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Are Hibernators Toast? Global Climate Change and Prolonged Seasonal Hibernation, Dausmann & Cooper, Global Change Biology

This review examines the multifaceted implications of global climate change on mammalian hibernators, emphasizing physiological, ecological and phenological impacts. While high-latitude habitats are experiencing faster overall warming, tropical and southern hemisphere regions face more unpredictable and variable climate alterations. Increasing temperature can directly affect hibernators by elevating hibernacula temperatures, shortening torpor bouts, increasing arousal frequency, and depleting energy reserves crucial for survival and reproductive success. Conversely, cold anomalies due to climate change may cause disruptive late-season cold snaps, affecting post-hibernation recovery and reproduction. The phenological timing of hibernation, emergence and reproduction is becoming increasingly decoupled from environmental cues, creating potential mismatches that threaten fitness and survival. Habitat modifications, including urbanisation, further modify microclimates, introducing new risks and opportunities influencing hibernation behaviour, resource availability and susceptibility to disturbances and diseases. Despite anticipated physiological resilience owing to broad thermal tolerances, many hibernating species already inhabit extreme environments and operate near their physiological limits, thus are even more at risk through ecological disruptions as climate variability intensifies. Ultimately, the capacity for adaptive phenotypic plasticity combined with ecological resilience will determine species' future persistence, with high-latitude species potentially more vulnerable to ecological disruptions like habitat loss, predation and disrupted food webs, while tropical species face greater physiological risk.

Major heat wave in the North Atlantic had widespread and lasting impacts on marine life, Werner et al., Science Advances

Marine heat waves (MHWs) are increasing in frequency and intensity, but wider effects are unexamined in the North Atlantic, and there are uncertainties regarding the spatial scale, magnitude, and persistence of MHWs’ impacts on ecosystems. We show that a sudden and strong increase in the frequency of MHWs in and after 2003 was linked to widespread and abrupt ecological changes. This upheaval spanned multiple trophic levels, from unicellular protists to whales. Every examined region showed a reorganization from species adapted to colder, ice-prone environments to those favoring warmer waters and the event’s impacts altered socioecological dynamics. This review provides evidence for large-scale connectivity across ocean basins. However, it reveals that the magnitude of ecological impacts seems to vary among events highlighting key knowledge gaps for predicting ecosystem responses to MHWs. Understanding the importance of the subpolar gyre and air-sea heat exchange will be crucial for forecasting MHWs and their cascading effects. 

Extreme rainfall over land exacerbated by marine heatwaves, Wang et al., Nature Communications

Marine heatwaves (MHWs), characterized by multiple days of exceptionally elevated sea surface temperature (SST), have profound marine ecological impacts, but their effect on precipitation, particularly extreme rainfall over coastal regions, remains unknown. Using multi-platform observational data since 2000, here we show that SST gradients of MHW intensify surface wind speeds and drive downwind surface wind convergence and upward motions by enhancing vertical turbulent flux over the warm water. The induced anomalies lead to substantially increased local precipitation with spatial scale several hundreds of kilometers and temporally peaking one-day after the MHW. Furthermore, in global coastal regions, about 5%-25% of extreme rainfall over land (>99% wet-day) occurs in the downwind direction of nearby MHWs. Averaged land precipitation of the extreme rainfall events in the downwind direction of a strong MHW increases by 20%-30%, or 4-8 mm/day, from the amount without an influence from MHWs, exacerbating flood-related fatalities. Our finding identifies an impact of MHWs on coastal extreme events with important implications for affected communities, particularly given the projected increase in MHW intensity and frequency under greenhouse warming.

Know Your Stripes? An Assessment of Climate Warming Stripes as a Graphical Risk Communication Format, Dawson et al., Risk Analysis

Stripe graphs have emerged as a popular format for the visual communication of environmental risks. The apparent appeal of the format has been attributed to its capacity to summarize complex data in an eye-catching way that can be understood quickly and intuitively by diverse audiences. Despite the growing use of stripe graphs among academics and organizations (e.g., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]) to communicate with both lay and expert audiences, there has been no reported empirical assessment of the format. Hence, it is not clear to what extent stripe graphs facilitate data comprehension and influence risk perceptions and the willingness to engage in mitigation actions. To address these knowledge gaps, we conducted two studies in which lay participants saw “climate warming” stripe graphs that varied in color and design. We found no evidence that traditional stripe graphs (i.e., unlabeled axes), irrespective of the stripe colors, improved the accuracy of estimates of past or predicted global temperature changes. Nor did the traditional stripe graph influence risk perceptions, affective reactions, or environmental decision-making. Contrary to expectations, we found that viewing (cf., not viewing) a traditional stripe graph led to a lower willingness to engage in mitigation behaviors. Notably, we found that a stripe graph with date and temperature labels (cf., without labels): (i) helped participants develop more accurate estimates of past and predicted temperature changes and (ii) was rated more likable and helpful. We discuss how these and other findings can be utilized to help improve the effectiveness of stripe graphs as a risk communication format.

The Rise of (Affective) Obstruction: Conceptualizing the Evolution of Far-Right Climate Change Communication (1986–2018), Forchtner, Environmental Communication

Research has illustrated that today’s far right in the Global North takes largely climate obstructionist stances, commonly featuring ageist/misogynistic/racist tropes. However, little is known about how this present became to be, how climate change was articulated in the 2000s and earlier. I therefore ask: how has far-right climate communication evolved between 1986 and 2018? Have there been notable changes at the level of both specific claims and their emotiveness – and if so, what might explain them? In response, I analyze 733 articles printed across four exemplary, continuously published (non-)party sources covering the Austrian and German far-right spectrum, in order to offer a novel conceptualization of three periods: benevolent silence (1986-1996), concerned acceptance (1997-2006), and antagonistic obstruction (2007-2018). Thus, I show that the far right became today’s (affective-)obstructionist force and link this shift to: the US climate countermovement; dynamics in the political field; and, interrelated, increasingly melodramatic (affective) climate communication, turning climate change into another site for the making of far-right subjectivity. By conceptualizing three periods, by considering the development over time of both specific claims and affect, and by suggesting reasons behind this evolution, I substantively contribute to understanding far-right climate obstruction and the anti-liberal/anti-democratic backlash it facilitates.

From this week's government/NGO section:

Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes, Fall 2025, Leiserowitz et al., Yale University and George Mason University

Americans who think global warming is happening outnumber those who think it is not by a ratio of more than 5 to 1 (72% versus 13%). 64% of Americans say they are at least “somewhat worried” about global warming. However, 85% of Americans either underestimate how many Americans are worried, or don’t know enough to say. Only 17% of Americans say they hear about global warming in the media “at least once a week,” which is the lowest percentage since the question was added to the survey in 2015.

Americans are more likely to think climate change will be harmful to the world than to them personally, Jamie Ballard, YouGov

A new YouGov survey on climate change and the environment finds that many Americans foresee dire consequences to climate change and experience anxiety or grief when they think about climate change, but few believe they personally will be harmed greatly by climate change. One-quarter of Americans believe it is very or somewhat likely climate change will cause the extinction of the human race. More than twice as many think it is likely to cause cities to be lost to rising sea levels (56%), and similar proportions expect mass displacement of people from some parts of the world to others (57%) and serious damage to the global economy (58%). Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to say these catastrophic events are likely. The largest gaps are on serious damage to the global economy (82% of Democrats and 29% of Republicans think this is a likely result of climate change) and mass displacement from some parts of the world to others (81% vs. 32%). 122 articles in 54 journals by 753 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Atmospheric stability sets maximum moist heat and convection in the midlatitudes, Li & Tamarin-Brodsky, Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aea8453

Contrasting Trends in Cold-Season Daily Soil Temperature With Climate Warming in Snow-Affected Settings, Ghosh et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl118210

Impacts of Transition From Pack Ice Zone to Marginal Ice Zone in the Arctic Ocean on Heat Exchanges Within the Atmosphere-Sea Ice-Ocean System, Chen et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025jc022995

Remote and Regional Drivers of the Indonesian Throughflow Under Future Warming: Implications for Inter-Basin Freshwater Transport, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl119514

Understanding the Climate Response to Different Vertical Patterns of Radiative Forcing, Dai et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl119138

Observations of climate change, effects

Detectable Human Influence on Reduced Day-to-Day Temperature Variability in the Cold Season Driven by Arctic Sea-Ice Loss, Siew et al., Atmospheric Science Letters Open Access pdf 10.1002/asl.70005

Emergence of the enhanced equatorial Atlantic warming as a fingerprint of global warming, Dong et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-025-68015-6

Intensified melting in the Arctic lower troposphere from 1979 to 2023, ZHOU et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.01.003

Observed trends in precipitation extreme indices as inferred from a homogenized daily precipitation dataset for Canada, Wang & Feng, Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.5304833

Potential Impact of Multiple Climate Factors on the High Temperatures Over Eurasian Continent in Summer 2022, Li et al., Atmosphere 10.1080/07055900.2026.2612687

Temperature Is Surpassing Precipitation as the Dominant Driver of Flash Drought Acceleration Under Climate Warming, Ma & Li, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl118457

Unveiling the Deep Ocean warming: observed bottom ocean dataset across Mediterranean Sea, Lo Bue et al., Open Access pdf 10.5194/essd-2025-739

Warming Trend in the Western Indian Ocean Driven by Oceanic Transport, Joseph et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc022762

Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

Significant uncertainties from overlooking aerosol-cloud coexistence in surface solar radiation estimates using passive satellite observations, Lang et al., Remote Sensing of Environment 10.1016/j.rse.2025.115168

Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

Constraining climate model projections with observations amplifies future runoff declines, Kim et al., Open Access pdf 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5867679/v1

Intensified Western Boundary Currents in South China Sea Under Global Warming, Zeng et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025jc022920

Projected climate change in Fennoscandia – and its relation to ensemble spread and global trends, Strandberg et al., Weather and Climate Dynamics Open Access pdf 10.5194/wcd-7-185-2026

Temperature Is Surpassing Precipitation as the Dominant Driver of Flash Drought Acceleration Under Climate Warming, Ma & Li, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl118457

The climate opportunities and risks of contrail avoidance, Smith et al., Open Access pdf 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6925120/v1

What are we missing? A systematic mapping of climate change projections in the Brahmaputra River Basin, Bhaduri et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2026.2617373

When Winds Collide With Precipitation: Dominance of Anthropogenic Forcing in Escalating Compound Extremes Over Southeast Asia, Jiang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl119882

Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Dynamically Downscaled European Water Budget Quantities in the Presence of Sea Surface Temperature Uncertainty, Lopes et al., Journal of Hydrometeorology 10.1175/jhm-d-25-0018.1

Redundancy-Resilient Multi-Criteria Multi-Model Ensemble Framework for Drought Assessment Under Climate Change, Abbas et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70252

Toward exascale climate modelling: a python DSL approach to ICON's (icosahedral non-hydrostatic) dynamical core (icon-exclaim v0.2.0), Dipankar et al., Geoscientific Model Development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-713-2026

Cryosphere & climate change

Anthropogenic Warming Amplifies the Impact of the Tibetan Plateau Snow Cover on Eastern Europe Heat Waves, Jia et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0447.1

Deglaciation of the Prudhoe Dome in northwestern Greenland in response to Holocene warming, Walcott-George et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-025-01889-9

High-resolution geomechanical modeling reveals accelerating infrastructure risks from permafrost degradation in Northern Alaska, Wang et al., Open Access pdf 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7055543/v1

Modeling the 21st-century response of Greenland's Zachariæ Isstrøm and Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden glaciers to atmosphere?ocean forcing and friction laws, Dong et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2025.11.006

Simulation of the climatic conditions required for the existence of ice sheet on the Tibetan Plateau, Su & Sun, Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2025.105202

Synergistic effects of warming and heavy snowfall accumulation on the increased risk of large-scale snow avalanches in the western Tianshan Mountains, Chen et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2025.09.009

Trends in Sea Ice and Snow-Cover Extent: A Fractional Integration Analysis, Caporale et al., Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.5046240

Sea level & climate change

Long-term hydrodynamic changes in marginal estuarine seas: the role of sea level rise and freshwater fluxes, Stanev, Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-025-33172-7

Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry

Deglaciation of the Prudhoe Dome in northwestern Greenland in response to Holocene warming, Walcott-George et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-025-01889-9

Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Are Hibernators Toast? Global Climate Change and Prolonged Seasonal Hibernation, Dausmann & Cooper, Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70659

Biocrusts Are Highly Vulnerable to Multidimensional Global Change, Qiu et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70723

Climate Change Will Resize and Reshape Plant–Hummingbird Networks in the Atlantic Forest, Restrepo?González et al., Diversity and Distributions Open Access pdf 10.1111/ddi.70134

Demography Meets Climate Change: Life History Challenges for a Neotropical Viviparous Lizard, Santos et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.72829

Effects of Eutrophication and Warming on Lake Ecosystems, Jeppesen et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70715

Five centuries of lake deoxygenation and microbial shifts revealed by sedimentary DNA, Vegas-Vilarrúbia et al., Anthropocene Open Access 10.1016/j.ancene.2025.100504

Global Responses of Phytoplankton Size Structure to Marine Heatwaves, Zhan et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2025gb008854

Global urban vegetation exhibits divergent thermal effects: From cooling to warming as aridity increases, Guo et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aea9165

Habitat Quality Assessment Within Expanded Ranges of Dengue Vectors Using a Composite Index Scale, Naeem et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.72387

Linking Community-Climate Disequilibrium to Ecosystem Function, Stemkovski et al., Ecology Letters Open Access pdf 10.1111/ele.70314

Major heat wave in the North Atlantic had widespread and lasting impacts on marine life, Werner et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adt7125

Phytoplankton Blooms in the Coastal Seas Around China Increase in Response to Warming, Yang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 10.1029/2025jc022348

Resilience and Adaptation in Desert Ecosystems: Unveiling Microbial Legacies and Plant Functional Trait Coordination Under Climate Change, Islam et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70678

Rising Influence of Climate on the Distribution of Black-Necked Cranes (Grus nigricollis) on Tibetan Plateau, Yang et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.72756

Structural Climate Drivers of Global Coral Bleaching, Lu et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70661

Warm Edge Kelp Populations Show Elevated Volatility to Marine Heatwaves, Shi et al., Ecology Letters Open Access 10.1111/ele.70307

GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

Anthropogenically Stimulated Carbonate Dissolution in the Global Shelf Seafloor Is Potentially an Important and Fast Climate Feedback, van de Velde et al., AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2025av001865

Atmospheric CO2 concentration prediction based on bidirectional long short-term memory, Qiao et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access 10.3389/feart.2026.1736569

Atmospheric deposition enhances marine methane production and emissions from global oceans, Zhuang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-68527-9

Carbon cycling across coastal soft sediments: the contribution of macrofaunal communities to seafloor respiration, Rohlfer et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2025.107812

Global trends in ocean fronts and impacts on the air–sea CO2 flux and chlorophyll concentrations, Yang et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02538-0

Hidden Role of Trophic Cascade Effects for Soil Carbon Sequestration in Alpine Tundra, Kou et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70663

Insights Into the Persistence and Vulnerability of Tropical Peat Carbon Stocks From a Long-Term Field Decomposition Experiment, Perryman et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2025gb008821

IPSL-Perm-LandN: improving the IPSL Earth System Model to represent permafrost carbon-nitrogen interactions, Gaillard et al., Open Access pdf 10.5194/egusphere-2025-3656

Methane fluxes from Arctic boreal North America: comparisons between process-based estimates and atmospheric observations, Liu et al., Open Access 10.5194/egusphere-2025-2150

Perennial redox potential dynamics in Alaskan degraded and non-degraded permafrost soils, Liebmann et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-025-03143-x

Permafrost Thaw Dynamics Drive the Regime Shifts of Iron-Bound Organic Carbon Sequestration in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, Du et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl118350

Rethinking default ‘K’ values in landfill greenhouse gas emission modeling: A case study from Nepal using LandGEM, Dahal & Babel, Energy for Sustainable Development 10.1016/j.esd.2025.101918

RETRACTION: Temperature Optimum for Marsh Resilience and Carbon Accumulation Revealed in a Whole-Ecosystem Warming Experiment, , Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70656

Sea spray driven CO2 efflux: modeling the effect of sea spray evaporation on carbonate chemistry and air-sea gas exchange, Hendrickson et al., npj Climate and Atmospheric Science Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41612-025-01304-5

Tropicalization Enhances Mangrove Methane Emissions to the Atmosphere, Chen et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl119663

CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

Arctic driftwood proposal for durable carbon removal, Büntgen et al., npj Climate Action Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44168-025-00327-1

Unvegetated Tidal Flats: A Critical Yet Vulnerable Coastal Blue Carbon Sink, Wang et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70695

Using Carbon Dioxide Removal for a Habitable Post-2050 Net-Zero Emission World: Contributions and Limitations, Cui et al., Journal of Ocean University of China 10.1007/s11802-026-6228-5

Decarbonization

Impact of extremely high temperature on future photovoltaic power potential over East Asia, Park et al., Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.5277327

Low-carbon value chain building strategies across industrial and political contexts: A comparative analysis of decarbonization efforts in Norwegian and Japanese aviation, Fantini et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104472

Aerosols

Modeling the Impact of Alternative Fuels and Hydrogen Propulsion on Contrail-Cirrus: A Parameter Study, Lottermoser & Unterstrasser, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2025jd044604

Southern Ocean Clear-Sky Brightening From Sea Spray Aerosol Increase Drives Departure From Hemispheric Albedo Symmetry, Singer & Pincus, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl119637

Climate change communications & cognition

Assessing Threat and Efficacy: Ideological Influences in Climate Change Reporting in US and German Newspapers (2006–2023), Lohkamp et al., Environmental Communication 10.1080/17524032.2026.2616456

Bringing marine microbiome research into the classroom is an essential step toward a climate literate society, Shemi et al., npj Climate Action Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44168-025-00325-3

Climate obstruction in the United States and Brazil: a comparative analysis of discourses by foreign policy authorities of the Trump and Bolsonaro administrations, De Quadros & Santos Lima, Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2025.2609769

Eye-tracking research on climate change communication: A systematic review, Stasiak et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology 10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102886

Know Your Stripes? An Assessment of Climate Warming Stripes as a Graphical Risk Communication Format, Dawson et al., Risk Analysis Open Access pdf 10.1111/risa.70171

Manual and automatic paragraph-level analysis of climate change framing in academic journal editorials, Badullovich et al., Scientometrics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s11192-025-05494-w

Solastalgia and mental health in the climate era: a perspective on ecological suffering, Marques, Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2025.2610701

Testing the impact of fallacies and contrarian claims in climate change misinformation, Lieu et al,, British Journal of Psychology, 10.1111/bjop.70049

The Rise of (Affective) Obstruction: Conceptualizing the Evolution of Far-Right Climate Change Communication (1986–2018), Forchtner, Environmental Communication Open Access 10.1080/17524032.2025.2596620

Youth climate activism in shrinking spaces: how Uganda’s activists navigate red lines, Sändig et al., Environmental Politics Open Access 10.1080/09644016.2025.2605809

Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

Adopting coffee to climate change: arabica rootstocks enhance physiological performance of robusta under water deficit, Patil et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1748714

Agri-photovoltaics in India: Geospatial suitability for sustainable water–energy–food nexus solutions, Mehta & Betz, Energy for Sustainable Development 10.1016/j.esd.2025.101915

Assessing the Climate Impacts of Large-Scale Global Adoption of Cover Crops and Agroforestry, Zhang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 10.1029/2025jg009268

Climate vulnerability assessment of Meghalaya’s agricultural sector at the district level, Lynrah et al., Discover Sustainability Open Access 10.1007/s43621-025-02408-x

Climate-smart agriculture: analysis of the determinants of adoption intensity of sustainable agronomic practices among mango farmers in the Yilo Krobo Municipality of Eastern Region of Ghana, Adu et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2025.2609782

Heat waves associated with higher methane emissions from dairy manure: A 6-year study, VanderZaag et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.110980

Livestock farmers’ perception on effect of climate change on smallholder dairy farming in Fiji, Igbal et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1654274

Projecting shifts in drought-induced thresholds for wheat yield loss under climate change in southeastern Australia, Xiang et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.111003

Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Runoff Variability and Extremes in China Using High-Resolution Simulations, Gao et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.70270

Constraining climate model projections with observations amplifies future runoff declines, Kim et al., Open Access pdf 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5867679/v1

Contrasting trends in very large hail events and related economic losses across the globe, Battaglioli et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-025-01868-0

Extreme rainfall over land exacerbated by marine heatwaves, Wang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-68431-2

From drought to deluge: Understanding the atmospheric and climatic forces behind the United Arab Emirates' recent flood event, Fazel-Rastgar et al., Journal of Atmospheric and Solar 10.1016/j.jastp.2025.106712

From Past to Future: Risk Assessment and Identification of Susceptible Areas to Extreme Precipitation Under Changing Climate Across the Middle East, Fakour et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70250

Identifying Recurring Patterns of Extreme Daily Precipitation Using K-means algorithm: Uncovering Spatial Shift driven by Climate Change over the Italian Peninsula, Manco et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2025.100849

Increased interannual variability of Sahel rainfall under greenhouse warming, Yang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-025-67885-0

Observed trends in precipitation extreme indices as inferred from a homogenized daily precipitation dataset for Canada, Wang & Feng, Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.5304833

Climate change mitigation public policy research

A multi-faceted analysis of the influence of state energy policies on spatial clustering of wind and solar farms in the U.S., Rozhkov & Das, Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115073

Building material stock drives embodied carbon emissions and risks future climate goals in China, Zhang et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-025-02527-3

Climate policy portfolios that accelerate emission reductions, Wilson et al., Open Access pdf 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4742975/v1

Divergent paths: A machine learning analysis of post-pandemic decarbonization trajectories and the global climate policy imperative, Evro et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2025.115049

Do climate mitigation policies reduce within-country carbon inequality? Evidence from cross-national panel data, Chen et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2025.115056

Energy transition in the global south: Donor bargains and the future of the aid machine, Maduekwe, Energy Research & Social Science 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104525

European forest carbon and biodiversity policies have a limited win-win potential, Balducci et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-68668-x

The contested political economy of Norway's oil and gas industry, Rahman et al., Energy Research & Social Science 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104510

Valuing the wider benefits of net zero: Conceptual foundations of new assessment frameworks in the United Kingdom, Lait et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104516

Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

Adaptation pathways identify effective strategies for mitigating damage on a developed barrier island as sea levels rise, Patch et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.3389/fevo.2025.1616495

Beyond projects: Relational durability and the measurement of climate adaptation success in practice, Robinson et al., Global Environmental Change 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.103110

From public attention to action: How risk perception and experience drive support for climate adaptation policies in heat-vulnerable cities, Kim & Kim, Open Access 10.2139/ssrn.5098749

Unlocking the benefits of transparent and reusable science for climate risk management, Pollack et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2422157123

Climate change impacts on human health

Choice of Downscaled Climate Product Matters: Projections of Valley Fever Seasonality in a Warming Climate, Schollaert et al., GeoHealth Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gh001624

Habitat Quality Assessment Within Expanded Ranges of Dengue Vectors Using a Composite Index Scale, Naeem et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.72387

Projected impacts of climate change on malaria in Africa, Yamana & Eltahir, Environmental Health Perspectives Open Access 10.1289/ehp.1206174

Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

Climate Responsibilities of Business Corporations, Ngosso, WIREs Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.70040

Permafrost and wildfire carbon emissions indicate need for additional action to keep Paris Agreement temperature goals within reach, Schädel et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03189-5

Book reviews

Narratives of conflict in a warming Arctic, Spence, Science 10.1126/science.aed7095

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Demonstrating the Full Value of Managed Electric Vehicle Charging, Ramakrishnan et al., ENergyHub

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate with real electric vehicle (EV) drivers the value of various strategies for managing EV charging, with a focus on deferring distribution system upgrades and reducing wholesale costs. The authors present the results of a trial a managed charging solution with EV drivers in the state of Washington. Data from the trial was used to estimate the value of managed charging in avoiding electric system costs and to assess the differences in value between active and

Carbon Majors: 2024 Data Update, InfluenceMap

The Carbon Majors database traces 34.7 GtCO2e of greenhouse gas emissions in 2024 to the 166 oil, gas, coal, and cement producers, a 0.8% increase from these entities’ total emissions in 2023. Just 32 companies were linked to over half of global fossil fuel and cement CO2 emissions in 2024. As shown in Figure 1, the top 10 companies by emissions, cumulatively responsible for 27.6% of global fossil CO2 emissions in 2024, were all fully or majority state-owned companies. This analysis highlights the concentrated responsibility for global carbon emissions and underscores the critical role of corporate accountability in combating climate change. Historically, 70% of global fossil fuel and cement CO? emissions from 1854 through 2024 can be traced to 178 producing entities, with over a third attributable to just 22 companies. This demonstrates a clear concentration of responsibility among a relatively small number of producers. In recent years, the importance of corporate accountability has grown, particularly as international climate commitments have been unevenly implemented and, in some regions, partially rolled back. Carbon Majors provides a critical foundation for scientific attribution and climate liability, linking emissions directly to individual companies and supporting efforts to hold them responsible for environmental and social harms.

Demonstrating the Full Value of Managed Electric Vehicle Charging II, Ramakrishnan, EnergyHub

The authors demonstrate with real electric vehicle (EV) drivers the value of various strategies for managing EV charging, with a focus on deferring distribution system upgrades and reducing wholesale costs. The authors present a summary of the results of a trial of a managed charging solution with EV drivers in the Washington state. Data from the trial were used to estimate the value of managed charging in avoiding electric system costs and to assess the differences in value between active and passive managed charging strategies.

Navigating State Law in Local Climate Action, Nolette et al., Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia University

Local governments are well-positioned to lead the fight against climate change by reducing community-wide greenhouse gas emissions, promoting renewable energy resources, and otherwise advancing climate mitigation and adaptation goals. Many local governments have already taken actions, and there is more they can do. In mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis, local governments must be aware of and act consistently with preemptive state laws that limit their authority. The authors provide state-by-state information, resources, and analysis for 19 states on key state-local preemption issues.

Building Corporate Climate Resilience:, Verena Radulovic and Theo Bachrach, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and Resilience First

Physical climate impacts are fundamentally reshaping the risk landscape for global businesses. Through six dialogues conducted in 2025, the Climate Resilience Foresight Series brought together leaders from two dozen companies to explore how organizations can build comprehensive resilience to climate change. The authors present a strategic framework for corporate climate resilience, drawing on insights from participants across manufacturing, energy, technology, financial services, and other critical secto substantially, translating this awareness into sustained action remains challenging. Companies face genuine barriers including competing priorities, data limitations, and governance structures not designed for long-term, systemic threats. Yet leading organizations are developing innovative approaches that frame resilience as a sou center. As climate effects accelerate, the companies that systematically build adaptive capacity will be best positioned to protect value, seize opportunities, and contribute to broader societal resilience.

India’s electrotech fast-track: where China built on coal, India is building on su, Kingsmill Bond and Sumant Sinha, Ember

This analysis compares India and China’s energy paths at equivalent levels of economic development, using data from the World Bank for GDP, Ember for electricity and the IEA for energy balances. India is forging a better path to the electrotech future of energy. Cheap solar and batteries are enabling India to develop without the long fossil detour taken by the West and China.

Europe’s Selective Blindness on Gas: US LNG and the Limits of Supply Diversification, Piria et al., The Clingendael Institute, the Ecologic Institute, and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

U.S. gas imports into the European Economic Area (EEA) (including Norway) surged in 2025, now accounting for almost 40% of the EEA's total gas imports and nearly 60% of its LNG imports, creating exposure to geopolitical and price risks. While phasing out Russian fossil fuels is strategically sound, new European Union (EU) legislation narrows diversification to merely eliminating Russian imports. Treating Norway as an external supplier is at odds with economic realities and obscures Europe’s growing dependence on the U.S., an energy security risk that policymakers must acknowledge. The EU should monitor all suppliers' import shares, accelerate the energy transition and resist long-term fossil lock-ins misaligned with Europe’s falling gas demand.

Sunlight and Storage into Savings, Sharaf et al., Coalition for Community Solar Access

New York is on track to meet its goal of 10 gigawatts (GW) of distributed solar by 2030, but it can aim higher. In light of federal barriers and uncertainty with respect to large-scale renewables and offshore wind, New York needs to take new action to reduce carbon pollution and meet the statutory mandates in its climate law. Ramping up distributed solar and storage can solve that need, and, at the same time, produce large savings for all consumers. The authors modeled the effects of distributed solar and storage growth in New York under two scenarios: a “Business-as-Usual” (BAU) case that extrapolation of the state’s existing target of 10 GW by 2030), and a “Policy” case based on a new proposed target of 20 GW of distributed solar by 2035. In both scenarios, energy storage complements solar deployment by extending the benefits of midday solar generation into the evenings when electricity demand is high. The BAU case assumes distributed storage levels consistent with those modeled in the New York Energy Plan Pathways “No Action” scenario, producing 0.9 GW of distributed storage by 2035. In the Policy case, the authors modelled 3.7 GW of distributed storage by 2035 (extrapolating the state’s target of 1.7 GW of additional distributed storage by 2030).

Data Center Power Play in Wisconsin, Chavez et al., Union of Concerned Scientists

With forward-looking policies that reduce harm and protect ratepayers, Wisconsin can avoid the risks of unmitigated growth of electricity demand from data centers. Clean energy policies can prevent overreliance on fossil fuels by meeting new load with continued growth in the long term. This reinforces the need for flexible and sustainable resource planning. Wisconsin can meet the challenge of increased electricity demand with renewables and energy storage. By adopting a Clean Energy Standard and implementing a carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction policy, Wisconsin can generate 83 percent of its electricity with clean energy technologies, such as wind and solar by 2050. Clean energy policies reduce heat-trapping emissions and help avoid the negativ in the power sector by 2050, substantially reducing climate and health damages caused by pollution.

Climate change eclipses La Niña cooling in Australia to drive extreme heatwave and heightened fire risk, Clarke et al., World Weather Attribution

From 5–10 January, 2026, south-eastern Australia experienced its most severe heatwave since 2019–20. Temperatures exceeded 40°C in major cities including Melbourne and Sydney, with even hotter conditions across regional Victoria and New South Wales. Extreme heat affected large parts of Australia, including Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania before moving east to New Zealand. Researchers from Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, the United States, the Netherlands, Ireland and the United Kingdom collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of the extreme heat in the region. The analysis focuses on the 3 hottest days over the most affected area in South Eastern Australia, and additional analysis of weather station data in highly populated areas. When combining the observation-based analysis with climate models to quantify the role of climate change in the 3-day heat event, the authors conclude that climate change made the extreme heat about 1.6°C hotter.

2025 Global Change Outlook. Assessing risks to human well-being and pathways to a more sustainable future, Paltsev et al., MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy

n the 2025 Outlook we focus on two scenarios. Current Trends: Current measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, projected indefinitely. This scenario generally fails to stabilize climate, allowing global average temperatures to continue to rise. Accelerated Actions: What may happen if regions impose more aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets aligned with the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals. By contrasting outcomes under Current Trends and Accelerated Actions, we can quantify the risks of remaining on the world’s current emissions trajectory and the benefits of pursuing a much more aggressive strategy. We hope that our risk-benefit analysis will help inform decision-makers in government, industry, academia and civil society as they confront sustainability-relevant challenges.

Americans are more likely to think climate change will be harmful to the world than to them personally, Jamie Ballard, YouGov

A new YouGov survey on climate change and the environment finds that many Americans foresee dire consequences to climate change and experience anxiety or grief when they think about climate change, but few believe they personally will be harmed greatly by climate change. One-quarter of Americans believe it is very or somewhat likely climate change will cause the extinction of the human race. More than twice as many think it is likely to cause cities to be lost to rising sea levels (56%), and similar proportions expect mass displacement of people from some parts of the world to others (57%) and serious damage to the global economy (58%). Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to say these catastrophic events are likely. The largest gaps are on serious damage to the global economy (82% of Democrats and 29% of Republicans think this is a likely result of climate change) and mass displacement from some parts of the world to others (81% vs. 32%).

Vineyard Wind 1: Impact on Jobs and Economic Output, Annual Report 4, David Borges, Vineyard Wind

Vineyard Wind 1 has created thousands of jobs. More than 3,700 U.S.-based workers have been directly employed on the project to date, including both union and nonunion workers across development, construction, and O&M. Most are Massachusetts residents. Construction is the most labor-intensive phase of the project. Over 3,300 workers have been employed during the construction phase, with peak activity in Year 2, when work was underway simultaneously in Barnstable, Martha’s Vineyard, offshore, and New Bedford. Full-time equivalents (FTEs) capture the total volume of labor delivered on the project. The project has generated 2,469 FTEs since 2017, reflecting the intensity and duration of work, including offshore rotations and high-hour schedules that go beyond simple worker counts. Union labor participation exceeded local hiring goals. Seventy-one percent of union workers resided in Southeastern Massachusetts (SEMass), surpassing the project’s 51% goal, demonstrating strong local engagement. Offshore roles require highly specialized, high-wage labor. Many offshore technicians, marine crews, and commissioning staff work 84 hours per week during rotations, earning premium wages and overtime that significantly boost economic impacts.

Thirsty Data and the Lone Star State: The Impact of Data Center Growth on Texas’ Water Supply, Cook et al., HARC

In the last year, the projected spike in data center electricity demand has received significant attention. Their water demand has only recently entered the mainstream discussion. Because water and electricity are inextricably linked, the authors discuss both and provides estimates of how this new industry could impact Texas’ water supply, local communities, other businesses, and the 30 million Texans who already face significant water supply challenges. The authors also present some broad recommendations that state and local leaders should consider as more and more technology companies seek to connect to the Texas grid and water systems.

Assessment of EU and Member States Adaptation and Investment Needs, Directorate General for Climate Action, European Commission

The authors provide a robust, evidence-based estimate of the investment needs – as represented by the cost of implementation of adaptation actions – required to adapt to climate risks in Europe. As climate impacts intensify, understanding the scale and distribution of adaptation investment needs becomes increasingly important for policy planning, budget allocation, and strategic prioritization. This analysis supports the European Commission’s overall work on adaptation and resilience, on guiding Member States in developing coherent and cost-effective responses to climate risks and in its efforts to mainstream adaptation into fiscal frameworks.

The Fiduciary Case for Divesting the New York State & Local Retirement System’s Common Retirement Fund from Fossil Fuel Companies, Drew Warshaw

The author finds that New York State Comptroller DiNapoli’s investments in fossil fuel companies have destroyed actual value for active and retired public employees and taxpayers alike. Over the last 18 years, New York’s State & Local Common Retirement Fund (“CRF”) would have performed 5.4% better without fossil fuel investments than the CRF actually performed in real life, and would have earned an additional $15.1 billion. Because the CRF has to be fully funded by law, that 5.4% loss in value forced New York taxpayers to contribute an extra $8.3 billion in local property and state income taxes. Instead of fully mitigating this risk through divestment, the Comptroller has taken half measures, backed by complex, opaque and subjective methods that lack conviction, efficacy, objectivity, and run counter to the Comptroller’s fiduciary duty as the CRF’s “sole trustee.”

Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes, Fall 2025, Leiserowitz et al., Yale University and George Mason University

Americans who think global warming is happening outnumber those who think it is not by a ratio of more than 5 to 1 (72% versus 13%). 64% of Americans say they are at least “somewhat worried” about global warming. However, 85% of Americans either underestimate how many Americans are worried, or don’t know enough to say. Only 17% of Americans say they hear about global warming in the media “at least once a week,” which is the lowest percentage since the question was added to the survey in 2015.

Power Outages Cost More Than We Account For. Better Data Could Help. What insurers, utilities, and communities need to better assess power outage risk and boost resilience, Harnett et al., RMI

Energy systems in the United States are under increasing stress. Challenges tied to aging infrastructure and rising energy demand are being compounded by increasingly frequent and severe storms, floods, and wildfires. Yet despite growing exposure to climate-driven outages, utilities, insurers, investors, local governments, and communities still lack clear, consistent data on the economic and social impacts of power disruptions. This gap makes it harder to evaluate and justify investments in resilient solutions and technologies that could reduce energy waste, protect households and businesses, and avoid future losses. The authors review the methods and tools currently used to estimate outage costs — focusing on extreme weather-related losses — and highlights opportunities to strengthen the methods needed to support smarter planning and capital allocation toward more resilient power systems. About New Research

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It’s an odd couple you may have never expected, but healthy trees promote healthy fish — and vice versa.

Biodiversity loss 'threat to security' Channel News Catherine Early 29th January 2026 Teaser Media

Deep in the mountains of Harlan County, the entrance to “Portal 31” stands, a mine where generations of miners have worked. Shuttered in 1963, the old mine found new life in 2009 when it opened as an immersive tour and museum. Visitors step into rail cars and travel into the mine, hearing the stories of miners and experiencing the complex history of the industry that shaped the region. 

In 2023, the exhibits got an overhaul and update, thanks to key grant funding and local leadership. However, its online presence still didn’t convey the full experience of what it is like to descend into the darkness of a historic coal mine.  

According to Jeff Wilder, Portal 31’s chairman, the website was outdated and difficult to navigate. Visitors struggled to find basic information like hours, ticketing, or what to expect. Though they have visitors coming already from all 50 states and overseas, the staff still knew they needed a change to honor the site’s significance with the visibility it deserved. 

That’s when they contacted the Mountain Association for website development training and support through our Business Support program. 

Understanding the immense value Portal 31 holds for regional tourism, Mountain Association invested in their project, contracting with Letcher County based consultant Malcolm Wilson to help them build a fully redesigned website that better tells their story. 

Working closely with the Portal 31 team, Malcolm took his iconic, vivid photos from inside the mine and paired them with streamlined ticketing information and an easy‑to‑use layout. They added information about nearby local attractions like the RV park and overlooks, as well as information on their miners memorial.  

For the staff who pour their hearts into keeping the mine’s history alive, the transformation was energizing.  

“Thanks to Mountain Alliance and Malcolm Wilson, we were able to enhance our online presence that is equally as impressive as the tour itself,” said Wilder.

Today, with its newly updated exhibits and its website, the story of coal mining in Eastern Kentucky can travel far beyond the mountains, inviting people everywhere to journey underground and discover the history that shaped our communities and the nation as a whole. 

Visit the site: portal31minetour.org

The post Portal 31 Underground Museum Gets Updated Online Presence  appeared first on Mountain Association.

Press release from Save the Redwoods League

[excerpt:]

San Francisco, Calif. (January 27, 2026) — Save the Redwoods League announced today that it has secured an agreement with the Richardson family to acquire 200 acres in Sonoma County, including a nearly 35-acre old-growth coast redwood grove, directly adjacent to the Harold Richardson Redwoods Reserve property Save the Redwoods acquired from the family in 2018.

Save the Redwoods League seeks to raise $4 million for the acquisition and permanent protection of two properties totaling 200 acres. Within the additional old-growth grove on this land, more than 200 trees stand taller than 200 feet, with some reaching 250 feet. This acquisition will expand the Reserve to 930 acres—a more than 20% increase in size—and serve as a protective buffer to the Reserve’s hundreds of old-growth coast redwood trees in an era of climate change. Securing these properties also opens the way for Save the Redwoods to realize its long-standing vision of establishing recreational access and programs at the Reserve.

“By expanding Harold Richardson Redwoods Reserve, we are protecting more of this important redwood ecosystem and securing more of its irreplaceable old-growth trees,” says Steve Mietz, president and CEO of Save the Redwoods League. “Coast redwood forests quietly store substantial amounts of carbon, shelter over 1,000 plant and animal species, and stand as living proof that California’s climate resilience is tied to conserving natural landscapes like this.”

. . .

To read the entire article, visit Save the Redwoods League:
Save the Redwoods League Secures Opportunity to Expand Harold Richardson Redwoods Reserve and Protect Sonoma County’s Ancient Redwoods

This is a re-post from the WMO

Climate variability and long-term climate change are increasingly shaping the performance and reliability of renewable energy systems worldwide, according to the WMO–IRENA Climate-driven Global Renewable Energy Resources and Energy Demand Review: 2024 Year in Review, released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

• Published in partnership with:
• International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)

Key messages

• WMO–IRENA 2024 Year in Review highlights growing impacts of climate extremes on clean power systems
• Climate variability is already shaping renewable energy supply and electricity demand worldwide
• Extreme heat is driving rapid growth in energy demand, increasing system stress
• Hydropower is particularly exposed to rainfall variability
• Climate-informed planning and forecasting are essential

The report, in its third edition, finds that 2024—the warmest year on record, with global temperatures reaching around 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels—brought pronounced regional shifts in solar, wind and hydropower potential, alongside a 4% increase in climate-driven global energy demand compared with the 1991–2020 average. These climate-driven changes are occurring as global renewable energy capacity surpassed 4,400 gigawatts (GW), amplifying the interaction between climate conditions and energy systems at an unprecedented scale. 

The findings underscore the urgency of integrating climate intelligence into energy planning as countries work to deliver on the COP28 UAE Consensus, which calls for tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030.

“Climate variability is no longer a background consideration for the energy sector—it is a defining operational factor,” said Prof. Celeste Saulo, WMO Secretary-General. “As renewable energy systems expand, their performance and reliability are increasingly shaped by heat extremes, rainfall variability and shifting atmospheric patterns. Integrating climate information and early warnings into energy planning is essential to build power systems that are both clean and resilient.”

Climate extremes are amplifying energy system stress

Using four core energy indicators (wind and solar capacity factors, a precipitation-based hydropower proxy, and a temperature-derived energy demand proxy), the analysis shows that residual El Niño conditions, record ocean heat and long-term warming produced strong regional contrasts in energy outcomes in 2024.

In Southern Africa, wind capacity factors increased by around +8 to +16% and solar by +2 to +6%, while hydropower remained below average for a third consecutive year and energy demand reached record highs. South Asia experienced deficits in wind and solar performance alongside sharply rising cooling demand, with monthly demand anomalies reaching around +16% in October. East Africa saw positive hydropower anomalies due to above-average rainfall, while parts of South America faced suppressed hydropower output and elevated demand under dry and hot conditions.

Seasonal forecasts show growing value for energy planning

For the first time, the report evaluates the skill of seasonal climate forecasts for energy indicators. Results indicate that forecasts—particularly from the ECMWF system—can successfully anticipate regional anomalies in solar energy potential and electricity demand months in advance. For example, forecasts issued in early summer 2024 correctly signaled unusually high energy demand and below-average solar performance across large parts of Africa.

These advances demonstrate how early warning information on heatwaves, rainfall shifts and large-scale climate drivers such as ENSO can support load management, reservoir operations, infrastructure scheduling and cross-border electricity trade, helping to reduce volatility in both supply and demand.

Implications for policy, investment and NDCs

As countries prepare their Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS), the report highlights the need to strengthen climate-informed energy planning by improving data and observational systems, expanding regional climate services and early warning systems, mainstreaming seasonal forecasts into decision-making, and designing climate-resilient energy targets aligned with the Paris Agreement and the COP28 Global Stocktake.

“The global energy transition is unstoppable but must be grounded in climate reality,” said Francesco La Camera, Director-General of IRENA. “This report shows that understanding climate variability is critical for making smart investment decisions, strengthening energy security and ensuring that rapidly growing renewable capacity delivers reliable power under real-world climate conditions.”

By bridging meteorological science and energy planning, the WMO–IRENA 2024 Year in Review provides actionable insights to support resilient, reliable and equitable clean energy systems as renewable deployment accelerates worldwide.

Local sourcing programs funneled healthy foods to those that needed it most. With food assistance dollars disappearing, aid groups are piloting solutions to keep farm-grown foods on pantry shelves.

The post NC Food Pantries Fill the Gap After Funding Cuts appeared first on RAFI.

“Who the f*ck wants to kill penguins?” asks MI5 supervisor Jackson Lamb in the spy thriller Slow Horses.

It seems we do. Humans.

Over 60,000 penguins off the coast of South Africa, to be more specific.

Through a combination of human-induced climate change and overfishing, we caused sardine populations to collapse. Sardines who are vital for African penguins’ survival.

These penguins normally prepare for a brutal 21-day fasting period, during which they must stay on land to shed and replace their feathers by munching on sardines to build up fat reserves that allow them to survive the fast.

Instead we took their food, and then they starved. More than 60,000 in just eight years.

We’ve pushed them entre la espada y la pared — between a sword and a wall. On one side, a changing climate. On the other, an empty ocean.

And it’s not just penguins.

Late last year a study found that the November floods in Sumatra may have pushed the world’s rarest great apes, Tapanuli orangutans, even closer to extinction. Before the floods fewer than 800 remained in the wild, living in habitats already threatened by industrial activity and growing conflict with humans. According to reporting from Inside Climate News, those floods were “likely exacerbated by widespread deforestation, which stripped the land of its capacity to absorb rainfall and retain soil.” Much of this deforestation was caused by infrastructure development, mining, and palm oil expansion in and around the orangutan’s habitat.

The Tapanuli orangutan. Photo: Tim Laman (CC 4.0)

Between causing extreme heat events and making drastic changes to wild habitats, we’re narrowing the safe zone for animals, leaving them with nowhere to go. We may effectively be pushing nearly 80,000 animal species toward extinction in under 80 years.

And yet those same wild animals have a role to play in stabilizing the climate. If we give them a hand.

Wild Animals Are Our Allies

Late last year in Brazil, governments from countries that are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change met for the 30th time to negotiate a response to the climate crisis — a meeting called COP30.

In the midst of it, at an official event, scientist Dr, Ana Cristina Mendes-Oliveira talked about agoutis, small rodents who live in the Amazon and are responsible for the evolution of Brazil nut trees.

Agoutis, with their sharp teeth and strong jaws, are among the few animals able to crack the nut open. Because one nut can hold up to a couple of dozen seeds, more than a hungry agouti can eat at once, the animals have the habit of burying some of them to snack on another time. They also have the habit of forgetting where they buried them. And so many of those forgotten seeds survive and sprout into impressive trees that can reach heights of up to 160 feet and live for hundreds of years.

Through their hunger and forgetfulness, agoutis enhance carbon sequestration and storage in the Amazon.

Like agoutis, many other wild animals disperse seeds, pollinate, and help cycle nutrients in ecosystems, contributing substantially to the maintenance and restoration of key natural environments.

For example, take the tapir, another forest maker in the Amazon:

1. 1. They swallow whole fruits and release thousands of seeds in their dung. Many of these seeds belong to species that grow into large, carbon-rich trees.
   2. Because they travel and drop their waste more often in degraded parts of the forests, they often deliver seeds in spots where regeneration is most needed.
   3. Since their movements can span miles, they’re long-distance seed dispersers who help connect fragmented habitats.

Beyond these two cases, there are many more, including the American alligator. Studies show that ecosystems with more diverse animal communities are often associated with higher levels of carbon storage and sequestration.

The loss of wild animals in their natural habitats is a problem — not only for them but for our climate, sustainability, and wellbeing.

Animal-Washing No More

At UNFCCC COP30 in Brazil, governments spent two weeks talking about how to confront climate change, including in food systems, in relation to biodiversity loss and desertification, and through adaptation efforts. These issues are inseparable.

And one way or another, animal wellbeing sits at the center of them all.

And yet, despite the walls at the venue being draped with beautiful images of Amazon wildlife, animals themselves barely featured in the negotiations. Mitigation discussions largely sidelined food systems, even though they are responsible for at least a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. And when food systems were discussed, they were discussed without meaningfully addressing the climate, land-use, and biodiversity impacts of industrial animal agriculture or fishing, or what those systems mean for the animals trapped inside of them. Adaptation was debated without recognizing wildlife’s active role in stabilizing ecosystems.

That is animal-washing: celebrating animals in imagery while sidelining them in policy.

This matters not only because animals are on the frontline of the climate crisis, but also because they are ecosystem engineers, essential for effective climate action. Ignoring their contributions in climate policy is a missed opportunity.

Encouragingly, that logic is starting to reach policymakers.

At COP30, Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Environment announced that African leaders had agreed to back a Wildlife for Climate Action Agenda, paving the way for a Global Wildlife for Climate Action Declaration to be launched at COP31. This political commitment was formally endorsed weeks earlier at the African Union Biodiversity Summit in Botswana, where heads of state adopted the Gaborone Declaration on Biodiversity, including a pledge to promote wildlife as part of Africa’s climate response.

In a world that’s pushing penguins, orangutans, and thousands of other species between a sword and a wall, that shift matters.

Because if we stop treating animals as background scenery and start recognizing and protecting them as climate allies, we may yet give both them and ourselves a fighting chance.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

Could Baird’s Tapirs Be a New Conservation Ambassador?

The post Animals Are Climate Allies. So Why Are We Leaving Them Out of Climate Policy? appeared first on The Revelator.

When neuroscientist Gregory Berns and his wife set out to build a small, regenerative farm in rural Georgia, they didn’t expect cows to become central to his scientific curiosity. But as Berns began caring for a small herd of miniature zebus, he found himself drawn into a deeper exploration of their emotional lives, social intelligence, and communication. 

In Cowpuppy, Berns weaves together personal storytelling, careful observation, and accessible neuroscience to reveal a surprisingly rich inner world behind those familiar brown eyes. In this excerpt, he takes us inside one deceptively simple question: What does a cow actually mean when she moos? 

You can also explore more of Berns’ work and perspective in our recent conversation, where we dive deeper into animal cognition, interspecies connection, and what cows — and dogs — can teach us about ourselves.

Everyone knows what a cow sounds like. The cow says Moooo! A classic example of onomatopoeia, a word that sounds like its meaning.

Or is it? In English, the cow may say moo, but in French, they meuh. In Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese it’s mu. Welsh cows say the unpronounceable mw. Danish cows go muh, but in Dutch they boe. While most of the world seems to agree on the monosyllabic /m/ sound, to my ear it wasn’t really an /m/ sound, or even one syllable. If we’re going for acoustic verisimilitude, a few languages get pretty close to cow-talk. In Finnish, it’s ammuu. In Bengali, it’s hamba. But I think the closest to what cows really sound like, especially with emphasis on the second syllable, is heard in Tagalog: ungaa; or Korean: eum mae. Of course, my cows were of the Asian variety, so that may have had something to do with the similarity of their vocalizations to languages of southeast Asia—a cattle dialect of sorts.

There is, in fact, tremendous variation in the sounds cows make. Each cow has a repertoire of vocalizations that presumably mean different things, and no cow sounds exactly like another. As in the human voice system, cow vocalizations originate with vibration of the vocal folds of the larynx. The emerging sounds are then modulated by the configuration of the tongue, mouth, and lips. Sometimes a cow will vocalize with her lips closed, in which case it really does sound like mooo. Other times she will keep her mouth open, resulting in a nasal version, like Steve Urkel might do if he were a cow. And then there’s lowing, a deeper, more resonant sound that can be heard at great distance.

It is a generally accepted tenet of biology that the reason animals vocalize is to communicate with one another. But for this to work, there has to be both a sender and a receiver. Although humans talk to themselves, other animals don’t. Even the solitary wolf, seemingly howling at the moon, is communicating with other wolves, who may be miles away. He might be calling for a mate or warning others to stay away from his territory. Vocalization is intentional and meant to convey information to a recipient.

To understand what cows are saying, we have to examine mooing from both the sender’s and receiver’s perspective. What is the sender trying to convey? And what do they expect the receiver to do? If we understood the receiving end, this would open the door to verbal communication, like people have with dogs.

All of my cows mooed, some more than others, and the females were generally more vocal than the males. It wasn’t until the third season that I could say this with some confidence because it wasn’t until then that I had enough males and females to observe. The boys were more physical, but the girls were more vocal. A bit like humans, I guess.

Ethel had always been the most vocal of the herd. She mooed nearly every evening when it was time for the grain. She mooed incessantly at each of her calves until they were a month old, to the point that it appeared they learned to ignore her entreaties. Sometimes I would hear her mooing in the pasture for reasons only she knew. Unless it was repetitive or sounded particularly urgent, I ignored her, just like the rest of the herd did. (Okay, I didn’t really know if the herd ignored her, but there were no obvious reactions from the other cows when Ethel was doing her regular mooing.)

Although Ethel was the most vocal of the herd, the others mooed from time to time, and for a few weeks after Xena’s calf was born, she mooed even more than Ethel. As a first-time mom, Xena did not possess the knowledge and security of a seasoned cow, like her momma, Lucy. Newborn calves don’t do much other than drink milk and sleep. The momma, though, has an increased caloric requirement due to lactation and needs to eat roughly 50 percent more than normal. Poor Xena was torn between filling her belly with grass and checking on her calf. She would graze for a bit with Luna sleeping nearby, but as soon as Xena moved on to fresh forage she would bellow at Luna until she got up and followed her to the new location. Ethel had done the same with all of her calves, but Lucy radiated confidence and rarely needed to moo. Her calves just followed her.

Except when a calf managed to slip through the fence. It was inevitable. Every one of the calves, at some point, found their way to the wrong side of, the fence. They had a tendency to nap beneath the rails while their mommas were grazing, and I think when they woke up, they just rolled the wrong way. Other times, they were curious and squeezed underneath. However they got out, though, the momma went into a tizzy, running back and forth along the fence line, mooing desperately at the wayward calf to get back in, which, of course, they never seemed to figure out. One time, when Tex was a calf, we found him curled up under a tree in the forest. When Lucy mooed, I knew something was up. The only clue to his approximate location was the direction Lucy was aiming her bellows.

The boys’ vocalizations were entirely different than the girls’. They rarely mooed, and when they did, it was a harsh sound, almost like a donkey braying. The only times Ricky Bobby mooed were when he was separated from the herd. This didn’t happen often, just when he was castrated and when he was having his hooves trimmed. I think his braying was more from the pain of separation than the physical pain. BB’s moo sounded more like a grunt, but he, too, did it only when he inadvertently got separated from the herd, like when he lingered in the barn too long and the herd decided to leave. Poor BB would come out and, realizing he was alone, call out for his friends.

These descriptions would seem to imply that cows moo mainly when they’re in distress. Temple Grandin used cow vocalizations as a type of negative metric of how well they were being handled at slaughter. Vocalization is also increased when calves are separated from their mothers (more so with the mothers than the calves). The same is true for dairy cattle. Fo these reasons much of the cattle industry has gravitated toward mooing as a marker of stress. A quiet cow is a happy cow. However, the context of any vocalization must be taken into account. Slaughterhouses and dairies are inherently stressful situations, so any vocalization in those contexts will necessarily indicate physical or emotional stress. What about other, nonstressful situations?

Although my cows vocalized most prominently when they were unhappy about something, they also mooed when they appeared perfectly fine. Like Ethel, they occasionally mooed in excitement when I was about to give them treats or when I was moving them to a fresh pasture. When the mommas mooed at their calves, sometimes they were just saying, Hey! Let’s go! Other times, I think they were teaching the calves what their momma sounded like. Cows identify each other by their signature calls. One study found that three-to five-week-old calves can differentiate recordings of their mothers from other cows. And it’s not just the cows identifying one another. I could do it, too, just as I could identify each of my dogs by how they sounded.

In an effort to understand cattle vocalizations, researchers have put considerable effort into decoding moos. The classic approach was through acoustic analysis, which relied on a spectrogram. A sort of vocal fingerprint, a spectrogram plots how different audio frequencies change over the course of a vocalization. They are especially common in the analysis of birdsong. When applied to speech, acoustic analysis is termed phonetics. The fundamental unit of phonetics is a formant, which describes the frequency of a sound. Speech, though, is composed of several frequencies, each changing in amplitude during the course of a vocalization. The formant with the lowest frequency is called F1, the second F2, and so on. When this type of analysis was done on cow vocalizations, the average F1 was 790 Hz and F2 was 1942 Hz. This combination of F1 and F2 sounds similar to the formants produced when an adult human male makes the long a sound.

While formants describe vowel sounds, speech involves a lot more than that. How a formant is initiated and how it ends determines the basic unit of human speech, called a phoneme. Even though there are five vowels in written English, there are twenty to twenty-four phonemes that describe how to pronounce vowel sounds. For example, in grade school, kids are taught the difference between the short a sound in cat (abbreviated /a/) and the long a of cake (/./). There are another twenty or so phonemes for the consonants. Cattle vocabulary, if there is one, would have to use a much more restricted set of phonemes because cows don’t have nearly the degree of vocal control humans do.

A single cow vocalization lasts one to one and a half seconds, but there are several ways a cow can alter how she moos. Presumably, these alterations are done intentionally and, therefore, contain information that is being transmitted to someone—another cow, a human, or maybe another farm animal. One study found that moos could be divided into open-and closed-mouth types. With mouth closed, a cow produces a lower frequency formant, and these types of moos are more frequent when a momma is near her calf, especially during the first month after birth. With mouth open, the sound projects farther and is a higher pitch. These types of moos are used when momma and calf are separated and the momma is calling for her calf. Further analysis has revealed that individual cows could be distinguished by differences in the formant frequencies—a vocal signature—but only in the closed-mouth moos. The authors speculated that vocal identification is more important when cows and calves are near each other, with open-mouth moos serving as a more general call. Taking this type of analysis one step further, Australian researchers determined that vocal signatures are maintained across different emotional states. Cows were assumed to be in a positive emotional state when the farmer was getting their feed ready and a negative state when they were isolated or denied access to food, but the cows were recognizable by their moos in both positive and negative contexts.

No study has yet been able to differentiate positive and negative emotional states just from mooing. It may be that cows, like most animals, have no need of mooing when they’re happy, instead reserving vocalization for distress and warning calls. But that wouldn’t explain Ethel’s moos during the evening grain. No, vocal decoding is a hard problem. Machine-learning algorithms are just beginning to get a handle on decoding human emotion from human speech.

The difficulty is compounded in domesticated species. Because humans have altered their natural evolution, the vocalizations of domesticated animals may be directed at either their compatriots or humans. Wild animals, in contrast, have no need to communicate with humans, so their vocalizations are directed at one another or occasionally to frighten off potential threats.

In terms of domesticated animals, the most progress in understanding vocalizations is with dogs. Dogs are evolved from wolves, which are famously vocal, and this may have something to do with dogs’ ability to understand human speech, as well as our ability to decipher their vocalizations. Research has shown that people are generally quite good at recognizing some dog emotions from their vocalizations, such as aggressive barks at strangers versus barks when they’re playing, although this ability is largely dependent on a given person’s experience with and thus exposure to dogs. In general, low-pitched barks are understood to be aggressive in nature, whereas high-pitched barks convey a more positive emotional state, like playfulness.

In fact, this high-low vocal rule has been observed in many animals. Harsh, low pitches signal hostile intent, and purer, high pitches mean friendliness. There is a simple explanation for this relationship. Physics dictates that large animals will have lower-pitched vocalizations. To the extent that an individual can vary the pitch of its sounds, lowering the pitch will make them sound bigger and more threatening. Conversely, raising the pitch will have the opposite effect, signaling that they are small—even juvenile—and don’t want any conflict. Although this rule has not been studied with cattle, it likely holds true.

If humans can broadly recognize whether an animal vocalization is hostile or friendly, it is straightforward to program a computer to do the same. It’s really a matter of having a lot of data. An early decoder of dog barks, for example, could tell the difference between barks produced in six situations: playing, fighting, walking, being left alone, being approached by a stranger, and being shown a ball. However, the algorithm required six thousand barks and was about 50 percent accurate (substantially better than guessing, which would be correct 17 percent of the time). To make a moo-alyzer, you would need a comparable number of audio samples, about one thousand per type of moo. Doable, but a person would still need to hand code what each moo represented before training a neural net on the data. One promising approach to decoding cow vocalizations recognizes that moos often occur in sequence, almost like a sentence. Instead of focusing on a single moo, the transitions between open-and closed-mouth mooing suggest a simple way to understand what a cow is saying, especially in the context of mother-calf interactions. In a typical sequence, the momma uses an open-mouth

moo to call her calf and then transitions to closed-mouth when they are reunited.

Mooing isn’t even the whole story of cow communication. Cows make other types of vocalizations more frequently than moos. They grunt and snort. Ethel, as the most vocal of the herd, was a prolific snorter too. She would only do this when her calves were doing something she didn’t like, usually by wandering off too much for her comfort. What was interesting was that Ethel used a graded level of snorting. Mild irritation was signaled by a soft, brief snort. As she became more unhappy, this would increase in volume and stridor to the point of sounding like a grunt. The best way I can describe it is how Marge Simpson sounds when she grunts in disapproval. Although scientists have studied cow mooing, there has been no research on these types of subvocalizations in cattle. However, grunts have been categorized in other ungulates. Deer have been said to emit four types of grunts/snorts distinguishable by their acoustic parameters: the grunt, the alert-snort, the snort-wheeze, and the aggressive snort. All but the alert-snort are produced when deer are near each other, some being affiliative and others aggressive. The alert-snort is a loud propulsion of air by a lone deer warning others within earshot of a potential threat. I heard alert-snorts every day when I walked through the woods around the farm. It seems likely that cows have a similar vocabulary. I would often hear the cows emit brief, high-pitched grunts when they played with each other. This was especially true of the calves, but everyone did it when they got going, like when they played in the sand pile.

There was another type of cow vocalization that I could find no reference to. I call it cooing. This was something all the calves did. When I crouched down and called them over, they would often nuzzle my neck, licking it while making soft snuffling sounds, which sounded like the coos of an infant. It was so quiet, you could only hear it if you were on the receiving end. I assumed the calves did it with their mommas too. Sometimes even the adults cooed. Xena tended to do it a lot when she wanted neck scratches. The coo of human babies is a potent releaser of oxytocin in mothers, and scientists think this promotes and maintains bonds with the parents. I think cows do the same thing, which would explain why I became so attached to them, especially the calves.

Taken from Cowpuppy by Gregory Berns. Copyright © 2024 Gregory Berns. Used by permission of Harper Horizon, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus, LLC. www.harpercollinsfocus.com/

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When Gregory Berns joins our call, he isn’t sitting in a lab or a lecture hall. He’s calling from his farm in rural Georgia, and he’s in the middle of a fight against the rapid expansion of massive data centers spreading across the landscape south of Atlanta. Developers are proposing facilities millions of square feet in size, drawn to poorer counties where land is cheap and tax revenue is desperately needed. Once built, the land is permanently altered.

For Berns, a neuroscientist known for putting awake, unrestrained dogs into MRI scanners, the fight against data center sprawl isn’t separate from his research. It’s another expression of the same problem he’s been circling for years: what happens when complex lives — human or nonhuman — are flattened into abstractions, and when systems are designed to ignore what they consume.

Now a Distinguished Professor of Neuroeconomics at Emory University, Berns spent decades studying human decision-making using functional MRI before turning his attention to animals. Around 2011, that curiosity narrowed in on dogs — one of the few nonhuman animals able to cooperate with brain imaging without anesthesia or restraint. What began, as he puts it, as “an idea in search of a question” quickly opened into something much larger. Why stop with dogs? There are roughly 6,000 mammal species on the planet, yet humans have meaningfully studied the inner lives of only a handful.

Today, Berns’ work is driven by a deceptively simple aim: to better understand the interior worlds of other mammals, without harming them, and with animals treated as partners rather than passive subjects. Using noninvasive brain imaging, he explores what behavior alone can’t reveal — how animals perceive, decide, feel, and relate — and what those discoveries mean for the ethical systems humans have built around them.

In the conversation that follows, Berns reflects on what neuroscience can and can’t tell us about animal minds, why individuality is such a disruptive concept in how we treat other species, and how acknowledging animal inner lives challenges the assumptions that underpin everything.

You can read an excerpt from Gregory Berns book Cowpuppy here.

Bioneers: In nonhuman animals, what does brain imaging offer that behavioral observation can’t?

Gregory Berns: For much of the 20th century and even into the 21st, the only way to try to understand what was going on in another animal’s mind was to study behavior. You observe what an animal does and try to infer what’s happening internally. That’s how behaviorism and operant conditioning really took hold, based on the idea that animals learn through simple rules of reward and punishment — carrots and sticks.

But that turns out to be a very incomplete picture. Even with humans, we know we’re not strictly governed by rewards and punishments, and animals aren’t either. There’s ample evidence that many animals build internal models of the world: mental representations of their environment and the other beings in it. They make decisions based on those models. That’s a much more efficient way of navigating the world than constant trial-and-error. Animals are far more efficient than that.

Brain imaging offers a different way in. If an animal can sit still in an MRI scanner, we can start to see circuits in action — not individual neurons, but large-scale patterns of activity related to motivation, perception, and decision-making. And because mammal brains are so similar in their basic structure, we can link what we see in other animals back to what we already know about humans, and cautiously infer what another animal might be experiencing.

A good example of why that matters is jealousy. Most dog owners will tell you their dogs experience jealousy, but for a long time many scientists would say it’s too complex an emotion to attribute to animals.

We designed an experiment to explore that question. Dogs were in the MRI scanner, looking at what appeared to be another dog — a very realistic dog statue — with their owner positioned in between. Sometimes the owner gave the dog in the scanner a treat. Other times, the owner turned and gave the treat to the fake dog. As a control, we also used a bucket, so in both cases the dog wasn’t getting the food, but only in one case was it going to something that looked like another dog.

In some dogs, that situation evoked activity in the amygdala, a brain region associated with arousal and emotional reactivity. And importantly, that response correlated with dogs who had a history of aggression.

The key point is this: The dogs were extremely well trained. They stayed perfectly still in the scanner. Behaviorally, they were doing exactly what we wanted them to do. But beneath the surface, it was bothering them, and that’s something you would never know just by watching the dog. It shows the real limitation of relying on behavior alone to understand what an animal is experiencing internally.

Bioneers: So in brain scans, if the same area lights up in dogs and humans, what can we actually conclude from that?

Gregory: That’s what’s known as reverse inference, and it’s something people in brain imaging argue about a lot. The basic idea is that if you see activity in a particular brain region in an animal, and that region looks structurally and functionally similar to the same region in humans, you can make a cautious inference about what the animal might be experiencing.

But it’s not a certainty. Even within humans, our interpretations change over time. I spent many years studying what we used to casually call the “reward system.” For a long time, when we saw activity in those dopamine-related circuits, the knee-jerk conclusion was that the person was experiencing pleasure. We now understand that’s too simplistic. Those circuits are more about motivation — about something being salient or worth paying attention to — and whether that motivation is positive or negative depends heavily on context.

So when we see similar patterns in dogs, we’re making the same kind of inference, but carefully. You need more context to know whether something is pleasurable, aversive, or something else entirely.

Bioneers: When has your own intuition about dogs not matched what you found in their brains?

Gregory: One clear example came from some of the last experiments we did, where we created movies specifically for dogs to watch in the scanner. We filmed everything from the dog’s point of view — using GoPros, walking around dog parks, showing scenes we assumed dogs would find interesting.

My intuition, very much shaped by being human, was that dogs would be focused on who was on the screen. Is that a dog? Is that a person? Is that someone familiar? But when we analyzed the brain data using machine-learning methods, that’s not what we found.

What the dogs’ brains were really distinguishing was what was happening, not who was doing it. They could clearly differentiate between actions like walking versus eating, but they didn’t strongly discriminate between whether it was a dog or a human performing those actions. It wasn’t who was on the screen; it was what was happening.

That was a good reminder that we’re always at risk of projecting our own way of seeing the world onto other species. I’m human, and I interpret scenes in a very human way. But dogs evolved to pay attention to different kinds of information, and brain imaging can reveal those differences in ways our intuition often can’t.

Bioneers: Affection is something many people feel instinctively in their relationships with animals, especially dogs. How did you translate that intuition into something neuroscience could actually test?

Gregory: Affection was one of the early questions I really wanted to answer, because it’s something dog owners feel very strongly about. We designed an experiment that was essentially Pavlovian. The dogs learned that one signal meant they were going to get a food reward, and another signal meant they were going to get praised by their owner. Then we looked at what happened in their reward-related brain circuits.

What we found was that for about 75% of the dogs, there was equal activation in those circuits when they anticipated food and when they anticipated praise from their owner. To me, that’s about as close to proof as you can get that dogs experience genuinely positive feelings toward their people and that those feelings aren’t purely transactional. I’m happy to call it love.

What’s been even more striking to me, honestly, is my experience with cows. Once I got to know them and they accepted me into their herd, they began offering affection in the same way they offer it to each other: licking, staying close, engaging socially. I can give them treats, but for the most part, that’s not what drives the relationship. It’s not like a dog showing up because it thinks there’s food involved.

In many ways, that makes it feel even more genuine. It reinforces the idea that rich emotional lives, including affection, aren’t limited to the animals we’re most comfortable loving.

Bioneers: Your research shows that individual animals’ brains — even within the same species — can be remarkably different. Why is individuality such a disruptive idea when it comes to how we treat animals?

Gregory: Over the course of my career, I’ve probably scanned around a thousand human brains. And what you see very quickly is that everyone’s brain looks different; it’s like a fingerprint. Even when people are doing the exact same task, the patterns of activity vary from person to person. They’re stable within an individual, but across individuals, they’re remarkably diverse.

When we started scanning dogs, it was the same story. Early on, my students would get discouraged because the data looked so messy. I’d tell them, “Don’t analyze it yet. You need enough subjects to see the pattern.” But the reason it feels messy is that dogs are individuals. Their brains vary just as much as human brains do.

We even saw this in a large study we did with Canine Companions for Independence, where we scanned puppies being trained as service dogs. These dogs were incredibly similar on paper — mostly golden retriever–lab crosses, raised and trained in nearly identical conditions. Even then, their brains all looked different.

Individuality is subversive because it doesn’t fit neatly into systems designed for efficiency. Industrial agriculture, in particular, depends on flattening animals into categories: “cattle” rather than individuals. Once you start thinking about animals as distinct beings with their own inner lives, the whole system becomes harder to justify. You’re less likely to eat something with a name, which is why ranchers traditionally don’t name their cows.

Recognizing individuality forces us to confront the moral shortcuts we’ve built into the way we treat other animals, and that’s deeply uncomfortable for a lot of people.

Gregory Berns with one of his cows.

Bioneers: If we truly accepted that animals have rich emotional lives, what would have to change in our idea of “normal” life?

Gregory: I think, at some level, most people already accept that animals have emotional lives. You’d have to be pretty hard-hearted to deny that. Even the ranchers and cattlemen I know aren’t blind to it, they just wall it off. Compartmentalization is the real issue.

The bigger crisis goes far beyond food. It’s about wild mammals and the sheer amount of space they need to survive. Many species, especially large mammals, require vast, connected habitats. What we’ve done instead is parcel land into smaller and smaller pieces, cut it up with roads, and turn ecosystems into isolated islands. Once animals can’t move where they need to go to find food, mates, or seasonal refuge, extinction becomes almost inevitable.

Urbanization has made this harder to see. About 80 percent of people in the U.S. now live in urban areas, which is a complete reversal from a century ago. Most people are physically and psychologically distant from the consequences of development. Living on a farm has made those connections impossible for me to ignore. You see immediately how one change affects everything else that lives there.

I’m not especially hopeful that this will change quickly. But education matters. Organizations like Bioneers can help bridge that gap by reminding people that we share the planet with these other species — and that the choices we normalize have consequences far beyond our own lives.

The post What Neuroscience Reveals About Animal Minds appeared first on Bioneers.

Nuclear industry 'is fizzling out' Channel Comment Jim Green 28th January 2026 Teaser Media

His name is Teno Channel Comment brendan 28th January 2026 Teaser Media

Washington lawmakers are considering a bill (SB 6119/HB 2421) that would protect the health of salmon and people by banning toxic 6PPD in motor vehicle tires, creating a practical, science-based path toward innovation and safer solutions.

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The annual EcoFarm Conference took place last weekend, bringing together thousands of organic and sustainable farmers, organizations and agriculture and food systems experts. At the end of the Friday morning plenary session, a surprise guest took the stage—Senator Adam Schiff,

The post EcoFarm Welcomes a U.S. Senator to their Conference for the First Time appeared first on CalCAN - California Climate & Agriculture Network.

By Mike Tidwell, Executive Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN)

“We are moving in the right direction but at the wrong speed.”

That was the key message from Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as the United Nations climate talks in Belem, Brazil wrapped up in November. The world is currently projected to warm between 2.5-2.9 degrees Celsius by 2100, according to U.N. estimates released during the conference. That warming would bring incalculable harm to the planet. Still, it’s down from the 3.5 degrees of warming projected just a decade ago.

Progress in recent years has come in part from China, whose leaders created the most buzz at the Belem climate talks with their powerhouse exports of nearly $1 trillion worth of solar panels, batteries and EV since 2018. But China, while revolutionizing the tools the world needs to decarbonize, is still building NEW coal plants inside its borders. Those coal plants – combined with the reckless boom in fracked gas and oil in the US (a nation that didn’t even bother to send a delegation to Belem) – contribute to a world already approaching 1.5 degrees C of warming above preindustrial levels.

This real-time warming is already creating hurricane monsters like Helene in the U.S. and crop-killing heat waves in India and sea-level rise everywhere. A near doubling of the current heat to up to 2.9 degrees C will almost certainly be catastrophic, according to our best science.

So thank god a growing number of scientists, philanthropists, government agencies, and nonprofit leaders worldwide are committed to exploring a possible “Plan B” for the planet. Their goal is to find potentially safe ways to artificially cool the Earth until the inevitable full transition to clean energy is achieved globally later this century.

Until recently, this concept of “geoengineering” was considered too controversial to even discuss in many quarters. But today, as the heat mounts, full-blown programs at Harvard University and the University of Chicago are exploring ways to effectively reflect sunlight away from the planet while international conferences on the topic draw thousands of people.

Last year, the biggest step to date on this topic occurred when the United Kingdom committed to spending $75 million on geoengineering research projects scattered across the globe. The goal of the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency is to transparently invest in computer modeling, atmospheric observations, and limited outdoor testing of technologies that could one day cool the planet. Ideas include everything from artificially brightening marine clouds with saltwater spray to mimicking the cooling properties of volcanic eruptions by placing sulfur aerosols in the stratosphere.

To be clear, no one – not the UK, not researchers at Harvard, not the growing number of climate-fighting nonprofits like mine around the world – is calling for actual deployment of ANY system to engineer the climate. The goal is simply to research and test plausible ideas so that future world leaders at least have a few carefully vetted options to consider if climate collapse becomes eminent.

Transparency is a key feature embraced by nearly all the actors in this growing geoengineering conversation and research push. The ARIA program, for example, is governed by a set of published principles that emphasizes a public versus private involvement in research and testing. The agency’s commitment to open dialogue with communities where research occurs is meant to avoid mistrust and confusion wherever possible.

Unfortunately, in the conspiracy-rich world of our current media landscape, preposterous theories abound about governments secretly creating storms to punish political opponents or using airplane “chemtrails” to brainwash citizens. US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin last July was compelled to publicly confirm the obvious: The US government is not engaged in any activities to change the weather or pollute the sky with mind-altering substances.

The opposite is actually true. An $11 million annual program at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration protects the world from any rogue attempts to alter the climate. NOAA flies special B-57 planes regularly into the stratosphere to measure the concentration of various light-reflecting aerosols there. If these levels suddenly change in the future, NOAA could alert world leaders that a rogue nation or a private actor was tampering with the climate without international agreement.

This is good to know given that at least two private companies – one called Make Sunsets and the other Stardust – have raised millions in private capital and signaled an interest in commercializing geoengineering efforts. They have not been transparent in their activities and average people have every right to feel nervous about such companies.

The better approach – the only sensible approach given the health of the entire planet is at stake – is to increase publicly funded research with guidance from governments, universities and nonprofits. Thankfully, even as the Belem climate talks wrap up with underwhelming results, the growing support for responsible geoengineering research continues to grow.

About the author: Mike Tidwell is founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a grassroots nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in Maryland, Virginia, DC, and West Virginia.

Under Tidwell’s leadership, CCAN has helped pass landmark clean-energy legislation in Maryland and the District of Columbia; blocked coal and oil development plans in Virginia; and worked with groups nationwide to push for a fair and effective carbon cap policy on Capitol Hill. A long-time resident of Maryland, he lives in Takoma Park with his wife Beth and son Sasha. Read more about Mike here.

The post After Brazil Climate Talks, Thank God There’s Research Into a Plan B appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.