Notables

Recognizing the importance of this pervasive phenomenon, Covering Climate Now, Columbia Journalism Review, the Solutions Journalism Network, The Guardian and The Nation last fall brought together more than 200 journalists from around the world to develop a plan for better reporting on this critical but often-sidelined topic.

A recently released synopsis of their work, Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation, offers journalists 14 tips for reporting on this critical topic.

1. Engage across beats
Climate affects everyone and everything — and climate change reporting should reflect that. Help colleagues of all ilks incorporate climate into their reporting, connecting it with audience members’ everyday concerns and real-life experiences.

2. Connect with communities
Take time to engage those affected by or featured in your reporting in a respectful way. Focus on people rather than deadlines.

3. Use images
When it comes to climate change, visuals truly are worth a thousand words. Photos and graphics can make stories personal and help clarify complex concepts.

4. Center justice
Consider culture and entrenched inequalities. Include affected individuals as expert sources and ensure they can access the results of your reporting.

5. Avoid propagating misinformation
Misinformation and disinformation abound in the climate sphere. Pay attention to who or what is behind the message. Query claims about solutions.

6. Attend to activism
Citizen action is an important part of the climate story. Treat protests as serious news. Carefully consider the choice of words you choose to describe the issue and the action.

7. Take care of yourself and colleagues
Climate change is a traumatizing topic that can harm mental health. Work to ensure that you and your newsroom have the resources needed to deal with the stress of climate reporting.

8. Consider the bigger picture
Proximate causes of harm such as fossil-fuel burning are an important part of the story, but so are entrenched systems that create and perpetuate vulnerability.

9. Connect with diverse experts
Cultivate skills for tapping scientific expertise from a variety of institutions. Scientists beyond “the usual suspects” can offer important insights.

10. Embrace the local angle
Every community and every individual has a climate story. Tell the broader story in the context of the place people live, work and play.

11. Assess impact
Check in with your audience to assess the impact of your reporting. Recognize that change is incremental and that shifts in intent and sentiment matter.

12. Team up
Collaborate with colleagues at other outlets to maximize your impact while making the most of limited resources.

13. Reach out for resources
Identify and tap funding that allows you to bring climate stories to light. Focus on topic areas and opportunity for impact for the best results.

14. Proactively include climate in coverage
To keep the drumbeat going, advocate for making climate stories a priority for your newsroom. Stay alert for potential stories. Allocate resources and cultivate relationships with experts so they’re available when needed.

“News coverage that shows the public its role and power is an essential climate solution,” the organizers noted in presenting the results of the convocation. “[W]ith climate impacts worsening fast and most governments and companies still dawdling, journalists must innovate and redouble commitments to climate storytelling.”

The analysis, summarized in The State of Climate Adaptation Planning Today, identified and categorized more than 2,000 specific strategies to adapt to new conditions and enhance resilience in the face of change between 2015 and 2023. These strategies fell into five broad groups: natural and nature-based responses, engineered solutions, retreat and relocation, extreme heat responses, and equity and economic resilience.

Think Eat Save: Tracking Progress to Halve Global Food Waste focuses on food waste at the household, food service and retail levels — including both edible and inedible parts of foods, since edibility is subjective and opportunities exist for productively using food not eaten. In-depth global research found that about 60% of that waste occurs at home, with 28% in food service and 12% at the retail level. All told, the edible fraction alone amounts to at least the equivalent of 1.3 meals per day for every person on the planet who experiences chronic hunger.

Noting that food waste squanders money, contributes to food insecurity and climate change, threatens biodiversity, and more, the report calls for concerted efforts to reduce it. It also proposes a step-by-step plan that countries or regions can take to tackle it.

The plan involves companies, trade organizations, government and nonprofits teaming up to assess the food waste problem within a specific geography or sector. Together, they would develop a plan to reduce it, implement the plan, measure results, and course correct as needed.

Also known as a “voluntary agreement,” the approach succeeds because it engages parts of the system before they become competitors so they can freely collaborate. It also makes it possible for changes in the system and in individual behavior to complement each other.

“The complex challenge of food loss and waste requires a systemic approach,” the authors write. “Collaboration can create a movement that is more than the sum of its parts.”

One example in which this approach has gained traction on food waste is the Courtauld Commitment in the UK. Begun in 2005, the initiative engaged more than 100 companies along with government to together fund and implement waste reduction. Food waste dropped by nearly a quarter between 2007 and 2018, and redistribution of food that likely otherwise would have been wasted more than tripled from 2015 to 2021.

In another example, the Consumer Goods Council for South Africa led creation of a food waste reduction partnership in 2020. Participants, including food retailers and multiple government agencies, aim to cut per capita food waste in half within a decade.

Encouragingly, the report notes that such partnerships are on the rise around the world. Other examples come from Australia, the Netherlands, Brazil and Colombia.

In The Global E-Waste Monitor 2024, released in March, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research looked at current recycling rates for products ranging from phones and laptops to e-cigarettes and refrigerators. It found that e-waste generation rose from 34 million metric tons (37 million tons) in 2010 to 62 million metric tons (68 million tons) in 2022. Meanwhile, recycling only increased from 8 million metric tons (9 tons) to 13 million metric tons (14 tons) over the same period.

Current trends, such as the growth in solar photovoltaics and in the ubiquity of personal electronics, are expected to create an even greater need to deal with electronics that are perceived to have outlived their usefulness. Simply throwing them away is a problem because it adds to landfills, creates health risks, contaminates the environment, wastes valuable materials, and adds to the global greenhouse gas burden.

The low recycling rates fly in the face of the value of the materials being discarded. Electronic waste generated in 2022 alone contained some $US91 billion in metals. The problem is that extracting and recycling them currently costs even more. And fewer than half of the world’s countries have an e-waste policy, so there is little regulatory pressure to make more environmentally friendly choices.

The report notes that if recycling rates rise, eventually the value of the materials derived will exceed the cost of recycling. It projects that if 38% of electronics are recycled, the costs and value would even out. And if 60% of materials are salvaged, the economic benefit could be as high as US$38 billion per year.

So, how to boost recycling? Opportunities include improving awareness of recycling options; establishing requirements or expectations for manufacturers to take responsibility for the fate of the products they make; boosting collection capacity; providing funding and infrastructure for managing e-waste, and improving tracking and enforcement systems.

Best of all, though, the report says, is avoiding the production of electronic waste in the first place by making it easy to repair or refurbish used products.

When it comes to supporting political action around climate change, that reality is particularly stark. Analysis of a series of surveys of American adults spanning three years recently found a marked gap between the willingness of respondents to take political action with respect to global warming and the extent to which they actually did act.

In a series of six surveys from March 2021 to October 2023, researchers from George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication asked thousands of respondents from a representative sample of U.S. adults whether they were willing to undertake four political actions related to global warming: sign a petition, donate funds, volunteer or contact government officials. They also asked which of these actions individuals actually took part in. Far fewer actually acted than said they would be likely to.

Looking more closely at those who expressed strong willingness to act, the study found that those for whom intention and action aligned were more likely than their non-acting counterparts and other Americans generally to talk and hear about global warming, acknowledge norms supporting climate action, and believe collective action makes a difference.

What does this suggest regarding ways to close the “attitude–behavior gap”? The researchers noted that, although their study is not able to show a causal connection, it does hint at ways those seeking climate solutions might motivate the predisposed to align their actions with their predisposition. Suggestions include:

1) Ask people who are willing to take action to do so.

2) Make action easy.

3) Offer options so they can follow their personal preferences.

4) Point out how action supports their values and goals.

5) Provide examples of instances in which action has made a difference.

6) Talk about climate change.

7) Encourage others to talk about climate change.

8) Tell stories that normalize climate action.

“Building value by decarbonizing the built environment,” published in June 2023, details the most promising of more than 1,000 strategies for reducing the climate impact of the built environment. For each, the researchers analyzed the potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; cost or savings compared with alternatives; and potential cost or savings if the technology or practice were scaled. They then sorted the best strategies according to the different categories of built environment (single-family dwellings, commercial buildings, highways, etc.) while also considering location factors such as the regulatory environment and local climate.

According to the report, many carbon-cutting strategies don’t cost any more than conventional approaches but make a big difference in climate impact. For example, the researchers found that heat pumps, which can dramatically reduce carbon emissions from home heating and cooling, already are cost-competitive with conventional heating and cooling systems.

“Our analysis shows that many levers not only have proven abatement potential but are also already cost-effective,” the report notes. “In other words, companies across the built-environment ecosystem could derive value immediately from theses lower-emitting technologies and solutions.”

Not only that, but many more strategies could become cost-effective if entrepreneurs collaboratively take the opportunity to invest in developing the technologies and systems needed to bring them to scale. Specifically, the report details 17 areas that offer particularly promising opportunities for both high financial and high environmental returns on investment, clustered into eight main categories: 1) industrializing green materials production, 2) industrializing energy-efficient technology production, 3) making it easier to upgrade systems, 4) design and engineering, 5) electrifying construction, 6) reducing waste and speeding processes through offsite construction, 7) providing validation and certification of climate-friendly activities to build credibility, and 8) providing financing.

What’s standing in the way? A lack of awareness, reluctance on the part of insurers and banks to support new things, and a potential shortage of materials and labor to implement them, the report says. At the same time, it adds, innovators willing to step into untested space stand to substantially benefit by doing so at this inflection point in the industry. And the more, the better: If innovators collaborate across the board, the building sector’s climate impact could plummet 75%, according to the report.

“Decarbonizing the built environment is a significant challenge with the potential for equally significant value creation,” the authors conclude. “Despite the size of this task, there are clear actions that each player can take today to reduce the [building sector] ecosystem’s carbon footprint and capture value from new business opportunities.”

In a paper published in Nature Climate Change in July, researchers from China, Sweden and the U.S. took a deep dive into how NBS can best contribute to the zero-carbon goals of 54 European cities. They found that green spaces and other nature-based greenhouse gas–mitigating infrastructure can do far more for climate than simply soak up carbon dioxide. By encouraging behavior changes such as walking, biking and gardening, as well as saving money and other resources, they also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“When all benefits are considered, NBS can contribute much more to urban climate neutrality goals than mere carbon sequestration effects,” the authors write.

To reach their conclusions, the researchers considered five types of NBS — green infrastructure, street trees and green pavement, green spaces and agriculture in cities, habitat remediation and preservation, and green buildings. They then assessed the potential emissions-reduction payoffs for 54 European cities by saving resources and money, reducing urban sprawl, encouraging environment-friendly behavior, improving microclimate, and storing carbon. They found the indirect climate benefits to be even greater than direct ones, with NBS able to reduce transport, residential and industrial emissions up to 25%.

Importantly, the research showed the significance of customizing the application of NBS to and within each city. For example, in Paris — where more than half of emissions come from residential areas — the best NBS approaches to apply are green infrastructure and green buildings, while in Stockholm, where the bulk of emissions are from transportation, maximum emissions reductions come from planting street trees and enhancing green spaces in cities.

“Identifying the carbon emissions reduction potential for different NBS provides valuable insight for policymakers and urban planners in prioritizing sustainable and effective solutions,” the authors conclude in a summary of their work. “By integrating NBS into city planning, and focusing especially on the indirect and behavioural effects of ecosystem services, there is an opportunity to create more climate-resilient and sustainable urban environments, improving the well-being of communities and reducing carbon emissions in the long term.”

But which trees, where? Getting the answer to that question right plays a big role in the extent to which trees add value to the landscape and its nonhuman and human inhabitants. According to the 10 golden rules for large-scale tree planting, it’s important to choose trees species appropriate for the location in question, plant a variety rather than create a monoculture, make accommodations for a changing environment, and take the needs and interests of local people into consideration.

With tens of thousands of tree species to choose from worldwide, translating those recommendations into a detailed planting plan for a specific location can be a big challenge. But new work by researchers from Kenya, Denmark and the UK is simplifying the task. The international team recently launched an app called GlobalUsefulNativeTrees (GlobUNT) that provides customizable guidance for planning tree plantings to meet multiple benefits.

The researchers created GlobUNT by combining data on some 14,000 tree species and growing conditions in 242 countries and territories with information on how the various species meet 10 use categories: animal food, environmental uses, fuel, gene sources, human food, invertebrate food, materials, medicines, poisons and social uses. Users simply enter data on location, desired benefits and climate, then GlobUNT sifts through the database and returns a recommendation for a specific mix of species that fits the bill.

“Many current tree-planting initiatives for forest landscape restoration fail because they do not sufficiently consider the needs of the local communities who plant and tend them,” the researchers wrote last month in a paper in Nature describing the new resource. “[F]or any country where a project aims to implement tree planting schemes that aspire to maximise native tree biodiversity while addressing local community needs, GlobUNT will be a user-friendly source for practical information.”

Penicillin and other antimicrobial agents have long been used to beat back infections in livestock. But in recent decades farmers have increasingly been using such drugs to bump up healthy animals’ ability to grow bigger and produce milk by preventing infections and altering digestive tract bacteria in a way that makes more nutrients available to the animal. As a result, the use of antimicrobials has skyrocketed — and with it, the risk of microbes’ evolving resistance to them. That bodes ill not only for continued effectiveness of these life-saving drugs in food animals, but in their ability to fight infections in humans as well.

A study published in the journal PLOS Global Public Health by researchers from Europe and India used data from 42 countries to estimate global antimicrobial use at 99,502 metric tons (109,682 tons) in 2020. Nearly 60% of that occurred in just five countries: China, Brazil, India, the United States and Australia. Factoring in trends in food animal production and antimicrobial use, the researchers projected that antimicrobial use could rise to 107,472 metric tons (118,468 tons) by 2030 — an 8% increase.

Noting the potential severe consequences for human and animal health, the researchers called for reporting antimicrobial use on a country level.

“Availability of national data would enable comparisons within regions that have large discrepancies between countries, and perhaps more importantly, relate antibiotic stewardship policies (or absence thereof) with accurate [antimicrobial use] levels,” the researchers concluded. Doing so could help better achieve the World Health Organization’s call to reduce antimicrobial use and thus help ensure these drugs retain their capacity to heal humans and livestock alike.

While the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates suggest global pesticide use is plateauing, Indiana University assistant professor of geography Annie Shattuck and colleagues, writing in the July 2023 issue of Global Environmental Change, report that use is actually growing.

Motivated by the need to accurately estimate the magnitude of pesticide use in order to work toward the Convention on Biological Diversity’s commitment to reducing pesticide risk, the researchers combined FAO data with trade statistics for 137 countries. Globally, they found a 20% jump in pesticide use between 2008 and 2018, with a 153% increase in low-income countries. Likely contributors include increased availability of inexpensive pesticides, rural development and changes in supply chains.

Currently, the way we use land adds some 12.5 gigatons (Gt) of greenhouse gases to Earth’s atmosphere every year, one-quarter of humanity’s total contribution. The biggest opportunities to reduce this come from improved farming and grazing, eating more plant-based diets, reducing food waste, and improving forest management.

The report, “Exponential Roadmap for Natural Climate Solutions,” outlines a specific strategy for bringing net land-sector emissions to zero by 2030 and enlisting land in soaking up another 10 Gt by 2050. The plan focuses on three broad categories: protect “natural lands,” better  manage land we use for our own needs and restore damaged land to a healthier condition. Specifically, it describes a need for four key categories of action:

●     Boost carbon storage in soil, plants and other natural systems
●     Improve food production and consumption
●     Tap into traditional practices to improve how we use land
●     Stop destroying and start restoring forests

If followed, the researchers say, the roadmap could make a substantial contribution to putting the planet on the path to a more stable climate. It also can provide ancillary benefits in the form of reducing hunger, protecting biodiversity and more.

“In the next decade we need to turn working lands — from agriculture and grazing lands to forestry — from vast emitters of greenhouse gases to enormous stores of carbon. At the same time we must scale up carbon storage in existing ecosystems: forests, wetlands, peatlands and grasslands,” Potsdaam Institute for Climate Impact Research director Johan Rockström writes in a foreword to the report. “If we start today, we can safeguard the climate, our societies, and the Earth for future generations. This is a golden opportunity. Let’s take it.”

In November 2020, NOAA’s Carbon Dioxide Removal Task Force was charged with looking at research needs around various carbon dioxide removal strategies, from direct air capture to boosting land and ocean ecosystems’ ability to absorb the gas. Its newly released report summarizes pros and cons of various approaches and describes what we need to learn and how NOAA can contribute.

Strategies assessed were:

Direct air capture: using absorbent material to trap CO₂ from the air and then converting it into a substance that prevents it from easily escaping back into the atmosphere.

Soil carbon: boosting the ability of soil to store carbon.

Afforestation and reforestation: planting trees.

Macroalgal cultivation: farming CO₂-absorbing seaweed or encouraging its growth in nature.

Ocean alkalinity: increasing ocean water’s ability to store carbon by increasing its pH.

Direct ocean capture: removing CO₂ from ocean or other water so it can trap more.

Ocean fertilization: adding nutrients to ocean water to accelerate carbon uptake by photosynthesizing organisms.

Artificial upwelling/downwelling: bringing nutrient-rich water up from the depths of the ocean to the surface where it can feed carbon-trapping life forms and/or sending carbon-rich surface water to the depths.

Coastal blue carbon: Storing carbon that runs off upland areas or is absorbed by plants that inhabit ocean coasts in the soil.

Ecosystem recovery: rehabilitating ocean ecosystems to enhance organisms’ ability to absorb carbon and eventually store it on the ocean floor.

For each strategy, the group summarized research related to how long the approach could store carbon, its ability to scale, its relative cost and the extent to which it can be deployed with existing capabilities.

The figure below summarizes various attributes of the Carbon Dioxide Removal approaches assessed. The darker the blue shading, the more favorable the approach with respect to the attribute. Circles indicate NOAA’s ability to address the particular approach and attribute. Click the image to expand.

“[N]egative emissions strategies will be essential for keeping global temperatures at or below target levels,” the authors write. “Many of these techniques are promising in theory, but require additional research to evaluate their effectiveness and scalability, and explore potential co-benefits and environmental risk.”

Research suggests that the presence of certain chemicals in some healthcare equipment can compromise the benefit of the treatment the equipment enables. For example, the presence of chemicals in intravenous equipment could reduce the effectiveness of the medication being administered and alter hormonal function in patients. 

In response, the nonprofit organization Clean Production Action recently created a process to certify health-care products that do not contain specific chemicals such as polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that are associated with cancer, altered brain development, endocrine disruption and other health harms.

To earn certification for a product under the new GreenScreen Certified Standard for Medical Supplies & Devices, health-care product manufacturers must follow basic principles of green chemistry and prove it is formulated without disallowed chemicals through rigorous testing. They also need to recycle or otherwise address waste implications of both the product and its packaging.

Various levels of certification are available depending on the level of strictness the manufacturer wishes to pursue with respect to different chemicals. Manufacturers can use the certification to show consumers that they are conscientious about avoiding harm and to identify products that contribute to meeting consumers’ environmentally preferred purchasing (EPP) goals.

In addition to healthcare equipment, Clean Production Action also offers certifications that apply to textiles, cleaners, degreasers, firefighting foam, fabrics, furniture and food service equipment.

The survey, conducted in early 2021, assessed the opinions of 16,254 individuals from 16 “advanced economies” by phone and another 2,596 in the U.S. via the internet. It included a broad range of questions related to beliefs and attitudes regarding climate change actions. Countries included in the survey were Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK, the U.S., Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

A drill-down into the data by traits such as gender, nationality and political persuasion offers insights for individuals, organizations, governments and others seeking to mobilize individuals to help mitigate risks. Among the more specific findings:

• Individuals on the political left tended to be more willing to make changes than those on the ideological right.

• Young adults were more likely to be amenable to change than older adults.

• Higher educational attainment was positively correlated with more willingness to change.

The survey also found that willingness to change varied from one country to another. The range in proportion of respondents “willing to make … changes about how you live and work to help reduce the effects of global climate change” ranged from 93% for respondents from Italy to 55% for those from Japan.

The survey also assessed a number of other attitudes and beliefs related to climate change and climate action. These included how concerned respondents were that climate change would harm them personally; how well they think society is responding; and whether climate action is good for the economy. Again, responses were broken down by demographic group, yielding some additional insights:

• Except for Sweden, most respondents were at least somewhat concerned that climate change will hurt them. This was generally more true for ideological left than right, for women than for men, and for young people than for older adults.

Respondents were generally favorable regarding how well their own society is dealing with climate change. Results were mixed as to whether the international community is doing a good job.

Overall, the survey offered encouraging news for those hoping to make inroads into climate change, noting that while it “reveals a growing sense of personal threat from climate change among many of the publics polled,” it also indicates that “[p]ublic concern about climate change appears alongside a willingness to reduce its effects by taking personal steps.”

The researchers note that many current efforts to deal with global warming are ineffective. “Planning a sustainable response to climate change requires us to identify the critical climate thresholds capable of disrupting social, economic, or political systems and culturally appropriate strategies for countering such disruptions,” they write. Because the archaeological record encompasses cultural, geographic and temporal diversity, it can show how a wide range of human cultures have responded to a wide range of unpredictable climate events in the past — and shine a light on how we might best do so in the future.

We have a lot more technology for understanding and interpreting the archaeological record now than we did in the 20th century. And methodological and theoretical advances in climate research in recent decades have made it possible to study past human-environmental interactions, which enhance understanding of the underlying reasons for change in the archaeological record. A glance at the record, with help from increasingly sophisticated climate modeling and advanced computing, is shedding light on human responses to a changing climate. Awareness of past distribution of plants and animals, for example, helps climate scientists fine-tune models that predict future conditions.

Insight into past human behavior and perspectives from various past cultures are relevant because scientists expect climate change to alter our food supply and farming practices. Looking at the adoption of farming in Southwest Asia during the most recent glacial/interglacial cycle, for instance, the researchers found that climate changes produced different outcomes depending on social and geographic circumstances. Based on this, they determined that “periods of favorable climate led to economic and cultural experimentation, which acted as an investment, making the society more resilient against future periods of climatic downturn.”

The researchers looked to ancient indigenous communities as examples of resilient communities that take an ecosystem-based approach to working with the land that protects biodiversity and themselves. For example, as glaciers melted, ancestors of today’s Cree people tended to settle in places that experienced fewer transformations due to the changing climate. Long-ago farmers in the southern hemisphere were able to adapt to disruptions brought on by El Niño events. This knowledge underscores the importance of protecting cultural diversity.

“[M]any past adaptations to climate change were highly successful and could be readapted to modern contexts,” the researchers write. “A comparative, cross-cultural study of the human past demonstrates that cultural diversity has been, and remains, a key element of human resilience.”

As population rises, climate changes, food security declines, and the need for sustainable farming practices and ethical water management grows, archaeological perspectives will become increasingly important for informing decision making.

“The archaeology of climate change has an important role to play, highlighting the importance of cultural diversity and encouraging scientists, policymakers, and stakeholders to engage with the past to help plan a sustainable future,” the researchers conclude. By bringing together perspectives across disciplines, archaeologists, climate scientists and others can use the past to help shape better informed, equitable decisions for the future.

In a recent study published in the academic journal Earth’s Future, researchers looked at the costs of coastal flooding through an equity lens, finding that flooding comes with both monetary and social risks, suggesting that many people who own or rent homes at risk from rising sea levels may not have enough money to pay for the associated damages.

“The impact of coastal flooding on communities hinges not only on the cost, but on the ability of households to pay for the damages,” the researchers write.

The study, which analyzed counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, projected flooding impacts from 2020 to 2060, determining that coastal flooding disproportionately impacts lower-income households. Climate change has already altered the risk of certain natural disasters, like flooding, and is projected to worsen other hazards and potentially create future threats.

“The ramifications for the financial security of individual households and for the communities as a whole depend sensitively on the socioeconomic context,” the researchers write, emphasizing the social risk that comes with not being able to afford flooding damages.

That seems to hold true in the Bay Area: Using computer modeling, the researchers analyzed the risks associated with coastal flooding in the region, concluding that San Mateo County is particularly at risk — with a future financial burden possibly totaling as much as US$835 million — due to the high number of flooded buildings and a low average household income.

Future financial instability, the researchers observe, also threatens homelessness for those who cannot afford to pay for flood damages. The study notes that approximately 9,871 households in the Bay Area could be pushed into financial instability between 2020 and 2060, as flooding becomes more common alongside rising global temperatures and sea levels.

While their “estimates are specific to the San Francisco Bay Area,” the researchers write, “our granular, household-level perspective is transferable to other urban centers and can help identify the specific challenges that different communities face and inform appropriate adaptation interventions.”

The researchers note that with continued greenhouse gas emissions, the severity of flooding may increase, which could manifest as larger coastal flooding damages in the mid-21st century — leaving a short, valuable runway of time to mitigate that risk. The study suggests that in order to mitigate flooding risk, researchers and practitioners may need to differentiate communities’ peril into two categories: monetary risk and social risk.

The researchers float potential ideas for change, including improvements to the National Flood Insurance program to better assist people facing monetary risk. Such an update could create a voucher program to help individuals pay for the damages to their homes, ideally shielding households from at least some future financial instability.

Sea walls, the study proposes, could strengthen coastal infrastructure, protecting buildings and the people that live within them.

However, the researchers note, these avenues alone may not amount to a fully equitable approach: While flood insurance, as an example, offers vital protection for some people, it’s not always affordable, even with public assistance. The study suggests that community action, when aided by county, state and federal action, could help to develop support plans for financially unstable households to prevent further social risk.

Ultimately, “instead of adopting a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach that only targets monetary risk,” the researchers write, “we suggest co-producing a wider spectrum of adaptation strategies that is conscious of social risks and prioritizes community needs.”

Editor’s note: The main image is courtesy of D. Loftis/VA Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

In the wake of the pandemic’s emergence, some public health officials, lawmakers, celebrities, and average citizens called for a blanket closure of wet markets. However, a recent study published by researchers at Princeton University suggests that an across-the-board ban on wet markets would do more harm than good. Many people depend on wet markets, which often resemble the farmers markets of Europe and the U.S., for essential goods and services. Banning them altogether, the study contends, would spark pushback from vendors and customers and likely push wildlife trade further underground.

Another problem is that not all wet markets are the same: “Wet markets are often incorrectly conflated with live-animal or wildlife markets,” the researchers write. In fact, vendors at many wet markets simply sell fresh fruits, vegetables, fish and meat, with meat only from dead, domesticated animals. The study notes that imprecise language — statements conflating one type of traditional, innocuous market, commonly found in countries like China, with different kinds of markets — can inflame xenophobia against people from east and southeast Asia, regions where wet markets are the main, or only, source of food for many people.

As an alternative to sweeping generalizations and complete closures, the researchers offer what they call a “taxonomy of wet markets,” classifying risk based on whether the markets feature live or dead animals, and whether the animals sold were domesticated or wild. More targeted approaches to regulation, they conclude, might be a more viable way to safeguard human health.

One way that some markets might pose a threat to human health is by potentially fostering emerging infectious diseases (EIDs). “In general, the building blocks of an EID event (the emergence of a novel infectious disease in humans) consist of interspecific zoonotic transmission, viral amplification, and viral modification,” the researchers write.

The study identified key risk factors for diseases making the jump from animals to humans at markets: the presence of high disease-risk taxa and live animals, hygiene conditions, market size, the density of animals, interspecies mixing and the length and breadth of animal supply chains.

Potential dangers aren’t limited only to human health, either, since some markets also pose risks to biodiversity. Currently, the study notes, wet markets only assess biodiversity risks based on the types of animals being sold, rather than the condition in which the animals are sold. Certain markets have become a conduit for the sale of threatened or declining wildlife species, an illegal practice, and it is those markets, the researchers write, that pose the highest threat to biodiversity.

To guide effective regulations, the researchers have divided wet markets into four categories. The first includes wet markets that sell no live animals except seafood, which historically carries less risk of pathogens jumping to humans. The second classification covers markets that sell live domesticated animals, while the third covers markets that also sell dead wild animals. The final classification encompasses all of the above — plus markets that sell live wild animals. The risks to human health and biodiversity increase with the third and fourth classifications.

Based on these classifications, the researchers suggest that policymakers should prioritize regulating markets that pose the most risk — those in the fourth category, selling live, wild animals — to allow for the least amount of disruption in communities that depend on wet markets for food. “Most wet markets probably pose comparatively little risk to human health or biodiversity, but a few pose a disproportionately large risk,” the researchers write. Targeting such harmful wet markets, they contend, could help mitigate the threat of future pandemics and reduce risks to biodiversity.

Editor’s note: Main image, “Street Vendor | Pudu Wet Market,” by John Ragai is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

That is, in a nutshell, the goal of the 2021 Horizon Scan of Emerging Global Biological Conservation Issues, recently published in the scientific journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution by Cambridge University conservation biologist William Sutherland and a team of 24 other conservation practitioners and researchers from around the world.

The team started by identifying 97 trends with potentially large impacts on conservation and biodiversity, then trimmed the list down to the top 15 that they agreed “society may urgently need to address.”

“Recent global assessments of biological diversity and climate change indicate negative trends and a rapidly narrowing window for action to reverse these trends,” the researchers wrote. “We believe that identification of novel or emerging issues for global biological conservation should inform policy making in the context of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and encourage research, discussion, and allocation of funds for continued tracking, in addition to informing management and policy change.”

The 2021 horizon scan is the latest in a series that stretches back more than a decade (read summaries of the most recent five here). In addition to making their predictions for the year ahead, the team members reviewed selections from the first horizon scan, published in 2009. They found that one-third of the issues identified in that scan “have since developed into major issues or caused considerable environmental impacts.”

Here are the issues that bubbled to the top in this year’s scan: 

Suffocating Reefs

Coral reefs have come under siege from many threats in recent decades, from invasive species to warming waters to harmful fishing practices. Increasingly worrisome is hypoxia-associated coral mortality — suffocation from a lack of oxygen due to an influx of nutrients from land or aquaculture facilities into ocean waters. Because warm water holds less oxygen than cold water, scientists fear that climate change will only make this problem worse. Deoxygenation of ocean waters already has harmed corals in relatively small spaces such as bays and lagoons. Although we know relatively little about how resilient corals might be to low oxygen, there is concern that in some cases it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for these valuable and beleaguered ecosystems.

Iron-Fortified Coasts

Ocean coastlines are abundant sources of plant and animal life — and those in polar zones are becoming increasingly so due to climate-change-induced melting of glacial and floating ice that contains relatively large amounts of iron. Plants need iron to photosynthesize, so melting ice stimulates plant growth. This increases coastal ecosystems’ ability to soak up planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and potentially harmful nutrients running off land and boosts the food supply for other living things in the area. But as the trend continues, it also is likely to alter biodiversity and ecosystem structure and complexity along polar coastlines in unknown ways, even as it enhances biological communities’ ability to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration.

Waves of Change

Heads up, ocean ecosystems: Global energy trends are about to bring major waves of change. Numerous offshore oil and gas rigs as well as first-generation offshore wind turbines are slated for decommissioning in the near future. A variety of strategies might be deployed for doing so, from removing all or part of an installation, to converting it to an artificial reef, to simply abandoning it. At the same time, new ocean-based wind energy installations and natural gas wells will be coming on line. These upcoming changes in ocean-sited infrastructure could have big impacts on habitat in the vicinity — for better, for worse, or for both, depending on the location, the extent to which existing infrastructure has been colonized by marine life, and specific implementation strategies.   

Seabird Patrol

Ocean-going vessels carrying out illegal fishing activities have ways of covering their tracks, from deactivating electronic tracking systems to avoiding the use of lights at night. The difficulty of finding such covertly operating boats on the vast open seas can be a limiting factor in efforts to prevent illegal activities that lead to overfishing and biodiversity degradation. In an interesting twist on surveillance, scientists are looking at enlisting albatrosses and other ocean-going birds to help track down troublemakers. The birds, which naturally follow fishing vessels in hopes of grabbing morsels, can be fitted with transmitters that can clue enforcement officials in to their location. Work is already underway to evaluate the approach — including consideration of the extent to which it might put the birds themselves at risk of harm.

Location Spoofing

Although seabirds may be attracted to fishing boats, they’re not quite as helpful when it comes to tracking vessels that aren’t flinging fish bits off the back. Currently it’s possible to identify and pinpoint the location of most such ships using Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and Automatic Identification Systems (AIS). However, technologies are emerging that allow those wishing to avoid detection due to surreptitious activities to muddle their identification and coordinates. Such technologies, conservation biologists speculate, could make it easier to transport illegal animals or animal parts, engage in illegal mining, or conduct other covert activities. Efforts are underway to develop technologies to thwart such deceptive practices, but it could be a decade before they are ready to deploy. 

Long-tail Hormones 

It’s bad enough for pollutants to harm animals that come in contact with them. But now there’s evidence that some water-polluting chemicals that alter endocrine systems in fish can get passed to future generations as well. By mimicking or blocking the proper function of hormones, such compounds, which include many used in households and on farms, can cause deformities and fertility issues. And now it appears that in some species, parents can pass those disruptions to the next generation. Concerns are growing that this long-tail impact will be found in other animals as well.

Low-Hanging Clouds

Among the little-known prospective victims of climate change are the low clouds that hang over coastal oceans near the equator, helping to cool the atmosphere. The nature and extent of these clouds depend on a variety of conditions that are expected to change as our climate warms, including ocean temperatures, air movement in the atmosphere and the layout of coastal lands. Changes in the cloud cover, in turn, could affect the clouds’ ability to counteract global warming, preserve the conditions in which human settlements and ecosystems have evolved to thrive, and exacerbate fire risk in the region.

Trillion Tree Trouble?

Numerous groups have begun promoting extensive planting of carbon-dioxide-absorbing trees as a way to help counter the climate-disrupting rise in the concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. But massive tree-planting efforts are not without concerns. Even as proponents tout the approach to climate change mitigation, others warn of potential problems. For one thing, poorly sited plantations could end up replacing ecosystems that actually sequestered more carbon than the trees do. For another, biodiversity could take a hit in the process as species-rich native habitats are replaced by monoculture plantations with the primary goal of socking away CO₂. Careful planning will be needed to ensure such initiatives don’t do more harm than good in the long run. 

Fire Prevention Logging

As climate and other conditions change, the intensity and severity of wildfires are increasing in North America, Australia, central Africa and elsewhere around the world. One strategy that’s been proposed to reduce the risk is to reduce the number of trees available to burn. Some research suggests that such a strategy could do little to decrease the likelihood of harm to humans and property, and in some instances could even increase it. Nevertheless, with strong public pressure to do something about this growing problem, there is a real likelihood that policy makers will turn to tree thinning as a way to prevent wildfires — with certain but unknown impacts to the ecosystem and multiple species that call forests home. 

Super Sustainable Farming

A quiet revolution is underway in India: the wide-scale adoption of sustainable intensification as a farming practice. Across the world’s second-most-populous country, state-level policies are incentivizing farmers to adopt a suite of practices that reduce the adverse environmental impacts of agriculture while boosting crop yields, income, health and well-being. To date, more than a quarter-million farmers have adopted the new approach, which includes eliminating synthetic inputs, enhancing crop diversity, rotating crops and more. Millions more are expected to follow the practice, which is also known as natural, community-based or zero-budget farming. As success stories roll in, the initiatives could set off a snowball effect, leading other countries and farmers to follow suit.

Navigation Miscues? 

If you’ve ever mistaken a satellite for a star in the night sky, you’ve had a taste of the confusion scientists fear might face some birds, mammals and insects in the future. Some 2,600 artificial satellites currently circle our planet, and booming communications technologies are expected to catalyze the deployment of thousands more. What do these plentiful extra points of light mean for animals that use the stars for navigational cues? No one know for sure — but it’s a question worth investigating before permanent damage is done to populations already beleaguered by human impacts on the surface of the Earth.

Stranded Energy Meets Bitcoin

At certain times and in certain places around the world, the ability to generate electricity exceeds demand, as limited by economics or logistics. The excess capacity — whether methane byproducts from oil drilling or wind or solar power that exceeds local demand — may just go to waste due to market logistics. But what if a pop-up demand were available to use this “stranded energy” on an as-needed basis, at a discounted (but better than throwing it away) price? Recently, Bitcoin mining — an energy-intensive process required to keep transactions fair — has been emerging as a possible contender. Bitcoin mining is relatively flexible when it comes to time and place, so it could create a low-payout-but-better-than-nothing use for these resources. There is some concern by those working to mitigate biodiversity-compromising climate change that using Bitcoin to close the use-capacity gap could boost use of fossil fuels — but also optimism that it might help make renewable energy sources more economically desirable.

We’re All Detectives Now

If officials don’t notice or respond to environmental problems, are they still problems? Environmental quality in many regions around the world is limited by insufficient monitoring, detection, prevention and mitigation of pollution or other assaults. But that could change, thanks to emerging technologies. Because of the growing adoption of smartphones and internet connectivity, private citizens around the world are being empowered to act as environmental detectives, identifying and calling out problems they identify through social media mining. This approach already has been used to document locust swarms in East Africa. As more and more people connect, it could be applied around the world to detect and encourage responses to environmental assaults of all sorts, from water pollution to wildlife poaching.

Self-Healing Buildings

In the Department of Good News, the development of self-healing building materials bodes well for biodiversity in a variety of ways. Such materials, which are based on a variety of inputs, including chemicals and bacteria, aim to enhance the ability of build structures to bounce back from damage without the need to repair or replace them. They could be beneficial in a number of ways. For one, they can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the need to produce concrete and carry out construction projects to repair or replace damaged structure. For another, they can reduce the need to mine or quarry new materials, processes that often involve destroying habitat for plants, animals and other living things. In addition, they can reduce the production of construction debris and the accompanying increased demand for landfill space.

Baltic-Black Connection

A 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) river-and-canal system will have environmental impacts under any circumstances. But conservation biologists are particularly concerned about the one being considered for connecting the Baltic and Black seas in Europe. Known as the E40 Waterway, it would cross the Polesia wilderness area, one of the largest on the continent, and likely affect more than 70 wildlife reserves and conservation areas. It also would pass near, and potentially disrupt, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and radioactive materials in the area. The project, which is already in motion, is expected to have numerous economic, social and environmental benefits. However, it also carries risk to biodiversity in terms of disrupted ecology and hydrology and enhanced dispersion of nonnative invasive species.