.S. mega projects continued, and in some areas construction got underway.

Then, the Trump administration arrived in 2025. As president, Donald Trump immediately issued an executive order to halt offshore wind lease sales and any approvals, permits or loans for wind farms. He had made his disdain for wind power clear ever since he lost a fight to stop construction of a small wind farm near his golf course in Scotland in the 2010s.

After a federal judge declared Trump’s executive order unconstitutional in December 2025, the administration shifted strategies.

In March 2026, news outlets began reporting on deals struck in which the federal government would pay three offshore wind project developers hundreds of millions of dollars to cease development of their permitted projects, agree not to build others and repurpose the funds toward fossil fuel projects.

According to reported discussions involving the French energy company TotalEnergies, the money would be paid out through the Department of Interior’s Judgment Fund, intended for payment of legal settlements, despite there not being any active litigation with TotalEnergies.

The other projects agreeing to Trump’s buyouts as of early May were Golden State Wind, in California, and Bluepoint Wind, off New Jersey and New York. Both are co-owned by Ocean Winds, a joint venture of the French energy company Engie and EDP Renewables, headquartered in Spain. The California Energy Commission and members of Congress are now investigating the moves.

Offshore wind means local investment

Regardless of whether these buyouts are even legal, the losing parties will be the American taxpayers and a U.S. economy that needs more electrons on the grid, not fewer.

One analysis projected that deploying 40 GW along the U.S. East Coast by 2035 would generate roughly $140 billion in investment, much of it concentrated in port infrastructure and supply chain development.

New York in early 2026 announced a $300 million state grant program to expand port infrastructure supporting offshore wind. And the New Jersey Wind Port represents an investment exceeding $600 million to enable manufacturing and assembly of turbines.

In 2025, California state lawmakers authorized $225.7 million in spending for offshore wind ports and related facilities.

For these projects to pay off for local communities, however, the regions will need to see the development of wind farms.

Killing jobs

The cancellations of the planned projects also take jobs away from hard-working, blue-collar Americans.

The construction and installation of offshore wind turbines requires the expertise of skilled electrical workers, pipe fitters, welders, pile drivers, iron workers, machinists and carpenters.

Future offshore wind costs depend on investments today. As infrastructure is established and expertise grows, each subsequent project becomes easier to build, less risky and less expensive.

This pattern is already evident globally: The levelized cost of electricity from offshore wind globally fell by 62% between 2010 and 2024.

Canceling projects or buying back leases eliminates the electricity those projects would have generated. It also slows the accumulation of experience, scale and supply chain maturity that drive costs down over time.

The result is higher costs for future projects and for electricity ratepayers.

An energy crisis

Developing a robust offshore wind industry provides resilience in the face of an unstable global energy market.

Future U.S. and global energy demand is projected to grow significantly, largely driven by the rapid expansion of AI data centers and electrification of vehicles, homes and businesses.

Limiting the supply of homegrown energy will increase energy costs for Americans, especially in the regions where the wind farms were supposed to be located – New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and California.

With the federal buyouts, the U.S. is losing 8 GW of planned electricity generation, enough to power more than 3 million homes. That generation needs to be replaced by other energy sources and expanding power transmission lines that can take seven to 10 years to get permits for and build out. The leased projects were on their way to providing new clean power generation fairly quickly. Eliminating them restarts the project clock.

Reliance on dirtier, conventional forms of power generation will increase along with foreign energy imports, such as electricity delivered from Canada to New York, leading to higher and more volatile electricity prices.

Evidence from Europe shows that offshore wind can also reduce electricity costs for consumers by lowering wholesale prices and reducing dependence on fossil fuels and their volatile prices.

Vineyard Wind I, an offshore wind farm completed in 2026, with 806 MW of generation – enough to power about 400,000 homes – is projected to save Massachusetts customers about $1.4 billion on electricity bills over the next 20 years. With a fixed-price, 20-year contract, the project also lowered prices during cold snaps and peak demand for gas, reducing volatility and cost.

From jobs to local economic development to power costs, we believe canceling these offshore wind projects is a bad deal for American taxpayers.

Christopher Niezrecki, Director of the Center for Energy Innovation, UMass Lowell; Ben Link, Deputy Director of the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute, Johns Hopkins University, and Zoe Getman-Pickering, Program Director of the Academic Center for Reliability and Resilience of Offshore Wind, UMass Amherst

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

On the evening of Aug. 9, 2025, passengers on the Hanse Explorer finished taking selfies and videos of the South Sawyer Glacier, and the ship headed back down the fjord. Twelve hours later, a landslide from the adjacent mountain unexpectedly collapsed into the fjord, initiating the second-highest tsunami in recorded history.

We conduct research on earthquakes and tsunamis at the Alaska Earthquake Center, and one of us serves as Alaska state seismologist. In a new study with colleagues, we detail how that landslide sent water and debris 1,580 feet (481 meters) up the other side of the fjord – higher than the top floor of the Taipei 101 skyscraper – and then continued down Tracy Arm. The force of the water stripped the fjord’s walls down to bare rock.

It was just after 5 o’clock in the morning on a dreary day, and fortunately, no ships were nearby. In the months after, some cruise lines started avoiding Tracy Arm. However, the conditions that led to this event are not at all unique to this fjord.

Landslides are common in the coastal mountains of Alaska where rapid uplift, caused by tectonic forces and long-term ice loss, converges with the erosive forces of precipitation and moving glaciers. But a curious pattern has emerged in recent years: Multiple major landslides have occurred precisely at the terminus of a retreating glacier.

Though the mechanics are still poorly understood, these mountains appear to become unstable when the ice disappears. When the landslide hits the water, the momentum of millions of tons of rock is transferred into tsunami waves.

This same phenomenon is playing out from Alaska to Greenland and Norway, sometimes with deadly consequences. Across the Arctic, countries are trying to come to terms with this growing hazard. The options are not attractive: avoid vast swaths of coastline, or live with a poorly understood risk. We believe there is an obvious role for alert systems, but only if scientists have a better understanding of where and when landslides are likely to occur.

Signs that a landslide might be coming

The Tracy Arm landslide is a powerful example.

The landslide occurred in August, when warm ocean waters and heavier precipitation favor both glacier retreat and slope failure. The glacier below the landslide area had experienced rapid calving – large chunks of ice breaking off and falling into the water – and it had retreated more than a third of a mile in the two months prior. Heavy rain had been falling. Rain enters fractures in the mountain and pushes them closer to failure by increasing the water pressure in cracks.

Most provocative are the thousands of small seismic tremors that emanated from the area of the slide in the days prior to the mountainside collapsing.

We believe that this combination of signs would have been sufficient to issue progressive alerts to any ships in the vicinity and homes and businesses that could have been harmed by a tsunami at least a day prior to the failure – had a monitoring program existed.

Escalating alerts are used for everything from terrorism and nuclear plant safety to avalanches and volcanic unrest. They don’t remove the risk, but they do make it easier for people to safely coexist with hazards.

For example, though people are still killed in avalanches, alert systems have played an essential role in making winter backcountry travel safer for more people. The collapse at Tracy Arm demonstrates what could be possible for landslides.

What an alert system could look like

We believe that the combination of weather and rapid glacier retreat in early August 2025 was likely sufficient to issue an alert notifying people that the hazard may be temporarily elevated in a general area. On a yellow-orange-red scale, this would be a yellow alert.

In the hours prior to the landslide, the exponential increase in seismic events and telltale transition to what is known as seismic tremor – a continuous “hum” of seismic energy – were sufficient to communicate a time-sensitive warning for a specific region.

These observations, recorded as a byproduct of regional earthquake monitoring, warranted an “orange” alert noting immediate concern. The signs were arguably sufficient to recommend keeping boats and ships out of the fjord.

Our research over the past few years has demonstrated that once a large landslide has started, it is possible to detect and measure the event within a couple of minutes. In this amount of time, seismic waves in the surrounding area can indicate the rough size of the landslide and whether it occurred near open water.

A monitoring program that could quickly communicate this would be able to issue a red alert, signaling an event in progress.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s tsunami warning program has spent decades fine-tuning rapid message dissemination. A warning system would have offered little help for ships in the immediate vicinity, but it could have provided perhaps 10 minutes of warning for those who rode out the harrowing tsunami farther away.

There is no landslide monitoring system operating yet at this scale in the U.S. Building one will require cooperation across state and federal agencies, and strengthened monitoring and communication networks. Even then, it will not be fail-proof.

Understanding risk, not removing it

Alert systems do not remove the risk entirely, but they are a better option than no warning at all. Over time, they also build awareness as communities and visitors get used to thinking about these hazards.

Many of the most alluring places on Earth come with significant hazards. Arctic fjords are among them. The same processes that create this hazard – glacier retreat, steep terrain, dynamic geology – are also what make these landscapes so compelling. The mix of glaciers, ice-choked waters and steep mountains is exactly what draws people to these places. People will continue to visit and experience them.

The question is not whether these places should be avoided altogether, but how to help people make more informed decisions. We believe that stronger geophysical and meteorological monitoring, coupled with new research and communication channels, is the first step.

On Aug. 9, visitors unknowingly passed through a landscape on the cusp of failure. An alert system might have given tour companies and people in the area the information they needed to make more informed choices and avoid being caught by surprise.

Michael E. West, Director of the Alaska Earthquake Center and State Seismologist, University of Alaska Fairbanks and Ezgi Karasözen, Research Seismologist, Alaska Earthquake Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

For generations, the mild and temperate climate of north-western Europe has been credited to one legendary force: the Gulf Stream. This idea is so deeply entrenched in our cultural identity that in James Joyce’s Ulysses, the protagonist Stephen Dedalus refuses to take a bath, arguing that “all Ireland is washed by the Gulf Stream”.

However, the Gulf Stream is just one part of a much more complex system called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC.

To explain this better, scientists often use the image of a giant ocean conveyor belt, where warm waters move northwards across the surface of the Atlantic from the tropics. As these waters reach the North Atlantic, they release their heat into the atmosphere, much like a radiator. The AMOC also carries the moisture that gives us our temperate landscape. After the waters have released their heat, they become colder and denser, which makes them sink into the deep ocean. These waters then return southward, at great depths.

When scientists talk about the AMOC “slowing down” or “changing,” they are essentially describing a reduction in the strength of our natural radiator. Specifically, they measure how much water is moving north and south at different depths across the Atlantic. This allows them to estimate how much heat is being carried from the tropics toward the North Atlantic and back again at depth.

More than a conveyor belt

Although this “conveyor belt” analogy is a helpful starting point, modern research suggests it is incomplete and potentially misleading. For example, the system is incredibly sensitive to how seawater changes its weight and density as it interacts with the atmosphere, freshwater, ice and incoming solar radiation. Because of these additional processes, the AMOC behaves less like a single, steady loop and more like a network of interconnected regional components.

Different parts of the system can change independently, sometimes with only regional effects and sometimes with consequences for the entire system.

The Subpolar Gyre (SPG), a system of wind-driven ocean currents occupying the region from the Labrador Sea to the west of Ireland, is a powerful example of why the network perspective matters. This regional AMOC component can show a significant degree of independence from the global AMOC. It is controlled by local winds and pulses of freshwater, linked to changes in sea-ice.

Crucially for those of us in Ireland and the UK, a sudden weakening of the SPG could trigger abnormally cold winter weather, similar to conditions seen during the “little ice age”. This period of intense regional cooling, which lasted roughly from the early 14th century to the mid-19th century, was characterised by winters so severe that the River Thames froze over.

Scientific research suggests that this cold period was likely sustained and amplified by a regional change in the SPG while the AMOC remained relatively stable. This means we could face local climate shifts, including increased storminess and colder winters, because of a “flicker” in our regional component of the AMOC network, long before the entire global circulation reaches a tipping point.

This is why scientists are now focused on identifying early warning signs of instability within the AMOC.

Are there signs that the AMOC has already begun to change? While climate models agree that it is likely that the AMOC will destabilise this century due to global warming, direct scientific observations of the AMOC are still too short to give us a definitive answer.

Networks of monitoring tools like Rapid or OSNAP that measure the transport of water both at depth and at the surface have only been in place for about 20 years. In the life of a massive ocean system, this is just a heartbeat. Scientists estimate we may need 30 to 40+ years of continuous observations to clearly detect a long-term AMOC decline against the ocean’s natural variability.

Why does it matter?

For generations, societies, economies and infrastructures in north-western Europe have been built around a stable, mild and wet climate. If this natural radiator fails or even significantly weakens the consequences will ripple across Ireland, the UK and the European continent.

We should care about this because the AMOC currently moves a massive amount of heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic, where it is released into the atmosphere. A weakening of this system means that a portion of this tropical warmth is no longer delivered to our region as effectively, leading to cooling across northwestern Europe.

While Hollywood depicted a sudden ice age in the film The Day After Tomorrow (2004), the scientific reality of a slowdown is no less concerning. We could face significantly colder winters resulting in more frequent harsh freezes, snow and severe frosts. During the little ice age a weaker SPG led to agricultural failures and famines. We could also experience an increase in storminess shifting rainfall patterns, and drier summers, all of which could damage critical infrastructures like roads and crop harvests.

The AMOC is also essential for keeping carbon and heat stored in the deep ocean, effectively locking it away from the atmosphere. At the moment the world’s oceans absorb approximately 25-30% of all human-made carbon dioxide emissions each year.

However, should the AMOC slow down it is expected that the rate at which carbon is stored in the deep ocean also slows down. The AMOC also redistributes the nutrients that sustain marine ecosystems. A disruption here wouldn’t just change our weather; it would weaken the ocean’s ability to act as a carbon sink, potentially accelerating global warming in a dangerous feedback loop.

Keeping an eye on the AMOC is a matter of national and regional security.

Whether the decline is gradual or approaches a tipping point, the impact on our way of life will be profound. By listening to the signals coming from the deep ocean today, we can better prepare for the climate of tomorrow.

Audrey Morley, Lecturer in Physical Geography, University of Galway

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

For decades, coral reefs throughout the Caribbean have been suffering from disease, pollution, overfishing and rising sea temperatures, yet most have continued to grow – until now.

In 2023 and 2024, surface temperatures climbed to record highs in the world’s oceans, and a marine heatwave of unprecedented length and intensity spread across the tropics. Satellites from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration detected heat stress that could cause corals to bleach across more than 80% of the planet’s reef areas.

During these periods of extreme stress, corals expel the symbiotic algae that give them their colour and most of their food – turning them stark white and leaving them vulnerable to starvation, diseases and eventually death.

Across the North Atlantic, including the Caribbean, the heat stayed for months, with heat stress two-to-three times higher than reefs had ever experienced. Heat stress, the phenomena of high temperatures putting fragile ecosystems under pressure, can permanently alter their ability to function.

This triggered what is now recognised as the fourth global coral bleaching event, the most severe one that has been documented.

Coral reefs are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth, and their importance to people is fundamental. They feed hundreds of millions through small-scale fisheries, underpin tourism across the Caribbean, and serve as natural breakwaters that protect the coast from storms and reduce flooding events.

Caribbean reefs are eroding fast

In a new study, we found that across the Caribbean, the 2023 marine heatwave – combined with a deadly disease known as stony coral tissue loss disease – has pushed reefs over a threshold scientists thought was a decade or more away. They are now eroding faster than corals can rebuild them.

We studied reefs in the Mexican Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, comparing data collected before the heatwave (2018–2022) with surveys after it (2023–24). At each reef, we counted live corals and organisms that break down the reef, like parrotfish and sea urchins. From those counts, we estimated how much reef-building (carbonate production) and reef-breaking (bioerosion) was happening, then calculated the net result – whether the reef was gaining or losing material.

The results were stark: between 70% and 75% of our Caribbean sites had tipped from net growth into net erosion. They are now losing calcium carbonate faster than corals can add it. The threshold that earlier models had suggested might be crossed over during the next decade or so has already arrived.

This shift was driven by the loss of fast‑growing, branching and plate‑forming corals, especially the Acropora species, which have very high growth rates and disproportionately contribute to reef building.

One of our most unsettling findings is that the Caribbean reef sites that still had high coral cover and high carbonate production before the disease and heatwave were the ones that lost the most. Some lost up to 8 kilograms of calcium carbonate per square metre per year.

A tale of two seas

Our survey also revealed a striking contrast. While Caribbean reefs collapsed, reefs in the Gulf of Mexico largely held their ground. The great majority of Gulf sites remained net positive after the heatwave.

The difference comes down to which corals are pre-eminent in each region. In the Gulf of Mexico, reefs are dominated by slow-growing, mound-shaped corals. They grow more slowly, but they are tougher when the heat kicks in. They bleached during the heatwave but mostly survived, keeping the reef’s carbonate budget positive.

This is the balance between the constructing and eroding processes. When more is added than removed, the coral reef can grow. When that balance flips, the reef stops growing and may even erode.

Moreover, sites in the Gulf of Mexico have not yet been affected by stony coral tissue loss disease, which preferentially kills the same massive, long-lived species that are keeping Gulf reefs alive. By the time the heat arrived, large parts of the Caribbean had already lost their most resilient corals because of the disease outbreak. What it started, the heatwave finished.

Why reef erosion matters

All the benefits reefs provide rely on a delicate balance between reef construction and erosion.

Tropical reefs are essentially vast limestone structures, built slowly over centuries as corals deposit calcium carbonate skeletons. At the same time, waves and various reef organisms like parrotfish, sea urchins and boring sponges chip away at them.

An eroding, flattening reef begins to lose its capacity to provide benefits to other species, and people.

We did not expect to be documenting the moment at which a major region of the ocean crossed from growing to eroding. The fact that it happened this quickly, and at some of the most iconic and well-studied reefs in the Caribbean, suggests the timelines scientists have been using may be too optimistic.

Our findings may also force a rethink of how to approach coral restoration. Programmes across the Caribbean have invested heavily in replanting fast-growing branching species of coral, such as Acropora, because they rebuild structural complexity quickly. The 2023–24 heatwave wiped out many of these restored populations, along with wild ones.

Restoration will have to diversify. Exploring approaches such as moving heat-tolerant genes between populations (assisted gene flow) and breeding corals that survive heat better (selective breeding) might be a promising path.

But restoration alone will not be enough. Reversing the decline requires rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to slow the frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves, alongside serious local action on pollution, nutrient runoff, sedimentation and disease – the stressors that weaken corals before the heat arrives.

Chris Perry, Professor in Tropical Coastal Geoscience, University of Exeter and Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip, Professor of Marine Ecology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In central Seoul, South Korea, a motorway once covered a buried urban stream. Today, that same stretch has been uncovered – a process known as daylighting – and this river is home to plants, fish and insects. This flowing water cools the city in summer and attracts tens of thousands of people every day. What used to be concrete now boosts biodiversity, the local economy and community wellbeing.

Similar transformations are unfolding elsewhere.

In Christchurch, New Zealand, river habitats and wetlands were rebuilt after a major earthquake in 2011, guided in part by Māori knowledge of waterways and floodplains. In Vancouver, Canada, nature-based stormwater systems have been integrated into urban design through long-term collaboration with local First Nations.

Across the world, urban planning projects are beginning to take a different approach. One that designs with living freshwater systems, rather than trying to control and contain them.

In a new study, our international team of freshwater scientists and planning experts highlights that, while our towns and cities contain some of the world’s most degraded rivers, wetlands and ponds, they also provide huge opportunities for protecting and restoring freshwater wildlife.

Cities and towns have historically been designed with people in mind. Planning systems prioritise housing, transport, economic growth and flood defence – often treating rivers and streams as infrastructure rather than living ecosystems.

This hasn’t always been the case. Ancient civilisations, from the Indus to the Maya, built settlements around water. They worked with floods, wetlands and seasonal flows in ways that supported both people and nature. With the dawn of industrialisation and modern planning, floodplains were built on, rivers were straightened, streams buried and waterways increasingly engineered to move water through cities rather than support wildlife.

The consequences are stark and hard to ignore: degraded urban waterways, declining freshwater species, and whole cities are more vulnerable to climate-driven floods, heatwaves and water scarcity, contributing to a global collapse in freshwater biodiversity.

Our rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands occupy only a tiny fraction of the planet while supporting roughly a third of all vertebrate species. Importantly, freshwater acts as an ecological life-support system, sustaining a range of species – including us.

This is why the latest figures are so alarming. Freshwater vertebrate animals such as salmon and eel populations have fallen by 85% over the last 50 years. This is one of the steepest collapses of any group of species on Earth. Urban waterways sit at the heart of this rapid decline.

Movement to deal with this crisis has started. Countries have signed up to ambitious global agreements, pledging to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.

But translating these promises into real change remains a major challenge.

Urban planners as allies

Urban planners shape the very environments where freshwater pressures are most intense – towns and cities. Every day, they make decisions affecting how land is zoned, how stormwater is managed, where green space goes, what buffers are protected, and how urban form evolves. Their actions ripple through entire catchments.

Yet most urban planners often aren’t supported or equipped with the ecological knowledge needed to incorporate freshwater biodiversity into daily practice.

Urban planners need the tools, training and support to recognise freshwater ecosystems as valuable living systems that underpin city resilience, human health and everyday wellbeing – rather than obstacles to be overcome.

In cities such as Breda in the Netherlands, Los Angeles in the US and Nanjing in China, this different way of thinking about freshwater is taking hold. And planners aren’t working alone.

Local residents and Indigenous communities, ecologists, engineers and even schools are often involved from the outset. Together, they bring diverse knowledge of the local context and can build a shared environmental stewardship. Early collaboration helps ensure freshwater biodiversity isn’t an afterthought and results in lasting care for rivers, ponds and wetlands.

Education matters too.

To foster this transition, silos between planning, ecology and engineering can be broken down. Land-use decisions can then be made with a clearer understanding of how water behaves across an entire catchment and how that shapes freshwater habitats.

Just as important is how knowledge flows. Freshwater biodiversity research doesn’t always reach the people making day-to-day planning decisions, or those designing and building projects on the ground. When planners, scientists and delivery teams have access to shared tools, open data or simple design guidance, nature-positive ideas are far more likely to make it off the page and into our cities.

Clear rules are also useful. Biodiversity targets only make a difference if they are backed up by practical local standards and the resources to implement them. For example, we need standards on how to protect riverbanks, restore floodplains or design stormwater systems that work with nature, rather than against it. Without that clarity – and the training and resources to support it – planners are often left trying to balance competing demands on their own.

There are still big gaps in what we know. How much space do urban rivers really need, and how does this vary from place to place? Which nature-based solutions work best across different landscapes? Urban planners can help answer these questions by learning from what works and using that knowledge to improve outcomes for freshwater biodiversity.

Urban planners – often working behind the scenes within local and devolved governments – are at the forefront of this transformation. They can embed freshwater biodiversity into the hearts of our cities.

However, planners cannot do this alone. Freshwater scientists, policymakers, river restoration specialists, engineers, social scientists and economists can work with planners. Universities and professional bodies can rethink how planning is taught. Governments can recognise planners as agents of ecological recovery, not just arbiters of urban growth.

Cities could become hubs for freshwater restoration and recovery, rather than hotspots of decline. They can become places where rivers, wetlands and people thrive together – with benefits that flow far beyond city boundaries.

Helen A. L. Currie, Research Fellow and Centre Manager, Centre for Blue Governance, University of Portsmouth; Irene Gregory-Eaves, Professor of Biology, McGill University, and Steven J Cooke, Canada Research Professor, Conservation Physiology, Carleton University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Four humans recently looped around the Moon. Their vessel, an Artemis capsule, was a thin metal shell whose life-support system kept them alive: it provided a carefully balanced atmosphere, a closed water loop, a finite supply of food and a means for disposing human waste. The life support was not optional. It was a necessity.

Consider this: not once in the history of human spaceflight has an astronaut been known to tamper with their life support system. No one has ever decided to vent some oxygen for fun. No one has argued for a personal right to increase their CO₂ output. Sabotage is unthinkable – socially intolerable. Their fellow crew members and mission control would intervene immediately.

Now consider Earth.

We are doing to our planetary life support what no astronaut has done to theirs. We are damaging it – venting carbon, acidifying the oceans, stripping topsoil and collapsing biodiversity – not maliciously, but with a shrug. It is legal. It is profitable. And in most circles, it is entirely socially acceptable.

The Victorian novelist George Eliot would have understood why. In Middlemarch, she showed us a town that preferred a satisfying, simple myth (that a charismatic quack can cure ills) over difficult, complex truths (the role of germs, statistics, slow systematic change). Humans, she argued, do not naturally reach for what is true. We reach for what is near, simple and emotionally rewarding.

Climate science is the anti-myth. It is delayed, diffuse, impersonal and global. It asks us to change behaviour today for a benefit that will arrive decades away, elsewhere on the planet, for people we will never meet.

This psychological distance is a severe challenge for a brain evolved to flinch at a rustle in the grass, not a graph showing rising parts per million of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The myths that let us ignore the truth are familiar.

If I recycle, I’m doing my part. (This is insufficient but feels good.)

Technology will save us before it’s too late. (Comforting but improbable, and it delays action.)

It’s already too late, so nothing matters. (This is fatalism as absolution.)

We will adapt. (The laws of nature set hard limits.)

These stories are false, but they are functional. Psychologists call them the “dragons of inaction” – the mental barriers that let us know the truth without feeling its weight. Along with disavowal (knowing something but ignoring it), they allow us to keep flying, driving, consuming and investing, without the discomfort of cognitive dissonance (the stress of simultaneously holding conflicting beliefs).

The Artemis crew members live by a different narrative. They are guided by a simple, undeniable truth. That they are in a small, fragile vessel. The life support is essential. Damaging it is not an option.

Earth is a vessel too. It is just larger, its support systems less visible, and the consequences of damage slower to arrive. As the economist Kenneth Boulding argued 60 years ago, we must learn to see our planet as a closed system – not an open frontier.

What narrative could protect Earth like it protects astronauts?

Not a policy paper. Not a carbon tax (though we need those). A story.

We have candidate myths already. None is perfect, but each is more powerful than the cold scientific facts.

The one pane of glass narrative outlines that Earth is not a planet we live on. It is a pressurised cabin with a single irreplaceable window. Every tonne of CO₂ scratches a crack in that glass. You wouldn’t hammer the Artemis capsule window. Why do it here?

The blood of the body myth portrays the biosphere not as nature but as the collective and extended organ system of humanity. Deforesting the Amazon and burning oil are not business as usual, they are acts of self-harm.

The crew of the damned narrative hinges on the concept that you are not a consumer. You are a temporary tenant on a multi-generational voyage. Nature and the previous shift built the vessel. The next shift will inherit it. To degrade Earth’s systems is to defile the ancestors and curse the children. That is not a crime. It is a sin that will outlast your name.

None of these stories will work if they remain metaphors. They become common sense only when they are visibly, socially and economically enforced – when a CEO who opens a new coal mine is treated with the same universal horror as an astronaut reaching for the oxygen valve.

Imagine every human decision – personal, professional, political – tested against one simple question: “If we were in a capsule looping around the Moon, would this be a safe use of our shared life support?”

Repeated sufficiently, the right conclusion would become habitual. For those resisting, the rest of the crew would intervene. On Earth, there is no mission control – only us.

Chris Rapley, Professor of Climate Science, UCL

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In Nepal’s remote mountain district of Jumla, preparation for a family meal begins long before food reaches the cooking pot. It starts in terraced fields of beans, buckwheat, apples and pumpkins that must be ploughed, planted, tended and harvested before a family can eat.

But other workers often go unseen: the pollinating insects. By moving pollen between flowers, pollinators ensure that crops bear healthy, nutritious fruit to eat and sell.

Most people don’t think about insects when they eat. But in farming systems like this one, the link is direct and stark. If pollinators decline, crop harvests decline. That can mean less food on the plate, fewer nutrients in people’s diets, and less income for the household.

In our new study, published in the journal Nature, we set out to trace that chain of connections directly: from pollinating insects to crops to human diets and livelihoods.

Working in ten smallholder farming villages in Jumla, our team recorded the diets of 776 women, men and children over a full year. We measured where key nutrients came from, and how this changed through the seasons. At the same time, we surveyed the insects visiting crops and analysed the pollen they carried, to identify which species were helping produce the foods people rely on.

The first thing that stood out was just how local these diets were. More than 80% of people’s intake of many key micronutrients – including vitamin A, folate, vitamin C, calcium and vitamin B12 – came from foods grown or raised in nearby villages. This shows just how closely people’s health is tied to their surrounding landscape.

Most people’s diets were dominated by staple cereals like rice and wheat, which do not depend on insect pollination. But pollinator-dependent crops – including fruits, vegetables and beans – punched far above their weight nutritionally and economically. These foods provided more than 60% of people’s vitamin A, folate and vitamin E intake, and up to 90% of farming income.

In places like Jumla, pollinators are not simply supporting production – they are helping keep families fed and providing crucial cash to meet basic needs. Given the high levels of poverty and malnutrition that already exist, families simply cannot afford to lose them.

When pollinators decline

Pollinator decline is no longer a distant threat. Local beekeepers in Jumla have reported sharp drops in honey production in recent years, with some hives dying out completely. They point to changing weather, fewer wildflowers due to heavy grazing, and increasing pesticide use as the problems. Wild pollinators such as bumblebees, butterflies and hoverflies are likely to be under similar pressure.

If current trends continue, farming income could fall by around 15% by 2030, with vitamin A and folate intake dropping by almost 10%. And if local pollinators disappeared entirely, families could lose nearly half of their farming income and more than 20% of their vitamin A and folate intake.

The risks to health are clear. Vitamin A deficiency can damage eyesight and weaken the immune system. Low folate intake increases the risk of serious complications in pregnancy, including birth defects in babies. In communities already facing high levels of malnutrition, pollinator decline would add yet another strain.

The situation in Jumla is not unique. Smallholder farms make up 84% of all farms worldwide and feed 2 billion people. These farms are highly exposed to environmental change and the families that depend on them already struggle with poor diets and poverty. Even when our food comes from supermarkets and long supply chains, much of it still begins with pollination by insects. The link between biodiversity and human health is still there – it is just less visible.

However, there are signs that this pollinator-nutrition link can be strengthened. In Jumla, farmers are already testing pollinator-friendly practices such as planting flowers around fields, protecting nesting habitats, reducing pesticide use and keeping native honeybees. Our results show promising signs of change. When pollinator numbers increase, so does the production of nutritious food to eat and sell.

The lesson from Jumla is clear. Biodiversity loss is not just an environmental issue, it is a growing threat to human health. At a time when governments like the UK are warning that biodiversity loss poses serious risks to national security, the story in Jumla helps explain what that means in practical, human terms. But it also shows that by supporting the ecosystems around us, we can help secure healthier diets and more resilient livelihoods for the future.

Thomas Timberlake, Senior Research Associate in Pollination Ecology, University of Bristol and Jane Memmott, Professor of Ecology, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

One of the United States’ largest fisheries is hiding in plain sight. Recreational freshwater anglers in the lower 48 states catch – and keep – far more fish than any official body has estimated, according to new research from our team of North American fishery scientists.

Specifically, our analysis, which integrated thousands of recreational fishing surveys across the U.S., found that people who engage in recreational fishing in the country’s lakes, ponds and reservoirs catch between 2 billion and 6 billion fish each year. Many of them practice catch-and-release fishing, but even after accounting for all the fish released, we estimated that they keep between 230,000 and 670,000 metric tons of fish in the U.S. alone.

That’s between 17 and 48 times more fish than prior U.S. estimates that have been reported to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.

And it’s about 20% of the United States’ total recorded annual consumption of fresh fish that has not been frozen. We estimated the value of the recreational fish catch is roughly US$3 billion a year. By contrast, domestic commercial processed fishery products are valued at about US$12 billion a year.

Not just for fun

Historically, most researchers and policymakers viewed recreational fishing as a leisure activity rather than a significant part of the nation’s food supply.

However, for many households, recreationally harvested fish – fish that people catch and keep, often to eat – represent a meaningful source of protein at very low cost. By recognizing this unseen harvest as a significant food source, policymakers can recognize that changes in recreational fishing opportunities don’t just affect anglers’ enjoyment, but also millions of households’ food security.

The immensity of recreational fishing also likely has effects on freshwater ecosystems that have gone unrecognized by fisheries managers.

For example, a 2019 analysis of nearly 200 lakes in northern Wisconsin found that around 40% of walleye recreational fisheries were overfished. Even when fish are released and not kept for eating, they can die shortly after release or be injured or stressed from having been caught. Injured and stressed fish may produce fewer offspring, be more vulnerable to predators and be less capable of catching prey.

Together, these effects on fish populations and the act of fishing can substantially change how freshwater ecosystems function. For example, removing top predators like walleye can lead to an increase in small fish, which eat tiny zooplankton, which feed on phytoplankton. If zooplankton populations fall, that can ultimately lead to more frequent algal blooms.

Effective fisheries management requires accurate estimates of fishing activity. Without that information, officials may overestimate fish population size, which could lead to unexpected population collapses and new fishery regulations and closures.

Why the numbers don’t add up

Official harvest statistics for fisheries, which are collected by the U.N. from national governments, usually focus on ocean fisheries, which are typically the largest and most lucrative.

As a result, the only official statistics for the U.S. freshwater fisheries harvest cover commercial fisheries that primarily operate in the Great Lakes.

Collecting data on recreational fisheries is challenging. Unlike commercial fisheries that unload their catch at centralized ports, it is impossible to know where recreational fishers are and what they are catching across the entire country. With an estimated 35 million people fishing across millions of rivers, lakes, ponds and reservoirs, the amount of recreational fishing makes it an extremely difficult activity to track.

Recreational fisheries data tends to be collected by state agencies that conduct angler surveys. Angler surveys involve counting and interviewing anglers at specific rivers, lakes, ponds and reservoirs to provide snapshots of who is fishing, how they fish and what they catch. Each state collects data differently, and surveys typically focus on a few locations rather than the entire state.

Without a coordinated national effort, the total recreational catch has remained effectively invisible because one state’s questions and findings do not always align with those in other states.

From local surveys to national statistics

Our new research, a collaborative effort between myself and four colleagues from the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Missouri and Louisiana State University, sought to improve the quality of recreational fishing data. Over the past several years, our team has worked to compile angler surveys from across the country into a single database.

We have not received data from every river, lake, pond and reservoir; in fact, we have not even collected data from every state. But we have collected over 15,000 surveys from 40 states, and we are collecting more surveys every day.

To calculate our estimates, we combined three major factors:

• Nationwide numbers of fish caught and hours spent fishing.

• Assumptions about how many lakes, ponds and reservoirs people fish based on the relationships between water body size and known fishing locations.

• The proportion of caught fish that aren’t thrown back.

We arrived at an estimate of 2 billion to 6 billion fish caught.

Rethinking recreational fisheries

Even our most conservative assumption of harvested fish – 236,000 metric tons – is much higher than the prior U.N. estimates of 13,388 metric tons. We hope these new numbers will serve as initial estimates that will be continually refined as we and other researchers collect more data and better understand where and how people fish.

Getting this first estimate provides a baseline for fisheries managers to ensure fishing policies line up with the actual effects of recreational fishing.

We also note that recreational freshwater fishing happens across the globe. If the actual recreational fish harvest is significantly higher than has previously been estimated in the U.S., the same is likely true worldwide.

Matthew Robertson, Research Scientist, Fisheries and Marine Institute, Memorial University of Newfoundland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As a child, the mere glimpse of a spider used to send me screaming and running for cover. I was convinced that spiders were my enemies. I thought they were out to get me.

These days, I run towards spiders, not away from them. I can partly thank a spider for helping me with that. This is a special spider affectionately known as the mosquito terminator.

Mosquito terminators (Evarcha culicivora) are small spiders, about 5mm long. They are a species of jumping spider from the family Salticidae, the largest family of spiders. Like all jumping spiders, these little predators have good eyesight and they hunt for their prey like stealthy cats.

Jumping spiders live almost everywhere around the world (even on Mount Everest) and they are found in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours. The quickest, most convenient way to identify a jumping spider is simply by looking at it: if it looks back at you with two big eyes in front of its face, it’s a jumping spider.

Most jumping spiders mainly eat insects. Mosquito terminators are no exception, eating a wide range of insects. But they do have a distinct prey preference. Just like Arnold Schwarzenegger of The Terminator fame, these little predators are on a mission to seek and destroy — in their case, they target mosquitoes.

Mosquito terminators take this preference to an extreme. They particularly like the mosquitoes they eat to be full of blood. If they are presented with a blood-carrying mosquito alongside another kind of insect, even a mosquito not carrying blood, they will choose the blood-carrying mosquito nine times out of ten.

Blood-carrying mosquitoes are an important part of this spider’s diet. They can also help mosquito terminators attract mates. After dining on a blood-carrying mosquito, these spiders acquire a blood perfume that then attracts the opposite sex.

An antidote to malaria?

These spiders are found in the Lake Victoria region of Kenya and Uganda. Mosquito-transmitted diseases, such as malaria, are prevalent in this part of the world. These diseases kill hundreds of thousands of people each year.

Anopheles mosquitoes, which can transmit malaria, are known to be anthropophilic – they like being in the company of people. They are attracted to our breath and the smell of our feet. Being near us helps these mosquitoes to find blood meals.

Mosquito terminators also live near people, and it turns out they like the smell of our feet, too. Just like Anopheles, these spiders are more attracted to our previously-worn socks than to unworn socks. Mosquito terminators are currently the only spiders known to be anthropophilic. Being near us might help these spiders to find their favourite prey.

My research has further investigated this prey preference and how these spiders use their tiny brains. Amazingly, they can identify a blood-carrying mosquito by either smell or sight, even if they have never eaten or seen a mosquito before. This suggests that their penchant for blood-carrying mosquitoes is hard-wired or innate.

My research has also explored whether the colour red is of special importance to these spiders. The redness of a blood-carrying mosquito darkens over time as the blood gets digested. This darker colour becomes less attractive to these spiders.

The importance of redness extends to the spiders’ bodies too. A female mosquito terminator is mostly brown in colour, but the males have little bright red faces. Cover that bright red face with black eyeliner, and males are less certain that they are encountering a potential rival. Females are also less inclined to choose a male with a concealed red face, preferring those with bright red faces instead.

Mosquito terminators are not harmful to people and nor are they vampires – they cannot bite us directly to drink our blood. They also cannot rid the world of malaria. For one thing, releasing mosquito terminators in different habitats will not work. Yet these and other jumping spiders play an important role in nature. So, next time a spider turns and looks back at you, watch closely – your new eight-legged friend may be a jumping spider.

Fiona Cross, Researcher in Animal Cognition, University of Canterbury

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.