B5. Resilience, Third Nature, and Transition

The benefits of agrivoltaics—the placement of solar panels over cropland for more efficient land use—varies dramatically depending on where it’s located, finds new research from the United States. As agrivoltaics spread and attract more interest, this is one of the first studies to really dig into its inherent trade-offs, and identify places where it works well for both electricity generation and farmers’ bottom lines.

The trade-offs in question are that while the huge increased electricity production enabled by more solar panels is a positive, and renting out land to solar providers can also provide new revenue streams for farmers, the shading effect of solar panels can disturb crop growth. Weighing up these costs and benefits has complicated the picture for farmers who may be considering agrivoltaics on their land.

To shed some light on the issue, a study led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign started by looking at 14 years of maize and soybean crop data from the Midwestern US. The dataset, which included information on crop yield and water-use, compared conventional non-solar cropland with farms where a third of the productive area was covered by panels. They also applied climate simulations to the data, to determine how crop-growing conditions and solar panel impact could change under a low, high, and highest-emission future scenario. 

Very quickly, stark differences appeared in the model, between the more humid eastern stretch of the Midwest, and the drier semiarid western Midwest. 

In the humid east, the shade of the solar panels seemed to reduce photosynthesis levels, dramatically curbing maize yields by 24% and soybean by 16%, compared to conventional no-solar agricultural fields. But in the semiarid west, it was a different picture: maize yields were still reduced by the shading effect, but to a lesser degree of 12%, while there was a win for soybeans, which experienced a 6% increase in yields under panels compared to conventional fields. 

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Solar farms could come with a pollinator bonus

 

Previous research has dug into these differences between climate conditions and crops, noting that plants like soybeans are more susceptible to the damaging effects of water loss in hot, dry locations, which affects their yields more than the loss of photosynthesis from shading. In other words, the yield advantages of shading are greater, relative to the disadvantages for soybeans, which may explain some of the differences between crops and locations.

Like yields, the economic picture for farmers is also a mixed bag across the Midwest. In general, the researchers found that the income farmers would generate from leasing land to solar developers was not enough to offset the costs of yield losses: in both the humid east and arid west, for maize farmers total farmer profits decreased by between 6% and 16% respectively on agrivoltaic farms. Soybean farmers had a little more luck: while profits in the humid regions went down by 2%, they increased by 9% in the semiarid parts. 

What’s interesting is that the differences between the two geographical regions and their crops may not be so stark under future climate change. The study’s climate modelling showed that dry regions will expand by between 5.3%, 21.6% and a striking 174% under the low, high, and highest emissions scenarios respectively. With drier, hotter conditions spreading across more of the midwest, “agrivoltaics are likely to become more beneficial” the researchers explain, “offering stronger synergies for sustainable land use.”

For now, agrivoltaics won’t work with a one-size-fits-all approach across the landscape: instead what emerges is a patchwork picture of trade-offs. But the research does at least highlight a starting point, namely some soy cropland hotspots in the arid west, where solar panels could deliver a triple-win—higher yields, economic gains, and clean, green electricity. 

Jia et. al. “Climate-driven divergence in biophysical and economic impacts of agrivoltaics.” PNAS. 2026.  

Electric vehicles are key for decarbonizing transportation and even reducing household emissions to slow down climate change. Yet as the world gets warmer and faces more extreme heat waves, there are concerns that EVs won’t fare well. That’s because the lithium-ion batteries age faster under high temperatures.

New research puts this worry at ease. In a new study, researchers show that batteries have improved so much over the past several years that their gains will more than offset their expected heat-related degradation on a warming planet. This should give consumers full confidence in their EV’s lifespan even under extreme weather, the researchers say.

Despite fits and starts, EV sales are now on a clearly upward trajectory. Sales of fully electric cars surpassed those of gasoline vehicles in the European Union in December 2025, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA).

EV performance is known to drop in very hot temperatures just as it does in frigid weather. Cold weather slows down the chemical reactions inside a battery, while hot temperatures speed things up so much that the battery degrades faster. This performance drop is one factor that keeps buyers from purchasing EVs.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:EVs aren’t just cars anymore. They can power your home slashing emissions—and bills.

 

So researchers from Peking University and the University of Michigan decided to find out how modern battery technology would hold up if the planet warmed by an average of 2°C. That’s the warming limit set by the Paris climate agreement to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

The researchers calculated the lifetimes of EV batteries across 300 major global cities. They combined climate projects, battery chemistry, and driving behavior for their analysis. The study used EV simulations with models of battery degradation and climate change. The team ran these simulations for older batteries made in 2010–2018 as well as newer ones made from 2019–2023 to understand how recent advancements have improved longevities.

In a 2°C warming scenario, their simulations showed that the lifetimes of older generation batteries would drop by an average of 8% up to a maximum of 30%. For new batteries, the average lifetime drop is 3% and the maximum is 10%.

“I think these improvements are well-known to experts in the field,” said Haochi Wu, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change in a press release. “But when I started this project, I was looking at web forums and reading how people were deciding on cars. There are still a lot of durability concerns about EV batteries.”

Source: Wu, H., Chen, J., Vaishnav, P. et al. Technological improvements in EV batteries offset climate-induced durability challenges. Nat. Clim. Chang. 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

Contrails are a climate puzzle written across the sky

As airlines test new routes and researchers refine models, contrails are shifting from an afterthought of flight to a potential tool for cutting the carbon footprint of aviation.

 

By Virginia Gewin

At cruising altitude, jet engines often leave behind contrails: puffy white streaks that briefly lace the sky before thinning into nothing. Formed when hot, moist exhaust meets frigid, humid air, these manmade clouds have long been more aesthetic curiosity than environmental concern. They have inspired wonder, and occasionally provoked debunked conspiracy theories about toxic chemicals; but for decades they were treated as little more than a fleeting byproduct of flight.

In recent years, however, researchers have documented contrails’ hidden climate connection. Aviation is responsible for roughly 2.5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, but that’s only part of the story. Aircraft also release nitrogen oxides, aerosols, and contrails—emissions that, taken together, may warm the planet as much as aviation’s CO₂ output alone, according to a 2025 National Academies of Science report. Most contrails dissipate quickly. But under the right atmospheric conditions, some linger and spread into thin cirrus clouds that trap heat, subtly but persistently altering the climate below.

This growing recognition has turned contrails from an atmospheric footnote into a target of serious scientific and policy interest. One of the people leading this work is Marc Shapiro, an engineer with a background in earth systems modeling and the director of Contrails.org, a project backed by Breakthrough Energy, Bill Gates’s climate initiative. Shapiro hopes to provide airlines with tools to prevent long-lasting contrails. His organization is developing AI models to predict when and where these persistent contrails will form, so that airlines can re-route flights effectively to reduce aviation’s climate footprint.

Shapiro’s interest was sparked five years ago by a striking finding in the scientific literature. A study of Japanese airspace found that just 2.2 percent of flights contribute roughly 80% of the contrail warming impacts in that region. Rerouting an even smaller share, just 1.7 percent of flights, by 2,000 feet could cut that warming impact by up to 60 percent. The implication was hard to ignore: A modest change in how planes move through the atmosphere could yield an outsized climate benefit.

At first, Shapiro and colleagues thought there must be a company they could build to help airlines deliver this climate benefit. After they looked into it and conducted some initial modeling, they found that the research wasn’t yet robust enough to support a commercial endeavor. Instead, they decided to build an NGO to do that research to underpin contrails management.

Shapiro and his team of aviation experts, atmospheric researchers, and software engineers have spent the last four years working with airlines and air traffic controllers to test whether contrail avoidance can work in practice. The problem involves both logistics and atmospheric nuance. If airlines know where contrails will form, could they route planes above or below the thin pockets of cold, humid air? Re-routing flights could mean burning additional fuel, generating more carbon dioxide in the process. But the potential payoff could be large. If airlines can learn to identify and sidestep the small fraction of flights responsible for most contrail warming, they could cut a significant slice of aviation’s climate impact at a cost measured in thousands of feet and tens of dollars per flight.

Pilots already have iPads that display a turbulence screen so they can communicate with air traffic control to avoid bumpy air. Shapiro’s colleagues developed an identical contrails screen so it looked familiar.

The Messy Middle

Contrails are tricky beasts. Their warming or cooling potential depends on a number of factors, chiefly how long they last in the upper atmosphere—which is largely determined by the amount of humidity present. If the air is dry or only slightly humid, contrails sublimate quickly. For long-lasting contrails to form, the atmosphere must hold more water vapor than normal, a state called ice supersaturation, in which there’s ample moisture for ice crystals to persist and expand into long-lasting cirrus clouds.

Timing matters, too. Contrails that form during the daylight hours can reflect incoming solar radiation back into space, sometimes producing a modest cooling effect. At night, though, contrails lose that reflective benefit. Instead, they trap outgoing heat, resulting in a net warming impact.

So how can researchers accurately predict which contrails will have a net warming effect? The answer, according to the 2025 National Academies report, hinges on better measurements of the atmospheric conditions at various flight altitudes. “The biggest challenge is confidently predicting the humidity in the upper atmosphere,” said Shapiro. But there are no sensors 20,000 feet up. Instead, researchers have to cobble together what data they can from different sources to feed into contrail formation models. Radiosondes are weather balloons that provide a vertical profile, collecting and transmitting atmospheric measures of humidity, temperature, and wind as they ascend. Geostationary satellite imagery is able to detect the location of ice supersaturation states. And instruments installed on commercial aircraft (dubbed IAGOS for In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System) can collect flight-bound data on water vapor, nitrogen oxides, aerosols, and cloud particles.

Data limitations mean that the existing contrail models can struggle to accurately predict the persistence of individual contrails. Shapiro is collaborating with Google Research on a model that powers his online dashboard, Contrails Map, which he says does a good job of depicting the contrail outbreak regions. But the evolution of individual contrails—including their length, duration, and climate warming potential—is less accurate. The dashboard currently allows users to compare model output to satellite imagery, but Shapiro plans to also include other data sources on the map in the first half of 2026. Scientifically, he said, we need to be able to attribute contrails back to individual flights to understand the efficacy of interventions.

Some researchers worry that calculating the climate impact of every individual contrail is unnecessary—and even impossible from a cloud physics perspective. “We know that bunches of contrails will occur in specific areas when conditions are right, and that will create an additional impact,” says Andreas Petzold, lead atmospheric scientist at the Jülich Research Center in Germany.

Shapiro agrees that it is unrealistic to observe or measure every contrail formed. Still, he thinks we need some way of attributing contrail warming back to individual flights, and to have measurements across all scales—”from individual contrails to outbreak regions and global contrail coverage.”

Petzold’s recent research, for example, revealed a previously overlooked dynamic at the regional scale. In a study published in November 2025, Petzold analyzed seven years of IAGOS data and concluded that over 80 percent of persistent contrails form in existing cirrus clouds rather than in clear, humid skies. When contrails thicken those clouds, they actually make them more reflective—decreasing their warming potential and possibly having a greater net cooling effect than previously understood.

Other research published last year also suggested that contrails may not result in quite as much warming as originally expected, due to rapid atmospheric changes, for example, in low to mid-level clouds.

Petzold doesn’t want his work to dissuade contrail avoidance efforts. Rather, he said, “we need to get the scientific understanding right before we start any operational procedures.” He added, “Our intention was simply to put a puzzle piece together to avoid wrong detours.” Getting it wrong could not only impact airline regulations, business plans, and flight paths— it could even increase carbon dioxide emissions, if airlines end up spending more fuel to avoid contrails.

But avoiding contrails may ultimately prove to be worthwhile, especially if the details can be worked out. “Compared to other climate measures, contrail avoidance is relatively cheap,” explained Alexander Kunkel, a senior data analyst for clean fuels at Transport Environment, a clean energy advocacy organization in Brussels, Belgium. Kunkel rattles off the most pressing questions: “What will regulation look like? Who is responsible—airlines or air traffic controllers? How will this scale up?”

“We’re in the messy middle right now,” said Shapiro. But, he adds, “even if contrail climate impacts are at the low end of the scientific estimates, contrail avoidance could still have a really big impact.”

©Google

Shapiro is collaborating with Google Research on a model that powers his online dashboard, Contrails Map.

Tracking contrails via meteors

Luc Busquin has been a commercial pilot for over 30 years. But even he just learned a few years ago that contrails can impact climate. “I have yet to fly with another pilot who is aware of that,” he said.

Busquin knows that the upper atmosphere is a notoriously data-poor environment. The IAGOS and radiosonde data can identify whether conditions exist for a contrail to form, while geosatellites are able to indicate whether a contrail persisted. But none of these measures could identify which plane formed a contrail.

Two years ago, Busquin noticed a box on his neighbor’s roof. It was a nighttime camera—one of 1,600 in 44 countries that are currently part of the Global Meteor Network, formed in 2018 to detect meteors and analyze their tracks from the ground. Busquin realized immediately that ground-based cameras could reliably match observed contrails with their originating flights.

Busquin borrowed his neighbor’s camera unit. He modified the Global Meteor Network software to also record contrails—during the day as well as at night. “Then I approached Denis,” said Busquin. Denis Vida is the founder of the Global Meteor Network and a meteor physics researcher at Western University in London, Ontario. Contrails were never part of Vida’s research agenda, but he realized swiftly after Busquin contacted him that his network of meteor-surveying cameras were in a position to help researchers ground-truth which flights form contrails.

Vida likens the regions where contrails form to invisible, thin, floating pancakes in the upper atmosphere. These so-called ice super-saturated regions (ISSR) are typically found between 25,000 and 40,000 feet, at air temperatures between roughly -40°C and -60°C. “Contrail model prediction accuracy is very low for the persistent contrails that have an overwhelming climate impact,” said Vida. “For short-lived contrails, the accuracy is closer to 50 percent.” He believes atmospheric models will need to improve the accuracy to at least 80 percent to be perceived as reliable. “Whether or not we’ll be able to achieve this remains to be seen,” he said. “Large uncertainties remain and no one has demonstrated an accurate, fully validated, operational model for contrail mitigation—yet.” But, he added, it could happen in the next couple of years, given how fast the field is moving. Shapiro said he hopes to include Global Meteor Network imagery in his organization’s Contrails Map in the future.

Junzi Sun, who studies the science of air traffic management at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, cautions that the highest caliber research is necessary given the stakes for airlines. “If the science is not strong, airlines can push back against any penalties,” said Sun. He also believes it could take 15 years “to sort all this out,” and that the challenges of practically rerouting flights to avoid contrail formation will be particularly difficult in Europe, where it may be challenging to close such congested air space.

As airlines and European regulators seek answers, tensions are rising. In 2025, the European Union’s Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system began requiring aircraft operators to monitor and report on aviation’s non-carbon dioxide climate effects, including the impact of contrails. The pilot phase of data collection will go through this year, and the European Commission will use the data to debate future policies in 2027.

Re-routing flight trials

American Airlines in the United States and TUI airlines in Europe are at the forefront of testing rerouting flights to avoid contrails. “This has the potential to be a low-cost, actionable strategy for aviation,” said Jill Blickstein, vice president of sustainability at American Airlines. “But it will be really complicated.”

In 2023, American conducted its first trials with pilots. Pilots already have iPads that display a turbulence screen so they can communicate with air traffic control to avoid bumpy air. Shapiro’s colleagues developed an identical contrails screen so it looked familiar. During 35 out-and back-flights conducted over many weeks to test altitude adjustments to avoid contrail formation, Blickstein said, “we didn’t have any additional fuel burn. Universally, we saw excitement and enthusiasm.”

Last year, American conducted additional trials with flight dispatchers. While the results haven’t yet been released, Blickstein said they learned a lot. For example, some of the proposed contrail-avoidance flight plans were unrealistic for a variety of reasons: either the new route would cross turbulence; or, on occasion, it would burn too much fuel; or it would simply get rejected by Air Traffic Control. Some proposed flight plans were impossible because they crossed NAT tracks—weather-optimized invisible highways in the sky for flights crossing the North Atlantic Ocean. “NAT tracks are set by Air Traffic Control, and once you get on one, you don’t go to another one,” said Blickstein.

Blickstein, Shapiro, and others are collaborating to find a systemwide approach that works for all the players. The flurry of recent studies and flight trials have only added to a growing sense of urgency among climate researchers, policymakers, and airlines to determine to what degree contrail avoidance can be a climate win.

“From all the evidence we’ve seen, this is the place to invest in right now—even if it takes 15 years to get to full scale,” said Shapiro. “Our goal in five years is to have at least a few airlines and a few airspaces doing this as routine practice.” The effort might only target clear skies in a few hot spot regions or below a certain added fuel cost. “But if we’re not doing that,” he said, “we will have failed our mission.”

 

Virginia Gewin is a freelance science journalist based in Portland, Oregon. Her stories have appeared in Nature, Science, Discover, Washington Post, Modern Farmer and others. See more of her work at www.virginiagewin.com.

What to Read Next

Human waste is a terrible thing to wasteHuman waste is a terrible thing to waste

Off-grid energy production is becoming affordable for smallholders, restaurants, and even families—thanks to a startup’s innovative biodigesters that turn food and feces into carbon-neutral cooking gas, fertilizer, and hot water.

Lina Zeldovich

Shipping solar power at the speed of a freight trainShipping solar power at the speed of a freight train

By charging up battery cars where renewable energy is cheap and delivering the power to where it’s needed, this startup thinks railroads could break the clean energy transmission logjam.

Peter Fairley

BiophonyBiophony

Soundscape ecology plunges us into a wilder world beyond the mundane and merely visual

Bernie Krause

Bio-based plastics made from materials like sugarcane, corn, or agricultural waste have a smaller carbon footprint than plastics made from petroleum, according to a new study. But the bio-based plastics have a greater impact on natural ecosystems.

The study is the first comprehensive life-cycle analysis to compare bio-based and fossil-based plastics. Researchers traced the environmental impacts of the production, use, and disposal of five bio-based and seven fossil-based polymers. Most previous studies of bio-based plastics have emphasized their carbon footprint, but the new study also encompasses their effects on ecosystem quality and human health.

Another recent study found environmental tradeoffs involved in replacing conventional plastics with compostable plastics. (Both bio-based and compostable plastics have been promoted as more ecologically friendly versions of the ubiquitous material, but not all bio-based plastics are compostable, and not all compostable plastics are bio-based.)

The new study, similarly, reveals that bio-based plastics are not an environmental panacea. Instead, they pose a tradeoff between climate and biodiversity.

The carbon footprint of bio-based plastics is a little over half that of fossil-based plastics, mainly because the plants from which bio-based plastics are made absorb carbon dioxide as they grow.

But the ecosystem quality impacts of bio-based plastics are several times those of fossil-based plastics, mainly because natural ecosystems have to be converted to agricultural fields to grow those plants. The human health impacts of bio-based plastics are also higher, because of the fertilizers and water the crops demand.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:What's the most sustainable drinking straw? Scientists say one surprising option beats the rest.

 

The environmental impacts of bio-based plastics depend on what exactly they are made of, though here too there are tradeoffs. The ecosystem impacts of plastics made from food crops such as corn or sugarcane are higher than those of plastics made from agricultural or other waste. But making plastics from agricultural waste is more energy intensive and less efficient, eroding the climate benefit.

As for the end-of-life impacts: ecosystem damage from improper disposal of plastic depends on how long a particular polymer lasts in the environment – not whether it is made from petroleum or plants.

What’s more, even if all fossil-based plastics used in Europe were replaced with bio-based ones, continued increases in demand would swamp the climate benefits of the switch.

According to calculations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the European plastics industry needs to shrink its carbon footprint to the equivalent of 17 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050. A business-as-usual scenario would see its impact balloon to 250 million tonnes, the researchers calculated. Even substituting bio-based plastics for all fossil-based plastics would only manage to constrain the carbon footprint to 100 million tonnes.

Only swapping bio-based for fossil-based plastics, while also reducing plastic packaging demand by about 3% per year, would put the industry in striking distance of the IPCC recommendations. Happily, this scenario would dampen the ecosystem impacts of bio-based plastics as well.

“Our findings underscore the need to move beyond substitution alone,” the researchers write. “Ultimately, reducing the demand for single-use packaging is indispensable.”

Source: Erradhouani B., et al. “Transition to bio-based plastic packaging reveals complex climate-biodiversity tradeoffs.” Nature Communications 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine.

Plenty of research has amassed on the benefits of applying biochar to soil to lock in carbon. Now, an unusual new study looks at a novel way to get it there: feed biochar to cows, it says, and they’ll do the work for you.

The new research finds that when cows consume and excrete biochar, it remains almost completely intact and stable, suggesting that cows could spread biochar across the land and become architects of better soil health while tackling their own climate impacts.

Led by a team of Swiss researchers, the study took a group of eight dairy cows and fed them a diet containing trace amounts of biochar, about 1%. The feeding trial had two periods of 35 days each. In one, half the cows received the biochar additive, and the other half did not. In the second, the researchers switched the two groups of cows, so that each cow ultimately acted as its own control. 

The researchers then gathered cow dung for several days over the course of the experiment.  These samples were dried and three different methods used to analyze the biochar fragments within the dung. The goal was to determine how much of that biochar had remained intact, both structurally and chemically.

The answer was: a surprising amount. From the analysis, the researchers calculated that between 70 and 90% of the biochar that cows consumed in the study survived their famously robust digestion, resisting decomposition. What’s more, an estimated 98% of that biochar which made it out the other side was intact—both in terms of its physical structure and its chemical makeup. 

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Iron-enhanced biochar could redefine what soil Is capable of  

 

The three analytical methods revealed that most of the surviving biochar was also chemically stable, meaning it contained characteristics such as a condensed carbon structure, enabling it to persist for long periods in the soil without breaking down and releasing the carbon it contains. 

There was some variation: biochar that was more oxygen-rich was more easily decomposed during digestion. Importantly, the researchers note that the quality and composition of the biochar does affect how robust it will ultimately be in the cow’s gut. 

The benefits of biochar may go beyond carbon storage and boosting nutrients in the soil: the study mentions previous research showing that biochar could even reduce methane emissions from cattle dung, adding to biochar’s many talents.

There’s something satisfying about the idea of cows dispersing this wonder ingredient into the soil, and helping to offset their own environmental damage. Whether this idea can be taken mainstream remains to be seen, but for now it adds to the burgeoning evidence that biochar could be a real agricultural solution — in many different forms.

Leifeld et. al. “Recovery and composition of biochar after feeding to cattle.” Biochar. 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

In the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, the children’s use breadcrumbs to lay a path back out of the woods. That might not have gone as expected, but now breadcrumbs could create a path to free the chemical industry from much of its fossil fuel use.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have now developed a technique to cut out fossil fuels from one of the chemical industry’s most widely used reactions. The method, which uses microbes and waste bread, is carbon negative: it removes more greenhouse gases than it produces. The process could open up new routes for bio-based manufacturing using waste feedstocks, the team writes in the journal Nature Chemistry.

The chemical industry uses hydrogenation widely to make food products, pharmaceuticals, plastics and many other everyday products. But the hydrogen needed for this chemical synthesis is currently produced by the steam reforming of coal. The process emits 15–20 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per kg of hydrogen.

Efforts to make chemical hydrogenation greener in recent years have focused on splitting water by electrolysis to free hydrogen. But large-scale electrolysis reactors are energy-intensive and not very energy-efficient.

So the Edinburgh team turned to an age-old route to hydrogenation found in nature. Microbes such as bacteria produce hydrogen when they feed on sugary or waste feedstocks.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Bread waste could be repurposed for the food industry

 

The researchers feed a common laboratory strain of E. coli bacteria with sugars extracted from waste bread. They grow the microbes in an environment that lacks oxygen. Under these conditions, the bacteria naturally feed on the bread and produce hydrogen gas.

Then, the researchers add a small amount of palladium catalyst and another chemical to the reaction flask. They found that the hydrogen generated by the microbes was enough to drive hydrogenation reactions. The process occurs at near-room temperature, and does not need any fossil fuels or added hydrogen gas.

Because the process avoids the use of fossil fuels and uses waste foodstuff—keeping it from landfill where it would release methane or from being burned and releasing carbon dioxide—it is carbon negative, the researchers’ detailed analysis shows.

“Hydrogenation is used across pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals and materials. Being able to run these reactions using microbial hydrogen opens up new possibilities for sustainable manufacturing at scale,” said lead author and professor of chemical biotechnology Stephen Wallace in a press release.

Source: Mirren F. M. White et al. Native H2 pathways enable biocompatible hydrogenation of metabolic alkenes in bacteria. Nature Chemistry, 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

Tropical rainforests get that name because it rains a lot in these places. But they deserve it for another reason as well: They make rain.

By absorbing water and then transpiring it into the atmosphere, a single hectare of tropical rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon can generate approximately 2.4 million liters of rain per year, enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool, according to new research in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

While not everyone cares about filling swimming pools, a vastly more important and economically valuable metric is the crops this rain could water. In Brazil alone, the Amazon rainforest generates rainfall worth approximately $20 billion dollars per year if it went to agricultural activities, the scientists reported.

“Tropical deforestation is increasing, despite international efforts to halt forest loss. Our work highlights the vital role of tropical forests in producing rain,” said Jess Baker, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom and an author of the new paper.

It’s not news that rainforests produce rain. A paper last year found that deforestation caused almost 75% of the decline in rainfall during the Amazonian dry season in the last four decades. But estimates for the economic toll have been all over the place. One study put it at up to $1 billion per year in agricultural losses. A report submitted to the Brazilian Supreme Court found that agricultural earnings in the most rain-dependent regions totaled more than $60 billion per year.

To come up with more precise estimates for just how much rain comes from rainforests, and how much it’s worth, Baker teamed up with colleagues at Leeds, Brazil’s University of Amazonas, and the carbon finance program at Dutch banking giant Rabobank.

The work involved running massive computer models that underpin much of what scientists understand about how the atmosphere and the earth interact to shape such basic forces as precipitation and temperature. The researchers looked at how rainfall in tropical regions changed as trees were replaced by grassland in the models, a common fate with deforestation. The models both looked at reconstructions of historical patterns and simulated scenarios of different levels of forest loss. The scientists compared the results from those models to estimates derived from satellite observations.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Protecting forests is not just about biodiversity—it is now about protecting rain.

 

The researchers concluded that around the world, every percentage point of tropical forest that disappeared equaled a loss of 2.4 millimeters (mm) per year in rainfall. In the Amazon, the effect was even more pronounced, at 3 mm per year.

While that might not sound like much, it adds up quickly. In Brazil, it amounts to around 300 liters of water each year for every square meter of Amazon forest, a place with 3.3 trillion square meters of rainforest. That’s a lot of swimming pools.

To put a dollar figure on how much all this water is worth, the researchers multiplied the forest-generated rainfall by an estimated cost of water for Brazilian agriculture, which a Brazilian agency reported as around 2 cents per cubic meter. Do the math, and you end up with the rainforest generating rain worth around $20 billion per year to farmers, give or take $7 billion based on model uncertainties. Looking at deforestation rates, the scientists estimate the region has already lost nearly $5 billion worth of rainfall in recent decades. And none of this counts the other benefits of all this rain – driving hydropower turbines, providing drinking water, filling rivers used by wildlife and cargo ships, etc.

Still, “this is the most comprehensive and robust evidence to date of the value of tropical forests’ rainfall provision,” Baker said.

The value of all that forest-generated water dwarfs the amount being spent to keep those forests from disappearing. For example, the new calculations show that Brazil’s network of officially protected forest generates around $13 billion worth of rain each year. That’s more than 50 times the money the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment dedicates to managing these areas, according to the researchers.

The new calculations could help buttress the math behind efforts to attract money to keep forests standing.

“Tropical forests make it rain, supplying water that is essential for agriculture. Recognizing that crucial connection could ease tensions between agricultural and conservation interests while building broader support for protecting forests overall,” said Callum Smith, a Leed’s researcher and co-author who studies how forest loss affects climate.

There is growing attention to such efforts to pay for the benefits of standing forests, whether because rainforests suck greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, harbor vast biodiversity or generate rain. Last year, at the annual United Nations climate summit held in Belém, Brazil, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva unveiled a project called the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. It aims to raise $125 billion that would pay countries or landowners to leave their forests intact.

When you consider the annual value just of rainfall in the Brazilian Amazon alone, that might seem like a bargain.

Baker, et. al. “Quantifying tropical forest rainfall generation.” Communications Earth & Environment. Feb. 17, 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

As the world combat global warming by moving away from fossil fuels, air pollution will also decrease. Less air pollution is a good thing that promises massive benefits for human health. Paradoxically, though, it will also “unmask” fossil fuel warming that until now has been dampened by particles of soot and smog.

A form of geoengineering known as marine cloud brightening could counteract this effect at a global level, a new study suggests. But the devil is in the details: the effects on specific regions of the planet could be quite different, highlighting the need for careful planning to avoid unintended effects.

In the study, researchers used a computer climate model to forecast the effects of seeding four cloudy areas over the eastern Pacific Ocean with microscopic particles of salt known as sea salt aerosols, similar to the salt spray that arises from ocean waves breaking on rocks. Aerosols contribute to the formation of clouds made of especially tiny water droplets, and those especially tiny droplets lead to whiter clouds that reflect more solar radiation back into space, thus cooling the planet.

On its own, shifting to green energy and achieving global net-zero carbon emissions would reduce air pollution enough to unmask nearly 1 °C of fossil fuel warming by the end of the century, the researchers calculated.

It will require billions of kilograms of sea salt aerosols every year, but marine cloud brightening could counteract the unmasking effect of reduced air pollution, holding global average temperature to its 2020 level. The geoengineering strategy would also counteract the increase in global annual precipitation that would otherwise occur as air pollution diminishes, according to the model.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Does discussing geoengineering derail climate action? New study puts it to the test.

 

But looking closer, the researchers discovered unintended effects at a regional level. Europe, the U.S., northeastern China, and some areas of the ocean would still see warming. This is partly because the sea salt injections would indirectly cause the ocean conveyor belt known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current to speed up.

And the regional effects of marine cloud brightening on precipitation are even more dramatic than the effects of reduced air pollution itself. Overall, the United States would become hotter and drier by the end of the century, while India, Australia, the Amazon, and the semi-arid Sahel region of Africa would be cooler and wetter than they are now.

The idea that geoengineering has unintended effects shouldn’t be so surprising. After all, injecting massive amounts of carbon dioxide and particulate air pollution into the atmosphere are also forms of geoengineering. But we’re now considering the unintended side effects of geoengineering we might undertake to mitigate the unwanted consequences of our past geoengineering.

Viewed this way, we’ve turned the Earth’s atmosphere into a Rube Goldberg device.

At the very least, as the researchers write, the new study “highlights the need for a more careful implementation strategy to produce both widespread cooling and fewer regional climate risks considering the effects are highly dependent on the strategy and seeding location.”

Source: Yu Y. et al. “Marine cloud brightening mitigates the warming induced by the aerosol reductions toward carbon neutrality.” Communications Earth & Environment 2026.

Image: © Anthropocene Magazine.

Ashish Kothari

Originally published by Meer on 13 February 2025.

Lessons from grassroots ecological and social innovations in India.

January 2026 has been an inspirational start to a new (Gregorian) year, if I look beyond the daily stories of …

If you want to eat chocolate and do better for the planet, dark chocolate is by far your best bet. 

That’s one key takeaway from a study that compared different types of chocolate for their environmental effects. It found that the major environmental burden of this sweet treat lies within the ingredients used to make it—the main culprits being palm oil, and milk. 

Focusing on the emerging chocolate market in Turkey, the researchers compared four types—dark, milk, white, and compound chocolate (where some cocoa butter is substituted by fats like palm oil.) For each type, they carried out a life cycle analysis, capturing everything from the field impacts where ingredients were grown, through to packaging and retail. They calculated impact across 18 categories, including global warming potential, land, water, and energy use.  

Out of this comparison, dark chocolate emerged as the clear sustainability victor, with a smaller footprint than all other chocolate types across several impact categories. 

Dark chocolate had a global warming potential of 2.32 kilograms of CO2-equivalent, which was almost half that of white chocolate, at 4.06 kilos per CO2-eq. It also excelled on land use, requiring only half of what white chocolate did, and used less water than white, milk, and compound chocolate. It also had the lowest freshwater and terrestrial pollution impact of all. 

By comparison, compound chocolate used large amounts of freshwater and had a high marine pollution impact. White chocolate, meanwhile, had the highest global warming impact of all four, as well as the biggest water and pollution footprint overall. 

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:That sustainable Valentines chocolate might not be as sweet for biodiversity as you think.

 

When they looked through the lifecycle data, the researchers discovered that chocolate ingredients accounted for these differences, driving the bulk of the environmental burden in every case. The milk powder used to make milk and white chocolate relies on the land-, water-, and emissions-intensive dairy farming. The palm oil that replaces cocoa fats in compound chocolate comes from vast palm plantations that give this chocolate type a hefty water and pollution impact.  

Other lifecycle factors like chocolate production method, energy use, and transport methods did contribute to the overall footprint of each chocolate, but they were overshadowed by the ingredient impacts. In fact, raw materials contributed 60% of chocolate’s environmental burden overall, and most of that was driven by milk and palm oil production. 

The lack of both these ingredients in dark chocolate explains why it had a higher sustainability score. But it’s still not a perfect sweet treat. Despite using little or no milk, the biggest impacts from dark chocolate came from the terrestrial, freshwater and marine pollution caused by the larger share of cocoa cultivation needed to make this product.

Ultimately, this was the study’s point: different ingredients create trade-offs, and also harbor the biggest opportunities for change along the production chain of each chocolate type, including dark. Tweaking chocolate recipes to avoid or reduce those key impact hotspots is therefore the most powerful way to reduce their environmental burden, the researchers suggest. 

In the meantime there’s a step every chocolate-lover can take: eat a little more dark chocolate and a little less milk. And that’s hardly a struggle. 

Konar et. al. “Life cycle hotspots in chocolate production: Ingredient formulation, processing technologies, and pathways toward sustainable confectionery systems.” Science of the Total Environment. 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

More people in the UK are buying electric vehicles and heat pumps than ever before. But those EVs and heat pumps might not be making a meaningful dent in the UK’s carbon emissions, according to a new analysis.

The UK has focused on electrification as a big part of its decarbonization efforts. But because the UK grid doesn’t get much power from renewable sources, EVs and heat pumps still rely on dirty power from fossil fuels, the study states. Instead, the nation needs to urgently focus on increasing renewable energy generation in addition to expanding nuclear energy and carbon capture.

In other words, argue the researchers, the UK needs to decarbonize its energy supply first and then push electrification. And this argument applies to other countries, says David Dunstan of Queen Mary University of London, who published the analysis in the journal Environmental Research: Energy.

“For all countries, we can safely say that if their average renewable generation is less than their average fossil-fuel generation, they should expand the renewables without any hesitation, and not waste resources on increased electrification,” he says.

What’s at play here is the mix of renewables on a country’s power grid and how easy it is to get that clean energy where and when it’s needed. The variability and intermittency of wind and solar generation have been grossly underestimated in the UK government’s plans to decarbonize British electricity generation, write Dunstan and Alan Drew in their paper. On cloudy or windless days, gaps in supply are still met by gas‑fired power stations.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Will renewables break the power grid or save it?

 

Meanwhile, when electricity demand is low, there is nowhere for surplus renewable energy to go. Often wind farm owners are paid to shut down turbines because the grid can’t hold all the excess energy.

So in addition to increasing renewable generation, which “is the only effective way we have at present to cut our carbon emissions,” Dunstan says, there is another effort that “really hasn’t been a focus, but needs to be. Introduce technologies that can absorb the large surplus of renewable energy, such as green hydrogen production or synthetic fuel generation.”

The UK government has also talked about expanding nuclear energy and carbon capture and sequestration. “We applaud this but we would rather see serious action rather than just talk,” Dunstan says.

Cost, technological, and policy barriers stand before these steps. For instance, it’s not clear yet whether carbon capture and sequestration could scale up to the extent required. But, says Dunstan, policymakers should concentrate on what is unquestionably needed and feasible, such as nuclear power, grid capacity, and energy storage at the scale required.

“Increasing electrification by encouraging EVs and domestic heat pumps has made zero contribution to cutting our carbon emissions so far,” Dunstan says, “and even in 2030 will be making a much smaller contribution than is claimed, both by government and by the relevant industries and their lobbyists.”

Source: David J Dunstan and Alan Drew. Reappraisal of paths to decarbonising British electricity generation in 2030. Environmental Research: Energy.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

Soon after the turn of the century, James Miller wrote a couple of important articles on urban biodiversity. The first argued that conservation biology needs to focus more on areas “where people live and work” (i.e., cities) to address the (adverse) effects of human land use (Miller and Hobbs, 2002). The second argued that people […]

Repensar el mundo con Iván Illich y Gustavo Esteva Fecha y hora * Fecha: 14 de febrero * Hora: 10 a 14 hrs, México / 4pm a 8pm GMT * Formato: Evento híbrido * Acceso y registro * Este evento contará con interpretación simultánea Español <-> Inglés Introducción

Researchers have invented a methane-sensing ear tag for cows that could accurately measure how much of this potent greenhouse gas they produce, in the chemically-saturated environment of a cattle barn.

Measuring methane levels is important for calculating the true environmental impact of dairy and beef cattle. It also reveals clues about the diet and relative health of livestock, so could be a boon for farmers. Several technologies exist to measure cattle emissions. But according to the new paper, most either struggle to isolate methane in the very noisy chemical landscape of a cattle farm, or they alter the cow’s behavior in ways that make them less practical to use. 

Seeing a gap in the market, the Harvard-based researchers set about inventing an alternative. Theirs consists of three layers of sensing materials, formed into a discrete, waterproof ear-tag that can be easily attached to cows. One layer is built to detect volatile organic compounds, and a second detects temperature and humidity shifts to alert the analyst, as these conditions can make it harder to read methane levels.

A third, most important, layer is made of metal-oxide, a substance that can detect short-term changes in the composition of ambient gases. Crucially, this layer is topped by a membrane composed of activated carbon and plastic fibers: together these make a filter, which selectively absorbs all gases except for methane, which is then allowed to travel through to the metal-oxide sensor below. 

At least, that’s what the researchers designed it to do. Next, they had to test it out. In lab experiments, they placed the sensor in a chamber filled with a mixture of methane and other gases that roughly mimicked a cattle barn environment. The sensor, they found, could successfully separate gases from one another and isolate the methane, so that the metal-oxide layer got a clear read on this gas and how much was in the air. Not only that, but the system was highly sensitive, detecting methane even at low levels of 8 parts per million. 

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Could a single methane moonshot outpace a thousand carbon cuts?

 

To double-check its sensitivity, the researchers tested the device with a powerful volatile organic compound called pentane, which can drown out methane signals. They found that even when the chamber contained high levels of pentane alongside methane, their sensor reduced pentane’s interference with the methane signal by 2500-fold, compared to a device that lacked the discriminating filter. 

According to these experiments, the invention can therefore single out methane amid the chemical noise, and accurately determine pollution levels in the air. This could lead to more accurate industry methane estimates, but could also guide farmers towards different types of feed or other measures to bring down methane levels in their livestock.

The device still needs to be tested out in the wilds of a real cattle barn, and the researchers say it’s still far from commercialization. For now, they have a name for their invention: they call it the ‘electronic nose’. 

Patel, et. al. “Highly Selective Enteric Methane Monitoring Through Modular Sensor-Filter Assembly.” Advanced Materials Technologies. 2026. 

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

03-05 * 13:00 - FT Meeting (franco)

Aprender en libertad: construyendo un tapiz de alternativas radicales Fecha y hora * Fecha: 27 de febrero de 2026 * Hora: de 14:30 a 15:30 GMT / de 9:30 a 10:30 EST * Formato: evento en línea * Acceso al enlace de zoom * Registro aquí * Este evento contará con interpretación en inglés y español

Learning in Freedom: Building a Tapestry of Radical Alternatives Date and time * Date: February 27th * Time: 2:30pm to 3:30pm GMT / 9:30am to 10:30am EST * Format: Online event * Access the Zoom link * Register here * This event will have interpretation in English and Spanish

Eventos Próximos eventos Repensar el mundo con Iván Illich y Gustavo Esteva - 14 de febrero de 2026 Presentación de los libros Conviviality and Political Resistance from Below: Ivan Illich's legacy in Mexico y Subversive hope and radical conviviality. The life and work of Gustavo Esteva, que recuperan y actualizan los legados de Illich y de Gustavo Esteva. Continúa con la presentación del proyecto Acervus como espacio vivo de resguardo y activación de la obra de Illich y culmina con la articu…

Events Upcoming events Rethinking the world with Iván Illich and Gustavo Esteva - February 14th Presentation of the books Conviviality and Political Resistance from Below: Ivan Illich's legacy in Mexico and Subversive hope and radical conviviality. The life and work of Gustavo Esteva, which recover and update the legacies of Illich and Gustavo Esteva. This will be followed by the presentation of the Acervus project as a living space for the preservation and activation of Illich's work. Final…