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The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has now been found in a second state, South Australia, after earlier being identified in Western Australia.

Authorities have confirmed three seabirds have died of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus. It is too early to know if H5N1 has spread beyond these animals to other wildlife or livestock in Australia. But it appears very much a matter of when, not if, this happens.

Globally, H5N1 has already devastated wildlife populations. In Australia, this deadly virus could greatly disrupt ecosystems and push our most threatened species even closer to extinction.

Why is H5N1 so dangerous?

The H5N1 strain of bird flu spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as saliva and faeces, infected animals or contaminated environments. It can also be transmitted through scavenging by species that feed on infected carcasses.

Since 2021, the H5N1 strain has killed millions of the world’s wild birds, mammals and poultry. This is because it can spread faster than other HPAI strains – including between mammals – and move between continents via migratory birds.

However, it’s hard to predict how H5N1 will affect our wildlife and ecosystems. This strain of the virus is not yet established in Australia. And many of our species are endemic – meaning they’re not found anywhere outside Australia – so we don’t have the data needed to reliably predict how H5N1 may affect them.

Threatened species most at risk

For threatened species, an H5N1 outbreak could be catastrophic. And a mass mortality event could be the final straw that finishes off a species. This is especially true if a population is already in decline, is geographically restricted or gathers to breed during certain seasons.

After the initial outbreak passes, populations may rebound through breeding and immigration. However, an extreme drop in numbers can create a genetic bottleneck, leading to rapid, substantial loss of genetic diversity. This, in turn, can threaten a population’s long-term health.

Since detecting H5N1 in Australia, authorities have understandably focused on protecting Australia’s spectacular birds – including the threatened regent honeyeater and orange-bellied parrot.

What’s received less attention are our iconic but increasingly threatened mammals. This includes the egg-laying platypus, native rodents such as the rakali and numerous marsupial species. In the United States, the virus has already done widespread damage to native rodents such as squirrels and voles, and the marsupial Virginia Opossum. It may well do the same to Australia’s mammals.

Carnivorous marsupials such as endangered Tasmanian devils and quoll species are also at risk, as their hunting and scavenging may expose them to infected carcasses.

Kangaroos, wallabies, possums and bandicoots can also scavenge and eat meat, meaning they could come in contact with H5N1. Species that live near shore birds in coastal and island habitats – including endangered mainland eastern barred bandicoots and threatened quokkas – are even more at risk.

The H5N1 strain could also prove deadly to our Australian sea lion and black swan populations. Black swans appear particularly susceptible to H5N1, which may be because they evolved in the isolated island continent of Australia. Unlike other swan species, they lack certain genetic traits that might help their immune systems fight the H5N1 virus.

Long-term damage to ecosystems

Beyond individual species, H5N1 has the potential to greatly disrupt and devastate Australia’s ecosystems.

An H5N1 outbreak in predator species could see prey populations surge. If a local dingo population is wiped out by the virus, the kangaroos, wallabies, feral goats and other herbivores they prey on could rapidly increase in numbers. This could lead to overgrazing, which in turn would deprive other animals of food and shelter.

In freshwater and marine environments, an H5N1 outbreak could see many birds die in and around waterways in a short period. Nutrients from the bird carcasses could pollute waterways if not cleaned up, worsening water quality and oxygen levels and potentially causing widespread fish kills.

So, what can we do?

Compared to other countries and continents, Australia has had longer to prepare for an H5N1 outbreak.

The federal government has so far invested A$113 million to bolster our H5N1 response. This money will go towards disease surveillance, invasive species control, captive breeding programs and efforts to monitor wildlife health.

But we can also help stop the spread of H5N1 on an individual level by:

• immediately reporting any sick or dead animals to the Emergency Animal Disease hotline on 1800 675 888 or organisations such as Wildlife Health Australia

• not touching native wildlife

• only feeding birds in backyards, never in the wild, and following strict hygiene measures such as cleaning water baths weekly and opting for hanging bird feeders

• keeping dogs and cats away from wildlife, animal faeces and especially dead carcasses.

The arrival of H5N1 in Australia is not cause for panic, as this outbreak is yet to unfold. But we must be extra vigilant in how we observe and interact with wildlife and nature. The future of our most vulnerable species depends on it. 

Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

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

On a remote beach near Esperance, Western Australia, two sick seabirds have brought the bird flu crisis to Australia.

Testing has confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 in a brown skua and a giant petrel. Both are species of seabirds commonly found in the Southern Ocean.

H5N1 is a type of avian influenza, or bird flu, caused by an influenza A virus. The strain has been confirmed as HPAI H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, a globally circulating strain that can spread rapidly. Over the past five years, this strain of the virus has killed millions of wild animals and poultry.

These are the first confirmed detections of this strain in Australia. But the coming weeks will tell us whether these are isolated cases, or the start of a wider outbreak.

Spreading far and wide

Since 2021, the HPAI H5N1 strain of bird flu has spread through every continent except Australia. Overseas, it has devastated wildlife and caused major losses in poultry. This strain has also repeatedly spilled over into mammals including dairy cattle, seals and sea lions.

This strain of H5N1 is a different challenge to the bird flu outbreaks Australia has seen before. That’s because this strain can infect a much wider variety of species and spreads more quickly than other strains, including between mammals and across continents.

Transmission occurs through close contact with infected animals or contaminated environments, including scavenging of carcasses. This is why birds living in large colonies such as gannets, terns and albatrosses are most vulnerable. Tasmanian devils and other scavengers are also more exposed to the virus.

For humans, the current risk is low. Human infections are rare and most cases involve direct or indirect exposure to infected animals or contaminated environments. Examples include dairy farms, live poultry markets or beaches with sick or dying wild birds and marine mammals.

How did it get to Australia?

The species of the two confirmed bird flu cases are the first clue to how the virus reached our shores. Brown skuas and giant petrels are Southern Ocean seabirds who fly across huge distances and may scavenge contaminated carcasses.

Their detection in Western Australia suggests the virus likely reached mainland Australia through Southern Ocean wildlife movements, rather than the northern migratory shorebird routes.

Our research shows migratory wildlife, including seabirds, have spread this virus thousands of kilometres across the Southern Ocean from South America since 2023.

Genetic sequencing of the virus will be essential to show how closely the virus in these birds is related to viruses from Heard Island, Antarctica, South America or elsewhere.

A devastating disease

In the United States, this virus has decimated the country’s poultry and dairy industries. It has led to the mass culling of commercial flocks, both to contain the virus and prevent price hikes for consumers.

At this stage, no H5N1 cases have been detected on Australian poultry or dairy farms. However, poultry producers now must follow government guidance on maintaining biosecurity standards. This involves minimising contact between domestic birds and wild birds, protecting feed and water sources and immediately reporting unusual illness or deaths.

Also at risk are Australian fur seals and colony nesting seabirds such as terns, gannets, and albatrosses. Tasmania’s endemic shy albatross and culturally significant yula, or short-tailed shearwater, are also vulnerable to the virus.

Freshwater birds such as ducks are another concern, as they can spread influenza viruses through water. For critically endangered birds such as orange-bellied parrots, even a few bird flu deaths can put the entire species at risk.

So, what can we do?

Given Australia was the last H5N1-free continent, we’ve had time to prepare.

Since 2024, a dedicated national taskforce has led the country’s response to a potential H5N1 outbreak. This taskforce – jointly led by the National Emergency Management Agency and the federal agriculture, environment and health departments – has conducted outbreak exercises and increased surveillance across Australia.

This preparation must now become action. Surveillance should expand around seabirds, wetlands, scavengers, marine mammals, backyard poultry and commercial poultry. Positive samples should be sequenced quickly to map how the virus may spread. Wildlife managers need plans for vulnerable wildlife populations before they get exposed.

Beyond surveillance, there are other tools we can use. In the United States, researchers are trialling bird flu vaccination in seals as a way to protect endangered Hawaiian monk seals. If our outbreak worsens, Australia should consider similar options for highly vulnerable wildlife, such as fur seals, black swans and other native birds.

The public can help authorities contain the spread of H5N1 by reporting any sick or dead birds or marine mammals to the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888. It’s best to note the location and share any photos taken from a safe distance. The public should also avoid touching sick or dead animals, and keep dogs away from any carcasses.

Jane Younger, Senior Lecturer in Southern Ocean Vertebrate Ecology, 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.

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been found in seabirds in two Australian states.

But don’t be fooled by the name: this virus also rapidly infects other animals. It has caused havoc in poultry farms and backyard chicken flocks in the northern hemisphere. And it can also infect, and even kill, cats.

Domestic pet owners, particularly homes that keep backyard chicken flocks, should be on alert for signs of this highly infectious virus. Now is the time to think about how you will respond.

A deadly strain of the virus

I have been working on the H5N1 since 2004. In more than two decades it has evolved into a highly infectious “zoonotic” disease – able to jump between several animal species and occasionally to humans.

The tipping point occurred in the United States in 2023–24, when the virus was transmitted from wild birds into poultry farms and high-density dairy farms in Texas, Kansas, Michigan and Idaho. Transmission has also occurred between cattle and cats, with cats feeding on infected cow colostrum (the first milk after a mammal gives birth), and some later dying.

In the past three years, we have seen many cases in Peru, Chile and southern Antarctica, including the deaths of thousands of seal pups on Heard Island.

How long has it been here?

Initially, Australian authorities were concerned the virus would come predominantly from the north during the annual migration of migratory shorebirds. There was uncertainty about whether sick birds would be strong enough to fly here from far-off Antarctica.

But two of the sick birds in Western Australia and South Australia were found alive. Given this virus was first identified on June 20, it’s possible it arrived in Australia much earlier since these species tend to make their way from the sub-Antarctic region from March onwards.

It makes sense this virus has arrived in winter – it is most easily transmitted during cold weather. In China we saw it typically emerge around Chinese New Year – a time when low temperatures coincide with high demand for poultry for celebratory meals.

How quickly can it move from wild birds?

The World Organisation for Animal Health tracks where the virus is reported for different countries (WAHIS).

Analysing this data, we find it takes between 2 and 6 weeks, on average, for the virus to move into poultry species following the first report in wild birds. Of course, this differs according to the comprehensiveness of a country’s surveillance and the level of data aggregation provided by different countries reporting to the system.

For example, considering data reported between 2020 and 2024 in Denmark, it took a little more than three weeks between finding the virus in wild birds and reporting it in poultry.

In Australia, and considering data from other countries it is possible we will see outbreaks in poultry in the next 4–5 weeks. This obviously depends on the role bridging species will play on bringing infection into Australian poultry facilities, as well as the level of biosecurity of Australian poultry husbandry systems. Everyone is on high alert, and state and federal agriculture departments have ramped up surveillance and public messaging for producers and the public.

In the past few years, an avian influenza surveillance system has tested the faeces of wild birds at nesting sites to watch for the virus. Now this surveillance is likely to be expanded to include poultry. Testing will also be informed by farmers, producers and backyard chicken owners reporting suspected illness.

What’s the risk to my household pets?

Poultry

The risks are very real. When this virus ends up in a densely housed commercial farm, mortality rates of close to 100% are likely. The greatest risk of exposure is when free-range hens spend some time outdoors and are exposed to contact with wild birds. This is the same for backyard chickens.

If you have a flock of chickens, keep them housed as much as possible. “Bridging species” like crows, magpies and other urban birds can bring infection into backyard flocks.

Keep an eye on your chooks and monitor their health for lethargy and neurological signs. If you notice a bird seems disoriented or unwell you should call the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888.

If warranted, a biosecurity officer will come and take nasal swabs and bird droppings away to be tested. In the meantime, you will be asked not to move your poultry and to keep them housed.

Unfortunately, all poultry in a farm or backyard flock where H5N1 infection is identified will have to be euthanised.

This virus can infect humans, though it is rare. Do not approach the bird or animal, just call the hotline on 1800 675 888. If there is a need to move the animal, wear gloves and a PPE mask, and dispose of them carefully afterwards.

Cats

Evidence from the US suggests cats are at much greater risk of severe disease than dogs. Where cats ingested contaminated material, such as milk from cattle, there were fatalities. Australian cat owners should be vigilant about what their cat is “investigating” outside, including dead birds.

Dogs

The evidence for serious illness is not as strong as cats. We know they can be exposed, but they don’t seem to be an at-risk species. Other terrestrial carnivores, such as skunk and foxes, have shown neurological illness and respiratory distress. We will have to watch the dingo population closely, because they scavenge on dead wild birds.

Caged birds

Caged birds such as budgerigars are unlikely to come into contact with wild birds. But if this is possible, and there are signs of illness, these should be reported.

Emergency Animal Disease Hotline – 1800 675 888

Ricardo J. Soares Magalhaes, Professor, School of Veterinary Science, The University of Queensland

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

On Saturday, a suspected case of deadly H5 bird flu, also known as high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1, was confirmed in a brown skua.

This large seabird was found in Cape Le Grand National Park near Esperance, about 700 kilometres south-east of Perth in Western Australia.

The virus is also suspected to have affected another seabird, a southern giant petrel, found at the same area.

Following the initial testing, samples collected from these birds were sent to the CSIRO to confirm the first Australian cases of H5N1, specifically the clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1 lineage. Avian influenza viruses are categorised by subtype (creating the H and N number combination, here H5N1) and specific clades within the H5 subtype.

This virus has devastated wildlife populations in other continents, and this could be the start of a long push to protect Australian birds and wildlife in Australia.

Where did this virus come from?

Avian influenza viruses, of which HPAI H5N1 is just one kind, have been around for millenia. In the vast majority of cases they cause no disease in birds. These strains are referred to as low pathogenicity avian influenza viruses.

However, in 1996 one of these viruses evolved to become disease causing, and since then, this HPAI H5N1 has caused severe disease in poultry, and has become endemic in poultry. With chickens now forming about 70% of all birds worldwide, this is a critical reservoir where the virus continues to evolve.

The devastating effect of HPAI H5N1 is unfortunately not limited to poultry. Since 2021, HPAI H5N1 has caused a global animal pandemic, with enormous consequences for wildlife in all continents. It has killed millions of wild birds and caused significant drops in the global population of some species. It has also spread into wild and domestic mammals, with various species of seals particularly affected.

How it spreads

Part of the challenge in controlling HPAI H5N1 is that it can spread through a wide range of transmission pathways. For example, the virus typically spreads through faeces, especially when in water. Imagine infected ducks in a pond, where the pond water acts as a conduit to infecting other ducks which are feeding or cleaning themselves.

It can also be spread through direct contact and aerosol transmission, particularly in poultry farms. And it is spread through predation and scavenging, where animals like foxes maybe eat the carcasses of infected birds they find.

While it has so far been found in more than 400 different bird species, the spread of HPAI H5N1 in the northern hemisphere is facilitated by freshwater dabbling ducks. Dabbling duck species feed predominantly at the surface of the water, sometimes even grazing on land.

Importantly, ducks have very limited signs of disease when infected with HPAI H5N1, and appear to be able to continue to migrate while infected, allowing them to potentially spread the virus long distances.

Overall, this virus has been devastating for wild birds. For example, 33–47% of all adult northern gannets died in 2022 due to HPAI H5N1. On subantarctic Heard Island, 13,000 baby southern elephant seals died due to HPAI during the 2025–26 summer.

Why has it taken so long to reach Australia?

Despite being in Asia since the 1990s, and in Antarctica since 2024, HPAI H5N1 has not been detected in Australia until now. This is likely because there are no duck species which routinely migrate between Australia and Asia, nor are there ducks that migrate through Antarctica.

Despite the lack of ducks in Antarctica, the virus did arrive there in the summer of 2023–24, and subsequently spread thousands of kilometres through the subantarctic in the summer of 2024–25. Available evidence suggests birds like gulls, skuas and giant petrels may have taken on the role of long distance virus carriers in the Antarctic and subantarctic.

The various species of skuas and giant petrels that breed in Antarctic waters go on to roam the Southern Ocean, also venturing into the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans during the southern hemisphere winter. While rarely seen on our shores, these species are not too far offshore, looking for food and occasionally gathering in large groups.

Now that HPAI H5N1 has been found on mainland Australia, it will not necessarily establish itself and spread across the continent into other birds and mammals, including livestock.

Given that skuas and giant petrels are marine rather than freshwater species, and do not occur on land in large numbers outside the breeding season, there is still a chance that it may not spread further.

The biggest risk is that infected, sick birds are eaten or scavenged by native birds and mammals, which could transmit the virus to ducks.

Try to stop the spread

Once in ducks, the likely spread of the virus increases dramatically, and the outlook would be grim.

But for now, we are a few critical steps away from that happening. Continued surveillance and testing, being led by Western Australia, is critical to reveal the extent of the virus and whether it has spread to local animals.

Vigilance is key – do not touch or take sick animals into your care. Rather, report suspected cases immediately to the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888.

For farmers or people who own chooks, its critical to follow guidelines provided by government departments and report any suspicious mortality.

Marcel Klaassen, Alfred Deakin Professor and Chair in Ecology, Deakin University; Meagan Dewar, Lecturer, Biological Sciences. Institute of Innovation, Science and Sustainability, Federation University Australia, and Michelle Wille, Senior research fellow, The University of Melbourne

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

Ten Australians – including a firefighter, First Nations leaders and young people – are bringing their concerns about the nation’s coal and gas exports to the United Nations.

On Tuesday, the group lodged a complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee, claiming the Australian government is failing to protect them from climate harms.

They argue Australia’s continued exports are inconsistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, as set out in the Paris Agreement.

This case spotlights Australia’s role as a major . And it’s the first case of its kind to go to the UN since the world’s highest court – the International Court of Justice – ruled countries have a legal obligation to protect the climate and prevent harm to the climate.

Last month, Australia supported a UN resolution backing the Court’s ruling.

So what is this case about? And why does it matter?

Relying on fossil fuels

Australia is the world’s second largest fossil fuel exporter, behind Russia. Our total fossil fuel exports generate around 3.5% of global carbon emissions annually.

Australia’s state and federal governments are continuing to approve and subsidise new coal and gas projects, most of which are for export. However, every approval increases global carbon emissions.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, every additional tonne of carbon emitted adds to global warming. For example, research shows Woodside’s Scarborough gas project in Western Australia could lead to 484 additional heat-related deaths in Europe alone, and may expose 516,000 people to unprecedented heat. Woodside has said the project “is expected to be one of the lowest carbon intensity sources of LNG delivered into north Asian markets”.

Despite growing concern about fossil fuel exports and emissions, authorities generally don’t give much weight to export-related climate harms when deciding to approve or reject fossil fuel projects.

Who is involved in this case?

The current case involves ten people making a claim against the government. These include First Nations leaders, people with disability, young people and a firefighter.

Each person says they have experienced climate harms, ranging from bushfires and extreme heat to flooding, rising sea levels and algal blooms. The First Nations claimants say extreme heatwaves have limited their ability to maintain certain cultural practices, such as engaging in controlled cultural burning. Floods have also displaced them from their traditional lands.

The case is now before the UN Human Rights Committee. This committee is made up of 18 independent human rights experts and checks whether signatory nations are upholding the terms of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This is a key human rights treaty that Australia signed in 1972.

If this committee finds that Australia has breached the terms of this treaty, it can make recommendations to ensure Australia meets its obligations. While these recommendations are not legally binding, they carry weight.

What are they claiming?

The claimants have told the UN that Australia’s continued support for fossil fuel exports is inconsistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, as set out in the Paris Agreement.

They are making three main claims to support this:

1. the climate emergency has already harmed the claimants, and these harms will get worse in the future

2. Australia’s fossil fuel exports have and will materially contribute to climate change

3. by continuing to produce fossil fuels for export, Australia has breached its obligations under international law to prevent significant and foreseeable climate harms.

The claimants will also argue Australia’s actions breach multiple human rights obligations. These include failing to respect and protect Australians’ rights to life, privacy, family and home life, and culture.

Yet to unfold

In this historic case, the claimants want to establish a clear link between human rights and Australia’s fossil fuel exports.

They have told the committee that climate harms such as extreme heat, bushfires, floods, and sea-level rise directly threaten the right to life by increasing the risk of serious injury or death.

For First Nations communities, climate harms also disrupt connection to Country and prevent communities from sharing traditional knowledge on Country, undermining the right to culture.

This case is unfolding in the wake of last year’s International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion. The court found that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is needed to enjoy human rights. The court also recognised all states have a binding legal obligation to prevent significant harm to the climate.

Where to next

If this case is successful, the Australian government could be held responsible for climate harms caused to Australians by its fossil fuel exports.

The committee may also recommend Australia phase out its fossil fuel exports. This would expose Australia’s export industries to increased domestic and international scrutiny.

This case has the potential to shape future climate litigation, as well as government policy.

Maria Nawaz, Project Lead, Australian Climate Accountability Project at the UNSW Australian Human Rights Institute, UNSW Sydney and Gillian Moon, Senior Visiting Fellow and Research Lead, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney

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

There is ongoing turmoil in the native forest logging industry, as revealed in the ABC’s Four Corners program that aired last night.

The evidence presented was unambiguous: the native forest logging industry has been in financial, social, and environmental decline for decades.

Yet it continues to be financially supported by federal and state government subsidies that are detrimental to the economy, environmental integrity and the efficient spending of taxpayer dollars.

Logging is banned on public land in Victoria. However, Four Corners revealed Victorian sawmills are sourcing wood from native forests in Tasmania, at taxpayer expense.

This is not in the public interest. Instead, governments should facilitate the restoration and protection of native forests.

Is there demand for native forest wood?

Advocates for the native forest logging industry claim that Australians have an insatiable appetite for hardwood, from species like mountain ash and alpine ash.

But government forestry products data tells a different story.

It shows sawn hardwood timber consumption has declined dramatically. In 2001-2002, about 1.4 million cubic metres was consumed, compared with 318,000 cubic metres consumed in 2024-25. This is close to an 80% decline.

In comparison, softwood sawn timber – cut from trees like pine – dominates the sawn timber market, producing an annual average of 4.2 million cubic metres over the same period.

In places like Victoria, over 80% of the wood removed in native forest logging was made into white copy paper. Yet demand for this product has declined – dropping 66% in the last 20 years. Australia’s consumption of white copy paper peaked at approximately 1.8 million tonnes in 2007-08, before falling sharply to around 660,000 tonnes by 2023-24.

Will we just import more hardwood timber?

Industry representatives said on Four Corners that without native forest logging, Australia would import vast amounts of hardwood timber.

However, this is not the case. According to government data, dressed and rough hardwood sawn timber imports have fallen from a combined total of 150,000 cubic metres in 2004-05 to 47,000 cubic metres in 2024-25 – a decline of nearly 70%.

In contrast, Australia has been a net exporter of sawn hardwood timber since 2022-23, and for the years 2008–2011 and 2013–2015. This means that as a nation we have exported more hardwood timber than we have imported.

Australia is actually a net exporter by volume of most wood products, but these are of lower value, such as unprocessed logs. In 2024-25, Australia imported only 1,000 cubic metres of unprocessed hardwood and softwood logs. In contrast, it exported 1.4 million cubic metres of these logs and nearly 4.7 million tonnes of woodchips.

However, Australia imports more high value-added wood products than what it exports. For example, in 2024-2025, Australia imported 1.1 million cubic metres of engineered wood products, but exported only 319,000 cubic metres of the same kind of products. Engineered wood products include veneers and cross laminated timber.

The large amounts of exported low value wood products versus the imports of high value-added wood products in lower volumes is one of the main reasons why Australia has a trade deficit in wood products.

Why was the forest industry closed in Victoria?

Forest industry advocates have questioned why the native forest logging industry was closed in Victoria. There are several reasons. A key one is the government-owned forestry company VicForests routinely made large net losses.

For example, its annual reports show a $60 million loss in 2022-2023, and $54 million loss in 2021–22.

In addition, forests in Victoria were heavily overlogged. Our research has found the vast majority of mountain ash and alpine ash forest across the Central Highlands of Victoria has been either severely disturbed and fragmented by clearfell logging or high severity fire (and often both).

The Victorian native forest logging industry also had large numbers of regulatory breaches for its industrial operations and ongoing impacts on biodiversity.

Has Victoria really stopped native forest logging?

The Four Corners program showed footage of wood being trucked from Tasmanian forests across Bass Strait to be processed in Victorian mills in the towns of Heyfield and Powelltown.

Following the Victorian government’s announcement it would stop native forest logging on public land, it committed $1.5 billion of taxpayer funds to support the transition away from native forest logging in Victoria.

The Heyfield mill is 49% owned by the Victoria government. Hence, although the Victorian government says it has stopped logging, taxpayer funds are being used to cut forests in Tasmania and process them through the Heyfield and the Powelltown mills. Transition funds have been allowed to flow into native forest logging rather than out of it.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan rejected the suggestion Victoria was shifting logging pressure to Tasmania, saying the government was backing workers and regional communities. “We’ll always look at ways to back workers, particularly in these small rural communities where companies like this one, they’re a big and important source of income and support for that area”, she told the ABC.

An end to native logging

As researchers working on forests, we have collected and read reports from roughly one inquiry or review into the native forest logging industry in Australia almost every year since the end of World War II.

No matter how much public money, suggestions for change and reform or recommendations for value-adding, the industry simply cannot survive without massive subsidies and handouts from government. It has been like this for decades.

The taxpayer should not be expected to keep propping an industry that loses so much money. It is time to terminate contracts, cease handouts, and fully close the native forest logging industry in Australia. Instead, we should transition to a well managed plantation-only forestry sector – as New Zealand did in 2002.

David Lindenmayer, Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University and Chris Taylor, Research Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

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

It is illegal to use paraquat in at least 74 jurisdictions worldwide, including the European Union, China, Malaysia, Brazil and, most recently, the US state of Vermont.

But today, Australia’s chemical regulator gave this effective but highly toxic herbicide the green light.

After a nearly 30-year review, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) finally decided paraquat can continue to be used on Australian farms.

It will have to be used at reduced rates and can no longer be applied with backpack sprayers, only in enclosed systems.

There’s no doubt paraquat is dangerous. It’s a Schedule 7 poison that is acutely toxic to humans if touched, swallowed or inhaled. Farmers have to be exceptionally careful in how they handle it.

Health advocacy groups and neurologists called for an outright ban on paraquat over concerns longer-term exposure could be linked to Parkinson’s disease.

Why is Australia so dependent on this chemical? As our recent research shows, the reasons are simple. Generic imported paraquat is cheap and effective, and there are few alternatives given the way we currently farm. Ironically, paraquat is largely imported from China, where its domestic use is banned.

How did Australia get here?

For broadacre Australian farmers who grow crops such as wheat, oats, chickpeas, canola and soybeans, paraquat is an essential tool. It is used to kill broadleaf and grassy weeds on no-till farms. No-till practices have been widely adopted in Australia to minimise soil disturbance, but require chemical weed control.

Paraquat also works on weeds that have become resistant to other major herbicides, such as glyphosate. Farmers often use these two herbicides together to effectively manage weeds.

This reliance is partly due to developments in the pesticide industry (a term covering herbicides, insecticides and fungicides). Until recently, this industry was dominated by large multinational European and American companies who sold patented (more expensive) and off-patent products.

But in the last two decades, Chinese manufacturers have ramped up cheap generic products. The global industry is now dominated by Chinese state-owned and private enterprises producing off-patent and far cheaper pesticides.

Tax rebates and other government incentives have helped companies such as Rainbow, Wynca, Adama, Yangnong and Syngenta China to become the world’s leading agrochemical companies. In 2006, Australia imported around 10% of its pesticides (by value) from China; by 2025 that figure was almost 50%.

The rise in generic pesticides has led to more product availability. The 2015 China-Australia Free Trade Agreement removed tariffs on pesticide imports, making imports easier. Australia’s regulatory agency doesn’t require a full assessment to register new products with approved active ingredients.

As a result, there are now 121 products containing paraquat registered in Australia, sold under names such as Rainquat, Gramoxone and Spraytop. While individual supply chains are difficult to trace, our research shows the chemicals in these products appear to be almost exclusively produced in China. The two leading agricultural chemical retailers in Australia, Nutrien and Elders, now have their own low-cost generic labels, sourcing generic formulations from China.

As one of the interviewees for our research told us: “there are less and less commercially attractive options outside of China these days… when I was in the business 20 years ago, we had a lot of material coming out of Europe. There’s almost nothing in Australia that comes out of Europe.”

What would happen if paraquat was banned?

Prior to the APVMA’s announcement, many Australian farmers and agronomists were worried about a total ban on paraquat given the lack of readily available, affordable and effective replacement herbicides.

If paraquat was off the table, Australian farmers would have had to rely more heavily on non-chemical strategies, such as rotating crops and growing crops more densely to crowd out weeds.

A change like this would likely cause significant short-term disruption as farmers grapple with how to make it work. It could reduce yield and make food more expensive, though a lot of these crops are produced for export.

With heightened attention on the APVMA’s decision, now is a chance to rethink our deep dependence on pesticides to grow our food – especially those which can severely damage our health.

It is worth thinking about how we could farm without paraquat. Supplies of cheap, generic chemicals are not guaranteed. Chinese authorities have been reducing production volume in recent years. When faced with external crises, Chinese authorities tighten fertiliser export controls to protect Chinese farmers from price rises. They could decide to do the same for pesticides.

For now paraquat will continue to be used on Australian farms. But with an uncertain future, it is worth figuring out how we can best farm without it.

Sarah Rogers, Associate Professor of Geography, The University of Melbourne; Sonia Graham, Future Fellow in Human Geography, University of Wollongong, and Zoe Ju-Han Wang, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, James Cook University

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

The honeybee mite, Varroa destructor, finally breached Australia’s biosecurity defences four years ago, and is here to stay. Even more concerning, our standard treatments – such as specialised pesticides – are already failing.

What does this mean for Australians, and what can we do about it?

Roughly the size of a pinhead, the parasitic mite is regarded as the most destructive pest of honeybees worldwide. It feeds on bees, weakening colonies and causing their collapse.

For decades, Australia was the only continent free of the mite. That changed in 2022, when Varroa was detected in sentinel hives at the Port of Newcastle, New South Wales.

An ambitious eradication campaign was launched, but abandoned by 2023. Today, Varroa is established across much of Australia’s eastern and southern states. The focus has shifted from eradication to management, and we now face a new threat – treatment-resistant mites.

Varroa is more than just a beekeeping problem. Managed honeybees underpin a significant portion of Australian agriculture, contributing about A$14 billion annually. More than 30% of food production depends on pollination from bees. When bee colonies collapse, the effects ripple through food production, farm profitability and ultimately food prices.

Native pollinators also play an important role, but they cannot fully replace managed honeybees for many large-scale crops.

This makes the health of honeybee populations critical to both food security and biodiversity.

Chemical control is under pressure

Controlling Varroa is costly and labour intensive for both commercial and backyard beekeepers. Current strategies rely heavily on chemical miticides – a type of pesticide engineered to control mites. These fall into two broad groups.

“Hard” miticides, such as formamidines (amitraz or Apivar) and pyrethroids (Bayvarol), are synthetic chemicals designed to kill mites quickly. “Soft” miticides, including formic acid, oxalic acid and thymol, are naturally derived compounds that tend to linger less in the environment.

While these treatments can suppress mite populations, they’re not a long-term solution. Varroa is well known to evolve resistance, and pyrethroid- and amitraz-resistant Varroa mites have already been found in Australia less than four years after the mite’s arrival.

A new generation of pest control

As conventional treatments falter, researchers are exploring new technologies. One of the most promising is RNA interference, or RNAi. RNA is a molecule found in all living organisms that helps control how genes are expressed.

RNAi is a natural process where small RNA fragments “switch off” specific genes, blocking the production of essential proteins the pests need to survive. The RNA fragments can be delivered to bees via sugar syrup. This then gets distributed through the hive and Varroa are exposed either by feeding or absorption.

RNAi pesticides are designed to be species specific, meaning they’re unlikely to cause harm to other organisms. This makes them more desirable than chemical pesticides that can have widespread effects on beneficial insects, the environment and even human health if not applied correctly.

RNAi treatments are also unlikely to give rise to genetic resistance. This is because resistance usually involves single-point changes in the gene sequence, while these treatments target larger gene segments. RNAi is also exceptionally safe because it don’t linger in the environment as much as a chemical pesticide might.

Furthermore, RNAi doesn’t create genetically modified organisms, because the RNA fragments don’t become part of the host genome.

Not just theoretical

RNAi pesticides are no longer theoretical. In 2025, the United States approved the first RNAi-based Varroa treatment, marketed as Norroa. This product targets a gene essential for mite reproduction, effectively acting as a form of “birth control” that reduces population growth within hives.

However, Norroa has its limitations. Because it suppresses reproduction rather than killing mites outright, it’s most effective when mite numbers are low. In heavily infested colonies, it can’t reduce populations quickly enough to prevent collapse.

Research is now focused on making RNAi more effective and adaptable. One key question is which genes to target. Many current research approaches focus on “housekeeping” genes – ones essential to mite biology and therefore survival. But these are often similar across species, raising the risk the treatment could kill other species we don’t want to wipe out.

Our research group is exploring an alternative strategy to target genes involved in the mite nervous system or muscles. These are the same systems affected by existing miticides, but RNAi would provide greater specificity.

A pest like no other

Varroa is the latest in a long line of invasive pests to reach Australia. But its impact is unusually far-reaching, touching agriculture, ecosystems and food supply.

The situation is already serious. Beekeepers are facing rising costs for miticides (which may or may not work) and hive losses, and treatment options are narrowing.

Yet there is also a window of opportunity, and Australia can still take proactive steps to manage Varroa effectively. Norroa and similar emerging RNAi treatments are not yet available for use in Australia, and would need to receive approval from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA).

Investment in research, including next-generation tools like RNAi, will be critical. So too will be coordinated management strategies, monitoring, and support for beekeepers adapting to this new reality.

The alarm bells are ringing. But with the right mix of innovation and action, we still have a chance to protect Australia’s bees and safeguard this billion-dollar industry.

Kate Mounsey, Associate Professor and Program Coordinator, Biomedical Science, University of the Sunshine Coast; Lucy R Miles, Higher Degree by Research PhD Student, Novel Biopesticides, University of the Sunshine Coast; Robert J Harvey, Professor of Pathophysiology, Associate Dean (Research) School of Health, University of the Sunshine Coast, and Roy Barkan, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Health, University of the Sunshine Coast

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

When we think of bees, we often think of flowers. The more flowers the better, right? Well, not exactly. Like us, bees need to consume specific nutrients in suitable amounts and combinations.

So, the mere presence of flowers doesn’t necessarily mean the bees are getting nutritionally adequate food.

This matters because climate change is altering both the quantity and nutritional composition of pollen and nectar. At the same time, what nutrition the bees need is likely shifting, too. This creates rapidly moving goalposts – it’s increasingly difficult for bees to find and consume the right nutrients they need to reproduce, develop and survive.

In our new paper published in Current Opinion in Insect Science, we argue these changes are unlikely to affect all bees equally. Currently, most of what we know about bee nutrition comes from highly social species such as honeybees or bumblebees.

Yet most bees, including many native Australian species, are solitary or communal (group living but with no queens and workers). They might experience the nutritional landscape and nutritional stress in very different ways.

Understanding these differences is crucial for predicting which bees are most vulnerable under climate change.

Not all bees will encounter nutritional stress

One way to better understand vulnerability to nutritional stress is to think about the traits that shape how different bees interact with their environments. These include:

• how far they can forage
• how flexible their diets are
• whether they live alone or in groups
• how large those groups tend to be.

These traits can influence whether bees even encounter nutritional stress in the first place.

For example, a species with a large foraging range and a broad diet might live in a nutritionally poor landscape, but still be able to travel far enough, or combine pollen from different flowers, to meet its nutritional requirements. In contrast, species with narrower diets or shorter foraging ranges might have fewer opportunities to balance their diets.

Native stingless bees, such as Tetragonula carbonaria, generally forage over shorter distances than honeybees. This could make them more dependent on the nutritional quality of nearby flowers and more vulnerable to a changing climate.

Living in a group may help a little

Once nutritional stress occurs, other traits will determine how this stress is buffered and absorbed.

T. carbonaria, for instance, live in colonies with workers that collect food and share resources. This kind of social organisation can buffer short-term changes in the environment. Even if their foraging range is small, and one floral resource declines for a season, a colony might be able to shift foraging effort, draw on stored resources, or distribute food among nestmates and brood.

But despite potential buffering, poor nutrition can still impact social species. This can show up as fewer offspring, slower colony growth, smaller workers, weaker immunity, or reduced ability to cope with other stressors, such as heat or pesticides.

Solitary bees might have fewer safety nets

Solitary bees, by contrast, will likely face different problems when it comes to nutritional stress. Many native bees, such as blue banded bees (Amegilla chlorocyanea, pictured below), don’t benefit from the support of a colony.

A single female must find a nest, collect pollen, lay eggs and provide food for her offspring. Under predictable conditions, this can be a very effective way of interacting with the environment.

However, if the right flowers are missing, bloom too late, or produce pollen containing different nutrients to what the bee has evolved to expect, the effects could be more immediate: fewer nests, smaller offspring, fewer daughters and lower chance of survival.

In these species, the condition of one female can shape the next generation, so poor nutrition might lead to rapid population declines. This means the timing and quality of floral resources are likely to be especially important for many of our native bees.

How we can help our native bees

To accurately predict how species respond to climate change, future studies will need to connect floral nutrition with bee performance in real landscapes. Most importantly, we need to include a diverse range of bees with different social lives and traits in these studies.

For now, there are still practical steps we can take to support our native bees at home. Rather than simply planting more flowers, we need to be more deliberate about what we plant.

Native plants are of course important, but we should plant them in diverse mixes, to account for variability in nutritional availability and timing.

The same applies to nesting habitats. Many native bees will not use a hive or a bee hotel. Some need bare or lightly disturbed ground; others use stems, wood or existing cavities.

So avoid the urge to over-manage every patch of ground – leave some bare earth and dead branching stems in your roses and other plants. This will make your garden or landscape more useful to more bees, so we can help support them in this rapidly changing world.

Brooke Zanco, Postdoctoral Researcher, The Pollinator Futures Research Centre, Macquarie University and Carmen da Silva, Macquarie University Research Fellow, The Pollinator Futures Research Centre, Macquarie University

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

Australia is home to unusual mammals not found anywhere else – consider the platypus, Tasmanian devil or the red kangaroo.

But did you know our understanding of this continent’s incredible mammalian diversity is still incomplete?

We have discovered a new species in one of Australia’s cutest and fiercest mammal groups: planigales. And we also unearthed a second new planigale species, from a 100-year-old specimen held in a Swedish museum.

In the past five years alone, there have been 20 new mammals added to Australia’s mammal species list. So how is it we are still discovering new species of mammals in the 21st century? Let me explain.

Tiny, ferocious marsupials

But first, what is a planigale?

Planigales are the world’s smallest marsupials. Some species weigh just over two grams (the same as a couple of paper clips) and are about half the size of a house mouse.

With flattened heads, planigales can squeeze themselves into cracks and crevices to hide from predators and extreme weather conditions. They are tiny but fearsome predators that emerge at night to hunt for insects, spiders and vertebrates, such as small lizards and even young mammals. They generally live in varied habitats that overlay cracking clay soils in central and northern Australia.

Because planigales are so small, with subtly varying shades of brown fur, they are very difficult to tell apart. They are also difficult to catch, weighing so little that conventional small metal box traps are often not effective. We have to dig holes called “pitfall” traps instead. Most species live in remote areas, so it has been difficult to understand their diversity until now.

New mammal species awaiting discovery

There are several reasons we are still discovering new mammals in Australia.

First, many mammal species have suffered declining populations, and are now very difficult to find. Also, we are using more advanced technologies to help us tell mammals apart, including sophisticated genetic methods.

But over time, perhaps what has changed most is the amount of information we can draw on. Museum collections hold more than 200 years of specimens and data — an irreplaceable scientific record that helps us recognise species we may no longer detect in nature.

It was through studies of marsupial genetics we first realised the number of planigales in Australia was likely an underestimate.

A small number of genetic samples we previously studied suggested there were probably undescribed species of planigales in Australia. But we needed to gather more samples to work out exactly where they lived.

To do this, we partnered with organisations that survey for mammals in remote Australia, such as Australian Wildlife Conservancy, and pored over museum collections for extra genetic samples. This way, we gathered hundreds of genetic samples of planigales and were finally able to work out if there were more species in this group.

A planigale hiding among the rocks

In 2017, a genetic study first identified a unique planigale found in Kakadu National Park, in the Northern Territory. These results were based on only two genetic samples from preserved specimens held in the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.

We exhaustively checked more than 2000 planigale specimens held in Australian museums and found a single specimen that matched the existing two. It was in the Queensland Museum, collected during the 1970s.

These three planigale specimens, two males and one female, are genetically distinct from all other planigale species and have their own unique appearance. They are large (well, for a planigale) with dark grizzled fur and a very long tail – longer than other planigale species.

And they were found in an unusual location, on top of a rocky plateau. Most other species of planigales tend to live in swampy habitats, or areas with heavy clay soils.

These factors confirmed we were dealing with a new species. We described it [https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlag082] as the Arnhem plateau planigale, Planigale petrophila (meaning “rock-lover”). Since it is only known from three specimens, we urgently need to do more work to determine whether it is rare or under threat of extinction.

But wait, there’s more

And that’s not all. During our study, we found specimens thought to represent a known species, Planigale ingrami, in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, were genetically distinct from those in the NT, Queensland and South Australia, even though they looked very similar.

This genetic information indicated these specimens were a “cryptic” species – something that can be identified by genetics but is difficult to tell apart based on appearance alone. By consulting historical research papers, we found these Kimberley planigales were in fact already described more than 100 years ago from a specimen collected in Australia that ended up in Sweden. With help from curators at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, we were able to confirm this old specimen matched the new ones from the Western Australian Museum.

We have called this the Kimberley planigale –Planigale subtilissima– as most of its range occurs in the Kimberley. Unlike the Arnhem plateau planigale, Kimberley planigales have been detected frequently by Australian Wildlife Conservancy and partners on recent surveys, so there is less concern for their future.

From five to nine species

Our work has so far added four new species of planigales to Australia, as we had previously identified the orange-headed Pilbara planigale and the cracking-clay Pilbara planigale.

This has increased the diversity of this group of tiny mammals in Australia to eight species in total, with an extra one known in Papua New Guinea.

It makes you wonder – how many more planigales and other mammals are out there waiting to be recognised?

This work would not have been possible without the help of my colleagues Linette Umbrello (WA Museum), Kenny Travouillon (WA Museum), Mike Westerman (La Trobe University), Mark Blacket (Agriculture Victoria), Skye Cameron (Australian Wildlife Conservancy) and Eridani Mulder (formerly Australian Wildlife Conservancy), and funding from the Australian Biological Resources Study and the Queensland University of Technology.

Andrew M. Baker, Associate Professor in Ecology and Environmental Science, Queensland University of Technology

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

For decades, the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin have been heavily regulated by dams and irrigation networks. As a result, the volume of water entering the ocean is about 60% smaller than 100 years ago. But nature broke through during massive floods over the summer of 2022–23, when heavy rains filled the Basin’s waterways.

The threshold for a flood on the Murray is when the daily water flow at the Victoria-South Australian border reaches 50 gigalitres a day. This flood reached 168 gigalitres a day – the largest in 66 years. A colossal plume of muddy floodwater reached 40 kilometres out from the Murray mouth into the Southern Indian Ocean.

For marine creatures, this was a dramatic event. What did it do to their ecosystems? To find out, we compared marine animals living directly inside the flood plume with those living further away in normal saltwater.

Our new research found the flood delivered a burst of nutrients into the ocean. We estimate more than 200,000 tonnes of organic carbon were carried out to sea between July 2022 to June 2023 – 29 times more than the same period in 2020–21.

This organic carbon came from the Basin’s rivers and their floodplains, and included large numbers of common carp. Millions of juvenile carp — a highly destructive, invasive freshwater fish — were flushed into the open sea.

Because carp cannot survive in saltwater, they perished en masse. Dead carp piled up on local beaches at astonishing densities of up to 7 kilograms per square metre. In marine rock pools more than 20km from the river mouth, we saw the local crab species such as the purple mottled shore crab and the reef crab having a field day.

How the river fed the sea

These nutrients from the Murray provided a substantial boost to the middle of the ocean food chain. Scavengers such as crabs, and smaller fish such as yellow-eye mullet, were the main beneficiaries. They were feeding on scraps of organic matter, including dead carp, washed in from the Murray River.

We estimate a whopping 35% of the tissues of these animals came from the organic matter carried by the flood in the months afterwards.

Australasian snapper also benefited. These slow-growing larger fish frequently swam in and out of the flood zones. They preyed on smaller fish and crustaceans that had been eating food rich in nutrients from the flood. This means the floodwaters gave snapper and other predators a longer-term boost, effectively storing more of the land and river nutrients in the ocean food web.

How to trace nutrients from a flood

It’s not easy to trace what happens to nutrients from a river once they wash into the ocean. But it can be done.

Every environment has a unique chemical fingerprint, which is reflected inside the tissues of its animals. When nutrients from rivers arrive, they impart part of this fingerprint to the residents of the ocean who eat them – you are what you eat.

We can detect this by testing the muscles of marine animals for these fingerprints.

Ocean water has a uniform sulfur signature. But the crabs we caught inside the flood plume had a very different sulfur signature, which meant they were eating land and river-based food (the carp).

Crabs usually scavenge detritus without much food value. But the crabs inside the flood plume had a heavily enriched nitrogen signature – another sign they had switched to eating dead carp. The crabs had effectively been bumped up a level on the food chain.

Did the nutrient pulse fuel the algal bloom?

In March 2025, a large and long-lasting harmful algal bloom developed off the coast of South Australia. The bloom killed many different marine species in large numbers.

Could the nutrient pulse from floodwaters have fuelled it? The bloom has been linked to a marine heatwave and nutrient-rich seasonal upwelling currents. The 2022–23 Murray River floods have also been proposed as a potential contributor. But this connection remains speculative because of the lag time of 18–24 months and a lack of continuous data collection.

Better monitoring after floods would help us understand whether there is a link.

Rivers matter to the sea

We can see floods not as a waste of water, but as a restoration of longstanding connections between ecosystems disrupted by human control of the river. Our research shows the benefits of these flood events aren’t restricted to land and river ecosystems – they give a major boost to surrounding oceans as well.

Floods are important for the long-term health and resilience of our coastal ecosystems and fisheries, though more research is necessary to fully understand these connections.

Paul McInerney, Principal Research Scientist in Ecosystem Ecology, CSIRO; Brenton Zampatti, Principal Research Scientist in Aquatic Ecology, CSIRO, and Darren Giling, Senior Research Scientist in Aquatic Ecology, CSIRO

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

It is only June, and Europe is already baking through its second extreme heatwave in two months. Temperatures have topped 44 degrees Celsius in parts of the continent. Heat alerts are now in place for several countries, with six at the most severe red level.

France placed 72 of its 96 departments under red alert, and at least 40 people have drowned trying to escape the heat.

In Spain, temperatures peaked at 45.1°C, with 101 heat-related deaths in May alone, the highest ever recorded for the month.

The UK broke its all-time June temperature record. Cities are closing schools, power grids are buckling, and hospitals are reporting a surge in heat-related emergencies.

None of this should have been a surprise. Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at roughly twice the global average, and scientists have been warning for decades that human-made climate change would make extreme heat more frequent and more severe. Current projections expect the next five years to shatter even more records, making this the “new normal”.

The summers European residents grew up with no longer exist, and extreme heat is no longer an anomaly, but the new baseline. This means the question now is no longer whether extreme heat will return, but whether European cities can survive it.

A climate disaster that isn’t treated like one

Extreme heat kills more Europeans than any other climate hazard.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), over 175,000 people die every year from heat-related causes across the continent.

Despite the numbers, extreme temperatures have not been treated with the same urgency as other disasters, such as storms, wildfires, or floods. Most governments are still improvising, and there is no coordinated response to extreme heat, as it is still treated as a weather inconvenience rather than a life-threatening hazard.

However, this framing is starting to shift. At COP30, the United Nations office for Disaster Risk Reduction (NDRR) launched a new Extreme Heat Risk Governance Framework. It formally recognised extreme heat as one of the most deadly and least managed climate threats. Although this framework is a step forward, decades of fragmented policies, short-term crisis thinking, and chronic underinvestment in public services have left Europe dangerously exposed.

As a result, every summer that passes without meaningful progress is another summer that will cost lives.

Europe is not built for this

A recent report by the UK’s Climate Change Committee argued that the country is built for a climate that no longer exists, warning that temperatures exceeding 40°C are becoming increasingly common. The same could be said of virtually every European country. Cities were designed for a different era with concrete roads, pavements, and buildings that absorb and trap heat rather than deflect it, turning urban areas into furnaces that run four to six degrees warmer than their surroundings.

Some cities are already responding. For instance, Paris has pledged to plant 170,000 trees in public spaces, and Marseille is depaving historic plazas and mapping shaded walking routes.

Other countries are also taking action by replacing standard pavement with cool surfaces and reflective road paint, rethinking building codes, and redesigning public spaces with passive cooling in mind. However, none of it touches the underlying problem. Europe is still largely powered by fossil fuels, and its food systems, housing and transport networks all carry a heavy carbon cost.

The EU’s greenhouse gas footprint amounts to around 9 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per person per year, well above the global average of roughly 5 tonnes.

Progress is being made, but not fast enough. Train travel is still more expensive than flying on many routes, building codes still allow new construction that will soon be uninhabitable, and cooling centres, shaded public corridors, and proactive outreach to elderly people living alone remain the exception rather than the rule.

Heat action plans exist in some cities, but few are legally binding, and fewer still have the budgets to match their ambitions.

Individual action matters, but it cannot substitute for the systemic changes that only governments and institutions can deliver. Eating less meat or flying less makes a difference at scale, but the clock will not stop running unless emissions are cut at the source.

Adaptation and mitigation need to happen together, and neither can wait.

The window is narrowing

The EU is preparing a climate resilience strategy due at the end of 2026, which is expected to introduce legally binding rules and monitoring tools to coordinate action across member states. It is a step in the right direction. But as this week’s heatwave has made clear, the gap between what is being planned and what is already happening on the ground is widening fast.

The question is not just how to respond to the next heatwave, but how to govern, finance, and rebuild for a continent that is already living in a different future.

A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter!

Júlia de Freitas Sampaio, Postdoctoral researcher, University of Luxembourg

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

American farmers are expected to plant several million fewer acres of corn in 2026 than they did in 2025, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz throttles a key fertilizer trading corridor, along with the energy and raw materials needed to produce and transport fertilizer.

The closure is disrupting deliveries of about one-third of the world’s traded agricultural fertilizers. Fertilizer prices are rising, and farmers worldwide are cutting back on fertilizer use or shifting to less fertilizer-intensive crops.

Corn is one of the most fertilizer-intensive and widely grown crops in the United States, but the disruption extends far beyond a single crop or a single nation.

These changes are often discussed as a threat to global food supplies – and they are.

But as researchers who study agricultural nutrient cycles and nutrient pollution of our waterways, we suspect that the picture is more complicated, and in some ways more hopeful, than the headlines suggest.

That is because decades of farmers using more fertilizer than they needed have quietly built up large reserves of nutrients in the soil, which crops can draw on, even when farmers aren’t applying fertilizer. Indeed, research has shown that in highly intensive agricultural systems, fertilizer application can be cut substantially with little to no effect on crop yields.

A legacy of overuse

For decades, farmers in the United States and around the world have steadily increased the amount of fertilizer they use, seeking to produce enough crops to feed a growing population. Despite several years of encouragement to apply less, farmers consistently apply more nitrogen and phosphorus than their crops actually need, our research suggests.

The nutrients that are not taken up by plants accumulate in soils, providing large stores of nitrogen and phosphorus long after they were first applied. They also leach into groundwater or run off into rivers and lakes, driving dangerous algal blooms, coastal dead zones and greenhouse gas emissions.

But in the current crisis, they may also serve an unexpected purpose.

Latent nutrients in the ground

As shortages and price hikes force farmers to use less fertilizer, crops may be able to draw on legacy nutrient reserves already in the ground.

Our analysis of phosphorus use across U.S. croplands found that in parts of the central Midwest and livestock-dominated regions in the East, soil phosphorus reserves are large enough to maintain crop production levels without as much new fertilizer.

In these nutrient-saturated systems, reductions in fertilizer applications can lower costs and reduce environmental losses without proportionately reducing production. Applying less also means fewer nutrients running off into rivers and streams.

Nutrient distribution

The current shortage may also help shift where farmers find fertilizer.

Livestock produce manure that is high in both nitrogen and phosphorus, which makes excellent fertilizer. It can even be processed into a slurry with an even richer mixture of nutrients in anaerobic digesters, which generate electricity as a byproduct of their chemical reactions.

Processing more manure in digesters, and delivering that slurry to crop farmers, could reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign fertilizer supplies.

The limits of resilience

The details are important. Not every farm or field has enough leftover nutrients to maintain yields with less fertilizer, and the buffers that do exist in some fields will not last indefinitely. In parts of the world where the soil is low in nutrients, such as regions of sub-Saharan Africa, improving access to fertilizers remains essential for increasing food production and supporting livelihoods.

In places where nutrients have accumulated over decades of intensive use, the soil may serve as a buffer against losses in yield, at least for some amount of time, though exactly how much will vary with each field. The current growing season may provide opportunities to discover how strong that buffer is, and whether reducing fertilizer applications improves downstream water quality.

Kimberly Van Meter, Associate Professor of Geography, Penn State and Nandita Basu, Professor and Tier I Canada Research Chair of Global Water Sustainability and Ecohydrology, University of Waterloo

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

When the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool turned green with algae just days after a US$15 million renovation, the U.S. government scrambled for chemicals and expensive technical solutions to fix the iconic landmark.

Trying to kill algae with chemicals is a common response when community ponds or other water features go green. But as a scientist who studies freshwater ecology, I can tell you there are better solutions that cost far less, last longer and carry less risk of harm to pets and wildlife.

Rather than battling against nature, these alternatives work with nature for long-term solutions.

What went wrong on the National Mall

The algal bloom that turned the Reflecting Pool a vibrant green shouldn’t have been a surprise.

The pool is big, more than a third of a mile long and around 165 feet wide. But it’s shallow, meaning it warms up quickly in the sun. When it was repainted “American flag blue” during the renovations in spring 2026, the new color darkened the pool, and darker colors absorb more heat.

On top of those conditions, the pool was refilled with water from the nutrient-rich tidal basin of the Potomac River. The combination of warm water and nutrients created prime conditions for algae to bloom, turning the water pea soup green.

As the national conversation over the Reflecting Pool shifts to political finger-pointing, an important environmental question deserves careful scrutiny: What is the best approach to maintain water quality in a case like this, whether for a national monument or a community water feature or pond?

Trying to chemically or mechanically remove algae can damage the structure of a water feature and may harm species in the water that could actually help solve the problem.

Importantly, chemical and mechanical solutions are only temporary fixes. When the Reflecting Pool is drained and filled again, there’s a good chance that algae will bloom again.

Natural algae control

Limnologists – scientists like me who study inland water bodies – have spent many decades learning why lakes and ponds turn green and how to clear them up.

Often, nutrient-rich waters fueled by fertilizer runoff from farm fields or sewage from cities are the sources that stimulate algal growth.

However, natural ponds also host grazing zooplankton, which eat algae. For example, a type of zooplankton called Daphnia, known as water fleas because of the way these tiny crustaceans swim, can control algae by consuming it before it becomes a pea soup nuisance. Thus, a thriving Daphnia population can help maintain good water quality in a lake, pond or community water feature, even when nutrient levels spike.

In addition to being highly effective grazers, Daphnia have another superpower – they can evolve rapidly. Urban waterbodies are often harsh environments with a variety of challenges, including high temperatures, low levels of dissolved oxygen, and pollutants. Daphnia can adapt to tough conditions, making these creatures an ideal source of algae control in many urban ponds.

Rooted aquatic plants are also useful for algae control in ponds because they absorb nutrients. Thus, shallow ponds with thick beds of aquatic plants can often resist algal blooms when nutrient levels rise.

Why draining might not be the best solution

One downside to draining and refilling a pond or urban water feature to try to clean it is that doing so resets the aquatic ecosystem, erasing the signature of any past evolution that has taken place.

Imagine Daphnia in a shallow pond that experiences periodic heat waves throughout the summer. Through repeated exposure to high temperatures, natural selection favors heat-resistant genotypes that can thrive in an urban pond.

Daphnia and other grazing zooplankton can also evolve resistance to some types of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, which produce compounds that are toxic to people and pets. Daphnia that evolve resistance to those toxins can help control harmful cyanobacterial blooms.

If a Daphnia population that evolved to tolerate warm temperatures, low oxygen levels or cyanotoxins is removed, the new population likely won’t be ready to handle those local challenges. This evolutionarily naive population will perform poorly in its new environment, reducing its effectiveness at controlling algal blooms.

As a result, traditional mechanical and chemical approaches may actually work against the goal of minimizing algae in ponds and other water features.

Nature-based solutions

The use of Daphnia to control algal blooms is just one example of solving environmental challenges with nature-based solutions.

Growing urban forests to provide cooling and improve air quality to help reduce the need for more energy-intensive air conditioning is another example. Maintaining urban wetlands can help reduce flooding, protect property and recharge groundwater more effectively and for less money than building and maintaining levees. Coastal marshes similarly reduce erosion, buffer storm surges and support fisheries.

All these urban ecosystems protect biodiversity and support human health and well-being.

From national landmarks to city parks and backyard ponds, projects of all sizes can take advantage of nature-based solutions. While each specific project is unique, some general principles apply.

Ecosystems are most resilient when they are diverse and connected. So, it is beneficial to use a variety of species and genotypes and provide corridors that support the movement of organisms and their beneficial genes.

Urban climates are changing rapidly, so it helps to use species and genotypes that will thrive under future conditions, including rising temperatures.

Not every solution has to be engineered

The hubbub over the Reflecting Pool holds a mirror up to assumptions about how to solve pressing environmental challenges. The idea of just engineering one’s way out of any environmental crisis has limits.

Understanding ecology and nature’s mechanisms of ecosystem resilience can achieve sustainable solutions that benefit both nature and people.

Eric Palkovacs, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz

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

Growing evidence suggests that excessive outdoor lighting at night may be harming wildlife.

For generations, rural communities worked to the rhythms of daylight and darkness. Today, the amount of harsh light switched on at nightime is having profound consequences for many living things.

Agricultural properties are often remote and vulnerable to equipment or livestock theft. In response, many landowners have now installed security floodlights, powerful halogen beams, and unshielded external LEDs to illuminate yards overnight.

The North York Moors National Park, an international dark sky reserve in the north of England, has been working with farmers to reduce the impact of artificial light on the natural environment.

The initiative is about ensuring that lighting is used in the right place, at the right time, and at the appropriate intensity. This might involve installing downward-facing fixtures, reducing glare through shielding, or switching to warmer-coloured lighting that is less disruptive to wildlife.

The best places to start trying to reduce bright nighttime lights are those rich in wildlife, and farms in the park are often in the darkest areas.

Since 2021, the national park has worked with more than twenty farms in key dark sky locations, with many more projects in development.

Carefully designed lighting systems can use shielded or motion-activated lighting, which reduce impact on wildlife.

How does it affect the environment?

Over-illumination disrupts complex regional ecosystems, extending daylight artificially and changing the behaviour of animals that depend on natural darkness. Research suggests that light pollution caused by humans, harms ecosystems because of the critical role light has on the timing of biological systems, which artificial light disrupts.

The damage extends from the soil upward. Scientific research indicates that pressures on ecosystems due to habitat loss, pesticides, invasive species and light pollution could create a devastating decline in the insect population, with a knock-on effect on the food chain.

Benefits for farms?

There’s also evidence that suggests that changing lighting could help farms. This light disruption affects crucial agricultural allies. Moths, which serve as vital nocturnal pollinators, are heavily affected, alongside bats facing shrinking feeding grounds. Bats can help farmers control insect pests.

Artificial light exposure also alters vital plant cycles, for instance, and light at night can affect plant growth.

Small changes, such as switching to down-facing lights, can lead to significant environmental improvements.

Changing lighting around farms could also open up new tourism opportunities. Farms that also operate as B&Bs, for instance, can flag to tourists that they are part of a dark skies friendly community programme. This is an accreditation scheme for businesses that improve their lighting systems in accordance with international dark sky standards.

While UK national park authorities have powers to enforce planning restrictions on lighting, in places outside national parks, the UK lacks a comprehensive national regulatory framework to govern rural skyscapes.

The lesson in North Yorkshire and beyond is not that farms should switch off their lights. It is that lighting can be used responsibly to contribute to the stewardship of one of the countryside’s most valuable resources: the natural night sky.

Jenny Hall, Associate Professor in Tourism and Events, York St John University and Brendan Paddison, Professor of Tourism Geographies, York St John University

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

Larger areas contain more species. This is one of the most ironclad laws of ecology, which explains why large natural areas usually receive higher priority in conservation strategies. In fragmented landscapes, this logic has also led small forest fragments to be seen as environments of lower value for biodiversity.

But would it be possible to increase the number of species in a forest fragment without increasing its size?

Our study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that this is possible. When the surrounding landscape is favourable and more helpful, small forest fragments can support far more bird species than would be expected based solely on their size.

Fragmented forest landscapes

Forest landscapes modified by human activities are composed of forest fragments of different sizes surrounded by other types of environments. Collectively this is called the matrix. This matrix can be terrestrial, such as cattle pastures, crops and urban areas, or aquatic, such as hydroelectric reservoirs.

In addition to the matrix, the surroundings of the fragments may also include arborescent vegetation (a type of vegetation made up of scattered trees and/or tree-like shrubs and ferns), riparian (riverside) forests, and nearby fragments. Together, the matrix and the different types of vegetation form the surrounding landscape of forest fragments.

The contribution of the surrounding landscape

To understand the role of the surrounding landscape, we compiled data from nearly 2,000 bird species recorded in more than 1,000 tropical and subtropical forest remnants distributed across 50 landscapes in 17 countries in the Americas, Africa and Asia. The study compared forest fragments surrounded by terrestrial matrices modified by cattle ranching, agriculture and urbanisation with forest islands formed by hydroelectric reservoirs.

Reservoir islands represent an extreme fragmentation scenario due to the ecological hostility of the matrix. By comparing them with forest fragments surrounded by land-based matrices, we were able to measure how much changing the matrix (from water to land) can increase the number of bird species in forests of the same size.

Using satellite imagery, we also calculated the amount of tree-like vegetation surrounding forest remnants at different distances ranging from 50 to 2,000 metres. This allowed us to identify how far from the forest the increase in tree-like vegetation makes its greatest contribution to bird species.

Improving the surrounding, increasing biodiversity

Fragments surrounded by terrestrial matrices had more species than reservoir islands. This difference in species number increases as fragment area decreases. For example, a one-hectare forest fragment may contain more than twice as many species as islands of the same size.

The amount of tree-like vegetation surrounding forest remnants also matters. In both fragments and islands, more trees in the surrounding landscape — especially within a 300-metre radius — meant fewer local extinctions. The benefit is even greater for forest-dependent birds, which are the most sensitive to forest fragmentation.

How species perceive the environment

Birds living in forest fragments do not necessarily stay within these spaces. The greater the amount of tree-like vegetation in the surroundings, the more species can move between fragments and feed on resources available in the matrix, such as insects and flower nectar.

But the ability of birds to fly does not necessarily ensure free movement through the matrix and between neighbouring forest areas. Some species adapted to living under the shaded forest environment tend to avoid exposure to open environments. In addition, many species move through the forest interior without the need for long flights. Therefore, even dirt roads can limit bird movement between neighbouring fragments.

Bird movement across the landscape is important. If certain species become locally extinct in one forest fragment, they may one day arrive from another fragment. For this recolonisation process to occur, two conditions are necessary: species must be able to cross the matrix, and there must be nearby fragments or vegetation along the way, such as scattered trees and forests along riverbanks that facilitate movement between more distant fragments.

Surrounding landscape is more important for smaller fragments

In large fragments, species find enough food, shelter, and space to survive. In small fragments, however, space and resources may be insufficient to sustain several bird populations. But when birds can use resources outside the fragment and reach other forest areas, they begin to use an area larger than the fragment’s boundaries. This is why small fragments with a favourable surrounding landscape can support more species.

And most forest fragments are small. Fragmented forest landscapes in tropical and subtropical regions are overwhelmingly composed of small fragments. In the Atlantic forest of South America, 80% of forest fragments are smaller than 5 hectares. This means that biodiversity depends on a favourable surrounding landscape to ensure its survival in the small forests that remain.

Implications for conservation

Small increases in the number of trees and tree-like vegetation within a 300-metre radius of fragments can significantly reduce species loss. This means that local actions can generate real gains for biodiversity: planting trees, restoring riverside forests, recovering degraded areas, and expanding agroforestry systems — such as coffee and cocoa plantations — can make productive landscapes more favourable to wildlife.

In a world where natural habitats continue to shrink, this is a message of hope.

Protecting forests and other natural habitats is and will continue to be the central strategy for biodiversity conservation. However, our study shows that conservation does not need to stop at forest boundaries. By combining forest protection with improvements to the surrounding landscape, we can increase the conservation value of forest fragments, especially small ones, which are by far the most common in landscapes modified by human activities.

Size is crucial, but it is not everything: what lies outside the forest fragment also determines how many species live inside it.

Anderson Saldanha Bueno, Professor, Instituto Federal Farroupilha (IFFar); Carlos A. Peres, Professor of Tropical Conservation Ecology, University of East Anglia, and Chase Mendenhall, Conservation Scientist

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

Most people know that heat waves can be dangerous. What they may not realize is that the heat indoors can be much worse than outdoors.

When the power goes out and air conditioning stops, a house starts to function like a greenhouse. Heat enters through windows and walls and has nowhere to go. Air stagnates.

Within hours, indoor temperatures can climb well above what the thermometer shows outside, especially on upper floors and in rooms with south-facing windows. Over longer periods, especially if temperatures don’t cool off overnight, conditions can become lethal.

Most heat-related deaths occur indoors. When a heat dome sent temperatures soaring in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, 98% of the more than 600 deaths in British Columbia happened inside homes. Washington and Oregon also saw high numbers of deaths in homes that lacked air conditioning.

In Europe, where only 1 in 10 households have air conditioning, heat waves killed an estimated 60,000 people in 2022 and 47,000 in 2023, largely inside buildings never designed for these temperatures.

People of all ages are at risk in heat waves like these. I spent eight years at the University of Texas at Austin studying how buildings respond to extreme heat. In a recent study, my team assessed the heat risk in every single-family home in Austin.

We found that even younger, healthy adults face far more risk than they realize.

How hot is too hot for a human body?

Your body maintains a core temperature of about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius). To cool down, it pushes blood to the skin and sweats. But when air temperature is high, that convective cooling weakens. When humidity is also high, sweat cannot evaporate.

If the body has no way to release heat, core temperature rises. If the core temperature increases past about 104 F (40 C), the body’s thermoregulation starts to fail. Past 109 F (42.8 C), death becomes likely.

What makes indoor heat especially dangerous is that it does not let up at night in homes that lack air conditioning. Outdoor temperatures typically drop after sunset, and someone outside can get a few hours of recovery. But a poorly insulated home that has been absorbing heat all day releases that heat slowly, keeping indoor temperatures elevated through the night. A person inside the home never gets a break.

After two or three nights of this, even healthy people start to be at serious risk for heat-related illnesses.

Why homes heat up more than people expect

People tend to underestimate indoor heat for a few reasons.

One is that the thermostat typically sits on one wall in one room. It does not tell what the temperature is in an upstairs bedroom or near a sun-facing window. In older, underinsulated homes, the actual felt temperature can exceed 90 F (32.2 C) even when a thermostat reads 75 F (23.9 C). The hot walls, ceilings and windows can radiate heat directly onto your body.

Another reason is that people assume all homes respond to heat the same way. However, a newer home with double-pane windows and good insulation acts like a thermos, keeping heat out for a longer time. An older home with single-pane windows and cracks in the walls heats up fast.

Two houses on the same street, exposed to the same outdoor conditions, can have completely different temperatures inside. And in a blackout, where neither home has cooling, those differences can become a matter of life and death.

What we found in Austin

Our study combined two datasets. From Austin’s tax appraisal records, we pulled basic property information, such as the year the home was built, the size and the number of stories for each of the city’s 213,000 single-family homes. We then matched each home to the most similar energy simulation models in a U.S. Department of Energy database that contains thousands of detailed, physics-based building energy models representing the U.S. residential building stock.

Using those models, we simulated each building’s indoor temperatures over time during a three-day heat wave and power outage with outdoor temperatures above 110 F (43 C).

We found that 85% of homes got hot enough to pose a significant risk of death for an elderly occupant. But what surprised us was the risk to younger people.

Under today’s climate conditions in Austin, about 15% of homes already have the potential to get hot enough without air conditioning to pose serious heat risks to healthy adults. Under future warming scenarios, that number jumps to as high as 65% if average summer highs reach 104 F (40 C). Further, climate projections for Austin show that heat waves will double in frequency by the end of the century.

We found three types of buildings and accompanying risks:

• Resilient homes, which are newer and well insulated, tended to have temperature and humidity conditions that would be survivable for an elderly occupant throughout the simulated heat wave with blackout.

• Critical-risk buildings, which are mostly older homes, became dangerous almost immediately.

• And then there was the middle group – homes where temperatures rose slowly during the simulated blackout, day by day, possibly giving occupants a false sense of security until it was too late.

Texas has already seen conditions like our case study’s – a heat wave paired with a power outage. In 2024, a derecho knocked out power for nearly 900,000 Houston households while the heat index climbed to 100 F (37.8 C). Seven weeks later, Hurricane Beryl cut power to 2.6 million homes, leaving them without power for over three days, with temperatures over 90 F (32.2 C).

What you can do to stay safe

If you can’t get cooling at home, there are steps you can take that can help.

Move to the lowest floor of your home, where it will be coolest. Close the blinds and curtains on sun-facing windows. Drink water constantly to stay hydrated, which is essential for regulating body temperature.

If you’re facing a blackout, be sure to also check on elderly neighbors, especially those living alone. You can also try to find a public cooling center; many cities now open them during heat emergencies.

Longer term, upgrades such as reflective window film, attic insulation and lighter-colored roofing can reduce how much a home heats up. After the 2021 heat dome, British Columbia’s coroner recommended updating building codes to address heat.

Our own findings point in the same direction: We propose that new homes should be required by building codes to maintain conditions in which at least light physical activity remains possible for all occupants for at least 72 hours during a power outage.

As summers get hotter with climate change and blackouts become more frequent, the risks of people suffering heat illnesses will only continue to rise.

Zoltan Nagy, Professor of Building Services, Eindhoven University of Technology

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

Heat is no longer a future climate risk. It is already here.

Across continents, high temperatures are being pushed higher by forces acting at once: human-caused warming, very warm oceans, dry soils, slow-moving high-pressure weather systems and El Niño conditions that have now developed in the tropical Pacific.

El Niño is a natural warming of part of the tropical Pacific that can shift weather patterns around the world. It is not the cause of climate change, but when it develops in a climate already warmed by greenhouse gas pollution, it can add another push to global temperatures and regional extremes.

The science is clear. Greenhouse gases have raised the baseline, so heatwaves now begin from a warmer starting point. Record ocean heat adds more energy to the climate system. Dry ground can intensify heat, because less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporating water from soil and plants, and more goes into heating the air.

Weather patterns decide where that heat lands. A “heat dome” happens when a high-pressure system settles over a region. Air sinks, clouds are suppressed and temperatures can climb for days. The danger grows when nights remain hot, because bodies, buildings and infrastructure get little chance to cool.

El Niño’s effects vary by region and season, so it will not explain every heatwave in 2026. But it is now being added to long-term warming, and that combination can raise the risk of more extreme heat, drought or heavy rainfall in some regions, including parts of Asia, Australia and the Americas.

In the UK, Kew Gardens reached 35.1°C in late May, provisionally breaking the national May temperature record for the second day in a row. The previous record, before the 2026 heat, was 32.8°C, reached in 1922 and 1944.

Elsewhere, the same pattern is visible. Spring 2026 was the hottest spring recorded in France since records began in 1900. In the United States, March 2026 was the warmest March on record for the contiguous US (the lower 48 states). India’s meteorological service issued an extended heatwave outlook into early July for parts of northern, central and eastern India, while China’s National Climate Center has forecast above-normal summer temperatures, especially in southern China and Xinjiang in the north west. In Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales have just had one of their ten warmest autumns on record.

Heat kills

Heat often kills without leaving obvious damage behind: it pushes bodies past what they can tolerate.

High temperatures can cause dehydration, strain the heart, worsen kidney disease and aggravate respiratory illness. Heat can also affect mental health and increase distress. Older people, babies, people with chronic illness, outdoor workers and those living alone are among those at higher risk.

Hot nights make heatwaves more dangerous because the body has less chance to recover. Research has linked high nighttime temperatures with increased heat-related deaths. In an overheated bedroom, care home or hospital ward, strain can continue for hours.

The death toll from heat is large, but often underestimated because heat may worsen existing illness rather than appear as the sole cause of death. A 2025 European analysis estimated 62,775 heat-related deaths in Europe in 2024 alone. The Lancet Countdown reports that heat-related deaths among older people have risen sharply, and that hundreds of thousands of people now die globally each year from heat.

Heat also puts pressure on the systems people rely on. Hospitals fill faster. Care homes become harder to cool. Rail lines buckle. Roads soften. Rivers warm and water quality declines. Electricity demand rises as people use fans and air-conditioning, while low river flows can affect water quality and supply. A power cut can disrupt cooling, transport, water systems, shops, hospitals and communications.

What helps during a heatwave

People can reduce risk, especially if they act before they feel ill.

Cool the body early: drink water regularly, use shade, take cool showers and put wet cloths on the skin. People who have been told to restrict fluids because of heart failure, kidney disease or another medical condition should follow medical advice about how much to drink.

Avoid being outside in the hottest part of the day where possible. Outdoor workers, athletes and people who travel on foot need particular protection.

Keep homes cooler before they overheat. Close curtains or blinds during the day, especially on windows facing the sun. Open windows after sunset if it is cooler outside than inside. Sleep in the coolest room available.

Check on people at higher risk. Do they have water, shade, medication, a way to get help and somewhere cooler to go if home becomes unsafe?

Take official warnings seriously. Follow heat-health alerts, local weather warnings and public health advice. Have a simple plan for medicines, transport, pets, food, drinking water and somewhere cooler to go if needed.

Seek urgent medical help if someone becomes confused, faints, has a seizure, collapses, has very hot skin, has a very high temperature, or does not improve after being moved somewhere cooler and cooled down.

Inequality and infrastructure

Personal precautions save lives, but they cannot make unsafe housing safe, cool a badly ventilated care home or protect outdoor workers without changes to working conditions.

Heat risk is shaped by inequality. People without trees, insulation, ventilation, secure work, clean water or affordable energy are less able to avoid exposure, cool their homes or recover after extreme heat. The same pattern applies between countries: communities that have contributed least to climate change are often disproportionately affected, because they have fewer resources for adaptation, healthcare, infrastructure and disaster response.

Adapting to heat has to be collective: cooler housing, shaded streets, heat-resilient hospitals, reliable water systems, worker protections, public cooling spaces and early warning systems that reach the people who need them.

Heat and drought are increasingly linked emergencies. Heat increases demand for water and electricity. Drought can reduce supply. Together, they can create failures across health, transport, food, water and energy. Water, health, energy and climate planning need to be connected, because stress in one system can quickly spread to another.

The next heatwave will be reported as weather. It should also be understood as a test of housing, healthcare, infrastructure and public protection. A hotter world is already here. The question now is how many heat-related deaths and system failures governments are prepared to accept as normal.

Ian Williams, Professor of Applied Environmental Science, University of Southampton

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

The Caspian Sea, the largest inland body of water on Earth, is shrinking. Not fluctuating, not entering another natural cycle, but shrinking.

For decades, scientists and policymakers treated changes in the Caspian as part of the basin’s natural variability. Water levels in the sea have always risen and fallen.

But our new study shows something far more troubling: the current decline is increasingly driven by human decisions to dam and divert rivers, and by fragmented decision-making across five countries that border this body of water.

Using satellite observations together with ground-based hydrological records from rivers across all five shoreline states (Iran, Russia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan), we found that flow into the Caspian Sea has declined sharply over the past three decades.

The main reason is not declining rainfall. In fact, rain over the Volga Basin, which supplies roughly 80% of the Caspian’s inflow, has slightly increased. That finding matters because it overturns one of the most common assumptions surrounding the Caspian crisis. The common narrative has been straightforward: climate change increases evaporation, rainfall declines, and the sea shrinks.

Climate change certainly plays a role: our analysis confirms that evaporation across the Caspian has increased significantly as regional temperatures rise. But evaporation alone explains only about 40% of the observed water loss since the mid-1990s.

The remaining decline points overwhelmingly toward human activity. The Volga River has been heavily engineered for decades. Dams, reservoirs, use for irrigation, industrial consumption and navigation systems have fundamentally altered the hydrology of the basin).

Water that once flowed naturally into the Caspian is increasingly intercepted upstream. One critical but rarely discussed example is the Volga–Don canal system, which links the Caspian basin to the Black Sea through Russia’s internal waterways. Geopolitically and economically, the canal is strategically valuable. But it diverts water away from the Caspian system.

The cumulative effect is now visible from space. Since the mid-1990s, the Caspian Sea has lost roughly 24,000km² of surface area, an area approaching the size of Sicily. Water levels have fallen by about two metres.

The shallow northern Caspian, ecologically one of the most productive parts of the sea, is drying particularly rapidly. This matters because the northern Caspian is not empty water. It is a critical ecological zone supporting fisheries, wetlands, migratory birds and spawning grounds for sturgeon, the ancient fish species that produce most of the world’s caviar.

Threats to shipping

As water retreats, ecological stress intensifies. Our study also detected a long-term rise in chlorophyll-a concentrations in the northern Caspian, a key indicator of algal activity and declining water quality. In plain terms, the sea is becoming warmer, shallower and increasingly nutrient-rich: ideal conditions for harmful algal blooms.

This is not merely an environmental story. The Caspian region sits at the centre of major energy and trade corridors linking Europe and Asia). Russia’s north-south transport routes and China’s international development plan, the Belt and Road Initiative, plus offshore oil infrastructure and regional shipping networks all depend on the Caspian remaining navigable and stable.

Falling water levels threaten ports, shipping lanes and coastal infrastructure. Declining depths reduce cargo capacity and increase transport costs. What appears initially as an environmental issue gradually becomes an economic constraint.

The Caspian Sea region

Political problems

Then there is the political dimension. Unlike oceans, inland seas cannot rely on global circulation to buffer local mismanagement. Their survival depends directly on the behaviour of neighbouring states. And the Caspian is surrounded by countries with competing strategic interests, uneven governance systems and limited transparency over their water use.

That fragmentation has become one of the greatest risks facing the sea. Although regional agreements exist, including the 2018 Aktau Convention (formally the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea), there is still no comprehensive and enforceable system governing water allocation, hydrological monitoring or ecological protection across the basin. Data sharing remains limited. Water withdrawals are often opaque. Environmental management is fragmented.

This resembles a pattern seen repeatedly across modern environmental crises: governments prefer to discuss climate change because it externalises responsibility. It allows leaders to portray ecological decline as an unavoidable planetary process.

But the Caspian story is more uncomfortable than that. It is also a story about political choices. Rivers were dammed. Water was diverted. Wetlands were degraded. Pollution controls remained weak. Oil and gas development expanded while ecological safeguards lagged behind. Economic growth consistently outranked hydrological sustainability.

The danger is not simply that the Caspian shrinks, but that ecological thresholds may be crossed – beyond which, recovery becomes extraordinarily difficult.

The Aral Sea, the world’s fourth largest lake, demonstrated how quickly collapse can accelerate once a chain reaction begins. Exposed lakebeds generate dust storms. Fisheries collapse. Salinity rises. Biodiversity crashes. Local climates shift. Economic systems unravel around the drying basin.

The Caspian has not yet reached that stage – but the warning signs are becoming increasingly visible.

There is still time to slow the trajectory. However, doing so would require something historically rare in the region: long-term coordination that prioritises hydrological stability – safeguarding the sea’s natural water balance and keeping water levels from dropping past a dangerous point of ecological collapse – over short-term extraction and geopolitical competition.

This would mean transparent water accounting – the open tracking and sharing of data on exactly how much water each nation is pulling from the feeding rivers for agriculture and industry. It would mean negotiated environmental flow releases from upstream reservoirs, and recognition that the Caspian is not simply an energy corridor or a shipping route, but a fragile water system.

Nature eventually imposes consequences on societies that ignore those limits. The Caspian Sea is beginning to deliver that message.

Nima Shokri, Executive Co-Director, Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), United Nations University; Technical University of Hamburg and Amir AghaKouchak, Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine

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

When colleagues and I found microplastics in hedgehog droppings, we wanted to know where they were coming from. One answer was surprisingly close to home: pet food.

The story began in 2021, when we collected 189 hedgehog faeces samples from residential gardens and rehabilitation centres across the UK. We found plastic in 19% of them. Despite being one of Britain’s best-loved wild animals, and now officially listed as “near threatened”, no one knew hedgehogs were ingesting microplastics.

To understand where these microplastics were coming from we decided to investigate their diet. Naturally, the European hedgehog eats invertebrates, including beetles, snails, slugs, earthworms, caterpillars and woodlice, so we started by looking at these. Colleagues and I analysed thousands of invertebrate and soil samples from 51 sites in Sussex, UK. We found plastics were widespread across different species and land types.

Next, we wanted to understand if pet foods fed to European hedgehogs in rehabilitation centres and residential gardens contained microplastics. In the UK, many rehabilitation centres treat a high number of sick or injured mammals each year.

Research suggests that food left out by people is the single biggest reason European hedgehogs visit residential gardens. Many hedgehogs have even become reliant on it, especially during the autumn and winter.

Often, this means commercially available cat, dog, or hedgehog food. To determine the levels of plastic contamination in pet foods colleagues and I selected 38 brands to test across different price categories, food types (wet and dry), and target animals (cat, dog, and wild hedgehog). We purchased six retail units of each product and took a random 1g sample from each tin, sachet, tray, or bag. Our study was recently published in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

We found microplastics in 29 of the 38 pet food products we tested. In 18 products, contamination appeared in more than one retail unit. Although plastic was found across the products tested, those in the “value” price category had more positive samples.

Dry food contained more plastic per gram, but animals typically eat much larger portions of wet food. As a result, wet food may lead to greater overall microplastic intake. For example, based on the average levels we found in wet dog food samples, a large dog such as a Labrador could ingest around 313 microplastic particles per day.

Compared with studies of human food, we found that pet food had higher levels of microplastics. This is likely due to ingredient quality. For example, of the 21 products which contained animal derivatives, 19 had at least one plastic-positive sample, and 13 had at least two.

What does this mean for pets and wildlife?

All this suggests that pet foods may be an important source of microplastics for pets and wild hedgehogs (and other mammals).

We still know relatively little about the health effects of microplastics in pets and wildlife, and we did not test the health impacts in our research. However, there is a growing body of evidence from laboratory studies that it leads to issues with fertility, organ functionality, and overall health.

Given both this uncertainty and how common these particles were in the pet food we tested, reducing contamination at the manufacturing stage would be a good precaution.

That’s why the government should mandate microplastic testing for processed food manufacturers, bringing them under the same strict regulatory safety checks used for other chemical contaminants. As consumers, we should be able to purchase affordable food that is good for our pets and wild mammals, while not causing a detrimental effect on the environment.

Emily Thrift, PhD Candidate and Doctoral Tutor in Ecology, University of Sussex

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

A young mother remains in hospital after being bitten by a shark at Coogee beach in Sydney on Saturday morning. Leah Stewart, 35, was swimming about 30 metres offshore when the shark – believed to be a three to four metre great white shark – struck.

In the wake of this tragic incident, there have been renewed calls for a shark cull to be launched. Federal Liberal Party president Tony Abbott, for example, said:

It’s so wrong that we don’t cull sharks after attacks. It’s so wrong that we don’t have a commercial shark fishery given the explosion of shark numbers, and it’s so wrong that we don’t put people before sharks.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has since said his government is actively considering a cull of bull sharks, in response to a surge in bull shark bites over summer.

So is the number of shark bites really increasing and is it because shark numbers are exploding? What does the research say about the effectiveness of culling? And what other measures could keep ocean users safe?

Rising numbers of shark bites

Shark bites have increased in Australia and globally over the past four decades (although they are still very rare).

The exploding number of sharks is often mentioned to explain this trend.

Many species of sharks are threatened globally. But Australia has many protections in place and relatively well-managed fisheries that support the recovery of vulnerable species, such as the great white shark, and which prevent the decline of species which are threatened in other countries, such as the bull shark.

But it’s unlikely that the recovery of the great white shark or reduced fishing pressure can alone explain the rise in shark bites.

Last year colleagues and I published a study on the factors influencing the number of shark bites. We found 40 factors suggested to affect shark-bite risk. These included human population growth, habitat modification and destruction, declining water quality, climate change and anomalous weather patterns, and changes to the distribution and abundance of sharks and their prey.

However, the relatively infrequent occurrence of such events reduces our ability to determine which of these factors explain the increase in shark bites the most. It is likely to be due to a combination of these factors.

Do shark culls work?

There are many ways to reduce the risk of shark bites. Shark culls are the most controversial.

Some research has suggested culling sharks has reduced the rate of interactions with humans in certain locations. However, other studies have highlighted no changes in bite rates after large culling programs were implemented.

The efficacy of culling varies between species and regions, and the number of sharks needed to be culled is unknown but is likely to be high before it starts affecting shark-bite risk.

While you could argue that even culling one shark reduces risk, that shark might never have bitten humans, so culling that shark does not impact the number of shark bites. This problem is best illustrated by the shark control program in Hawaii in the 1960s and 1970s, during which 4,668 tiger sharks were killed but there were no resulting changes in the rate of shark bites.

What about other measures?

Shark nets aim to catch potentially dangerous sharks close to popular swimming areas. However, this method can also kill non-dangerous sharks and a range of other marine animals such as rays, turtles and dolphins. There is also little evidence to show shark nets keep people safe.

There are a range of other area-based mitigation measures that are designed to minimise impact on the marine ecosystem, and for which efficacy has been reviewed. These include using drones to observe sharks, SMART drumlines (which intercept sharks close to shore and allow authorities to tag and then safely relocate them), and shark listening stations that detect the presence of a tagged shark.

Many studies show that early-warning systems using drones can detect sharks and quickly enable the evacuation of beaches, while SMART drumlines intercept sharks with the capture leading to sharks leaving the area upon release.

So, what now?

So, what should we use to reduce shark-bite risk? This question should be considered from both an efficacy and ethical perspective.

Culling might theoretically reduce risk. But we have no idea of how many sharks need to be culled to reduce the number of bites. As the experience of Hawaii shows, culling may see thousands of sharks killed without improvements in public safety. It would also have significant impacts on marine ecosystems.

It makes far more sense to invest more in non-lethal measures such as drone surveillance, as the evidence shows these measures reduce shark-bite risk and are preferred by the public.

But all the measures discussed so far are only part of the arsenal available to reduce the risk of sharks bites. They can be complemented with personal deterrents, which can reduce the risk of shark bites by 60% (even when sharks are motivated and in a predatory mode), bite-resistant materials that can reduce the risk of serious injury, and improved first aid training and education.

There’s no silver bullet in terms of completely eliminating the risk of shark bites (aside from well-maintained swimming enclosures), but as shark numbers recover, so could the number of bites without adequate mitigation measures. A combination of area-based measures, personal deterrents, injury-reduction material, and education would be most efficient at reducing risk and the consequences of shark bites, so people can continue to enjoy that coastal lifestyle that Australia is so famous for.

The author would like to acknowledge the contribution of Laura Ryan and Nathan Hart from Macquarie University to this article

Charlie Huveneers, Professor, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University

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

Whales and dolphins inhabit some of the largest and seemingly most pristine environments on Earth, from tropical coastlines to Antarctic waters. Yet even they cannot escape PFAS – persistent “forever chemicals” that leak from our homes, factories and waterways into the sea.

Forever chemicals are the secret ingredients in our non-stick pans, waterproof jackets and stain-resistant carpets. These chemicals belong to a group of more than 1,400 compounds known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). They enter the environment through manufacturing waste, industrial runoff, wastewater treatment plants and firefighting foams. But once these chemicals escape our homes and factories, they become almost impossible to get rid of. Washed into waterways, they make their way to the sea.

Small organisms absorb them from the water, fish eat those organisms and larger predators eat the fish. At each step, the chemical load increases. As top predators, whales and dolphins can end up with very high levels in their bodies. Not even deep-diving species living and feeding far from humans are safe.

In our new research, we found PFAS concentrations in cetaceans have increased globally since 2000. Animals in the Pacific Ocean were the most contaminated, with humpback dolphins showing the highest PFAS concentrations.

These mammals are sentinels of ocean health. They sit high in the food web, live for many years and are exposed to pollution across large areas of the ocean. When whales and dolphins show signs of chemical exposure, it tells us something is wrong in the wider marine ecosystem.

Why are we worried about forever chemicals?

Many of these chemicals have been in use for decades. Their sheer durability and ability to resist heat, oil and water make them very useful.

Scientists have grown increasingly concerned about them because they persist for decades and build up over time in our own bodies, as well as in wildlife and the broader environment.

The key concern is what these chemicals may be doing to the animals that accumulate them.

Research in humans and laboratory animals links PFAS to immune suppression, hormonal changes, reproductive problems and developmental effects. But we don’t yet have enough research to understand how different PFAS compounds and levels of exposure affect health.

Understanding these impacts in whales and dolphins is harder still. Marine mammals are long-lived, highly mobile and exposed to many human-made problems at once, from climate change to noise pollution to other contaminants.

Even so, there are warning signs. Some dolphin studies have reported changes in immune-related markers associated with PFAS exposure.

How do you test a whale for forever chemicals?

For humans, testing PFAS levels is usually done with a blood test. It is not as simple for whales and dolphins.

It is extremely difficult to take blood samples from large marine mammals in the wild. Scientists often rely on tissue samples from dead animals, particularly from the liver and kidney where many PFAS compounds tend to accumulate. These samples are analysed in specialised laboratories capable of detecting tiny concentrations of individual PFAS compounds.

This way, scientists have been measuring PFAS in whales and dolphins for decades. Each study added another piece to the puzzle, showing these chemicals were present in different species, populations and oceans.

Our study took a step back and looked at the global picture.

We compiled PFAS data from cetaceans worldwide, focusing on liver samples because they are the most commonly available tissue type, allowing us to compare studies across species and regions.

What did we find?

We found PFAS contamination differed substantially across species, location, sex, age and time.

The highest concentrations tended to be found in coastal dolphins and porpoises, suggesting animals living near urban and industrial areas face greater exposure.

Cetaceans in the Pacific had higher levels than other oceans. This is likely due to high industrial activity and the extent of historical PFAS production in coastal regions.

Female whales and dolphins can transfer forever chemicals during pregnancy and nursing. This means their calves can be exposed to concerning levels of PFAS at a very early age.

Males often end up with higher levels than females overall, as they cannot transfer these chemicals to their young.

There are some large gaps in the global dataset we collated, which means we don’t fully know the extent of PFAS contamination in cetaceans off India, Indonesia and parts of Africa.

What should we do?

While important questions remain about the effects of forever chemicals on whales and dolphins, the widespread contamination we observed is a real concern. We need to continue monitoring while strengthening regulations and working to reduce PFAS flows into the environment.

History shows global action on harmful chemicals works. After it became clear Earth’s protective ozone layer was being eaten away, nations agreed to phase out the chemicals responsible. The ozone layer is now recovering.

The European Union moved to ban some PFAS compounds 20 years ago. Our study found lower levels of some legacy PFAS compounds in the Mediterranean Sea, a pattern that may reflect the effects of regulation. This is positive, but not sufficient given overall PFAS levels in whales and dolphins have increased globally over time. The EU is now moving to better regulate this class of forever chemicals.

Forever chemicals are one of the defining pollution challenges of our time. The more we understand how these chemicals accumulate in whales and dolphins, the better equipped we will be to reduce future contamination and protect marine ecosystems.

What ends up in the ocean does not simply disappear. And neither do PFAS.

This article is based on collaborative research that also included Lavinia Stokes (University of Wollongong), Jesuina de Araujo (National Measurement Institute) and Gavin Stevenson (National Measurement Institute).

Katharina J. Peters, Lecturer in Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong; Frédérik Saltré, Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Biogeography, University of Technology Sydney; Australian Museum, and Karen Stockin, Professor of Marine Ecology, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

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

After months of anticipation, the Bureau of Meteorology officially declared an El Niño on June 16.

El Niño is a naturally occurring variation in temperature and winds across the Pacific Ocean that can influence weather around the globe.

During El Niño, sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific warm up and trade winds – which typically blow from east to west along the equator – weaken. As a result, a region of strong storm activity known as the Walker Circulation shifts east over the Pacific Ocean, drawing moisture and clouds away from Australia.

Past El Niño events have coincided with some of the driest and hottest weather in Australian history.

Making El Niño official

El Niño events occur about every three to seven years, and can last anywhere from six months to two years. They typically ramp up in winter and spring, before easing in autumn.

The likelihood of El Niño has been in the news for months, but the Bureau of Meteorology only just officially declared it active. That’s because there is a specific set of criteria that must be met.

Scientists must observe at least three of the following:

1. Sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean must be greater than 0.8°C above average

2. The trade winds that blow east to west across the Pacific have to be weaker than average for the past four months

3. The Southern Oscillation Index, which measures the difference in atmospheric pressure between Tahiti and Darwin, must be lower than -7. This tells us whether the region of strong storm activity is closer to Darwin or Tahiti

4. The majority of global seasonal forecasting models must predict that ocean temperatures in the Pacific will stay warm for at least three months.

What does this mean for Australia?

Importantly, an El Niño declaration is not a forecast. Rather, it’s a statement on the current conditions in the Pacific Ocean.

On average, past El Niño events were associated with warmer than normal maximum temperatures across Australia, particularly in winter and spring. They were also linked to drier than average winter and spring conditions, especially in eastern Australia.

Western Australia is not as affected by El Niño because, particularly compared to eastern states, it’s only indirectly influenced by Pacific Ocean conditions. The north of the country, however, tends to experience fewer tropical cyclones on average and a delayed start to the monsoon season during El Niño.

It may seem counterintuitive, but El Niño can lead to colder minimum temperatures and therefore more frost. This is because we tend to see less cloud cover during El Niño, and nighttime clouds act like a blanket that stops heat from escaping to space.

However, global average temperatures tend to be hotter during El Niño. And we often see record breaking years coinciding with El Niño.

It’s worth noting, human-made greenhouse gas emissions are the main driver of rising global average temperatures. However, El Niño can tip these temperatures to record breaking levels.

Why are people talking about a ‘super El Niño’?

You may have seen reports of a potential “Super El Niño”. A “super” or “strong” El Niño refers to events where the sea surface temperatures in the Central Pacific Ocean are about 2°C warmer than normal.

As of June 14, the sea surface temperatures in this region were 0.92°C above average. However, forecasting models suggest temperatures could exceed the 2°C threshold by late winter.

However, a “super El Niño” will not necessarily lead to “super droughts” or “super bushfires”. That’s because, in Australia, the strength of an El Niño event is not related to the severity of its impacts.

The 2002 El Niño event was weak, but was still associated with widespread drought and severe bushfires in some parts of Australia. In contrast, the strong El Niño of 2015 affected rainfall patterns differently across the country.

El Niño is not the whole story

El Niño is just one ingredient in the recipe of Australian weather.

Our weather is influenced by El Niño in the Pacific Ocean as well as the Indian Ocean Dipole, sometimes known as El Niño’s cousin to the west. Australia’s weather is also shaped by shifts in the jet stream to the south – which impacts how many cold fronts reach Australia – and tropical storms in the north.

Now that El Niño has been declared, scientists will keep a close eye on what happens in the Indian Ocean. If waters off Australia’s northwest cool over winter, the rest of the year may be quite dry. But if the waters off northwest Australia get warmer, it’s less likely a drought will develop.

In short, many factors must coincide to cause severe droughts and bushfires in Australia. Currently, this is not happening. So the Bureau’s long-range forecast – which considers all these factors as well as El Niño – offers the most accurate information about Australia’s ever-changing weather.

Kimberley Reid, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne

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

It’s official: El Niño is back. By late fall 2026, forecast models give a 2-in-3 chance of a strong-to-very strong El Niño affecting the weather, climate and ocean temperatures across the planet.

El Niño is the climate system’s biggest player and one side of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It’s the heads to La Niña’s tails.

During El Niño, a swath of ocean stretching 6,000 miles (about 10,000 kilometers) westward off the coast of Ecuador warms for months on end, typically by 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1 to 2 degrees Celsius). A few degrees may not seem like much, but in that part of the world, it’s more than enough to completely reorganize wind, rainfall and temperature patterns all over the planet.

I’m a climate scientist who studies the oceans. With an El Niño expected to strengthen through the summer and fall, water temperatures will heat up even more. It’s time to start preparing.

How does El Niño affect the planet?

No two El Niño events are exactly alike, though we’ve seen enough of them that forecasters have a pretty good idea of what’s likely to happen.

People tend to focus on El Niño’s impact on land, justifiably. The warm water affects air currents that leave areas wetter or drier than usual. It can ramp up storms in some areas, like the southern U.S., while tending to tamp down Atlantic hurricane activity.

El Niño can also wreak havoc on the many marine ecosystems that support the world’s fishing industries, including coral reefs and seagrass meadows.

Specifically, El Niño tends to trigger intense and widespread periods of extreme ocean warming known as marine heat waves.

Global ocean temperatures are already near record highs, so El Niño-induced marine heat waves could push many sensitive fisheries to a breaking point.

What is a marine heat wave?

A marine heat wave is just that: a “wave” of extreme heat in the ocean, not dissimilar to an atmospheric heat wave on land.

At their smallest, marine heat waves can inundate local bays and coves with hotter-than-normal water for a few days or weeks. At their largest, marine heat waves like the Northeast Pacific Warm Blob of 2013-2014 can grow to gargantuan proportions, with regions three times the size of Texas experiencing ocean temperatures 4 to 6 F (about 2 to 3 C) above average for months or even years.

Warm water might not seem like a big deal, especially to surfers hoping to leave their wetsuits at home. But for many marine organisms that are highly adapted to specific water temperatures, marine heat waves can make living in the ocean feel like running a marathon.

For example, some fish increase their metabolism in warm waters by so much that they burn energy faster than they can eat, and they can die. Pacific cod declined by 70% in the Gulf of Alaska in response to a marine heat wave. Other impacts include bleached corals, widespread harmful algal blooms, decimated seaweeds and increased marine mammal strandings. All told, billions of U.S. dollars are lost to marine heat waves each year.

Marine heat waves flare up for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, ocean currents shift warm water around. Sometimes, surface winds are weaker than normal, leading to less evaporation over the ocean and warmer waters. Sometimes, cloudy places just aren’t as cloudy for a few months, which lets more sunlight in and heats up the ocean. Sometimes, both weaker winds and fewer clouds happen at the same time, producing record-breaking marine heat waves.

How does El Niño fit in?

In the climate system, El Niño is king. When it dons its fiery crown, the entire planet takes notice, and the oceans are no exception. But the likelihood of increased marine heat wave activity during El Niño depends on where you are.

Along the U.S. West Coast during El Niño, surface winds that normally blow from the north tend to subside. This weakens evaporation and slows upwelling of colder, deeper water. That increases the chances of coastal marine heat waves. California waters are already extremely warm. El Niño could make things even hotter for longer.

Peruvian fishers have for centuries weathered periods of extreme ocean warming that drive fish away. It wasn’t until the 1920s that scientists realized that these South American marine heat waves were related to the Pacific-wide ENSO.

In the Bay of Bengal east of India, interactions between El Niño and a tropical air flow pattern known as the Walker Circulation elevate the risk for marine heat waves.

Seafloor heat waves are another risk

Even if marine heat waves aren’t obvious at the ocean surface, that doesn’t mean all is well down below.

In a 2023 study, my colleagues and I showed that marine heat waves also unfold along the seafloor of coastal regions. In fact, these “bottom marine heat waves” are sometimes more intense than their surface counterparts. They can also persist much longer. For example, a 1997-1998 bottom marine heat wave off the U.S. West Coast lasted an extra four to five months after surface ocean temperatures had already cooled.

Events like this can be related to El Niño and put a lot of stress on bottom-dwelling species. Bering Sea snow crab landings were down 84% in 2018 after a marine heat wave reached the seafloor.

We’re in (for) hot water

With El Niño on the horizon, what can we expect for this year?

The good news is seasonal forecast models can skillfully predict marine heat waves three to six months in advance, depending on the region. And forecasts tend to be most accurate during El Niño years.

The latest forecast predicts several marine heat waves developing as El Niño ramps up, with damaging heat reaching close to half the global ocean by the end of 2026. The California and Mexican coasts in particular have a very high likelihood of strong marine heat waves, and the Indian Ocean and parts of the Southern Ocean are also likely to see damaging heat.

These predictions are far enough out that conditions could change. Time will tell whether they hold (hot) water, but we would do well to prepare.

This article incorporates details from an article originally published April 18, 2023.

Dillon Amaya, Climate Research Scientist, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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

There is a more than 60% chance that a “super” El Niño will develop by the end of this year.

This is defined as the strongest El Niño event you can get, and happens when sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean rise by more than 2°C. During a super El Niño, the ocean gives off extra heat into the air, which helps raise global temperatures. Because climate change is already warming the planet, a super El Niño could push global temperatures to the highest levels ever recorded.

El Niño conditions have already begun this year, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While El Niño is a natural phenomenom, climate change means that El Niños are becoming stronger and more frequent.

Hotter sea surface temperatures could spell big problems for marine wildlife and fisheries alike. As the oceans warm, they become more layered, leading to warm, nutrient-poor water sitting on the surface, and cooler, nutrient-rich water trapped below. This layering makes it harder for nutrients to rise to the surface. As a result, there are fewer nutrients available for phytoplankton, the tiny plants that form the base of the marine food chain.

With less phytoplankton in the oceans, there is less food for zooplankton (drifting animals that eat phytoplankton), fish and larger animals including seabirds and marine mammals. This is even more pronounced for the tropical eastern Pacific. The Humboldt current usually brings cold, nutrient-rich water up to the surface, creating one of the most productive marine regions on Earth. But this current is disrupted and overwhelmed during an El Niño. This rich ecosystem supports both wildlife and important fisheries, making it one of the most biologically and economically important ocean regions in the world.

Dramatic effects on fisheries

Strong El Niño events are known to seriously affect Peruvian anchoveta stocks (Engraulis ringens). The super El Niño led a 55% decline in catch in 1972 and 51% on 1973, leading to severe economic hardship. The collapse was driven by El Niño combined with high fishing pressure, as fleets continued trying to maintain catch rates despite rapidly declining stocks. This forced government intervention in the fishery.

The Peruvian anchoveta (Engraulis ringens) is the basis of the world’s largest single-species fishing area, worth an estimated US$1-3 billion (£74.5 million-£2 billion) each year. Globally, this fishery accounts for about 20% of all fishmeal production, which in turn provides roughly half of the feed used in global aquaculture. This makes the species not only vital for Peru’s economy, but also essential for supporting fish farming and food production worldwide.

Reduced fishing quotas

These days El Niño conditions lead to reduced quotas and fishery closures. The anchovy fishery is currently closed due to El Niño. This has led to record-high fishmeal prices (US$2,500 per tonne) which will make aquaculture food more expensive and lead to higher fish farming costs globally.

While the Peruvian anchoveta fishery is perhaps one of the most severely effected and well-documented fisheries in response to El Niño, other fisheries across the globe are also affected by these changing ocean conditions. Along the Californian coast, squid landings plummet during El Niño years. Similarly, in the Indian Ocean, tuna catches appear to be at their lowest after a strong El Niño. Not all fish stocks decline, and some have been shown to increase in response to warmer temperatures. Declining and altered fish stocks during El Niño have been shown to lead to increased fish “wars” between countries in the South China Sea, as fishermen follow migrating fish stocks into other countries economic zones.

Dying coral reefs

El Niño can also have a major impact on marine habitats. One of the most widely recognised effects is on coral reefs, with warmer marine temperatures triggering bleaching, causing corals to expel the microscopic algae they rely on for energy, and in some cases die. During El Niño years, widespread bleaching becomes common across the tropical Pacific, Indian Ocean, south-east Asia and north-east Australia, highlighting the ripple effect of El Niño.

The recent 2023-24 El Niño triggered unprecedented heat stress across the globe, with extensive mortality documented in many countries (for instance Mexico, Australia and Costa Rica).

But it is not just coral reefs that are at risk. In the Galapagos Islands, seaweed and coral habitats have disappeared, or are extremely degraded, due to sensitivity to El Niño. Similarly, mangroves have suffered mortality in Australia, while in California, kelp populations have decreased by 50-70% during El Niño.

Starvation of seals and sea lions

Large marine animals have suffered during strong El Niño. Most notable has been the starvation of a large proportion of fur seals (Arctocephalus galapagoensis) and sea lions (Zalophus californianus wollebaeki) in the Galapagos, and the dramatic reduction in seabird populations in Peru. Many South American fur seals (Arctocephalus australis) and South American sea lions (Otaria byronia) along the southern coast of Peru died. The mother seals remained at sea for longer than ever recorded before, and this is likely to be because they were looking for food.

El Niño can trigger harmful algal blooms, which occur when tiny algae in the water grow really fast and produce toxins that can harm animals and people. These blooms have led widespread deaths of whales when they feed in affected areas near the coast.

It’s hard to determine what the extent of a super El Niño will be on marine life. But with our oceans already struggling under climate change, and little time for marine populations to recover from the last El Niño of 2023-24, it could be the most devastating one yet.

Samantha Garrard, Senior Marine Ecosystem Services Researcher, Plymouth Marine Laboratory

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

The Australian government has agreed to invest almost $53 million in a north Tasmanian company that will upgrade its coal-fired kiln to burn wood “waste” and used tyres for cement manufacturing.

The Federal Minister for Climate Change, Chris Bowen, says this initiative will help decarbonise the Australian economy.

However, the science is clear: burning forest biomass, or so-called forest “waste” – which could include dead trees, understorey vegetation and fallen logs – generates large amounts of carbon emissions. It will likely also accelerate poor forest health.

The empirical evidence shows burning forest biomass to make concrete is poor climate policy, poor environmental and forest policy, and a poor use of taxpayer funds.

Why is this happening?

In line with climate change treaty commitments under the Paris Agreement, governments worldwide are working to decarbonise their economies in an attempt to limit global warming.

This includes finding alternative sources of clean energy to using fossil fuel. This is especially important for carbon-intensive, high-polluting industries, such as concrete production. While about 56% of concrete emissions come from processing clinker (the base material for cement), 39% come from using fossil fuel to generate heat, and 14% from electricity.

Unfortunately, forest biomass is increasingly being promoted as an energy source to replace fossil fuels, for example in the United Kingdom and Europe. Most forest biomass used to generate energy will likely be trees. And what is often referred to as “waste” is actually a critical part of the structure and composition of natural forests. For example, understorey vegetation and logs provide habitat for a wide range of animal species. They play an essential role in nutrient cycling, such as storing substantial amounts of carbon.

Whilst forest biomass is technically a renewable resource, as trees can be regrown after logging, it is not a source of clean energy. This is because about half of tree biomass is carbon (assuming a moisture content of 45%). Therefore, burning a tonne of wood generates roughly a tonne of carbon dioxide emissions. Importantly, up to 30% of carbon dioxide emissions are still in the atmosphere after 1,000 years.

The time lag between release and absorption

Critically, there is a highly significant lag time, of decades to centuries, between carbon being instantaneously released from burning forest biomass and when it is removed from the atmosphere. These removals occur either by plant growth or through carbon making its way to the bottom of the ocean.

The lag time between burning forest biomass and tree regrowth is important because the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations causes even more climate change. This is one of the key reasons why widespread burning of forest biomass in some European countries threatens their ability to meet Paris Agreement greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Furthermore, forest biomass has a far lower calorific content relative to coal. This means large quantities of forest material has to be burned to generate an equivalent amount of energy. This high demand for wood for biomass energy can contribute significantly to poor forest health.

Notably, Australia, along with many other governments, has committed to ending deforestation and degradation by 2030. This recognises the importance of forest carbon sequestration and storage in meeting climate targets and achieving the Paris Agreement goals.

Not an isolated example

The Tasmanian plan, that would see Cement Australia burn forest “waste” to generate energy, is far from an isolated case. There are well-developed plans for Verdant Earth Industries to reopen the former coal-fired Redbank Power Station in the Hunter Valley, in New South Wales, and generate energy by burning hundreds of thousands of tonnes of “wood waste” annually.

Much of this “waste” will likely be trees from forest and woodland regrowth, which are fundamental to the integrity of those ecosystems. This regrowth also provides habitat for a vast array of species, including a range of threatened species.

Biomass burning is frequently supported by native forest logging advocates because of structural issues in the industry. These issues include attempts to extract some financial return from an industry that is largely unprofitable. The native forest sector produces primarily low-value, high-volume commodities such as [woodchips and paper pulp], whereas plantation forest sector dominates high-value sawn wood products.

Similarly, state government forestry agencies have been unable to get market certification for wood products such as woodchips and pulpwood from bodies such as the Forest Stewardship Council. This is partly because the areas logged to produce wood products are often are home to a diverse range of plants and animals that may be threatened by logging.

Decarbonisation matters

We fully acknowledge the efforts being made to explore how emissions-intensive industries can be decarbonised, such as reducing the clinker content in cement.

However, Australian governments must stop using taxpayer money to subsidise projects that entail large-scale burning of forest and woodland biomass for industrial energy.

Alternative forms of energy, including concentrated solar power, will be important in this regard. Unlike forest biomass burning, these are both renewable and clean sources of energy.

A response was sought from Cement Australia.

David Lindenmayer, Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University and Brendan Mackey, Director, Griffith Climate Action Beacon, Griffith University

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

For months, a flood of mice has engulfed Western Australia’s agricultural regions.

For people living through it, this latest mouse plague is all-consuming. Houses, sheds, paddocks and roads are blanketed with mice. And the smell of mice, both dead and alive, is impossible to escape.

It may well be the worst plague the region has ever seen, with scientists recording up to 8,000 mice in each hectare of land. That’s ten times the number needed to officially declare a mouse plague.

But there are signs the plague could end soon. And that’s promising news for local farmers and communities.

Why so many mice?

In WA’s northern wheatbelt region, the current mouse plague started back in April. That was after a cyclone created the ideal conditions for mice to thrive, including increased rainfall and soil moisture that boosted crop yields. However, scientists were warning of a potential mouse plague back in March, based on modelling and field monitoring.

Research suggests large-scale mouse plagues mainly affect Australia and China, but the reasons for this are not yet understood.

An end in sight

Many people in affected regions are wondering when their living nightmare will end. The good news is, it’s likely to be soon.

There are three main reasons for this.

1. Less food

When it comes to growing crops, Australia is a boom and bust country. While good conditions fuel bumper crops, times of drought reduce crop yields and the growth of native plants.

So in drier years, such as this year, mice populations can drop dramatically as there’s less available food.

2. Less rain

Rainfall is the single strongest predictor of mouse plagues. High rainfall boosts the growth of plants, including agricultural crops, which provides female mice with the food and nutrition needed to rapidly breed.

Research shows plagues generally occur about three months after unusually high rainfall. However, it also suggests mouse plagues do not occur for at least two years after a significant plague event.

3. More heat

With the right conditions, mouse plagues can stretch from early autumn to winter, and even summer of the following year.

However, WA tends to have hot, dry summers that further compact and suck moisture from the region’s already hard soils. Research shows this makes it much harder for mice to burrow and keep breeding.

Concerns for local wildlife

The current mouse plague has wreaked havoc in rural communities across WA. That’s because of its scale and its timing, having coincided with the critical crop sowing period.

This prompted local farmers to lobby for double-strength mice bait to be made available, particularly in large-scale crop farming. This higher-dose bait is made of zinc phosphide, and kills mice more quickly and effectively than existing products. This lobbying proved successful, with Australia’s federal pesticides regulator approving it for use in May.

However, concerns are mounting about the effect of this double-strength bait on native birds. This type of bait has been used during previous mouse plagues, without causing secondary poisoning of native wildlife. This is because this bait does not get concentrated in mice, and therefore can’t be ingested by native predators in large quantities.

However, scientists are worried this higher-dose bait will directly poison native birds, particularly those that eat grain from paddocks. One local wildlife carer reported finding 106 native birds either dead or dying, in the small farming community of Coorow. These included western corellas, little corellas, galahs, Regent parrots and Australian ringnecks.

It is possible to test these birds for exposure to zinc phosphide, but such tests are not routinely used for screening dead wildlife and can take weeks or even months to complete. So the long-term effects of using stronger mice baits, particularly on native birds and wildlife, remain unknown.

Communities across WA have borne the brunt of this latest mouse plague. But as winter sets in and the double-strength baits take effect, relief will hopefully come soon.

Robert Davis, Associate Professor in Wildlife Conservation, Edith Cowan University

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

Energy security is a top priority globally, as governments grapple with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, an accelerating clean energy transition and surging power demand from AI data centres.

The problem is especially acute for Asia and the Pacific, as both regions are highly dependent on imported fuels.

This is where Australia could step up as a regional energy superpower, rich in both renewables and fossil fuels. Australia could form a new energy security alliance to stabilise regional markets for the long-term.

In the short term, this would mean guaranteeing supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG). In the longer term, green exports such as renewable fuels and battery minerals could form the bedrock of Australia’s energy relationship with Asia.

Energy insecurity is rife across Asia

The war between the United States-Israel and Iran triggered a major disruption to fossil fuel supplies.

After Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, Asia lost 80% of its oil supply and 27% of its natural gas supply. Flow-on impacts to Pacific nations were significant, as these island nations rely heavily on diesel and food imports.

The deal to end the Iran war doesn’t mean an end to these challenges. This year has shown the risks of relying on Middle Eastern oil and gas producers in a conflict-prone region.

Asia-Pacific governments are looking for reliable partners to ensure energy security.

The world’s top two powers, the United States and China, are jostling to expand their energy exports in the region but in very different ways.

China’s response to the Iran conflict has been to double down on electrification and build its reserves of oil. Beijing is also aggressively expanding its exports of electric vehicles, solar panels, batteries and other green tech exports to root out any overseas competition.

Meanwhile, the US is pursuing a strategy of “energy dominance”, focused on producing abundant supplies of oil and gas domestically. Washington believes this will deliver affordable energy, win the AI race against China with cheap power and expand energy exports to bind allies closer.

Time for a decisive strategy

Without a clear strategy for energy exports, Australia risks becoming a passive spectator.

The risks are twofold. Our role as a coal and LNG exporter could erode as Asian countries look elsewhere to fill their supply gap and we could miss the window of opportunity to grow our clean energy exports.

What should this strategy look like? In practice, it would involve working with allies like the United States and Japan to build a regional energy security alliance. This would focus on meeting the region’s immediate energy needs and enable Australia to play a central role in the region’s transition to clean energy. The Quad members’ recent joint statement is a strong start.

Any such alliance cannot simply focus on securing fossil fuel supply to the region. The shift to clean energy transition must be factored into its design.

Ideally, this alliance should cover the full energy supply chain. That means critical minerals, natural gas, diesel, hydrogen, batteries, data centres and even emerging products such as low-carbon fertilisers.

Australia is poised to take the lead

Australia is the only reliable high-volume LNG exporter in the Asia-Pacific.

Key competitors face challenges meeting the region’s needs. Russian gas is heavily sanctioned, Qatari exports have been held hostage in the Strait of Hormuz and US gas export terminals are concentrated on the Gulf Coast, adding 10 extra days in transit to reach Asia compared to shipments from Darwin.

Australia also has some of the greatest clean energy resources in the world, including critical minerals vital to batteries and renewables.

The United States and Canada would also play a role as major LNG and oil producers. Japan would provide the financing and shipping infrastructure that many smaller Southeast Asian nations cannot. The United States and Japan could also help produce the EVs, batteries and clean tech to drive the region’s transition.

Despite the Trump administration’s unfavourable views on wind and solar, US battery manufacturing is forecast to increase five-fold.

An alliance like this would give certainty to Indo-Pacific countries such as the Philippines, Thailand and India that Australia and its allies would not prematurely turn off fossil fuel supply.

This is pragmatic. While Australia is aiming for net zero by 2050, many Asian countries are aiming for 2060 or 2070. They may require fossil fuel supply beyond 2050 - would we rather that supply to come from Australia or Russia?

What needs to happen?

Shifting energy policies and sluggish approval timeframes have left Australia close to a gas shortfall in southern states, slowed the renewable transition and contributed to higher energy costs.

These domestic challenges must be balanced with the region’s current need for Australian energy exports.

The Iran war has shown the world is not yet ready to wean itself off fossil fuels. Despite very rapid shifts to renewables and clean transport, there are years ahead where gas and oil will remain vital.

As the region’s most reliable LNG exporter, Australia is well placed to cement its position in the Indo-Pacific’s energy landscape long-term as green exports ramp up. Grabbing this opportunity requires a cohesive strategy, partnering with like-minded allies and fixing domestic challenges.

Robert Monterosso, Research Fellow, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

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

Australia’s big clean energy projects get a lot of attention, from giant solar farms to the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme. So too does the push for rooftop solar and home batteries.

What often gets overlooked are the innovations underway where the power grid ends. It costs power utilities a lot to keep these towns connected to the grid. But the plunging costs of renewables and storage mean it’s increasingly possible to do things differently. It makes sense for towns, remote communities and mine sites to produce more of their own power – and eventually, cut the link to the grid entirely.

Western Australia – a state larger than western Europe – is at the forefront of these changes. Because it’s not connected to the national power grid, it has long gone its own way on power. Now, utilities are rethinking whether the state’s huge grid is necessary. Over 15,000 kilometres of overhead line have been decommissioned in recent years.

Life at the end of the grid isn’t easy

For the residents of small towns in outback Western Australia, remote First Nations communities in the Northern Territory or a mine site in the middle of the WA Goldfields, power isn’t something to take for granted.

For decades, these places have had to make do with an often unreliable trickle of electricity transmitted along very long, ageing wires. These can be battered by storms, coated in salt and sand, and regularly knocked out.

For instance, the small outback Queensland town of Thargomindah had 20 unplanned blackouts in the three months to February 2024 – more than one a week.

This is a common problem for communities at the edge of the grid. Electricity is often less reliable and more expensive. Transmitting power thousands of kilometres from where it is produced means up to 35% is lost along the way.

Many remote communities rely on diesel generators, either as a backup or permanently. Because these rely on expensive fuel trucked in, residents can end up paying much more for electricity than people in cities.

Three ways to power the end of the grid

For a long time, there was no real alternative to generators and unreliable power. Now there are several.

The three most advanced options are standalone power systems, renewable microgrids and community batteries. All represent a shift away from grid dependence, though they differ in the degree. Standalone systems operate without the grid, microgrids can work with or without it and community batteries remain connected to the network.

Standalone power

A standalone power system is a self-contained power supply combining solar panels, batteries or a backup generator to replace long, costly powerlines. These work best for large isolated properties, such as an outback station.

Combining solar with storage or a backup means the power supply is reliable, and can cut costs for both customer and the network.

Microgrids

For small towns, renewable microgrids offer a new alternative. These are essentially power grids in miniature – a local electricity network serving multiple consumers through shared solar and batteries, with diesel generators as a backup. They are overseen by a smart control system making thousands of decisions every day over when to store, use or share power. They can be owned by the community, run by a utility or operated by a third party.

Community batteries

A community battery is exactly what it sounds like: a large battery shared by many homes and businesses in a local area. It stores excess daytime power from rooftop solar and releases it when demand rises in the evening. It’s like a neighbourhood water tank, but for electricity.

These batteries reduce pressure on local networks, make voltage more stable and allow households and businesses to install more rooftop solar without grid issues. Some make it possible for eligible households to access stored power from their solar arrays for around 30% cheaper than a home battery system.

Why is Western Australia leading the way?

WA has two electricity grids – one in the southwest, where most people live, and another in the northwest mining hub. It also has 38 microgrids. Authorities want to have 1,000 standalone power systems dotting the state by 2030.

Here are some examples of what’s being tested at the edge of the grid.

The town of Kalbarri sits at the end of a notoriously unreliable 130km power line from Geraldton, regularly lashed by storms. This is why it was chosen to host the state’s standout example of what’s possible – a 5 megawatt microgrid.

It combines local wind, rooftop solar and batteries and detects faults in milliseconds, switching to island mode so smoothly that residents may not even notice. It’s expected to eliminate 80 per cent of the town’s previous outages.

In towns such as Esperance, Exmouth and Carnarvon, 10 community batteries are being installed, while the gold mining hub of Kalgoorlie will soon host a large 50 MW battery.

Mining companies are looking to these methods to lower operating costs and cut emissions. The Agnew Gold Mine now gets 50-60% of its electricity from wind, solar and batteries with 99.99 per cent reliability, which is essential for a mining operation.

Remote First Nations communities such as Blackstone are also looking to microgrids combining solar, batteries and a diesel backup. Reliable electricity is vital for family homes and healthcare.

From the edge of the grid to cutting edge

The innovation at the edge of the grid isn’t just vital for remote residents.

These real world trials of microgrids, batteries, smart software and standalone power systems will feed into how we manage bigger energy grids and make the best use of renewables and storage.

Asma Aziz, Senior Lecturer in Power Engineering, Edith Cowan University and Yasir Arafat, Senior Research Engineer in Electric Vehicle Batteries and Battery Storage, Edith Cowan University

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

“Love makes fools of all of us,” wrote 19th-century novelist William Makepeace Thackeray. A moment spent watching the pigeons at your local park suggests he was right: males with puffed-up, shimmering necks hop, pirouette, coo, and bow to capture the attention of unimpressed females.

But why do male pigeons express themselves through the passion of dance? The concept of sexual selection, first proposed by Charles Darwin, suggests that through extravagant displays, males give females information to identify their suitability as a partner. Females who choose the fittest and most well-coordinated dancers should produce fit and well-coordinated offspring.

But this seems to raise a paradox. If females are only interested in the best dancers, then evolution should converge on a single optimal dance. Yet courtship displays, even among closely related species, are extraordinarily diverse.

So, why hasn’t evolution danced itself into a corner? We set out to answer this question in our new study published in the journal Behavioural Ecology.

Australia’s dancing dune flies

We turned to an unlikely subject: flies that dance along beach dunes in eastern Australia (Apotropina ornatipennis). These tiny creatures, with patterned wings and reflective patches, perform courtship displays that rival some of the most complex dances in the animal kingdom.

Our study was the first to characterise their courtship choreography of twists, turns and flicking wings.

These dancing flies gave us an opportunity that many more conspicuous species don’t: distinctly isolated populations. Because they live on discrete stretches of coastline, separated by headlands and estuaries, populations have been evolving independently for generations.

If evolution has room to wiggle through dance, we expect these isolated populations to develop different dance routines, the same way regional dialects emerge in human language and birdsong.

We studied both the genetics and behaviour of these populations, mapping their 41 different dance moves and comparing their dances against their degree of genetic divergence.

The results were surprising. Even when populations were clearly separated, their dance routines stayed consistent. Among all the moves in their repertoire, only a subtle change in the timing of one wing movement hinted at any divergence at all.

Honest signals and the cost of improvising

This consistency suggests that males who try to invent new choreography pay a high cost: females might simply ignore them.

A courtship display works best for females if it reflects the quality of the performer – what biologists call an “honest signal”. A physically demanding routine that requires precise execution should separate high-quality males from poor ones. So females don’t mind stale moves, as long as those moves provide proof of a male’s fitness.

Rearranging the choreography can be risky if it departs from what females consider to be honest indicators of male quality. A male who deviates from the established routine might be performing in a language the female hasn’t learned or signalling that he hasn’t mastered the language everyone else speaks.

This cost of innovation may explain why evolutionary changes to courtship dances are often minor improvisations, and why larger changes may only occur over long evolutionary timescales.

How do dances evolve?

Courtship displays are not frozen in time. Behaviours can emerge or be abandoned under intense evolutionary pressure.

A striking example comes from Hawaii, where a parasitic fly that hunts crickets by eavesdropping on their courtship songs invaded the islands. Within just 20 generations, some male crickets found a new strategy for reproductive success: abandoning their instruments and piggybacking on the efforts of other males that were foolish enough to keep singing.

Often, genetic change is the origin of new behaviours. In many species, courtship behaviours are hardwired in the genome.

In fruit flies, males of one species are born with the desire to vomit up nuptial “gifts” as part of their courtship ritual. Researchers identified the gene responsible for the vomiting behaviour, and when they triggered it in a different species that species also began vomiting up gifts.

Social learning is another way displays might evolve, such as in lyrebirds and songbirds, where juveniles can learn by watching older individuals. In such scenarios, cultural drift can gradually reshape courtship over time. Small novelties creep in, other males copy them, females learn to prefer the new moves, and the dance slowly changes.

Ultimately, when it comes to Dancing with the Flies, the judge’s panel is all female. No matter how fit a male is, a novel dance can only succeed if females find it appealing and if their daughters inherit or copy the preference. Fashionable dance in the animal kingdom is dictated largely by the selective momentum of females.

A waltz over evolutionary timescales

The remarkably diverse dance routines we see in pigeons, peacock spiders, and flies are all snapshots of an ancient and ongoing negotiation between the sexes.

More than 150 years since Darwin introduced the idea of sexual selection, we are just beginning to unravel the complexities of courtship choreography.

What our research adds is a sense of just how stable these routines might be, and how the rigorous aesthetic standards set by females may cause choreography to change far more slowly than previously thought.

Nathan Butterworth, Associate Research Fellow in Insect Ecology, Deakin University and Keith M. Bayless, Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO

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

Bees have many different ways of building their homes.

Many people will be familiar with the hives of European honeybees, often found in tree cavities. But many other bees – including many of Australia’s roughly 2,000 species of native bees – build their nests underground, in plant stems or in wood cavities.

Our new paper published in Nature Communications shows that the extent to which native Australian bees can cope with increasing heat depends on the type of nest they use.

Surprisingly, the species that are the most tolerant to heat are also the most vulnerable to future warming.

An important question

Understanding whether tolerance to heat can evolve is an important question for understanding how species might respond to further climate change.

However, most studies show no relationship between how tolerant land-based species are to heat and the average ambient temperatures across their range (often calculated at a coarse 1 x 1 kilometre resolution). This suggests most animals will have a very limited ability to evolve greater tolerance to heat.

But these studies don’t consider species microclimates – that is, the climates species actually experience depending on their behaviour. Our new study aimed to address this gap.

A four-month field trip

To understand how vulnerable bees are to warming climates, and whether bees can evolve in response to changes in climate, we set out on a four-month field trip catching bees from the north to south of Australia’s mainland and tested their tolerance to heat.

In each location, we waved butterfly nets at flowering plants and sucked the bees we collected into collection tubes using an apparatus called a “pooter”.

A pooter is a long flexible tube that helps us to suck bees into a collection vial with a piece of fine gauze inside so we don’t accidentally inhale bees.

We brought bees back to a transportable lab and tested the heat tolerance of over 95 species of native bee. We tested species tolerance to heat by slowly increasing the temperature bees were exposed to until they lost coordination.

Microclimate temperatures linked to heat tolerance

We found the microclimate temperatures native bees experience in their nests explain their tolerance to heat.

Bee species that live in the hottest nests (stem nests) were the most heat tolerant, followed by the somewhat climate-buffered cavity nesting bees. Ground-nesting bees, which can hide from extreme heat, were the least heat tolerant.

We also found that closely related species shared similar nesting strategies and heat tolerances. This made it a little tricky to figure out what came first – nesting strategy or heat tolerance.

But not all closely related bees shared the same nesting strategy. So we were able to use these bees to assess patterns in heat tolerance and nesting behaviour.

We found both species’ evolutionary history and their nesting ecology drives how tolerance to heat evolves.

This means species can evolve greater tolerance to heat over time, but heat tolerance evolution might be slow. Future research needs to figure out if bees can evolve fast enough to keep pace with climate change in the future.

The most heat tolerant bees are the most vulnerable

We also wanted to determine which bee species are the most vulnerable to climate change. To do this we calculated a metric of vulnerability called a “thermal safety margin”.

This is the difference (in degrees Celsius) between a species’ heat tolerance and the hottest environmental temperature they inhabit. Typically, thermal safety margins are calculated based on the air temperatures where species live.

But because we know bees that use different nests are exposed to different microclimates, we compared how predictions of vulnerability change when microclimate temperatures are used instead.

We found a striking result: vulnerability predictions were completely flipped.

Using air temperatures, ground nesters were found to be the most vulnerable because they have the lowest tolerance to heat.

However, when the microclimates species are exposed to in their nests were considered, stem nesters were shown to be the most vulnerable. This is because they are unable to hide from extreme temperatures, like ground nesters.

We also found a general trend showing that species vulnerability to climate change increases towards tropical latitudes. This means tropical bees that nest above ground are the most vulnerable to climate change.

Working to conserve bees

Tropical Queensland still has one of the fastest land clearing rates on Earth.

To conserve our crucial pollinators of native plants and agricultural crops, we need to stop further land clearing of tropical forests, which provide cooler microclimates in an otherwise very warm environment.

As well as conserving native vegetation, Australia needs to slow its greenhouse gas emissions so we can secure pollination (of both native and agricultural plants) and food security into the future.

Carmen da Silva, Macquarie University Research Fellow, Macquarie University; Rosalyn Gloag, School of Life and Environmental Sciences Research Fellow, University of Sydney, and Vanessa Kellermann, Senior Lecturer, Ecological Plant and Animal Sciences Melbourne, La Trobe University

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

People in parts of Papua New Guinea are facing an unusual problem. Floating volcanic rock is making boat travel difficult, blocking access to fishing grounds and disrupting daily life in coastal communities.

The source of the pumice is the ongoing Titan Ridge eruption from an underwater volcano in the Bismarck Sea. Since May 9, the eruption has produced vast amounts of pumice – a lightweight, porous volcanic rock that floats on the ocean surface.

Reports from Manus Province in the country’s northeast describe chunks of pumice accumulating along coastlines and waterways in enormous “rafts” 2–5 metres thick. In some locations, residents report being able to walk where there was previously open water.

It’s a strange sight, but not an unprecedented one. Submarine eruptions have produced similarly vast pumice rafts before, and the experience from those events suggests the disruption facing Manus communities could persist for months or even years, long after the Titan Ridge eruption itself has ended.

A lifeline cut off

For many Manus communities, small boats are essential for accessing fishing grounds, neighbouring villages, markets, schools and healthcare services. When those transport routes become difficult to use, the consequences extend well beyond inconvenience.

PNG’s Disaster Minister Billy Joseph has described growing concerns regarding food security and access to essential supplies.

The ocean serves as the backbone of Manus livelihoods, providing daily sustenance and the primary source of income through seafood sales. In some villages, residents have begun manually clearing pumice from shorelines and waterways in an effort to restore access to fishing grounds and prevent longer-term damage to local fisheries.

A costly precedent from Japan

Titan Ridge is not the first submarine eruption to generate widespread pumice rafts.

In 2021, the submarine eruption of Fukutoku-Oka-no-Ba south of Japan produced large quantities of floating pumice that drifted to the Nansei islands including Okinawa. There, pumice clogged 71 harbours and marinas, damaged hundreds of vessel engines, disrupted ferry services and affected tourism and fishery industries.

The economic cost in the Okinawa Prefecture alone exceeded 515 million yen.

Japan had extensive transport infrastructure, alternative supply chains and substantial federal resources for clean-up and recovery. The cleanup effort employed heavy machinery on land and sea and removed more than 110,000 cubic metres of pumice from the ports and beaches at an additional cost of more than 1 billion yen.

Despite its scale, the cleanup was only somewhat useful. Most pumice rafts only washed away the following spring with the change in seasonal winds.

Why this could last for years

While pumice from the 2021 Fukutoku-Oka-no-Ba eruption caused major disruption to ports, ferries and tourism in Japan, reports from Manus highlight a different concern: the potential impacts on food security and livelihoods in communities that depend directly on the ocean. These impacts may persist far longer than people expect.

Even after the eruption ends, the pumice already floating on the ocean will continue to move through the region for months to years. To understand why, it helps to understand how pumice behaves.

Pumice forms when gas-rich magma erupts and rapidly cools. The escaping gas leaves behind countless tiny holes, creating a rock that can be porous enough to float.

Individual pieces of pumice lump together to form enormous floating rafts covering hundreds or even thousands of square kilometres.

Many people believe that floating pumice quickly becomes waterlogged and sinks. Research by my colleagues and I shows otherwise.

Previous submarine eruptions show some pumice can remain afloat for years. Ocean currents, winds, and storms can repeatedly redistribute pumice across large areas of the ocean, moving it between coasts and islands long after an eruption ends.

After the 2012 submarine eruption of Havre volcano north of New Zealand, pumice travelled thousands of kilometres across the Pacific, reaching Queensland about eight months later and even Tasmania more than a year afterwards. So even after the Titan Ridge eruption, we can expect the pumice already produced to float around the region for months or years to come.

An ecological toll, too

Humans won’t be the only ones affected. Whole ecosystems may suffer.

Months after the 2021 Fukutoku-Oka-no-Ba eruption in Japan, scientists observed dead farmed fish with stomachs full of pumice, indicating that some species may mistake floating pumice for food. The same researchers also documented pumice rafts passing across fringing coral reefs, temporarily reducing light levels and physically colliding with shallow-water coral colonies.

Research following the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption in Tonga suggests another possible ecological impact. Satellite observations showed volcanic particles suspended in seawater reduced light penetration through the water column, potentially affecting coral reefs and other marine ecosystems that depend on sunlight.

Whether similar impacts will occur in Papua New Guinea is not yet known. However, these observations suggest the marine ecological effects may extend beyond the immediate disruptions.

For now, the immediate concern remains the disruption to fishing, water and food security, and boat transport for essential services in Manus Province. But the people of Manus are dealing with only the first stage of the problem.

Pumice rafts are an unusual volcanic hazard because their impacts do not necessarily end when an eruption stops. The experience from Japan is that once the pumice enters coastal waterways, there are few easy solutions.

Rebecca Carey, Senior Lecturer in Earth Sciences, University of Tasmania

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

Most of my ecology and evolution undergraduates have never held a pair of binoculars or looked at a bug through a magnifying glass. They don’t know how to use a key to identify a plant or insect, let alone why they should bother. They struggle to name common garden birds. They expect to learn about biodiversity from behind the safety of a computer screen. Fieldwork is considered a luxury or an inconvenience, depending on your tolerance to rain.

It’s not the students’ fault. Ecology and evolution offerings in the biology school curriculum are slim pickings: blink and you miss them among a sea of cells and neurons. The education system has done little to nurture a curiosity and understanding of nature in real life.

This is about to change.

Fifteen years ago, environmentalist and author Mary Colwell started campaigning for the government to introduce a GCSE in natural history. It was a bold ambition.

The term natural history musters images of dusty museums and misshapen taxidermy. But there’s now so much evidence highlighting the benefits of connecting with nature. That includes research that shows how nature-literate kids are likely to be more resilient. Evidence also shows clear trends of a biodiversity crisis and rising concerns about our declining exposure to and experience of nature. This is what ecologists call the “extinction of experience” with the natural world.

After much campaigning and several setbacks, a draft curriculum has just been released for public consultation.

This curriculum serves the field of ecology pretty well. Students will learn to identify native species found in grasslands, woodlands, urban and marine environments. They will learn about the dynamic relationships between species and the implications of human influence (including climate change) for habitats, ecosystems and species. This helps equip the next generation as effective stewards of the natural world, and it complements other subjects such as biology and geography.

But does it promise enough?

Noticing nature is the first step towards understanding it. We have become a nature-blind society: “plant blindness” is a term used to describe how we fail to see the most common wildlife (plants) under our noses. We need to re-learn the innate ability we all had as toddlers to notice the tiny creatures beneath our feet or the fractal patterns emanating through sunlit leaves.

This can only be done by directly experiencing nature. This new GCSE promises 20 hours of fieldwork. “It’s twice as much as geography GCSE,” boasted representatives from the Department of Education in a curriculum consultation I attended recently.

That equates to less than 15% of the total GCSE teaching time (150 hours). For comparison, GCSE PE has a more substantial practical component consisting of 30% teaching time – equivalent to 45 hours.

Twenty hours is an average of 15 minutes a week over a two-year GCSE. Hardly time to step outside, let alone find something that catches your eye, make notes about its appearance and behaviour then find the right identification key to name it. In a time-stressed world, noticing nature – really observing it closely, not just ticking species off a list – offers an excuse to slow down, be mindful and spark your curiosity.

Students need time to contemplate how specific plants, animals and fungi connect together into the tangled web of life. A nature-journal style assessment would help kids engage, remember, reflect and grow a real attachment and personal relationship with the wildlife they are learning about. It would offer cross-curricular links too, with art, biology, geography.

But let’s focus on the pros. There is fieldwork and it’s flexible. Teachers can adapt the curriculum to make the most of their local nature opportunities. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to explore the role of digital tools and monitoring technology (platforms like iNaturalist and Merlin Bird ID app) as ways to help children notice and name nature on their doorstep. That could be in their school grounds, local park or in pavement cracks on their walk to school.

Will urban kids be disadvantaged? With the right resources, hopefully not. Urban ecology is a rapidly growing research area, and green spaces are increasingly valued in cities and towns. With more than 60% of the world’s human population predicted to be living in cities by 2050, being tuned into urban nature is perhaps the most valuable skill of all.

The proposed curriculum focuses exclusively on UK habitats and species. This makes the content relatable. Despite our poor species richness, UK species are also the best described in the world. This is because, ever since the 1600s, we have been a nation of nature lovers obsessed with observing, recording and sharing our findings from nature. At least we used to be.

To understand UK nature, children need to meet Gilbert White – the 17th-century parson whose observations of wildlife in his garden transformed the way we look at (and record) the natural world.

White made people notice what organisms were doing, not just what they were. He popularised UK wildlife, giving rise to centuries of naturalists who shaped aspects of our culture, science and heritage today. A UK-based natural history GCSE that doesn’t capture our rich history of naturalists is not serving our children.

An interdisciplinary opportunity

This move for biodiversity education will certainly help narrow the nature literacy gap my colleagues and I see in ecology students at university.

I hope this qualification will be a success, widely adopted by all types of schools across the country. But will it appeal to prospective pupils and their guardians?

Pitching it as “a GCSE to teach teens to plant wildflower-friendly gardens” sets it up to be niche and middle-class before it even launches. Natural history is about so much more than planting wildflowers.

To widen the appeal, it’s important to emphasise the interdisciplinary relevance of the qualification.

That requires drawing links with health. NHS doctors are now prescribing green therapies such as park walks and gardening for patients. Nature is good for our health because we evolved as part of nature.

For many non-western societies, nature’s value is deeply spiritual. There is an opportunity to integrate learning on diversity, beliefs and multi-culturalism.

And there’s so much potential to integrate art. The original naturalists were artists. In observing nature carefully, they noticed anatomical structures, stages of metamorphosis, mimicry. Sketching nature – without judgment – to record its structure, form, behaviour and interactions, could bridge the age-old division between arts and sciences.

Seirian Sumner, Professor of Behavioural Ecology, UCL

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

The UK government is preparing to water down its electric vehicle sales targets. Under the existing zero emission vehicles (ZEV) mandate, 80% of all new cars sold in Britain needed to be electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030.

Following sustained lobbying from car manufacturers and trade unions, that figure could be revised down to somewhere between 50% and 70%.

While this shift may be described as a pragmatic response to market realities, the rationale for altering EV targets deserves closer scrutiny. There are four key reasons EV targets shouldn’t be weakened.

1. Risk of repeating the industry’s past mistakes

Lobbying tends to make immediate, tangible costs (the £10 billion in discounts, potential job losses) feel more urgent than long-term benefits like minimising climate impacts. But the lobby may overstate these costs.

This framing is not always ideal. The US automobile industry lobbied for decades against tightening Corporate Average Fuel Economy (Cafe) standards meant to improve fuel efficiency, successfully keeping them weak through to the 2000s. The industry argued that consumers didn’t want fuel-efficient cars and that tighter standards would cost jobs.

As a result, US car manufacturers, such as GM and Chrysler, became dependent on fuel inefficient trucks and SUVs for profit margins. Those companies were left exposed when oil prices spiked in 2008 during the financial crisis and required government bailouts.

At the same time, Japanese manufacturers who had developed fuel-efficient vehicles under their own domestic constraints (including the 1973 oil crisis and increasing fuel prices) captured a large market share in the US and globally.

While lobbying protected American autoworkers in the short-term, it contributed to the very crisis that subsequently threatened their jobs.

When unions join manufacturers in lobbying, it becomes very difficult for politicians to not listen. The jobs argument could make it hard for the government to hold firm on its targets.

2. Uncertainty can slow investment

If targets keep shifting every few years, uncertainty can slow the transition as businesses and consumers lose confidence in the policy. This can lead to the self-fulfilling prophecy problem, which results in reduced investment in the sector and further stalling.

3. Jobs need long-term protection

The effect of the EV transition on automotive jobs is more nuanced than lobbying might suggest.

The transition will not reduce the overall scale of vehicle manufacturing. Assembly plants, logistics networks, body shops and much of the broader supply chain will continue to exist.

New employment opportunities from battery cell production, charging infrastructure installation and maintenance, grid upgrades and EV software engineering will also increase. Investments in initiatives such as gigafactories that mass produce EV batteries have already created new jobs.

However, workers making specific internal combustion engine components, such as exhausts, gearboxes, fuel injection systems and other parts that EVs do not use, face real displacement risk. That deserves serious attention to ensure a just transition – that is, the process of moving to a low-carbon society that is green, sustainable and socially inclusive.

To protect these jobs, the government and manufacturers need to fund retraining, invest in future skills and support workers through this phase of change. In Germany, unions have negotiated transition funds for workers in legacy auto parts.

Policies aimed at increasing demand for EVs, such as creating a more extensive and reasonably priced charging infrastructure, can give manufacturers economies of scale, bringing prices of EVs down over time. And the positive feedback loop can further accelerate demand and create new employment.

4. Fear of losing UK export edge

Nearly eight of the ten cars produced in the UK are exported to 140 countries. If UK manufacturers and workers fall behind on EV capability because of the slowdown in momentum, they risk losing export markets to competitors.

China now produces highly competitive EVs at scale, and European manufacturers are increasingly producing efficient, long-range EVs. To maintain a competitive advantage, car makers in Britain need to continue investing in skilled workers specialising in technologies such as batteries.

British car manufacturers are asking the government to rethink the ZEV mandate because EV residual values have been volatile. This has made the used market uncertain and dampened enthusiasm for new purchases. Plus, the charging network remains unreliable and EV buyers still suffer from range anxiety (concerns that EVs don’t go far enough on a single charge).

But if paired with solid investment, these are problems that a well-supported mandate could help solve. A target reduction from 80% to 50% or 60% takes pressure off the government and manufacturers to address those issues. And delaying the green transport transition just moves costs from firms and their shareholders to workers and the public.

Jagannadha Pawan Tamvada, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Kingston University and Mili Shrivastava, Principal Academic in Strategy, Bournemouth University

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

Deep in the Atlantic, a vast circulation of water carries heat from the tropics towards Greenland. This is the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, or Amoc. It does this work largely out of sight, so doesn’t have the public profile of rainforests, polar ice caps or other huge climate-regulating systems.

Recent studies suggest it is weakening. If it slows further, northern Europe could experience much colder winters even as the world warms, while tropical monsoons could shift, and sea levels could suddenly rise along the US east coast.

Yet despite repeated scientific warnings, Amoc rarely remains in the headlines for long. One explanation involves media ownership and editorial constraints, but there is another. Amoc presents a particular problem for modern journalism: it is extraordinarily difficult for many to even imagine, as it exists in a world far below our own – moving slowly, silently through the Atlantic.

Images help shape how people understand climate issues. In journalism, over decades, a visual culture has evolved: burning forests, calving icebergs, oil rigs at sunset, swirling hurricanes, beaches strewn with plastic bottles. These visuals act as stand-ins for systems that are hard or impossible to observe directly. Climate journalism did not create this visual filter, but it has to operate within it.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch illustrates how the filter works. Often imagined as a floating island of waste, in reality it is a diffuse soup of microplastics spread across millions of square kilometres of ocean, largely invisible at sea level.

It circulates in news coverage partly because visual proxies give it a recognisable form – discarded bottles and nets pulled from the ocean, an endurance swimmer collecting data during a long journey. These images allow the garbage patch to continually stay in mainstream news even if it simplifies and distorts what is happening in the ocean.

When systems have no image

Amoc operates on a slow but immense scale. Warm surface waters move north from the tropics toward Greenland, where they cool, become denser, sink to depths of around 5,000 metres, and return south at depth. Hundreds of kilometres wide in places, it redistributes heat and salinity across the Atlantic on a massive scale.

Many dynamic processes shape this ocean current, so we still don’t know exactly how fast the circulation will change or even its future trajectory. Predicted outcomes remain uncertain and some scientists are more hopeful than others, but multiple studies indicate a weakening trend.

Yet Amoc generates few visuals. Researchers can observe its traces: long-dead coral carrying chemical echoes of past waters, layers of sediment slowly accumulating a record of currents, or through instruments timestamping the faintest deep-sea movements. These fragments are assembled into patterns through computer models that reconstruct circulation and can animate it in three dimensions. Satellites offer some surface clues of temperature, height and salinity. But the results of this work are generally designed for scientific analysis, not news coverage or public understanding.

How to illustrate the invisible

So is the answer to find more dramatic images – and do any actually exist? The UK’s Met Office and Nasa often fall back on red-and-blue diagrams of arrows looping around the Atlantic. For some people it works: Vicky Allan, a Scottish-based environmental journalist who has reported on Amoc in detail, told me that what finally hit home was a lecture slide showing a cold “blue blob” over Scotland, a collapse scenario projecting winters of -30°C.

But images do not carry universal meaning. We interpret the world through direct experience, knowledge, and cultural memory. Allan lives in the region depicted. For others, the same image may not have the same impact.

Beyond these diagrams, Amoc offers almost no visual proxies. It’s sometimes illustrated with “frozen Europe” visuals, but most scientists say such a doomsday scenario is unlikely. If journalists lean into frozen Europe too much, the science itself risks being adapted to fit an engagement-friendly visual convention.

When complex, invisible systems appear in mainstream news, dramatic images often travel further than the story itself. I found this with my own work on satellites burning up in the atmosphere: striking visuals draw attention and help readers imagine how spacecraft end their working lives. But my core message about the still-uncertain effect of microscopic particles on ozone-depleting polar clouds was much harder to convey.

From the deep ocean to the upper atmosphere, some of the most consequential environmental processes unfold beyond human perception, across timescales from decades to millennia. They belong to a planet far more complex than we can fully grasp, where uncertainty is not a failure, but part of how we learn about the climate system.

Yet climate journalism relies on a narrow visual filter: images that are urgent, dramatic and human-centred, reducing vast slow environmental processes into events that can be seen and felt. In doing so, we risk mistaking attention for understanding. Amoc and similar critical systems reveal the gap between what matters and what becomes visible. The challenge is not scientific complexity, but the limits of the visual conventions through which we tell environmental stories.

Fionagh Thomson, Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University

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

As the race to build data centers across the United States accelerates, local governments worry that the tech industry mantra of “move fast and break things” means their communities are at risk of being broken.

I’m a Harvard researcher studying the relationship between data centers and energy. I’ve closely monitored how local governments respond to proposals or even just concerns about the potential for data centers in their communities. What I’ve found is a complex story of community needs, political tensions and corporate power – all interacting with local, state and national democratic processes.

Promises and potential

Technology companies stay competitive by being ready to provide data and communications services even before customer demand rises. Data centers already power online communications, shopping and banking systems. Now, expanding demand for artificial intelligence has led to over 1,000 pending data center proposals across the country.

Federal actions also drive development. The Trump administration has identified data center build-out as a strategic priority. The administration has promoted data center capacity as a measure of American strength and signaled that federal regulations on data centers may be eased.

At the community level, technology companies claim that data centers bring jobs, economic revitalization, digital connectivity and economic growth to local communities.

Not great neighbors

So far, however, data centers’ benefits are overshadowed by more visible harms.

Nearby residents experience higher air pollution and excess noise. Data processing also uses a lot of water to cool the buildings and their equipment.

Simultaneously, electricity prices continue to outpace inflation, burdening families across the country. These trends reflect, in part, the costly infrastructure investments needed to power data centers.

The local movement

My research has found that local governments across the U.S. are trying to avoid or reduce these harms.

Some counties and cities that don’t have specific zoning rules and regulations for data center development are using short-term moratoriums. These pauses in data center permitting and construction give communities time to consider how to define new laws and regulations about the facilities’ location, electricity use, water conservation and noise buffering.

Speaking about his town’s decision to impose a one-year data center moratorium, Rick Bella, the town council president in Merrillville, Indiana, about 40 miles southeast of Chicago, stressed a desire to “evaluate real-world impacts and learn from a project developing right next door before determining what may or may not be appropriate for Merrillville.”

Other places want to block data centers altogether. In April 2026, for example, the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority near Detroit, Michigan, passed a yearlong halt to the “delivery, commitment, reservation, extension, or approval of water and sewer services” for data centers. The move blocks data centers, including one under development by the University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory, from getting the water they need to operate.

Separately, towns across Ohio, Wisconsin, Maryland, Nevada and California have put questions related to data centers on their local ballots. Through these referendums, voters can weigh in on construction bans, tax incentives and zoning ordinances.

Power struggles

While public attitudes around data centers have remained largely nonpartisan, local and state officials don’t always see eye to eye.

Officials in Hood County, Texas, for example, rejected a proposal for a six-month moratorium after a state senator urged the Texas attorney general to intervene and prevent the measure.

In 2025, West Virginia passed a bill that reduces local governments’ zoning and regulatory powers in relation to data centers and microgrids. A similar bill in New Hampshire’s legislature was defeated in May 2026.

Tech companies are also flexing their legal and financial muscles. For example, data center developers sued Saline Township, Michigan, and Chatham County, North Carolina, seeking to overturn their local zoning decisions, to be able to proceed with data center construction.

Changing tides

Local pushback comes at a pivotal moment for artificial intelligence technology itself.

As seen in objections to the internet’s expanding AI “slop,” backlash over AI-generated Super Bowl ads, worries about an AI-related financial bubble and complaints about Google’s pivot to AI-directed search, Americans are reckoning with AI’s role in society.

Further, many people are questioning the role of technology broadly. Increasing numbers of teens and adults are addicted to their smartphones, emotionally and psychologically dependent on their availability. Parents and teachers are questioning the usefulness of various types of digital technologies in classrooms. Even the pope has warned that technology must serve humanity – and not the other way around.

Americans are responding to this moment through the power of their voices and votes.

Technology companies may view moratoriums and new regulations as delays in project development. But the town hall discussions, community coalitions, public petitions and even farmers’ unions reflect American democracy at work.

In Sunbury, Ohio, local officials considered a moratorium only after witnessing the scope of public protest over a proposed data center.

In April 2026, voters in Festus, Missouri, removed several City Council members after they supported a new data center despite resident pushback.

The question of whether a community wants or should have a data center does not have a universal answer. I believe it’s a question that deserves deliberate processes, transparency and consideration.

To me, these local-level actions reflect a desire to slow down. There is little question that data centers and AI will be part of our collective future. Today, communities are asking for a fair say in what their futures will be.

Rachel Mural, Senior Research Associate in Environment and Natural Resources and Science, Technology, and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

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

When heat waves hit the Western United States, the risk of wildfires quickly rises. The prolonged heat dries out vegetation, but that’s only part of the cause – heat waves also play other roles in spreading wildfires.

In a new study, our team of fire and climate scientists looked at two decades of wildfire activity in the West, from 2001 to 2024, and for the first time quantified the effect of heat waves on those fires.

We expected a big impact, but the numbers still surprised us: While heat waves, which we defined as three or more consecutive days with temperatures in the top tenth of hottest days, accounted for only 12% to 15% of warm-season days, we found that 42% of all the area burned by fires had occurred during or right after a heat wave.

Moreover, the amount of the area that burned each day was more than 50% larger during heat waves than during the cooler days right before the heat wave began in many parts of the West. In some regions, the difference was much larger – up to 300%.

How heat waves worsen fire risk

Heat waves create conditions that favor wildfire ignition and spread in a few ways.

First, hot temperatures increase the atmosphere’s demand for moisture, meaning the rate at which the air can evaporate moisture from the land and vegetation. As a result, these fuels rapidly dry out, making them easier to ignite.

Heat waves also limit nighttime humidity. The drier air allows fires to remain active for longer periods and burn through more hours of the night.

Making matters worse, heat waves can create conditions favorable for lightning because of the hot, unstable atmosphere. We found increases in cloud-to-ground lightning, including “dry” lightning, during and after heat waves across many parts of the West.

Dry lightning can occur when the precipitation in a storm system evaporates before it reaches the ground. This type of lightning is particularly dangerous because it can ignite vegetation without producing enough rainfall to douse the flames.

These factors combine to heighten the risk of wildfires. That risk often persists even after the heat wave ends, as dry vegetation and dead material on the ground tend to remain unusually dry for days after temperatures return closer to normal – allowing fires to continue growing.

Trends in heat and fires

The connection between heat waves and wildfire activity is becoming increasingly important because heat waves are becoming more common as global temperatures rise, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions.

Since 2001, the number of heat wave days across Western U.S. forests has nearly doubled. During the same period, the amount of forest area burned increased by 2.5 times. Strikingly, without the increase in heat wave days since 2001, we found that the cumulative are of burned forest would have been 37% smaller.

However, not all ecosystems respond the same way.

While we found a strong long-term relationship between increasing heat waves and increasing burned area in forests, this was not the case in grasslands and shrublands, where the total burned area has not increased. In grasslands and shrublands, the amount of land that burns in a given year is influenced more strongly by the amount of available vegetation than by heat alone.

A future with even drier heat waves

Climate change is causing Western U.S. summers to trend hotter and drier. Consequently, relative humidity during heat waves has also declined in recent decades, especially in forested regions of California, Oregon and Washington.

These drier heat waves appear particularly effective at increasing wildfire activity. Alongside long-standing fire deficits, which resulted from the practice of quickly extinguishing fires rather than allowing low-level fires to burn away forest debris, these factors have escalated the potential for large fires in the West.

Wildfire forecasts already account for factors such as wind, humidity and fuel dryness, but they typically have not included heat waves. Our research suggests that heat waves deserve greater attention, as they are not just periods of uncomfortable and sometimes deadly weather, but are also increasingly important drivers of wildfire risk.

Dmitri Kalashnikov, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, University of California, Merced; Cong Yin, Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate and Hydrology, University of California, Merced; Madhulika Gurazada, Ph.D. Student in Management of Complex Systems, University of California, Merced, and Mukesh Kumar, Postdoctoral Researcher in Wildfires and Complex Systems, University of California, Merced

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

Pause for a moment and listen. What do you hear? Chances are, somewhere in the background, is the ever-present hum of a road.

More than 4.2 million miles of public roads crisscross the lower 48 states – enough to reach the Moon and back almost nine times. This vast network of roads spiderwebs its way across the contiguous U.S., leaving only about 5% as an inventoried roadless area or wilderness.

Now, some of those last remaining lands free of roads are under threat from the Trump administration’s proposed rollback of the 2001 Roadless Rule. That includes southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, where eagles, bears, salmon and many other species thrive in old-growth coastal forest along the Inside Passage.

In announcing its plan, the administration said rescinding the rule would remove prohibitions on road construction and logging on nearly 59 million acres of national forest, arguing that the rule slowed economic development.

In Congress, another effort is underway to try to change the law through an amendment to the Wildfire Prevention Act. That change, if approved, would both remove the Roadless Rule and prevent the U.S. Forest Service from reinstituting it in the future, despite overwhelming public support for the rule.

As ecologists who have spent decades studying wilderness and the animals and ecological functions that depend on undisturbed habitats, we believe it’s important to understand that preserving roadless areas has value for environmental health, clean water, wildlife survival and people’s own well-being.

What is the Roadless Rule?

The National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Policy, better known as the Roadless Rule, was issued in January 2001 by President Bill Clinton. It has had overwhelming public support and received more public comments than any other rule in history.

The rule prohibits road construction, maintenance and commercial timber harvest in inventoried roadless areas within the National Forest System. It applies to over 58 million acres across the country, excluding Idaho and Colorado, which have their own state-specific roadless rules. While most of these roadless areas are in the western states and Alaska, 38 total states as well as Puerto Rico host roadless areas.

The primary goal of the Roadless Rule is to maintain forest health and productivity for future generations. It also helps avoid exacerbating the U.S. Forest Service’s road maintenance backlog by not making new roads.

The Roadless Rule prohibits new road construction, with very limited exceptions, as well as commercial logging in designated roadless areas. It does not restrict other uses that are compatible with the management plan, such as hiking and mountain biking, or resource uses such as grazing livestock and working existing mining claims.

Beyond providing vital habitat for species and enabling healthy forests, the rule protects drinking water for the millions of Americans whose water flows from national forests. It also preserves high-quality recreation opportunities – hiking, camping, hunting and fishing – that Americans cherish.

The problem with roads in national forests

While roads can provide benefits, such as access to forests, they can also do ecological harm.

Roads enable invasive weeds to spread by being carried on vehicle tires and deposited in exposed soils, erode sediments into streams and fragment habitat that wildlife rely on. Vehicles directly kill and injure animals through collisions. They occasionally start fires, too. A recent study found that fires are more likely to start in areas with roads than in areas without.

Studies show that road noise displaces wildlife, increases stress and can affect wildlife behavior patterns at distances of over a mile from the road.

And roads don’t just cause problems for species on land. Most roads cross streams and rivers, which requires building a way for those waters to keep flowing under the road (structures called culverts). While culverts can be designed to allow fish to pass through and maintain ecological connections, they are rarely built to do so. This leads to declines in the health of fish populations and can leave some species locally extinct.

The benefits of roadless areas

Inventoried roadless areas are among the most ecologically intact and wildest places left in the United States, yet – unlike Wilderness Areas and National Parks – there are no signs acknowledging their boundaries when you enter one.

Most are part of larger ecosystems, directly adjacent or ecologically connected to better known national parks and wilderness areas. Removing Roadless Rule protections would erode ecological buffers to these more famous protected lands.

For some species, roadless areas protect critical core habitat. For instance, over half the suitable habitat for relictual slender salamander, a critically imperiled species native to the Sierra Mountains of California, occurs in a roadless area. Nearly 40% of Mount Pinos, lodgepole chipmunk, an imperiled subspecies of the lodgepole chipmunk, also live in roadless areas in California.

Research shows that every formal roadless area provides habitat for at least two wildlife species of conservation concern – those facing risks to their long-term survival – with the median roadless area supporting 10 of these imperiled species. Some Arizona roadless areas contain habitat for up to 62 of these species.

Roadless areas also protect watersheds that supply drinking water to 47 million Americans.

Without this protection, these watersheds would still provide water, but their long-term health and hydrological sustainability could be compromised if roads block stream flow and increase sediments flowing into waterways. The result can be higher costs for water purification.

The Forest Service’s own watershed health assessment, known as the Watershed Condition Framework, uses road density as a key indicator of conditions that can disrupt water quantity and quality.

What is at risk in rescinding the Roadless Rule?

The Trump administration’s proposed rollback, expected to be formalized in 2026, would open these last wild places to development, fragmenting habitats that can never be restored.

The American public spoke loudly in 2001 when they supported the Roadless Rule. Two decades later, the public comments submitted on the recission notice overwhelming opposed rolling back the rules, a Center for Western Priorities review found, reaffirming that U.S. roadless forests remain as vital and valued as ever.

Protecting these areas is about promoting healthy ecosystems on public lands so they can provide hiking, hunting and fishing opportunities for generations to come to enjoy the tranquility of being in nature.

Mariah Meek, Associate Professor of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University and Travis Belote, Assistant Professor of Landscape Ecology, Montana State University

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

During the first Trump administration, states and cities, tired of waiting for the federal government to deal with energy and climate challenges, started writing their own laws.

New York passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in 2019, setting mandatory renewable energy and emissions reduction targets. Virginia passed the Clean Economy Act in 2020, setting a schedule to retire fossil fuel power plants. Colorado set greenhouse gas reduction targets. Boston and Seattle revised their building codes to make buildings more energy efficient and their public transportation fleets cleaner.

In fact, close to half of all Americans live somewhere that made a legally binding commitment to cleaner energy in the early 2020s.

Those laws were written at the start of the energy transition, with the information available at the time. Six years later, several governments are backing away from their commitments.

New York became the first state in the country to roll back its signature climate law in May 2026, trading a binding 2030 target to reduce emissions by 40% for a fuzzier 2040 goal. Gov. Kathy Hochul blamed high energy costs, though the move also conveniently killed a lawsuit she had just lost, in which a judge ruled her administration had ignored the law’s deadline. She admitted the rollback wouldn’t lower anyone’s bills right away.

In Virginia, where I live and work, the largest utility says it can’t both meet demand and retire its gas power plants on the law’s schedule, so it wants a new gas peaker plant – a plant that runs only when needed to meet high demand – to keep the state’s booming data centers running.

Hawaii’s governor signed a tax cut package for low-income workers in May that also phased out a renewable energy tax credit that has fueled the state’s adoption of rooftop solar power.

Even California, long the global pacesetter in addressing climate change, in 2026 handed oil refineries and other big polluters billions of dollars worth of pollution permits they would otherwise have had to buy. The state caps emissions and makes polluters pay for them to push industry to clean up over time. The Air Resources Board said the giveaway would ease gas prices that had spiked during the war in Iran. However, the result is pollution in the neighborhoods near those refineries and lost revenue that would have supported public transit.

Energy costs, vanishing federal subsidies and an administration in Washington hostile to clean energy are giving officials reasons to retreat from efforts to deal with climate change and the political cover to do so.

I understand the pressure these officials are under. I spent time working on energy policy in the Biden White House. But even though the politics have changed, the world’s climate problems aren’t going away. If states want to protect their citizens from energy price inflation, abandoning the energy transition is not the answer, but they do need an updated playbook.

Why meeting climate goals feels tougher today

Every state starts with different resources and a different mix of industries and emissions sources. A sunny state, a state with offshore wind, a state covered in forest and farmland, and a state full of steel and cement factories all have very different paths to reducing emissions. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. When my colleagues and I modeled the cheapest paths to zero emissions for all 50 of them, some states had an easier path, and all took different routes.

But all states are also running into what some researchers call the “mid-transition,” the awkward stretch where both the clean energy system and the fossil energy system are needed to meet power demand. A gas power plant might run only when demand spikes, but residents are still paying for it. Transmission lines can take a long time to build. Utilities keep paying to patch up plants that would have been retired and replaced with much cheaper and cleaner renewables.

Despite the friction of the mid-transition, wind, solar and batteries remain the cheapest ways to generate electricity, and they will continue to capture the market for new power capacity simply because they make the most financial sense. In 2025, wind and solar technologies produced a record 17% of America’s electricity. In 2026 almost all of the new capacity planned for the grid is solar, wind or batteries.

Energy-saving technologies at home help reduce emissions as well. Trade an old electric-resistance heater for a heat pump and a typical home keeps about $1,530 a year while lowering emissions. These retrofits have upfront costs, but many governments have been subsidizing them because they save money for everyone in the long run.

Historically, federal subsidies smoothed over these adoption costs. But Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act took an eraser to the 2022 U.S. Inflation Reduction Act’s incentives for electric-vehicle tax credits, rebates for heat pumps, and money for interstate transmission improvements.

How to keep cutting emissions

States can still take steps to navigate this moment and continue cutting emissions. Here are four ways:

Use data centers and AI to accelerate electrification: All the new power demand from growing numbers of data centers is the best reason in a generation to finally build the energy transmission and storage the U.S. will need in an electrified future powered by renewable energy. Ensuring that companies pay their share for the power supply build-out could speed up electrification for residents, shifting homes and vehicles away from fossil fuels and saving people money.

The artificial intelligence boom can also be used to track energy use and find excess emissions. AI can turn satellite images, utility data and building records into near-real-time maps of emissions, block by block, making emissions cuts easier to target.

Embrace industrial policy: Much about the energy transition remains unresolved, including how it will affect manufacturing, freight, aviation and construction. During periods of technological change, governments often rely on industrial policy to tilt the market toward industries that matter for security and competitiveness: the last administration used grants; this administration is using tariffs. China has played this game the hardest, growing a breathtaking number of companies that now dominate the supply chains for EVs, batteries, solar panels and rare earth metals.

At the state level, industrial policy usually boils down to luring industries that can bring jobs. I believe state agencies can also do more by tapping into public university expertise to solve problems related to the energy transition and train the next generation of workers these industries will need.

Build more urban housing: The country is short millions of homes, which is a reason rent and mortgages are so high. Buildings are also one of the largest sources of climate-changing pollution. Building the right size housing in the right places – close to where residents work or near transit – can be the cheapest way to cut a household’s overall energy needs and their costs. Smaller places are cheaper to heat, and homes close to transit mean occupants have to drive a lot less. California, Oregon and Montana have all overridden local objections to expand urban housing.

Support carbon removal techniques that boost rural areas: Carbon removal projects can have multiple benefits. For example, restoring a coastal marsh stores carbon and rebuilds the storm buffer fishing towns depend on. Biochar or crushed silicate worked into the right farm soils helps retain water and improve yields. Better forest management cuts fire risk. Done right, this is rural development that also cleans up pollution.

The world has shifted its energy foundation before: from wood and biomass to coal in the 1800s, from coal to oil and gas in the last century, and now to a fully electrified, affordable and clean economy. Each time, the nation came out better off.

As an engineering professor, I am a technology optimist. The fossil-fueled past that some leaders say they miss was never as cheap as they remember it. What’s coming is better, and state and local officials can help the U.S. get there.

Andres Clarens, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Virginia

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

The world’s hottest years over the past decade have coincided with stagnant economic productivity, rising prices and geopolitical instability.

Is this just coincidence or has the current level of climate change been one of the drivers? Climate change is often framed as a problem for the future. But how much economic damage has today’s current level of ~1.35°C of warming already caused?

To answer that question, we analysed the effects of climate change to date on the New South Wales economy. The results were released today as part of a Net Zero Commission report.

We estimate climate change has already caused median losses of around 18% (probability range 4–33%) to the NSW economy, the biggest economic jurisdiction in the country. At a median 18% loss, that translates to about A$21,300 per person on average in yearly income.

We show that it’s not local bushfires or flooding that are driving the majority of damage, but changing global weather that in turn affects our cost of living.

Imagine a world without climate change

Studies typically project the global economic damage that climate change will do by 2050 or 2100.

Some influential estimates have suggested climate damage would be fairly small. But our recent research and work by others shows the economic damage coming down the pipeline could be more than four times larger than previously thought.

Our research question for this report was different: “What would the NSW economy look like today if historical emissions of greenhouse gases had not caused climate change?”

This requires a thought experiment: imagining a past where we burn fossil fuels at the historical rate, but the additional carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases do not cause changes to temperature or rainfall patterns.

Answering this question will allow us to understand the economic losses we have already endured from historical climate change.

How we did it

First, we collected data on historical economic growth and weather across the world over the past 70 years. We then modelled how weather changes (or shocks) impacted economic growth over this period. There is significant debate on how to do this, so we adopted a variety of approaches.

Then we had to plausibly guess at how the weather would have evolved in the past four decades without climate change. To create this hypothetical weather series, we simply removed any trend found in the weather data which we ascribe to human-caused climate change. This works because there is no evidence natural causes have contributed to the upward trend in temperatures.

Finally, we compared economic growth rates predicted by the models under the observed and under the hypothetical weather conditions. The contrast between the total economic production of the NSW economy in the two scenarios is the economic cost of historical climate change for a given year.

What we found

We estimate the median economic loss for NSW in 2024 was 18%. There is significant uncertainty in this figure, with the lower estimates around 4% and the higher around 33%.

The median loss figure of 18% translates into an average of $21,288 in losses per person in yearly income (in 2023–2024 dollar values). In other words, the model finds that if historical warming had not occurred then people living in NSW would each have $21,288 more dollars, on average, in their pockets every year. This amount is large enough to meaningfully improve the quality of life of the state’s average household.

The models suggest the primary mechanism through which this loss has occurred is the rise in the global average temperature. When people think about losses associated with climate change in NSW, they might consider how climate change exacerbated the bushfires of 2019–20, or the floods that followed. The damages they caused are, of course, real and significant.

However, the economic models suggest the majority of the damage has come from shifts in weather globally. Given the interconnectedness of modern economies through trade and global supply chains, it is reasonable to assume that climate shocks to supply chains affect the whole globe.

How we think about climate change

When pollsters ask Australian voters what issues they care about, “climate change” is often listed as one issue among many. Voters are asked to assess how important climate change is to them relative to the cost of living, public health, interest rates, secure employment, and other important things.

Presenting issues in this way reinforces a common misconception that they are independent, and that one can be prioritised over the other.

To the contrary, there is now good evidence that climate change is strongly related to economic outcomes, which in turn drive the cost of living, interest rates, investment in in health and education and the labour market.

It’s time to stop thinking of climate change as “merely” an environmental issue, which can be discarded when economic times are tough. Instead, we should recognise what it really is: a current and ongoing threat to our standard of living.

Timothy Neal, Senior lecturer in Economics and the Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney and Ben Newell, Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Director of the Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney

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

Picture sea ice in your mind. You probably imagine brilliant white, snow-covered floes floating on the surface of the ocean, home to penguins in the south of the globe or polar bears in the north.

But our new research shows Antarctic sea ice can turn into rafts of rotting floes (the free-floating pieces of ice) or an icy green slush when it interacts with waves in the stormiest ocean on the planet.

We now know the wave-driven processes that cause the surface of the sea ice to melt are a “missing link” in understanding what’s driving the increasing Antarctic sea ice melt each summer.

These processes can dramatically increase the rate the ice melts, with major implications for the global climate and Antarctic marine ecosystems.

Our planetary heartbeat

Each year, the sea ice that hugs the coast of Antarctica expands from 3 million square kilometres in summer to 19 million square kilometres in winter, stretching far north into the Southern Ocean. As the sun rises and the temperatures increase, it retreats again.

This remarkable seasonal change is like a heartbeat within our planet’s climate system, moderating global temperatures, driving ocean circulation and forming a unique habitat for a plethora of living organisms, all adapted to its seasonal rhythms.

The annual summer sea ice melt is particularly remarkable because it occurs over only three months. But even the most sophisticated climate models underestimate the rapid rate of sea ice retreat each summer.

How do waves melt sea ice?

Until now, the waves travelling from the ice-free ocean into the area covered in sea ice had only been studied for their role in breaking up ice floes. We knew these smaller floes were prone to melting around their sides and bottoms as the ocean was heated by the sun as summer progressed.

But this is not the full story.

We now know waves also flood over ice floes, washing away the bright snow cover that shields the underlying ice from sunlight and creating ponds of seawater on the floe surfaces.

Due to their reduced brightness, the snow-free ice and these “wave ponds” absorb substantially more solar heat than snow-covered ice, and this melts the ice from the top down. Moreover, the snow-free ice and wave ponds are oases in which algae thrive, turning the ice and ponds green and absorbing even more heat from the sun.

The waves also pulverise the floes into small fragments and slush. Under the right conditions, the combination of wave flooding, algal greening and pulverisation turns the sea ice cover into a slushy mixture, resembling a green soup.

We estimate that flooding, ponding and pulverisation can increase summer-time ice thinning by over 4 centimetres per day. Algal greening can add an additional 1 centimetre of thinning per day. These are extraordinary accelerators of ice melt, considering that most Antarctic sea ice is less than 1 metre thick at the end of winter.

Waves are also generated deep within the Antarctic sea-ice region by winds blowing over large openings in the ice cover. In this way, wave melt processes eat away at the ice cover from within, as well as from the edge throughout summer.

Feedbacks could trigger further melt

Our ice melt estimates are significant, yet they are likely underestimates. They do not account for amplifications to melting caused by so-called “positive feedbacks”.

For example, the ice darkening caused by waves removing the snow, ponding and pulverisation substantially increases the amount of sunlight absorbed by the ice. This causes additional surface and interior melting, which further reduces the ice brightness. And this causes more vertical melting, and so on, in an amplifying cycle.

We propose that this positive feedback is strengthened by algal greening that further darkens the ice, leading to further absorption of sunlight and melting.

Exactly how much these feedbacks would cause further ice melt is tricky to quantify, so we have left this as an exciting future research challenge.

Ponds at both poles

The Antarctic “wave ponds” we have observed are the seawater equivalent of “melt ponds”. These form extensively across Arctic sea ice in summer from pooling snow meltwater.

These freshwater melt ponds have been intensively studied and integrated into climate models, because of their important role in the rapid decline in the coverage and thickness of Arctic sea ice over recent decades.

Unlike melt ponds, seawater wave ponds occur year-round. Although they only occur in regions where sea ice interacts with ocean waves, this encompasses a large proportion of Antarctic sea ice over the course of a year.

The future of Antarctic sea ice

The effects of wave melt, greening and associated feedbacks are likely to intensify on sea ice around Antarctica over coming decades. Climate change is predicted to increase wind speeds and wave heights across the polar Southern Ocean.

This disruption of the annual sea ice cycle and further sea ice loss has serious consequences for global climate and marine ecosystems.

We need further observations using autonomous camera systems on icebreakers and modelling research to better understand these wave processes and their overall influence on Antarctica’s sea ice cycle.

These advances are vital to understanding the causes of recent dramatic sea-ice losses around Antarctica, and promise vital insights about the future of the icy south and our Earth system.

Luke Bennetts, Professor of Applied Mathematics, The University of Melbourne; Bonnie Light, Physicist, University of Washington; Petteri Uotila, Professor, University of Helsinki; Philip Reid, Scientist, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and Rob Massom, Leader, Sea Ice Section, Antarctic Climate Program, Australian Antarctic Division

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

Trees take carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into wood, storing it for decades. This is why Australian authorities have made forest regeneration eligible for carbon credits.

The largest carbon farming scheme is known as human-induced regeneration. Here, land owners and managers support forests to return on once-forested land. Every tonne of carbon dioxide soaked up by regrowing trees is worth one Australian carbon credit, about A$37.50.

The scheme has around 42 million hectares of land on its books. But only a third of this area is eligible for carbon credits, as the land has to be assessed as likely to regenerate into forest under changed management.

In recent years, some projects have come under fire. Researchers have suggested there’s not enough regeneration or that regeneration would have happened anyway. But independent assessment of these claims suggest these concerns are overblown.

As someone responsible for formally reviewing almost 100 of these projects since 2023, I have visited many sites and verified the data. Overall, I found these projects were being managed well – and forests are regrowing.

How does carbon farming work?

Under the rules, the area can’t have been forested for at least a decade before the project starts. It must have a high likelihood of becoming forested and richer in carbon through regeneration.

If left alone, trees will naturally regrow unless something stops them. Grazing by livestock, feral animals and sometimes native animals is the biggest barrier.

Many regeneration projects are in semi-arid areas with limited water. If water is made freely available for livestock, it can lead to surging numbers of kangaroos, wallabies and other native animals that eat regenerating saplings. This is why one method of limiting grazing is removing artificial watering points.

Fencing is another method. Australian and international researchers have found trees and vegetation on degraded land usually regenerate better when behind fences, though not always.

Does it work?

Australian authorities define a forest as an area dominated by trees over two metres tall, with existing or potential taller trees covering 20% or more of the area.

Participants have to prove forests of local tree species exist in the surrounding area, show the land can support forest and that there are sources of seeds. They also have to show evidence the area could be considered forest 20 years or so after the project begins.

Before carbon farmers can earn credits, the evidence they supply is audited and reviewed by teams of independent experts.

As one of these experts, I have reviewed a great deal of evidence and been on site when data was collected by independent ecologists to confirm how accurate tree cover estimates are. They’re not perfect. But they are very good.

If regeneration is too slow or fails, the area can be removed from the scheme. To date, about 6% of the land considered likely to regenerate has been taken off the scheme. Put another way, that means forests are actually regrowing on 94% of the land considered likely to regenerate.

Is criticism warranted?

Prominent critics have questioned the link between stopping grazing and regenerating forest. If this critique was accurate, it would mean there was no permanent boost to forests by ending grazing.

They argue instead in favour of only giving carbon credits to projects where trees are actively planted on previously cleared land.

The problem is, planting is relatively expensive and can be limited in scope. Planting also requires great care in tree species selection and genetics.

By contrast, removing pressure and allowing forests to naturally regenerate avoids these issues. Natural regeneration can also work in areas where planting and tree management would be expensive.

The critics used national-scale maps of woody vegetation to argue tree cover on some projects was falling short.

But as other experts have pointed out, these criticisms don’t stack up. The maps and models they rely on underestimate tree cover, compared to local and precise data gathered by aircraft with high-resolution scanning lasers.

When regeneration areas are independently assessed using similar gold standard methods, almost all show clear signs of regenerating forest.

Where does this leave us?

Worldwide, there are very real and well documented problems with carbon credit schemes intended to protect or restore forests.

This is why it’s important to scrutinise Australia’s human-induced regeneration scheme and others like it. But not all criticisms are valid.

The good news is, gold standard data gathered by participants cross-checked with regular on the ground audits and reviews show the scheme is largely working.

Regeneration can be slow, even after livestock have been removed. Some heavily degraded areas may not regenerate at all. But overall, it is leading to more forests and more carbon stored.

Under Australia’s carbon credit rules, all methods of producing credits expire after ten years. As a result, the human-induced regeneration scheme closed to new participants in 2023. Policymakers are working on new nature-based solutions to store carbon and boost wildlife on privately managed land.

But for the foreseeable future, forests will quietly regrow on huge tracts of land – and their successes and failures will be tracked and measured to make sure Australia has more trees than it would have otherwise.

Cris Brack, Associate Professor, Forest Measurement and Management, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

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

We’ve all been there: just as you’re about to fall asleep, you notice a huntsman spider on the ceiling. Or you walk into your kitchen and find a long trail of ants snaking into your pantry.

Given there are an estimated 10 quintillion individual insects alive on Earth at any one time, it’s no surprise they sometimes find their way into our homes. In fact, the average Australian shares their home with around 100 different insect and spider species.

But the reality is most of these tiny housemates won’t hurt us, and you really don’t need to kill them. In fact, many perform helpful jobs such as catching flies and mosquitoes, or tidying up crumbs.

So, what can you do instead?

Starting with spiders

Remember: many spiders in your home are harmless.

Common spider housemates include:

• huntsman spiders (Sparassidae sp)
• black and brown house spiders (Badumna sp) and
• daddy long-legs spiders (Pholcus phalangioides).

They’re big and speedy, but huntsmen are gentle giants that rarely bite and their venom can’t hurt humans. They are naturally timid animals that will usually try to avoid us big, scary humans.

Black and brown house spiders live in messy webs often on screen doors or in corners. They are sometimes mistaken for funnel-web spiders, and while their venom can cause unpleasant symptoms such as nausea and swelling, they are generally timid and rarely bite.

Daddy long-legs spiders are the source of an urban legend claiming they are the most venomous spider in Australia, but have jaws too weak to break human skin. This is false; there’s no evidence these lovely spiders have venom capable of harming a human.

There have been no confirmed deaths from a spider bite in Australia in nearly 50 years, partly due to the introduction of effective antivenom and partly because most spiders are very reluctant to bite.

In fact, you are far more likely to be killed by a dog, cow or kangaroo than by a spider.

Even redbacks are shy and non-aggressive and will often play dead rather than bite; most bites occur when the spider is accidentally squeezed, such as when moving a pot plant or putting on a shoe. Although their venom can make us unwell, no one has died from a redback bite since antivenom was introduced in 1956.

While a bite from a Sydney funnel web spider (Atrax robustus) should always be treated as a medical emergency, effective antivenom treatments mean no one has died from a funnel-web bite since 1981.

What about ants and flies?

Most ants in the house are harmless. They are likely scavenging for food, looking for water, or may even be passing through on their way to somewhere else.

Having said that, sometimes it’s hard to figure out what they’re doing. I have a trail of ants that runs up my shower wall – I have no idea what they are doing or why they are there. They’re just part of the family now.

Some people worry insects can spread disease. Yes, cockroaches, ants and flies can potentially transfer bacteria from one surface to another but this is rarely a problem in our homes since a single fly touchdown is unlikely to transfer enough bacteria to cause issues. Our homes also don’t typically have rotting food or faeces lying around where insects can touch it and spread germs elsewhere.

What should I do about them?

In many cases, you don’t have to do anything; the bug or spider in your house is likely harmless and won’t cause problems.

And growing evidence suggests at least some insects, including crickets, can experience pain or pain-like states.

While scientists still debate exactly what insects experience, it’s increasingly clear insects and spiders are far more behaviourally and neurologically complex than once assumed.

Is it really worth causing suffering to an animal that has done nothing wrong other than share your space?

Instead, consider simply capturing the animal in a container and sliding a piece of cardboard or plastic underneath before releasing it outside.

If you live with a phobia, perhaps you could ask a friend or neighbour to do it for you.

To make your home less attractive to insects and spiders, you can:

• cover food sources, including pet food
• clean up any spilled foods, crumbs or food residues
• store loose food in sealed containers to prevent pantry moths and grain beetles
• make sure your bin seals properly when closed
• ensure your windows have well-fitting fly screens.

Only if everything else fails — or if the spider or insect is genuinely dangerous, which is rare — should lethal control such as pesticides or squishing be considered.

Remember: household insecticides are not necessarily harmless. Some studies have linked insecticide exposure to a range of health concerns (particularly in children).

Learning to live with them

The minibeasts in our homes are fascinating to watch and can provide a source of entertainment and education.

Kids (and adults!) can learn a lot about nature, ecology and science from watching insects and spiders at home. In fact, keeping and observing an insect has even been used as a successful form of therapy for children.

It’s OK to be scared of insects and spiders, but perhaps we should approach it the same way we approach fear of dogs or other furry animals: not through killing but by acknowledging the fear and working towards managing it.

Tanya Latty, Associate Professor in Entomology, University of Sydney

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

It’s surprising how easy it is to see a koala every day in Australia’s major cities.

The cute, grey marsupial can be found on t-shirts, hanging off people’s bags and pencils, and decorating any decent souvenir shop. But seeing a real koala in the wild has become increasingly tricky in some parts of the country. The iconic marsupial is now listed as endangered in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

But koalas have been in a similar situation before.

As my new study published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution shows, koalas experienced a population crash about 100,000 years ago. This finding rewrites our understanding of the genetic history of koalas in Australia – and overturns previous theories about what caused their decline in ancient times.

Turning to the genome

Fossil records of koalas are extremely rare. This makes it difficult to estimate how many koalas were present in the past.

Instead, genomes provide important clues about their evolutionary history. The genome acts as a historical record. It preserves genetic information from ancestral populations that can be used to determine their population size.

Previous genomic studies of koalas have estimated koalas experienced a major population decline roughly 40,000 years ago. This was shortly after the arrival of humans in Australia, suggesting this may have been a contributing factor.

Yet the impact of human arrival on Australian fauna is hotly debated. Some researchers use it to explain the widespread extinction of megafauna during this period.

My new study challenges this theory.

Pushing the timeline back 60,000 years

My colleagues and I set out to construct the first estimate of the koala mutation rate. This is simply the number of mutations that appear in each generation.

Estimating the historical population sizes that have shaped mutation patterns in the genome relies heavily on knowing how often new mutations arise. The problem is that each species has its own unique mutation rate.

To estimate the mutation rate in koalas, we sequenced the genomes of 12 koalas from three families, comprising seven parents and five offspring. This allowed us to count the number of new mutations over each generation.

The whole koala genome has about 3.4 billion sites where changes could occur. We found only 25 mutations per offspring. That’s the equivalent of searching for 25 wrong letters scattered across more than 1,000 copies of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

We then applied this mutation rate to 457 koala genomes sampled across their entire range. This allowed us to investigate how koala populations have changed over time – including when their numbers crashed.

We found koala population declines occurred around 100,000 years ago – well before humans arrived in Australia. This effectively rules out humans as a cause of the population crash.

Although the mutation rate is a fundamental evolutionary concept, we surprisingly have very few estimates for Australian species. Our estimate is the first from Diprotodontia, the marsupial order which also includes wombats, kangaroos and possums.

Previous studies estimating historical population sizes in koalas have had to rely on mutation rate estimates from distantly related placental mammals such as humans and mice. Applying the koala mutation rate has rewritten the genetic timeline for koalas.

So, what caused the crash?

The koala population crash 100,000 years ago matches a period of intense environmental change across Australia.

The Pleistocene (2.5 million to 11,700 years ago) saw repeated glacial periods, characterised by cold and dry conditions, as well as repeated interglacial periods, characterised by warmer and wetter conditions.

As Australia became drier, the expansion of the Nullarbor Plain established a vast semi-arid shrubland across southern Australia, shrinking suitable koala habitat and separating eastern and western koala populations.

Unfortunately, the population west of the Nullarbor Plain (which was recently described as a distinct species from the modern koala) went extinct around 28,000 years ago.

Although eastern populations were restricted to a small patch of forest on the east coast, they persisted through harsh glacial conditions. Over the last 17,000 years, as conditions became warmer and wetter, they expanded and formed the five genetic groups that are now distributed along the east coast of Australia.

Given our results, we’re now curious to see if other Australian species, including the closest relatives of extinct megafauna, also experienced population declines before humans arrived.

Koalas are back to hard times

Koalas are once again experiencing population declines across Australia.

One similarity between modern and ancient declines is they are both largely driven by reductions in the amount of suitable habitat. The ancient decline was driven by global glacial cycles – an unavoidable result of Earth’s orbit.

However, recent declines have generated a similar bottleneck over a much shorter time window, due to the historical and continued removal of suitable koala habitat. This is made worse by other threats such as hunting, disease, vehicle strikes, feral dog attacks and bushfires.

Fortunately, most koala populations have only recently started losing genetic diversity, and rapid population recovery can prevent further loss and inbreeding.

Hopefully the eastern koala will persist once again.

Toby Kovacs, PhD Candidate, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney

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

When a whale dies, a very special natural phenomenon can come alive. The carcass might float at the surface for some time, attracting sharks and other predators. As it becomes weathered it may start to sink, falling through the water until it eventually settles on the seafloor where deep sea scavengers feast upon it.

The scientific record of “whale falls” is sparse and fragmentary. But a team of researchers, led by Xiaotong Peng from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has discovered a vast and ancient whale necropolis in the Diamantina Zone in the southeastern Indian Ocean.

The site, described in a new paper published in Nature, dates back more than five million years and is one of the deepest known whale fall ecosystems in the world.

A whale-sized find in the middle of the ocean

During a special dive mission in February 2023 using a submersible called the Fendouzhe, the team of scientists discovered extensive whale skeletons and fossils partially buried in sediment on the seafloor.

Following the initial discovery, the team made 32 more dives to the seafloor over the next month, mapping the extent of the necropolis.

It stretched roughly 1,200 kilometres along the seafloor at depths of between 4,200 and 7,000 metres. It contained 476 whale fossils as well as five active whale falls.

These active whale falls were teeming with many strange-looking creatures, including jellyfish, brittle stars and bone-boring worms – many of which may be new to science, according to the researchers.

From the 43 fossils the team recovered, they identified five beaked-whale species, including the Andrews’ beaked whale (Mesoplodon bowdoini) and the strap-toothed whale (Mesoplodon layardii) which are known to inhabit the region, and one species of baleen whale – the sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis).

The largest find was a dead Antarctic minke whale, five metres in length, which the team identified from its distinct ear bone shape, as well as genetic analysis. The team also identified a new whale species – Pterocetus diamantinae – which is now extinct.

Isotopic dating, where scientists use the decay of radioactive isotopes, revealed that the oldest fossils from the site are about 5.3 million years old.

The high concentration of whale remains in the region raises the question of how exactly this graveyard was formed. The authors suggest the reason probably has to do with the V-shaped topography of the Diamantina Zone which funnels carcasses onto the seafloor, plus the fact that many deep-diving beaked whale species are known to inhabit this part of the ocean.

A reminder of how little we know

This work deepens our our understanding of whale falls and the incredible ecosystems they support. It also deepens our understanding of beaked whales – usually offshore species which routinely dive up to 1 kilometre and hold their breath for more than an hour.

The finding of five million-year-old fossils provide an evolutionary window into the history of beaked whales from the Pliocene epoch to the present day.

This research is also a humbling reminder of how little we know of the deep sea – and how when we look for something, we may just find it, and so much more.

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.

The Australian government has launched its largest-ever lawsuit, suing American chemical giant 3M and its local subsidiary. The government is seeking A$2 billion in damages for the past and future cost of investigating and managing “forever chemicals” contamination from firefighting foams on almost 30 Defence sites.

The government alleges the company withheld internal testing that showed these foams did significant environmental damage. 3M has vowed to defend itself.

What’s interesting is the scope. State-owned facilities, such as public water utilities, are unlikely to be included. The case also avoids any mention of possible impacts on human health. This is at least in part because the impacts of forever chemicals are a live topic of scientific debate and inquiry.

What is the case based on?

Forever chemicals are properly known as PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They are also known as “forever chemicals” because they take a very long time to break down in the environment.

The Commonwealth case focuses on the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foams manufactured by 3M and used on Defence bases from the 1970s until the mid 2000s. These aqueous film-forming foams have been slowly phased out in Australia.

Several communities near affected Defence facilities have sued the Commonwealth, with class actions and other claims amounting to around $400 million in legal settlements.

Until now, the government hasn’t sought to recover these costs, but is doing so now to remediate the sites, pay out class actions and cover future remediation.

While full court documents are not yet public, multiple government statements and the court file suggest the claim is mainly based on the Australian Consumer Law.

The Commonwealth may argue 3M engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct by failing to disclose what it knew about the environmental risks of these firefighting foams.

In the United States, many state attorneys-general have sought to recover clean-up and monitoring costs from manufacturers allegedly promoting PFAS products as safe, despite knowing their risks.

How likely is a settlement?

While both sides appear to have adopted a firm public position committing to the case, this isn’t guaranteed. Large lawsuits like this frequently reach a settlement before trial.

This is because reaching a settlement allows parties to agree on compensation without a judicial finding of liability.

Australian courts encourage alternative dispute resolution, which can enable settlements and reduce costs and uncertainty, while allowing defendants to avoid formal findings of wrongdoing. Class actions against Defence have all settled before trial.

In the US, municipal governments and water authorities sued 3M and other PFAS manufacturers for selling products they knew would contaminate the environment, seeking payments to “help clean up the mess that they created”. These claims became part of a larger case.

In response, 3M agreed to pay about A$14 billion (US$10 billion) to assist with testing and treatment costs while denying liability.

Settlements have also been reached in personal injury litigation, including one against another manufacturer, DuPont, worth A$953 (US$670) million across 3,550 claims.

What’s in and what’s out of the case?

The proceedings have been framed as an effort to recover past and future costs from almost 30 Defence sites.

Yet PFAS contamination isn’t limited to these sites. Other sites of concern include state-operated firefighting facilities, industrial sites and public water supplies. This case is unlikely to directly address those locations.

It’s not clear whether any funds recovered would support measures sought by affected communities, such as routine blood testing or long-term medical monitoring. Residents of Katherine in the Northern Territory have questioned whether any potential settlement would compensate losses not covered by earlier class actions. Many civilian and military firefighters exposed to these PFAS foams for decades have not been involved in compensation schemes or major litigation.

Notably, the case doesn’t mention any possible effects on human health. Assistant Minister for Defence Peter Khalil has cited advice from health authorities that evidence of health impacts from forever chemicals remains limited.

In 2023, the cancer agency of the World Health Organization found one forever chemical, PFOA, was carcinogenic. But there are many different types of PFAS. The WHO is now conducting a systematic review of key PFAS compounds and health outcomes, such as cancer and reproductive toxicity.

The PFAS class actions against Defence similarly excluded personal injury claims, focusing instead on property, business and cultural losses. Even so, evidence about possible health effects was raised because contamination affected property values.

It will be interesting to see whether the Commonwealth can separate environmental contamination from health concerns, while maintaining its position that evidence of human health impacts remains limited.

What’s next?

If the lawsuit goes to a trial and the government succeeds in its claim, it would likely open the door to further claims against 3M by fire services, water suppliers and other affected groups.

This could also happen if the claim is settled out of court.

Regardless of the result, more legal action and advocacy is likely from communities affected by PFAS around Australia.

Cameron Holley, Professor, UNSW Law & Justice and UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response, UNSW Sydney and Carley Bartlett, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Law and Justice, UNSW Sydney

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

Summer heatwaves are currently receiving a lot of attention in Europe because they now cause more deaths than floods or storms.

But winters are also warming. While they are generally less deadly, they influence and disrupt human and natural systems in many subtle ways.

Aotearoa New Zealand has experienced a particularly warm start to this winter, with record high June temperatures in the capital and warm conditions across the country.

Many will welcome the unseasonably warm weather, but milder winters have a range of impacts, especially for plants and insects.

Extra winter growth, but loss of carbon

In forests, warmer temperatures can extend the growing season of trees.

Usually, many trees are dormant during winter as conditions are too cold for growth. But our ongoing measurements of kauri tree growth in Auckland indicate trees have continued to grow throughout recent winters.

One might assume a longer growing season would increase carbon uptake and storage in trees. However, overall carbon changes are actually negative because warmer temperatures also increase respiration, which returns more carbon to the atmosphere.

In Aotearoa, few plant species lose their leaves in winter. But according to traditional Māori knowledge (mātauranga Māori), flowering time has changed and fruit biomass has declined with warming in forests of the central North Island since the 1950s.

This has had a negative impact on the numbers, breeding rates and health of kererū (native wood pigeons) and has reduced nutrient cycling in the soil.

Risk of new invasions

Insects are also very sensitive to winter temperatures.

Like trees, many insects have a dormant period during colder months. Some insects from warmer climates have established as pests in Aotearoa, but they usually struggle to survive cold conditions. As winters warm, the numbers of species able to get through the cold season is increasing.

For instance, in temperate climates such as in New Zealand, wasp colonies have a strong seasonal cycle. Wasp numbers increase during spring after the queen emerges from overwintering and lays eggs. The workers expand the colony during summer but when temperatures drop in autumn, most of them die off.

However, in warmer conditions, sightings of winter-active workers have increased in Aotearoa. This means a warming climate will likely lead to higher wasp numbers and increased ecological and economic impacts.

There are a range of other invertebrate pests that may become more problematic in natural systems, plantation forests and agricultural and horticultural settings as winters warm. This includes rising numbers of parasites of sheep and cattle, more insect pests in plantation forests, increased risk of overwintering of the Queensland fruit fly and bigger range sizes for mosquitoes and ant and cattle ticks.

Shrinking alpine refuge

New invasive plant species from subtropical regions may also be able to establish or expand their ranges and shift into the alpine zone.

Similarly, the upward expansion of invasive mammals will reduce the availability of refuge areas for native birds, including the endangered rock wren.

Known as “thermal squeeze”, the movement of rats and stoats to higher elevations reduces the availability of safe spaces for large alpine birds such as the kea, exacerbating the risk of extinction.

The alpine zone is especially vulnerable to winter warming because plants and animals living there are highly adapted to the specific environmental conditions and are often poorly prepared for invasive predators or competitors.

Horticultural winners and losers

In the horticulture industry, cold winter nights are important as a trigger for spring flowering. Economically important fruits such as apples, avocados and kiwifruit may not flower well and have poor-quality fruit under future climates.

Potatoes and onions are also sensitive to warming conditions because heat stress reduces the quality of tubers and produces smaller bulbs, causing lower yields of both crops.

Plant breeding and gene technologies offer opportunities to develop fruits and vegetables that are better prepared for a warmer world.

And there is some good news in other areas, including that flea infestations are predicted to decline in regions where warming is associated with drying. There may also be opportunities for the establishment of new crops, such as bananas.

As the climate continues to warm, there is more to learn about the impacts and options for adaptation in Aotearoa. Research needs to focus on finding solutions for native species and primary industries because healthy ecosystems are essential for a healthy economy and thriving communities.

Cate Macinnis-Ng, Professor in Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

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

Most of us think of espresso as a hot, high-pressure ritual. Finely ground coffee goes into a machine, boiling water is forced through it, and in about 30 seconds we get a concentrated shot with crema, aroma, bitterness, body and caffeine.

As someone from Colombia, I like to think coffee is in my blood – and I’m proud to come from a country known for producing some of the best coffee beans in the world.

So perhaps that’s why I have spent a lot of time in my laboratory with my team asking a simple question: does espresso really need hot water?

Our new research suggests the answer may be no.

Low energy, full strength

We have developed what we call an ultrasonic espresso: a room-temperature brewing process that uses high-frequency sound waves to extract the flavour, oils, aroma and caffeine from coffee grounds. The result is an espresso-strength coffee made in under three minutes, but needing far less energy than the conventional method.

Saving up to 75% of energy by not heating the water is a minor benefit for home users or small coffee shops. But for companies making ready-to-drink coffee products at industrial scale, it could be very significant indeed.

A concentrated room-temperature coffee could be used directly in bottled drinks, milk-based beverages or cold coffee products. It can also be shipped as a concentrate and diluted later. This would reduce not only energy use, but potentially processing time as well.

Ultrasound replaces heat

The key to the new process is ultrasound. These are sound waves above the range of human hearing.

In our system, a small metal device called a transducer presses against the side of a traditional espresso basket and makes it vibrate rapidly. Those vibrations move through the water and coffee grounds.

This creates a phenomenon known as acoustic cavitation. Tiny bubbles form and collapse in the liquid.

When these bubbles collapse near coffee particles, they produce microscopic jets and forces that act a little like scrubbing brushes. They pit and fracture the surface of the coffee grounds, helping flavour compounds, oils and caffeine move into the water much faster than they normally would at room temperature.

In other words, ultrasound helps us replace heat with mechanical energy.

Water, grind and time

This is not the same as cold brew. Cold brew is usually made by steeping coffee in cold water for 12 to 24 hours. It tends to be smooth, mellow and much less concentrated than espresso. In earlier work, we used ultrasound to speed up cold brew dramatically.

But the challenge in this project was different: could we produce something with the strength, body and intensity of espresso, without heating the water?

To do that, we adjusted several variables. Brew ratio was one of the most important: how much water we used for each gram of coffee. Too much water and the drink becomes diluted; too little and extraction becomes difficult.

Grind size also mattered. Finer grounds allowed us to extract flavour more rapidly. Finally, we tested how long the ultrasound should be applied. We found the sweet spot was about two-and-a-half to three minutes.

The taste test

Of course, making a concentrated coffee in the laboratory is one thing. The real test is whether people want to drink it.

So we ran a blind evaluation with around 100 regular coffee drinkers. They were not trained judges; they were everyday consumers who drink coffee at least once a week.

We served them four coffees in identical cups: traditional espresso, ultrasound-brewed espresso, traditional filter coffee and ultrasound-brewed filter coffee. All were freshly prepared, cooled to the same temperature and presented in random order.

For the espresso samples, participants could not reliably tell the traditional and ultrasonic versions apart. There were no significant differences in aroma, flavour, bitterness or overall liking. For filter coffee, the ultrasound version was actually preferred overall, with participants rating its bitterness more pleasantly.

Those results show espresso may not need to begin with hot water after all. By using sound waves to shake the coffee grounds, we were able to create the same richness, body and intensity, but with far less energy.

Francisco Trujillo, Senior Lecturer, School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW Sydney

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

We’re used to a lot of different natural things falling out of the sky. These can include snow, rain, and sometimes even frogs (yes, really). All of these relate to weather phenomena.

Far more exotic things fall from the sky that are not related to weather. Earth is pelted by about 14 tons of micrometeorites each day. And larger meteorite falls also happen daily, which are visible as fireballs that streak across the night sky.

When an asteroid collides with Earth, it can trigger even stranger debris. Tektites are glassy droplets that form by melting during a meteorite impact, and are then ejected hundreds to thousands of kilometres away from the impact site. The Australasian tektite field that formed some 790,000 years ago from an unknown impact and might cover 10–30% of Earth’s surface is the most famous example.

In a new study published in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science, we describe the discovery of a previously unknown 4km-diameter meteorite impact crater in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia.

A gold band points the way