What if bringing nature back to our gray cities could help us contain urban flooding? When architect Kongjian Yu first pitched this concept, he was celebrated in the West, but ignored in his native China. Until a devastating flood in 2012 hit Beijing and forced policymakers to give his green idea a chance. Today, the so-called sponge cities have revolutionised landscape architecture in China and serve as inspiration to some Western architects. In this video, we explore the genesis of Kongjian Yu's sponge cities, some of the architects applying this model on a global scale, and how efficient sponge cities are in the face of climate change.

Two of NASA's historic data-collecting missions — used by scientists and earthbound agriculturalists to track carbon dioxide and crop health — may be permanently grounded as the Trump administration looks to shrink the agency's spending.

When they launched over a decade ago, the satellites known as the Orbiting Carbon Observatories (OCOs) revolutionized the collection of carbon data and greenhouse gas science. To put it simply, the OCOs changed how we understand our impact on the planet. Experts rely on the data for studies on greenhouse gases and severe weather and climate disasters, as well as other practical uses, including modeling the effectiveness of eco-friendly transportation on carbon dioxide emissions and even mapping plant photosynthesis and crop failures around the world.

OCO-2 has been orbiting Earth since 2014, designed initially to measure regional carbon dioxide sources and natural "carbon sinks" that absorb greenhouse gases. OCO-3 was launched in 2020 to supplement previous OCO missions, and is attached directly onto the International Space Station. The satellites run the government around $15 million in annual maintenance costs, reports NPR.

The equipment was expected to last in space for several more years, NPR reports, but NASA employees have recently been tasked with drawing up plans to terminate their use.

The agency has been looking to private scientific partnerships to keep its missions running, as the Trump administration and other Republican leaders double down on attacks against climate change science. President Trump shut down the federal climate.gov website in June, following a May executive order that outlines a new "gold standard" for federal scientific research and enables agency heads to deem research that fails to align with the stipulation of the order as "scientific misconduct." The site now redirects visitors to the climate page of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Compared to his first term, Trump has slowed the federal government's investment in its space program. But the president's stance on proactive climate policy has remained the same across administrations: In 2019, Trump issued orders to withhold climate modeling research in federal assessments, following the deletion of federal climate change websites hosted by the EPA.

In the last month, Sean Duffy, secretary of transportation and acting NASA administrator, and other agency leaders have preemptively begun scaling back NASA's workforce and structure in order to align with a proposed 2026 budget cut that would see $6 billion of excised funding and the termination of dozens of science programs and missions, reports Reuters.

Dozens of NASA employees signed a letter in protest of the proposed budget, writing: "We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety, scientific advancement and efficient use of public resources. These cuts are arbitrary and have been enacted in defiance of congressional appropriations law. The consequences for the agency and the country alike are dire." The letter explicitly calls out the irreversibility of decommissioned spacecraft and the loss of mission observations, as well as cuts to research in "space science, aeronautics, and the stewardship of the Earth."

The North Pole is the fastest-warming area of our planet. Yet, we know so little about the local ecosystems, the way they interact with the climate, and how global warming is impacting them. The French Tara Ocean Foundation wants to change that by deploying a spaceship-shaped station in the Central Arctic. The goal is to study the North Pole's ecosystem to document and better understand its relationship to the climate, and how the rising temperatures may change this vulnerable area.

Climate.gov may soon shut down, putting the end to an important U.S. government climate and weather resource used by countless people every year. The Guardian reports that the website's entire content production team was let go at the end of May, becoming some of the latest workers impacted by the Trump administration's widespread layoffs of federal employees.

Run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Climate.gov publishes scientific data on the Earth's climate, including maps, educational material, and articles aimed at informing the general public. According to the website, Climate.gov's mission is to "provide science and information for a climate-smart nation." 

Sadly, this flow of climate information is likely to soon become a trickle at most, with Climate.gov's editorial team of 10 having reportedly all been dismissed by May 31. 

The cuts began shortly after President Donald Trump's inauguration in February, with three of Climate.gov's editorial team members dismissed in the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) mass purge of probationary employees. The remaining seven were subsequently axed in recent weeks, though all 10 remain on Climate.gov's now outdated list of staff at time of writing.

"[The current U.S. administration] think that climate change isn't real, and they don't want anybody talking about it," Climate.gov's former program manager Rebecca Lindsey told NPR. Lindsay was one of the three workers who were dismissed in February.

Trump has actively hindered efforts to combat climate change for years, withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement and scrapping the Clean Power Plan during his first term as president in 2017. This week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed reports that it is working to abolish all restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants that use fossil fuels. The EPA further revealed that it intends to weaken regulations which limit power plants' emissions of toxic air pollutants such as mercury.

The NOAA is one of the many government agencies struggling under extensive staffing cuts implemented by Elon Musk's DOGE this year. Approximately 1,000 former NOAA workers have reportedly been axed since Trump took office, making up 10 percent of the NOAA's workforce. This includes over 150 critical roles which have been left empty as of May.

NPR reports that Climate.gov will cease publishing new content on July 1, though it remains unclear what will happen to the content currently available. The website could be completely shuttered, left to rot, or even reappropriated to host less scientific articles that are more in line with Trump's views on climate change. Whatever happens, it seems clear that climate education and action are not high priorities for the Trump administration.

A massive winter storm is blanketing large swaths of the Southern U.S. in snow and ice, leaving millions eager to track its path and prepare for what’s ahead. With warnings stretching across multiple states, from Florida to Texas, keeping tabs on the storm’s movement has become essential.

How to see online if more snow is heading your way

Tools like the National Weather Service’s interactive snow maps and Windy.com’s real-time rain and snow tracking feature make it easy to see if more snow is in the forecast.

These platforms offer essential information, from snowfall predictions to wind patterns, helping residents stay informed and ready.

The National Weather Service offers detailed storm data, including state-specific warnings and localized snowfall totals, through its website and mobile app. Meanwhile, Windy.com provides an intuitive weather map that overlays rain, snow, and wind conditions for a comprehensive view of the storm’s impact.

Southern states like Florida, Texas, and Tennessee are grappling with a historic winter storm that has brought record-breaking snowfall to millions and transformed typically mild regions into icy landscapes.

If you're interested or eager to see just how bad it is around your area, you can head on over to the National Weather Service (NWS). Their snowfall map makes it’s easier than ever to check snow totals for any state online.

The NWS provides real-time updates through its interactive website and mobile platforms. Head to weather.gov and navigate to the “Winter Weather” section under "Weather Safety," where you’ll find snowfall analysis tools. The site features detailed maps, sortable state-by-state data, and even localized snowfall reports down to specific counties.

For a more dynamic experience, explore the NWS Snowfall Analysis page. It offers zoomable maps with overlays showing accumulation levels, letting you see how your area compares to others.

What do you do when people aren't taking the climate crisis seriously? You make them part of the problem. 

That's the narrative-altering tack taken by Act of Man, a new nonpartisan climate coalition and social activation that's shifting the vocabulary around so-called "natural" disasters to center the increasingly essential role of human climate change in extreme weather — weather that should more accurately be called "unnatural."

Getting real on the state of the climate

The scope and frequency of "unnatural disasters" is convincing enough for the linguistic shift. In 2022, Americans endured the most active year for extreme weather events ever recorded in the U.S. Among drought, wildfire, and winter storm crises, the country fielded nine severe weather events, two tornado outbreaks, three tropical cyclones (hurricanes), and one mass flooding event — these 18 events totaled $165 billion dollars in damage.

This year, as two life-threatening hurricanes touched down on the southeastern United States in the span of just one month, the country has already broken that record. An August report from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information details 20 confirmed weather and climate disaster events. Those are just the disasters happening at large scale, each totaling more than $1 billion in damages. 

More important than the numbers: Communities from coast to coast are still dealing with the repercussions. 

Conspiracy theorists would have you believe that this hurricane season — which has already led to the deaths of more than 200 people and displaced thousands — is the product of political geo-engineering billed as climate solutions. Or, simply, that verified storm images are AI-generated. 

That's just wholly incorrect. 

But these claims — and climate change denialism at large — dance around a truth: They're right that these are man-made events. They really aren't natural. But not because they're genetically or digitally created to stir political unrest and fear. They’re the product of human-generated, long unchecked emissions and rampant pollution that have led us to an alarming climate breaking point.

They’re not an Act of God. They’re an Act of Man.

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Centering new generations of climate survivors 

Soft-launched in August, the Act of Man initiative has amped up its mission in the wake of Hurricane Helene's touch down. It's a partnership between climate scientist coalition Science Moms, community support network Extreme Weather Survivors, and disaster relief partner All Hands and Hearts that will begin airing advertisements on broadcast television, social media sites like TikTok, digital platforms like YouTube, and even streaming services, asking the general public to join their call to action.

Act of Man puts the state of extreme weather bluntly, using Helene as an example: "What made Hurricane Helene so unnatural? Burning fuels. Record warm waters under parts of Helene’s Gulf track were made at least 400 times more likely as a result of climate change. Meaning it is virtually impossible that Helene would have been as severe in the absence of climate change from fossil fuel pollution."

Natasha Bright, a survivor of a North Carolina flash flood caused by Tropical Storm Fred in 2021, lended her story to the Act of Man campaign. In a short video circulated by the initiative, Bright describes the shock of losing everything, including her "forever home," as she points to flood levels more than a foot above her head.

"I don't think that we ever thought that it would be that extreme. Even those who are prepared can never be fully prepared, because we're dealing with events that are just unprecedented," she told Mashable. 

Bright's flooding experience devastated her dreams of permanence and stability. She's since moved farther away from the natural rivers she lived by, gotten involved with local climate groups, and studied up on extreme weather science. In the days leading up to Helene, she was restless, a product of post-flood PTSD she says, prompting her to later reach out to a local resource (the Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center) to provide immediate support with her Waynesville, North Carolina neighbors. 

The 47-year-old mother represents a steadily growing population of climate survivors — which includes displaced individuals often referred to as "climate refugees" — reckoning with shocking weather events. What used to be generational storms are now intergenerational storms, and what used to be worries for our future ancestors are now worries for our living children. Bright's family has been impacted by a multitude of extreme weather events, including surviving the destruction of Hurricane Harvey's path through Texas in 2017.

"When I was growing up, I had never even heard of anybody who had been through a natural disaster, and I lived in southern Florida," she said. "I never knew anyone who lost everything. The fact that it's now two in one family… It says something."

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Relief workers are caught in an endless sprint

All Hands and Hearts, an international disaster response organization that coordinates volunteer-powered humanitarian aid, is currently on the ground in North Carolina and Florida, participating with local organizations in cleanup and hazardous debris removal. The group has already committed to a year-long presence in the area, and are the recipients of Act of Man's fundraising efforts. 

The organization abides by a collaborative, less invasive framework of humanitarian response that focuses on embedded volunteers and community participation. "We respond in communities where local capacity is overwhelmed — the local capacity to sufficiently recover from these events does not exist," Jess Thompson, All Hands and Hearts CEO, explained. "We provide a way for people who want to participate directly in relief efforts to be able to do that safely and effectively."

Current donations to the organization go to the year-long Helene operation, but supporters will soon be able to earmark funds for Hurricane Milton or add to a general hurricane relief fund.

Community members remove debris from Hurricane Helene in Marshall, North Carolina. Credit: Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty Images

That's because there is an increasing need for long-term humanitarian responses in less predictable areas. "You may have a preconceived notion of people's access to resources in the United States," said Thompson. "But what we find is if you lose everything you own, it hurts. It doesn't matter how much stuff you had before. You are not equipped, alone, to deal with the impacts."

But the intensity of "unnatural disasters" are straining an already complicated and overburdened workforce of relief workers, who are often themselves climate survivors and at risk for more disasters. The organization had been wrapping up a two-year long Hurricane Ian relief effort in Fort Myers Beach, Florida when this season's storms hit. Volunteers, breathless from a series of post-Ian storms, headed out to help with Helene. 

"Nobody's had that time to breathe because of Milton coming straight back in," Thompson said. "We are making sure that we're managing our resources, managing our wellbeing, and starting to schedule support resources to make sure that we are at our full potential to be able to support people properly for weeks and weeks and weeks." 

Changing the way we discuss climate events 

Climate policy advocates, relief workers, and scientists are fatigued in more ways than one, exacerbated by the abstract nature of weather itself. 

For context: Floods are the most common disaster in the U.S. Globally, they are becoming more frequent and more severe, as warming atmospheres trap more moisture above our heads. And this deluge, while a threat to all, will have a disproportionate effect on Americans already structurally predisposed to environmental risk. Neighborhoods home to racial minorities and low-income households have the highest inland flood exposures in the South, experts warn. Black communities, specifically, are expected to bear an even greater share of future flood damages.

"What we want to highlight by being part of this coalition is that there is something that we can do about it. It's not theoretical, it's not academic," Thompson said. "There are real people right now suffering from the impacts of these storms." 

Dr. Rosimar Rios-Berrios is a Science Moms coalition member and atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. In her work, Rios-Berrios researches tropical cyclones, high-impact weather, and precipitation extremes, but she's also a mother worried about her children's future — and how the general public's misunderstandings may impact their urgency to take action. 

"There are two sides of me: There is the climate scientist. There is also the mom, the human, the citizen. I have experienced this firsthand," she told Mashable of her upbringing in Puerto Rico. The island is still dealing with the rolling impact of 2017's Hurricane Maria. "There is a big gap that [scientists are] trying to fill, in how we communicate what we know about the climate and what it means to every citizen."

Act of Man represents a digital version of shifts seen across the scientific community. Science communication experts have long studied the power of language and imagery in communicating present danger, especially online, coming to the conclusion that we have to be more direct and urgent to cut through the social media noise. Organizations like the National Hurricane Center have moved toward words like "catastrophic" and "life-threatening," with the tone and timing of messages becoming more crucial. Recent research has found that generic watch and warning visuals shared by official organizations are the least interacted with disaster images online. Overall, communications need to be actionable, and, importantly, relatable. 

These changes were seen in the days preceding Milton. Viral videos of police vehicles blaring dire evacuation announcements circulated on TikTok. Clips of Rios-Berrios' colleagues, atmospheric scientists and meteorologists, being moved to tears as they tried to communicate the severity of the storm stirred public interest and alarm. Government leaders were taking to news channels to communicate the life or death stakes. 

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"Individuals, corporations, nonprofits, governments, each have a different part to play in this whole puzzle," said Thompson. The Act of Man campaign suggests that personalized language — phrasing that implicates as much as it warns —  is just as important to the future of climate policy and action. 

"We know the science, we know the facts," Rios-Barrios added. "Climate change is a human cost. It requires human solutions. And the solutions are out there."

AI is demanding more and more energy for its immense processing needs, and while many of it's leaders are addressing the climate concerns, others are letting artificial intelligence lead the way.

Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt is among the latter, for one. Appearing at a recent Washington AI summit, Schmidt argued that current climate goals should be abandoned in favor of a no-bars-held approach to AI investment. "All of that will be swamped by the enormous needs of this new technology," said Schmidt, referring to recent efforts to make AI more environmentally friendly. "We may make mistakes with respect to how it's used, but I can assure you that we're not going to get there through conservation."

Schmidt has his own AI investments, including the defense company White Stork, which is testing a new legion of AI-powered military drones. "We're not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we're not organized to do it," Schmidt continued. "I'd rather bet on AI solving the problem, than constraining it and having the problem."

The former executive served as the company's lead from 2001 to 2011, during which time the company became "carbon neutral" for the first time. Since then, the tech giant has invested even more in its image as a climate-conscious company, eliminating its carbon legacy and planning to invest in the clean energy economy.

But Google has admitted its own climate goals (including net zero emissions by the year 2030) are farther off than they would like. The company's 2024 sustainability report showed a 48 percent increase in total greenhouse gas emissions between 2019 and 2023, with the majority tied to larger processing demands beginning in 2022.

Last month, a report from the Guardian revealed that Big Tech's emission stats are still likely off the mark, with true emission numbers obfuscated by what the industry refers to as "market-based" figures achieved by clever renewable energy certificate accounting. In the adjusted report, Amazon was an exponentially worse offender than any other company, with more than double the amount of emissions than the next player on the list. Google and Microsoft (which also saw a rise in emissions since 2020) stood out among the offenders for pledging to phase out the opaque system from its reporting process.

As many AI executives, like OpenAI's Sam Altman, race toward sustainable energy options for AI, others are doubling back to fossil fuels to meet the present demand. Meanwhile some, including several of tech's biggest names and Microsoft itself, are exploring the potential of nuclear energy to match both the speed of AI investment and its demands on the energy grid.

If you spot famed childhood science entertainer Bill Nye on the streets and feel compelled to ask for a brag-worthy selfie, you better be able to show where you stand on climate policy.

That's because the celebrity and newly minted "Climate Guy" is drawing a line: He'll take your photos, but only if you're voting Team Earth. Explained via the same "Bill Nye the Science Guy" humor that made him famous, but now via social media, the terms are the latest in a pre-election "Too Hot Not to Vote" engagement campaign. In the spot, Nye thanks his dedicated fans for decades of support, which had inspired kids near and far to join STEM fields, and, of course, generated thousands of selfies. And while these 1:1 interactions are meaningfully heartwarming, the last thing the Earth needs is more heat — so he's turning his fans to the polls.

"Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent— and more extreme. We are changing Earth’s climate," Nye told Mashable. "The first thing to do about it is vote. Democrats have a plan to address climate change. The other side is pretending it’s not even happening. I get asked for selfies all the time when I’m out and about. I’m usually happy to oblige, but from now on, if you ask for a selfie, I’m going to insist that you commit to vote. Climate is on the ballot, from top to bottom this November. To ensure a healthy future for all of us, vote."

The "Too Hot Not to Vote" campaign — awash in bright red fire and "hot face" (🥵) emojis — was launched in September by Climate Power, a strategic communications organization focused on building political action for the climate that's recently called attention to the environmental impacts of Project 25. It's supported by groups like the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, the Sierra Club Political Committee, and Green New Deal Network, and seeks to harness social media's prowess in urging voters to lay on the pressure for "bold" climate policy.

Most importantly, the social activation is co-chaired by those with social media pull and the potential for virality: Celebrities like Rosario Dawson, Sophia Bush, and (everyone's favorite) young political correspondent Jack Schlossberg, as well as environmental justice activists LaTricea Adams and Pattie Gonia, known as the premiere drag queen environmentalist.

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"Voting is hot, climate change is not," said Gonia at the time of the campaign's launch. "Vote like our planet depends on it because... well... it does."

Nye's already made two videos urging people to vote on the side of the climate (Read: The Harris / Walz ticket). In one, sporting the essential white lab coat, Nye is blunt: "The world is on f*cking fire!!" In another, donning the garb of the nation's founding fathers, the science icon quotes directly from the Constitution as he begs voters to align themselves with science. "Science isn't partisan. It's patriotic!" he says.

But, as Nye says in the third installment, the state of the world is getting dire. "From now on, you can have your selfie, but you gotta vote."

Hurricane Helene — which ran a 600-mile long path of destruction through Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas — has decimated communities and forced large portions of the American southeast out of their homes. With search and rescue efforts still underway, other organizations, like Airbnb are stepping in to assist the displaced.

Area residents can now apply for housing hosted by Airbnb.org, the company's nonprofit arm behind its humanitarian and disaster relief efforts. Temporary free or discounted stays are coordinated through local nonprofit and relief partners, not the Airbnb site, which identify and coordinate residents who require assistance. Hundreds of residents have already been placed in accommodations, the organization says.

There's certainly need, even with the federal government's response. "In the Carolinas, entire communities are submerged by floodwaters and cut off from aid with people waiting to be rescued with no access to food, power or fuel. In Georgia and Tennessee, damage from downed trees and flooding have left neighborhoods unrecognizable. In Florida, cars are buried in sand and homes have been gutted by the massive storm surge," according to the Red Cross.

With entire towns destroyed, more than 130 people dead, and hundreds of individuals still missing, many residents have been forced to relocate with short warning, and most are depending on emergency relief. Transportation is increasingly dangerous: Emergency responders have warned North Carolina residents, which experienced a century-record amount of deadly flooding, to avoid traveling. Thousands of people are currently being housed in shelters.

Local disaster relief organizations state their most pressing needs remain food, water, and generators, as hundreds of thousands remain without power.

How to get housing through Airbnb

Displaced residents of Florida and North Carolina should reach out to nonprofit partners directly, not Airbnb. “Airbnb.org stays can last anywhere from a few days to about a month depending on the needs of the families we’re helping," the organization explained. "The goal is to give people a temporary place to stay while they get back on their feet. One of the advantages of working with local partners is that they often integrate Airbnb.org stays with other services they provide, such as support for long-term housing, employment, food security, and healthcare."

For Florida residents: Call FLUMC at (863)688-5563 or (800)282-8011, or reach out to your local 211.org center.

For North Carolina residents: Contact your local 211.org center.

How to volunteer your Airbnb residence

Airbnb hosts can apply to provide emergency accommodations on Airbnb.org. The company will waive all service fees for hosts and guests, and provide damage and liability insurance.

Where else you can get disaster help

More than 3,000 federal workers are still on the ground providing emergency services to populations, many of which are still flooded. For those in need of help, FEMA recommends contacting local emergency management services or finding a Disaster Recovery Center (DRC) near you. Individuals affected by the storm or looking to reunite with loved ones can also reach out directly to the Red Cross (redcross.org/gethelp or 1-800-RED CROSS). Find more information on the organization's reunification page.

The organization has released disaster funds to Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina residents, which may include a one-time $750 payment. Apply for direct FEMA relief at DisasterAssistance.gov or via the FEMA App. Verify if your county is eligible for FEMA assistance:

• Florida

• Georgia

• North Carolina

• South Carolina

Volunteer opportunities can be found on the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster directory.

In the 1800s, pioneering scientists foresaw how carbon in the air could warm Earth. By 1938, English engineer Guy Callendar had linked rising atmospheric carbon dioxide to global warming.

Now in 2024 — with atmospheric CO2 at its highest levels in at least 800,000 years — NASA found July 22 was the hottest day observed in the modern satellite record. With the use of spacecraft and modern instrumentation, NASA can run a relatively quick analysis of global temperatures. This scorching day (amid a scorching two weeks) demonstrates a "long-term warming trend driven by human activities, primarily the emission of greenhouse gases," NASA said in a statement.

"In a year that has been the hottest on record to date, these past two weeks have been particularly brutal," the space agency's administrator Bill Nelson said, noting the agency uses over two dozen Earth-observing satellites to collect climate data.

"Oppressive heat" recently blanketed the Western U.S. and Northern Plains, for example, helping boost global average temperatures to over 17 C (around 63 degrees Fahrenheit), which of course includes frigid realms like Antarctica. Summer heat waves are indeed normal, but a warmer climate boosts the odds of severe, persistent, and record-breaking temperatures.

The graphic below shows daily data collected by satellites along with weather observations from land, sea, and air between 1980 and 2024. These millions of observations are then combined and analyzed by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office computer programs — specifically using the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) and the Goddard Earth Observing System Forward Processing (GEOS-FP).

- White lines show daily temperature data from MERRA-2 between 1980 to 2022

- Pink lines show daily temperature values in 2023 (MERRA-2)

- Red lines show daily temperature values in 2024 (MERRA-2)

- Purple shows global values between July 1 and July 23, 2024, using the GEOS-FP system, which provides a faster analysis from MERRA-2, though MERRA will assess these global observations, too.

Modern observations with instruments in space and on Earth allow agencies like NASA to track daily global temperature. Credit: NASA / Global Modeling and Assimilation Office / Peter Jacobs

Earth's atmospheric CO2 levels over the last 800,000 years. Credit: NASA

The recent heat continues a stark and much longer warming trend than has been observed in the satellite record, and which began around 1980. "2023 was Earth’s warmest year since modern record-keeping began around 1880, and the past 10 consecutive years have been the warmest 10 on record," NASA noted.

The planet is already reacting to about 2 F (1.1 C) of warming since the late 1800s: Wildfires are surging in the U.S., major Antarctic ice sheets have destabilized, heat waves are smashing records, storms are intensifying, sea levels are rising, and beyond. It will only grow hotter for much of this century.

But, crucially, climate change doesn't mean humanity is inherently doomed. We can make energy choices that drastically slash the amount of heat-trapping gases society emits into the atmosphere. "We have a significant amount of influence over how much warmer it gets," climate scientist Zeke Hausfather previously told Mashable.

The climate crisis is making days longer, and it’s bad news for tech. According to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, climate change is slowing down the Earth’s rotation. 

As ice sheet and glacier melting accelerates, rising sea levels redistribute mass from the poles to the equator, increasing the Earth’s oblateness and resulting in an extremely slight slowdown of its spin. In the paper, authors Mostafa Kiani Shahvandi, Surendra Adhikari, Mathieu Dumberry, and Benedikt Soja note that while previously the natural rate of slowing varied between 0.3 and 1.0 millisecond per century (ms/cy) since the year 2000, it has increased to 1.33 ms/cy.

Though this may not seem like a significant difference, researchers say there are problematic implications for accurate timekeeping, GPS, and space navigation.

Previous studies have proven humanity’s dramatic influences on the planet, including the way water redistribution is shifting the Earth’s axis.

At a federal research lab located at 11,135 feet (3,397 meters) of elevation, U.S. scientists measured a consequential record.

Due to its remoteness in the Pacific Ocean, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory, located high up in Hawaii, is tasked with taking untainted, daily atmospheric measurements. On June 6, NOAA revealed evidence that the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide is "accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever — accelerating on a steep rise to levels far above any experienced during human existence."

This May, atmospheric CO2 levels hit 427 parts per million, or ppm, an almost 3 ppm increase since last May (annually CO2 levels peak in May, due to natural global fluctuations) and the highest peak ever recorded. What's more, combining the increases since 2022 results in the largest two-year CO2 leap on record.

The lab's continuous record paints a clear picture of how the atmosphere has changed since the late 1950s. Yet, when added to much older air samples taken from pockets of air preserved in ancient Antarctic and Greenland ice cores, along with other environmental observations, the changes over the last 150 years or so are momentous. Atmospheric CO2 is now skyrocketing.

"Not only is CO2 now at the highest level in millions of years, it is also rising faster than ever," Ralph Keeling, the director of the Scripps CO2 Program that manages the atmosphere observing program, said in a statement. "Each year achieves a higher maximum due to fossil-fuel burning, which releases pollution in the form of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Fossil fuel pollution just keeps building up, much like trash in a landfill."

You can imagine that this sizable change would be impactful. Yes, CO2 is considered a "trace gas" in our atmosphere — which is dominated by nitrogen and oxygen. But it's common, in our physical reality, for low concentrations of things to have outsized impacts.

"Over the past year, we’ve experienced the hottest year on record, the hottest ocean temperatures on record, and a seemingly endless string of heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires, and storms," NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in the announcement. This is part of a glaring climate change trend. "2023 was Earth’s warmest year since modern record-keeping began around 1880, and the past 10 consecutive years have been the warmest 10 on record," NASA noted.

The first graph below shows continuously rising atmospheric CO2 levels since 1958. The second puts this recent rise into perspective against the last 800,000 years.

A NOAA graph showing the monthly mean carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa Observatory since 1958. Credit: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

Earth's atmospheric CO2 levels over the last 800,000 years. Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography

But, crucially, civilization is not inherently doomed, climate scientists emphasize. We are not hapless; we have energy choices that can limit the worst consequences of climate change, specifically by significantly limiting CO2 going into the atmosphere.

For now, this monitoring station, and others, will continue to record the hard atmospheric facts.

The skies can be clear, blue, and tranquil. "And all of a sudden, boom, you hit it," Dan Bubb, a former airline pilot and now an aviation historian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told Mashable.

This boom is "clear-air turbulence," a well-known hazard to aircraft and the passengers aboard. It's created by unstable air that commercial planes sometimes cruise through at higher altitudes. It's not visible from the cockpit. It's doesn't show up on the flight deck's weather radar. "It's almost like hitting a deep pothole with a car going 60 mph," Bubb said. "The turbulence is going to jolt people, and hopefully not injure them."

Yet injuries, or worse, can happen. As a violent mid-air May 2024 event showed, a Singapore Airlines flight from London hit harsh, unexpected turbulence, injuring 83 passengers and resulting in one fatality.

Although this event was particularly severe — and such turbulence fatalities are rare — turbulence overall is happening more. And atmospheric scientists say the culprit is our warming atmosphere.

"We now have strong evidence that turbulence is increasing because of climate change," Paul Williams, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Reading in the UK, said over email. "We recently discovered that severe clear-air turbulence in the North Atlantic has increased by 55 percent since 1979." (Researchers analyzed four decades of atmospheric data, since modern satellites came online, to determine the upward trend in clear-air turbulence.)

The researchers also noted that "similar increases are also found over the continental USA." Both the North Atlantic and the U.S. see some of the busiest travel routes in the world.

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And the turbulence will likely grow worse.

"Our latest future projections indicate a doubling or trebling of severe turbulence in the jet streams in the coming decades, if the climate continues to change as we expect," Williams added.

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Why plane turbulence is getting worse

Commercial airliners fly at lofty altitudes, at some 31,000 to 42,000 feet, where the air is thinner and the flight burns less fuel. But the powerful atmospheric jet streams also travel at these heights.

The jet streams are fast-moving wind currents, or streams, of air that travel around Earth. They often meander like a lazy river, but move easterly at speeds reaching 275 mph. On our planet, there are four primary jet streams, two in the polar regions and two at lower latitudes, such as one that often passes across the U.S. and North Atlantic Ocean (as shown in the graphic below). They regularly impact flight in all sorts of ways: The potent jet stream can push flights across the Atlantic, shortening travel times; flying the opposite direction, against the wind, increases flight times.

Yet warmer air is now boosting the amount of wind shear — the difference in wind speeds at different heights — in the jet stream. Crucially, this is "strengthening clear-air turbulence in the North Atlantic and globally," the University of Reading explained.

On bottom left: the four main jet streams on Earth. On top: a prominent jet stream meandering across the U.S. Credit: NOAA

A potent driver of the disrupted jetstream comes from below, explained Michael Pravica, a physics professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. There's increasingly more heat in the climate system, particularly over bodies of water (most of the warming that human activity is trapping on Earth is soaked up the extremely absorbent oceans). Crucially, this added heat rises in a process called convection, similar to how boiling water propels rice around a pot. And this atmospheric convection can disrupt the rapidly flowing jet stream.

"When you have more energy, you have more convection," Pravica explained. "And more convection means more turbulence."

When a plane speeds at some 550 mph through the skies and meets disrupted air, the plane is going to react. "The passengers are going to go every which way if they're not belted," Pravica said. "It's like you're a skater, and then you hit this rough patch of ice that causes friction and change. There are forces on the plane that weren't there before."

Scientists expect severe turbulence, and clear-air turbulence, to worsen this century. That's because Earth will continue to heat up, largely fueled by skyrocketing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This will continue boosting wind shear in the jet streams, where planes inevitably fly.

"2023 was Earth’s warmest year since modern record-keeping began around 1880, and the past 10 consecutive years have been the warmest 10 on record," NASA explained. Meanwhile, levels of atmospheric CO2 are now the highest they've been in at least 800,000 years, but more likely millions of years.

Compared to the last 800,000 years, the CO2 in Earth's atmosphere is now skyrocketing. Credit: NASA

How to prepare for severe turbulence

When aircraft meet clear-air turbulence, they can rapidly, though temporarily, lose altitude. That's because the plane loses some lift in the suddenly unstable air. The Singapore Airlines flight, too, experienced a significant drop.

"You obviously can't see it. But when you hit it, it's an abrupt drop," Bubb, the former airline pilot, said.

With a documented uptick in turbulence, he recommends that passengers take simple measures to ensure their safety. The FAA has documented 163 serious turbulence injuries to passengers and crew between 2009 and 2022.

Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 experienced severe turbulence near the end of its flight from London to Singapore. Credit: Elmurod Usubaliev / Anadolu via Getty Images

"We're at a time when people can't just be roaming around the cabin. We're at a time when we need to take this more seriously," he emphasized.

Unless you need to use the restroom or stretch for a medical reason, it's best to stay buckled in. The bottom line?

"Even when we turn the 'fasten seat belt' sign off, keep your seatbelt on," Bubb said.

Since the emergence of social media, the spread of climate mis- and disinformation has been evolving dramatically. From TikTok greenwashing strategies by oil giants, to wellness influencers spreading disinformation, the internet seems to be the mecca of fake news. But what's behind climate disinformation's shifting tactics? And how can you navigate it?

During Generation Hope: Act for the Planet at London's Natural History Museum, Mashable talked to scientists Dr. Erica McAlister, disinformation researcher Jennie King, and climate activist Disha Ravi, to trace the evolution of climate disinformation.

Days of heavy rain in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul have caused the worst floods the country’s southernmost state has seen in at least 80 years — and the sheer impact of it can be seen in new drone footage.

Since 2 May, 417 of the state’s 497 cities have been inundated, as a hydroelectric dam situated between between Cotiporã and Bento Gonçalves collapsed, and lakes and rivers overflowed.

The floods have displaced over 150,000 people and killed at least 100, while hundreds of people are still missing or awaiting evacuation and millions have been left without access to water and electricity.

Brazil's National Centre for Monitoring and Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN) has said Rio Grande so Sul is at "high risk" of further flooding, as heavy rainfall is projected to continue.

This incredible POV footage, captured in Canada's Hudson Bay, is helping us learn more about how climate change is affecting polar bears.

The climate in the Arctic is warming about two times faster than the rest of the planet. As a result, polar bears in the Hudson Bay are forced to spend more time on land, recently reaching 130 days of terrestrial life – a three-week increase since the 1980s.

So far, scientists have suspected that the iconic marine mammals may be able to adapt to iceless life. New research that used collar POV cameras to track the bears' behavioural changes on land, however, portrays a different reality. In this video, Mashable spoke to Dr. Anthony Pagano, a Research Wildlife Biologist and co-author of the study, about the results of their findings.

A coral farm in the Bahamas is proving that the most efficient way to restore coral reefs may be growing them on land.

Coral Vita is a reef restoration project which grows corals using microfragmentation — the process of cutting corals into small pieces and positioning them near each other to trigger a natural healing and accelerate the rapid growth of coral tissue.

While on the farm, corals are also exposed to managed stress such as water warming or acidification, to help cultivate their resilience — this process is also known as "assisted evolution." Once fully grown, the corals are moved to degraded reef sites in the ocean where their impact is already noticeable.

"One of the restoration sites in Grand Bahama had 75 percent survivorship of corals after one year," co-founder Sam Teicher tells Mashable. "In the Bahamas, if you have 30-50 percent survivorship after one year, that's considered a good project. So we had one site 75 percent, another site 30 percent, another site 99 percent."

During a mass bleaching in the summer of 2023, natural corals in the area were wiped out. But the corals Coral Vita planted, which had been given a resilience boost on the land farm, survived.

"There's more work to be done," Teicher says. "But seeing corals that we've grown with these more resilient approaches, surviving is still very encouraging considering the threats we face."

Credit: Coral Vita

One of the elements that distinguishes Coral Vita from other reef restoration projects is that it is a for-profit organisation, which Teicher says was a conscious choice.

"Having previously myself worked for NGOs, and in the policy space in the environmental and climate sectors, and my co founder Gator [Halpern] working in academia and environmental science, we felt like many environmental challenges weren't being solved rapidly or effectively enough by those sectors, despite the best intentions and hard work," he says. "So what if we could create a company that can get entities to pay for restorations instead of a donation here and a grant there, which is how most coral farming projects are funded, which unfortunately limits a lot of the critically needed impact to keep reefs alive."

Not dissimilar to the 'polluter pays' principle, Coral Vita asks sectors that benefit from coral reefs, from tourism and food industry, to invest in preserving the endangered ecosystems.

"We sell restoration to hotels, developers, governments, insurers, coastal property owners. Anyone who depends on the tourism, coastal protection, fisheries benefits of reefs, can hire Coral Vita to restore the reefs that they depend on," says Teicher.

"And then we also use our farms as education centres for local communities, as well as tourism attractions. We have "Adopt a Coral" campaigns for individuals as well as brands and corporations who can fund restoration from wherever they are in the world if they believe in what we're doing. We also license out our expertise and techniques that we develop to other coral restoration practitioners so that we can generate revenue to fund more work as well as use that expertise to help others deliver better restoration outcomes. So the whole idea is that if we can really catalyze a self sustaining restoration economy, that can eventually lead to planting the millions and billions of corals that are needed to keep reefs alive."

Since the 1950s, the world has lost over half of its coral reefs to climate change and ocean pollution and we are on track to lose almost all of our corals by 2050. While Teicher admits that the actions that will have the greatest impact need to come from world leaders, he believes that Coral Vita is an example of what individuals and companies can do, while waiting on the implementation of state and international policies, to ensure coral reefs are still here for future generations.

The nation is abuzz with questions about the Super Bowl and, it seems, foremost among them is: Will Taylor Swift be able to get to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl on Feb. 11 after performing in Tokyo on Feb. 10? The answer is pretty simple: Swift has a private jet, so yes. 

You likely already know about Swift's private jet, if you've spent any time online in the last few years. A 2022 study by the sustainability marketing agency Yard found that Swift is one of the worst contributors to climate change when it comes to CO2 emissions from private jets. Her emissions at the time were 1,184.8 times more than the average person's total annual emissions.

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The chatter has picked up a bit more lately, though. Part of that uptick could be attributed to the fact that Swift's legal team sent a cease-and-desist letter to Jack Sweeney, a college student who tracks public figures’ private jet usage and publishes that data on social media. Swift's team argues it is "stalking and harassing behavior," according to The Washington Post. But to be clear, Sweeney's data is publicly available by the Federal Aviation Administration. This isn't Sweeney's first rodeo — he faced similar legal threats from Elon Musk. 

In response, Swifties are saying that she isn't the worst celebrity when it comes to CO2 emissions. "Other celebrities fly more!" they argue, citing questionable data from Pop Factions. "How else is she supposed to get around?" they question. 

The second question is fair. Swift simply cannot take a commercial flight. But critics argue that the problem isn't that she has a private jet, it's how often she uses it. For instance, her jet recently logged a 13-minute flight from Cahokia/St Louis, Illinois, to St Louis, Missouri, releasing an absurd amount of CO2 that could have been reasonably avoided with a 40-minute drive.

Not to mention, if Swift flies 14,000 miles from Tokyo to Las Vegas to Melbourne, where she's set to continue her own Eras Tour on Feb. 16, The Washington Post estimates the trip could "burn about 8,800 gallons of fuel and create about 90 tons of carbon emissions." That's way more than the average American will produce in a year.

While Swift should be held responsible for her contribution to climate change, we shouldn't allow this to distract us from the biggest problems facing the climate today: Roughly 100 companies are responsible for 71 percent of global emissions.

And on Sunday night, Swift's private jet will be one of many parked at the airport.

Amid swirling questions about the politics and platforms of presidential hopefuls, the veracity of promises made by tech leaders, and the influence of AI, one fear underlies it all: that growing misinformation could seal the fate of the American population. 

On Jan. 16, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (a nonprofit tracking online hate speech and disinformation recently subjected to the ire of X CEO Elon Musk) released a new report chronicling the rise of new forms of climate-based misinformation, also known as denial content, specifically taking over YouTube. 

According to the report, titled "The New Climate Denial," the past five years have witnessed a rise in less on-the-nose forms of climate change denial, which the CCDH dubs "New Denial." These kinds of claims avoid arguing against the existence of human-caused climate change, and instead focus their attention on disputing the motivations of scientists and politicians, seeking to discredit possible solutions and split populations against action. 

Around 70 percent of all climate change denial claims made on YouTube are New Denial claims, the center found, an increase from 35 percent just six years ago.

"Scientists have won the battle to inform the public about climate change and its causes, which is why those opposed to climate action have cynically switched focus to undermining confidence in solutions and in science itself," explained Imran Ahmed, the CEO and founder of the CCDH. 

The amount of YouTube videos arguing these claims as fact is a million-dollar business, the center also found, reporting that predictive models of total ad revenue show monetized new climate denial channels rake in $13.4 million per year. 

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Also particularly unsettling: a separate poll conducted by the center and a partner polling agency Survation found that these videos (and their place in the attention economy) are particularly appealing to young people. More than 30 percent of 13 to 17 year olds believed the impacts of global warming are relatively harmless and that climate policies are doing more harm than good. 

"Climate deniers now have access to vast global audiences through digital platforms," wrote Charlie Cray, senior strategist at Greenpeace USA, in the report's press release. "Allowing them to steadily chip away at public support for climate action — especially among younger viewers — could have devastating consequences for the future of our planet."

We need to think critically about the content we (and our families, children, or even peers) consume. Credit: Bob Al-Greene / Mashable

While researchers take on the task of documenting and categorizing this kind of escalating climate misinformation — from watchdogs like the CCDH to those pioneering AI technologies that enable mass surveys — social media and tech companies lag in turning the science into action. 

And until that gap is closed, the burden falls on individuals to think critically about the content they (and their family, children, or even peers) consume. Here's what you need to know to spot New Denial content — and not fall into the million-dollar trap. 

What does "New Denial" mean?

The CCDH and its researchers utilized an AI-powered machine learning model that sifts through online text to categorize types of climate change denial, a technology known by researchers as CARDS. The model was fed thousands of hours of video transcripts from 96 YouTube channels dating back to 2018. 

The videos had accumulated 325 million views in total. 

John Cook, a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne's Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change, is one of the minds behind the original CARDS model, which was used in a robust 2021 study on climate misinformation trends from 1998 to 2020. CARDS takes researchers one step closer to what Cook calls a "holy grail" for fact checking, or something that can automatically and quickly detect false content.

Cook was not consulted for the nonprofit's report, but spoke to Mashable about the new usage's implications. "AI is useful for big data solutions, and climate misinformation is a big data problem," Cook explains. The AI model was trained on content pushed by conservative think tanks and climate denial blogs, which makes it particularly good at spotting specific linguistic arguments made by political and social actors. 

How climate change denial has changed over time

The original CARDS study classified climate denial content into five main categories, which Cook explains can be boiled down simply as:

1. It's not happening. 

2. It's not us. 

3. It's not that bad. 

4. Solutions won't work. 

5. Climate science (and scientists) has ulterior motives. 

These last two are what the CCDH now terms "New Denial" content (a phrase not used by Cook and his team, although not incorrect). Cook notes that the team spotted such transitions from explicit climate change denial to a rise in solutions-based arguments early on in their research, and explains that attacks on scientists and policies have been around since the very "beginning" of climate denial.

Constantine Boussalis is an associate professor in Trinity College Dublin's Department of Political Science and was also part of the CARDS team.

"This 'New Denial' is a form of climate change contrarianism that we have been tracking among various actors for some time now," Boussalis told Mashable. "Our analysis of tens of thousands of documents produced by leading conservative think tanks over the past 20 years shows how these 'elite' contrarian organizations have steadily been backing away from outright denial of climate change (that it is happening, caused by humans, or that it is harmful). However, ad hominem attacks on scientists, scientific organizations, and general skepticism of scientific best practices continues to be prominent among these organizations."

The original CARDS study documented a high spike in climate denial beginning in 2007, most likely due to a rise in political interest in climate change following the debut of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and the release of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fourth climate assessment. 

Researchers now spot cyclical trends like this each year, Cook explains, including an increase in climate denial posts around the end of the year, aligning with the annual U.N. COP climate conferences. 

These patterns are extremely relevant for 2024, as well, in that more bad actors will be rallied by the electoral cycle and candidate's climate platforms, and more voters (mainly younger) may be interested in placing their vote on a candidate that agrees with their climate stances.

The prominence of social media platforms in circulating news and educational content is also impacting the spread of this kind of content. In 2021, Mashable covered the CCDH's report on the "top 10" spreaders of climate change denial misinformation, which included far-right outlet Breitbart, cable news channel Newsmax, and Ben Shapiro's The Daily Wire. These outlets were also generating ad revenue from unlabeled climate change denial videos on both Facebook and through Google Adsense. 

In the new report, some of the biggest actors include YouTube channels from conservative thought leaders like Jordan Peterson and Alex Epstein, which each boast tens of millions of followers. Other accounts include popular "education" accounts like PragerU, the Heartland Institute, and the Oppenheimer Ranch Project. 

Over time, the amount of YouTube videos categorized under "​​Climate solutions won’t work" has grown 21.4 percent and videos that claim the "Climate movement or science is unreliable" have increased by 12 percent. Meanwhile, videos classified as old denial content — claiming things like "Global warming is not happening" and "Humans are not the cause" — have dropped from 65 percent of all content in 2018 to just 30 percent in 2023.

The center found that videos entertaining New Denial claims have increased on Peterson's channel in particular every year since 2020. Traditionally conservative outlets like Breitbart and Newsmax have simply been replaced by the rise of similar anti-climate action social media influencers.  

New Denial content as it appears on your feed

Once you know what to look for, New Denial claims start to appear everywhere. Scrolling through the X accounts of known climate deniers like Peterson, for example, is a crash course in New Denial speak. 

In a post from Jan. 17, Peterson responded to a U.N. Development Program post about the increasing overconsumption of clothing and its production with an implication that the science was part of a "fascist" takeover. He writes: "How about three items per person per year. You bloody fascists. That's what the C40 tyrants are aiming at. You'd control everything in the name of the planet." 

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In another, Peterson claims that the term "ecocide" (defined by activists as intentional acts to inflict mass ecosystem damage) is now being used to blame working class citizens for climate change, rather than industrial actors. 

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Both of these posts exemplify New Denial attacks on both the efficacy of climate solutions and the motivations of climate policy leaders. Comment sections are rife with similar kinds of thinking. 

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How social media is proliferating "New Denial" content 

YouTube is prone to these kinds of posts and comments, according to the new survey of the site's most popular channels and videos. Plus, the video-centric nature of the site is particularly engaging for young users. According to Pew Research Center data, YouTube is the most popularly used site among 13-17 year olds, and 77 percent of teens say they visit it everyday.

Climate change deniers have transitioned their content from insulated blogs into viral video essays and live podcasts published directly to the platform. According to Social Blade (a social media analytics site) data collected by researchers, the 96 YouTube channels studied in the report received 3.4 billion (3,356,433,249) views on their content between December 2022 and December 2023.

In response to similar rises in misinformation and political events that warrant intervention, many social media companies have added climate change-specific policies. In 2022, Pinterest became the first social media platform to completely ban climate misinformation, releasing a comprehensive content removal policy that covers posts denying climate change, refuting scientific consensus, or misleading users. These policies also applied to advertisements spreading misinformation or intentional disinformation.

Credit: Vicky Leta / Mashable

In Nov. 2023, TikTok announced a new commitment to addressing climate misinformation on its platform, part of the U.N.-backed Verified for Climate program that seeks to stop such digital content. A few months earlier, TikTok ramped up its policies to completely ban these kinds of posts from the app. 

But researchers have found the popular app is struggling to enforce its policies. 

Meanwhile, X has ranked the worst among other social platforms in its policies stopping the spread of climate change denial. 

Google, YouTube's Big Tech parent company, has outlined its own stance on climate misinformation, stating that it prohibits:

"ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change. This includes content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change.

When evaluating content against this new policy, we’ll look carefully at the context in which claims are made, differentiating between content that states a false claim as fact, versus content that reports on or discusses that claim. We will also continue to allow ads and monetization on other climate-related topics, including public debates on climate policy, the varying impacts of climate change, new research and more."

But, for years, Google has reportedly failed to enforce its own policy, and New Denial content is slipping through the cracks even more. 

"Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition found 200 videos on YouTube containing disinformation about climate change, with half of them directly breaching Google’s policy," the report details. "In total, they were seen 73.8 million times. Tests indicate that 63 percent of popular climate denial articles still carry Google ads. Google allowed Daily Wire to run ads on searches for 'climate change is a hoax.'"

According to the researcher Boussalis, following the money is fundamentally important to understanding continued climate misinformation. "These actors are not behaving in a vacuum, but rather are supported by large conservative funders. The last section of our study shows how conservative think tanks who received the most money from 'dark money' sources are less likely to communicate New Denial and are more likely to focus on outright denial and attacks on science. This suggests that organized interests are still supporting the most insidious form of climate change contrarianism — and it is not clear to me that this trend is set to change any time soon."

Mirjam Nanko, PhD researcher at the University of Exeter and another CARDS model developer, explained that the question is no longer if New Denial content is on the rise, but how a democracy should respond to it. [Editor's note: Nanko was part of a group that met with the CCDH on the use of CARDS for its new report.]

"The core challenge now is to differentiate between the strategic and systematic use of these claims to delay or prevent policy, and legitimate criticism integral to democratic policy discussions," Nanko told Mashable. "Raising awareness about these strategies is a key initial step. People should be equipped to use them as analytical tools in understanding the ongoing debate."

How you can spot and respond to climate misinformation 

The inadequate response from tech's leaders thus leaves the misinformation fight in the hands of researchers, watchdogs, and individuals themselves. 

"It is vital that those advocating for action to avert climate disaster take note of this substantial shift from denial of anthropogenic climate change to undermining trust in both solutions and science itself, and shift our focus, our resources and our counter-narratives accordingly," the Center for Countering Digital Hate advises. "This report is a call-to-action." [moved]

Tackle New Denial with facts

A fact-based approach to debunking climate denial content is the most straightforward way to spot and stop the spread, Cook points out. "Explaining how misinformation is wrong by explaining the facts is really about building climate literacy," he says. 

Pull in the support of a global network of researchers through official reports, like the IPCC annual climate assessments, science-backed blogs like Real Climate, or officially sanctioned websites like NOAA's Climate at a Glance or NASA's Vital Signs of the Planet.

Just as important: It's never too early to start building climate literacy, perhaps even more pressing as teens engage with New Denial more and more online. Many school districts and childhood educators have advocated for the inclusion of climate change science in core educational curriculum, and organizations around the world are sharing child-friendly lesson plans and curriculum guides. 

Appeal to those at risk with logic 

Both Nanko and Cook also point to knowing the specific rhetorical techniques used by climate denial actors as crucial for spotting and avoiding the content. Cook calls this a "logic-based" approach to tackling misinformation. 

"A consistent and practical way to deal with [climate denial content] is just identifying misleading techniques or logical fallacies across all these different types of misinformation," said Cook. "Once you can spot those patterns and fallacies, then you become immunized or less likely to be misled by those arguments — and not just in climate misinformation, but across any topic."

According to Cook, some of the most common patterns found in climate denial content include: 

• Fake experts: presenting an unqualified person or institution as a source of credible information.

• Logical fallacies: arguments where the conclusion doesn’t logically follow from the premise.

• Impossible expectations: the demand for unrealistic levels of certainty before acting on the science. 

• Cherry picking: carefully selecting data that appear to confirm only one position.

• Conspiracy theory: arguments that a secret plan exists to implement a nefarious scheme, including covering up the "truth."

He also notes the rise of ad hominem arguments, or attacks on the person sharing information rather than the content itself. 

Educating individuals on these techniques can get around the limitations of fact-based approaches. "When people are presented with climate facts and at the same time they're shown climate misinformation  —and they don't have the tools to tell the difference between them — they tend to just disengage and believe neither. It can cancel out our attempts to communicate facts," Cook says. "Whereas if you explain the techniques of misinformation, that's effective regardless. It's a more robust way to inoculate people against misinformation. I recommend a combination of the fact-based and the logic-based approaches to build people's climate literacy but also build their critical thinking skills."

Cook developed the online resource and game Cranky Uncle, which helps build these types of critical thinking skills on the path towards fighting misinformation. 

Media literacy groups, like the News Literacy Project, offer digital tools that teach people how to fact check sources themselves, including its misinformation blog RumorGuard and online quizzes. 

Remember your resources 

Numerous other organizations offer an assortment of climate literacy resources, as well.

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, one of the authors of the federal government's annual climate report, offers a long list of resources on her personal website, including advice for speaking to people who have fallen into climate denial conspiracy. 

Hayhoe points to her own YouTube series, Global Weirding, that addresses common questions and misconceptions. 

Climate Action Against Disinformation, a coalition of climate and anti-disinformation organizations, publishes insights and reports on ongoing efforts to stop climate misinformation.

Additionally: read through more of Mashable's extensive coverage, including our How To Change a City video series exploring the ways urban environments can better adapt to our climate future.

For more climate science reading:

• 5 things from the new U.S. climate report you should care about

• It's stupid hot. Here are the freakish global heating facts.

• Scientists know why today's rains are so terrible

• Here's how out of whack Earth's climate is today

• These animals went extinct in 2023

• How the 'Doomsday Glacier' could change the world

We all claim to love the planet, but do we really? It’s easy to love something when it’s lavishing you with refreshing hikes, clear lakes, and gorgeously glowing sunsets. It’s much harder when the object of your affections asks for something in return — such as your toilet paper.

It isn't news that pollution and climate change are threatening our planet. Scientists have been screaming that our lifestyles are unsustainable for decades, begging people to be more mindful in their consumption. Yet habit and convenience has caused us to largely ignore these dire warnings, continuing to use paper coffee cups and burn fossil fuels like there’s no tomorrow. At this rate, there might not be.

There are of course limits to individual action (and carbon footprints are a sham). Wider policy changes and changing company behaviour are essential to achieving true sustainability, with a 2019 report finding that just 20 companies were responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. A 2017 study found that 71 percent of global emissions were generated by just 100 companies, highlighting the importance of pressuring companies to go green. Sadly, almost no progress had been made in the years since.

Even so, if you're looking for tiny ways to show big companies that people do actually care about not destroying the planet, we can help. Here are six embarrassingly simple ways you can dial up your own sustainable lifestyle and lessen your personal impact, but which you still won’t do because they're bothersome.

1. Use a bidet

Many of us are comfortable wiping our asses with toilet paper, smearing our feces across tissue like disgusting abstract expressionists. However, if we are open and willing to learn, there is a better way. Muslims, Asians, and Europeans have been way ahead on bathroom hygiene for ages, and it’s time everyone else caught up — for both the environment and our buttholes.

Not only do bidets give you a more thorough, hygienic clean than toilet paper, they’re also more sustainable. Exactly how much water is used to manufacture toilet paper depends upon the method, with estimates ranging from six to 37 gallons for a single roll. However, most conclude that bidets consume significantly less, at around one eighth of a gallon per use.

Further, toilet paper requires plant matter and chlorine, a negative environmental impact bidets don’t share. As of 2010, the equivalent of roughly 270,000 trees were being turned into toilet paper every day, significantly contributing to deforestation. Growing demand for softer roll has since seen the number of trees cut down for our butts grow, as manufacturers use less recycled paper.

Overall, bidets seem like a much less wasteful choice. However, Prof. Tommy Wiedmann, professor of sustainability research at UNSW Sydney, noted that the positive impact of the bidet would depend on how people use it. Blasting your anus like a fire hose for an hour is unlikely to do anyone any good.

2. Turn off the tap when you brush your teeth

As a citizen of perpetually drought-stricken Australia, learning that people leave the tap running while brushing their teeth was like learning people fertilise their lawns with wagyu beef. The EPA states that leaving the faucet on can waste eight gallons of water per day. That’s a ridiculous amount of precious liquid literally going down the drain.

It’s hard to break habits, but there’s absolutely no reason to continue this one. Both Wiedmann and sustainability researcher Dr. Lisa Heinze told Mashable you should definitely turn off the tap while taking care of your dental hygiene. Though water is technically a renewable resource, there's a limited amount that's fresh and unpolluted, and it isn’t always available everywhere. Saving what we have is important.

With U.S. groundwater being depleted, climate change prompting less rainfall and more evaporation, and population growth increasing demand, an American water crisis is an impending reality. The EPA predicted at least 40 U.S. states would experience water shortages by the mid-2020s, while Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, California, and Idaho continue to use more water than they receive every year. Half the global population will be under severe water stress by 2030, so it’s vital to conserve what’s available now.

Saving water will save you money, too, in case you need a more capitalist motivation to care about the world.

3. Use public transportation

Complaining about public transportation is a universal experience that unites us all. Buses are always late, trains are unspeakably filthy, and both are packed with coughing strangers who don’t believe in personal space. We jump at the chance to avoid public transport whenever we can. Unfortunately, embracing that contemptible subway is one of the best things you can do to save the planet.

"Transport is still the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases globally, after the electricity and energy sector, representing 15 percent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions," Dr. Chris De Gruyter told Mashable. De Gruyter is a research fellow at RMIT University’s Centre for Urban Research in Melbourne.

"In the United States, half of all trips are three miles or less, but 72 percent of these are by car; for trips of one mile or less, 60 percent are by car," De Gruyter said.

Wiedmann considers using public transport "the most beneficial to help with curbing climate change" out of all the actions on this list, "especially when combined with having no car at all." Research published in 2020 found living car-free has some of the highest potential to mitigate a person’s carbon emissions, even better than switching to a vegan diet. According to the EPA, the average car emits around 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide every year.

If you absolutely must drive, Heinze advised using a car-share program rather than owning your own. Babet de Groot, a Ph.D. candidate studying ocean governance and waste management at the University of Sydney, further suggested carbon offsetting when such travel is unavoidable.

"Carbon-offsetting is the purchase of compensation for emissions generated, which is used to fund emissions-reduction elsewhere," de Groot said. "Plant trees to offset your carbon emissions via Offset Earth [now known as Ecologi] or Carbon Neutral Charitable Fund."

4. Stop buying bottled water

Filling a bottle with tap water and carrying it with you only requires a tiny bit of forethought and prep. Even so, countless people still refuse to do this bare minimum, preferring to buy single-use plastic bottles of water they’ll throw in the trash by nightfall. This is the type of hedonism that will doom humankind, and we will deserve it.

"Annual production of plastic bottles is projected to reach 600 billion by 2021," de Groot told Mashable. "That is 600 billion bottles, in addition to almost all plastic produced to date, that will virtually persist in the environment forever."

According to de Groot, humans produced over 7,800 million tons of new plastic by 2015. Of that, approximately 79 percent has gone into landfill or the natural environment. It takes over 500 years for plastic to degrade into smaller particles, but it continues to destroy the environment even then. "These microplastics risk being ingested by wildlife and transferred up the food chain where their effects on human health are yet to be known," de Groot told Mashable.

You don’t need plastic bottles of Himalayan spring water blessed by a 108-year-old monk who doesn’t use YouTube. If you’re really concerned about purity, just boil and filter your tap water.

5. Ignore ‘best before’ dates on food

Eating food past its manufacturer mandated “best before” date feels like dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight. Food poisoning is never fun, and defying those authoritatively stamped numbers may seem too close to spitting at the gastrointestinal gods. However, strict adherence to these dates is actually unnecessary, and only serves to create equally unnecessary food waste.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture states that, with the exception of infant formula, food is still safe to consume after the provided date passes — as long as it shows no signs of spoilage such as "an off odor, flavor or texture." Eat, drink, and be merry. There is no uniform standard regarding product dating in the U.S., so the numbers largely mean nothing. "Use by" and "best before" dates only indicate when food is at its best quality, not when it is safe to eat.

"Confusion over the meaning of dates applied to food products can result in consumers discarding wholesome food," says the USDA.

"The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated that industrialised countries generate approximately 95 to 115 kgs [209-254 lbs] of consumer food waste per capita," de Groot told Mashable. "This contributes to climate change in the form of methane emissions emanating from landfills and carbon emissions associated with production, processing and transport."

Learn to trust your senses rather than uncritically obey "best before" dates, and you can help reduce some of that waste.

6. Vote

Voting is a chore, and not one that feels particularly rewarding in the moment. Standing in line for hours just to tick a few little boxes might seem irritating, like lost time that might have been spent working or binging the latest Korean drama. However, just like any other chore, it’s important that you do it anyway — especially if you want to keep your environment habitable.

"If we want the right conditions, policies, rules, and support structures to be able to live sustainably, we need our leaders to be part of the solutions," Dr. Simon Lockrey told Mashable. A sustainable design researcher at RMIT University, Lockery is also a board member of the International Sustainable Development Research Society. "Our votes matter, so we should be using that mechanism to send them a message. The old way is not necessarily the best way. By voting, or when we really need to, protesting, we can send these types of messages."

Practically all government policies impact the environment in some way, but Lockery notes some of the most significant issues concern energy, waste, forestry, water, and agriculture. These affect "big ticket items for living sustainably," such as climate change, threats to habitats or certain species, and environmental toxicity.

"What we should be pressuring governments to support are policies that build energy systems that are clean; that drive less greenhouse gas production in industry; that protect flora and fauna; and eradicate toxic materials/chemicals from our biosphere," said Lockery.

"Policies need to do this internationally, at an industry level, as well as support us as individuals to contribute, such as supporting household renewable energy, or enabling a waste system that goes beyond household recycling to being regenerative or truly circular," he added.

Of course, voting isn’t easy for everyone. Voter suppression remains a widespread problem in the U.S., with many potential voters unable to access polling booths on election day (which isn't even a national holiday). However, if you're privileged enough that you can cast your ballot with ease, it’s one of the most important things you can do to save the planet.

"Voting and protesting are benefits of a democracy, and thus are good ways to call for change," said Lockery. "We should cherish these activities, as many don't have these options available to them."

"Overall, we in the developed world are simply consuming too much; too many products we don’t really need, too many holiday flights, et cetera," Wiedmann told Mashable. "Therefore, in addition to doing these 'easy' things, we should generally look at reducing our overall consumption, by buying less stuff, flying less, living in smaller houses, maybe growing our own food."

Of course, not everyone will find these suggestions feasible. As Heinze notes, "You can't realistically take public transportation if your commute will take three-times as long."

"This does not mean we should not embrace individual changes, but that they should be a starting point to increased action in our communities, governments, schools and workplaces," Heinze continued. "If you're looking to make the biggest impact on the climate for the least amount of effort, a great place to start is divesting your [retirement fund] from fossil fuels, and encouraging your institutions to do the same."

UPDATE: Jan. 29, 2024, 4:27 p.m. AEDT This article was originally published in July 2020, and has since been updated in Jan. 2024.

What do these events have in common?

Over 30 straight days of temperatures exceeding 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Phoenix. 126 F measured in China. 120 F at 1 a.m. in Death Valley. 109 F in Rome.

They're all new temperature records set in 2023. Yes, heat waves on Earth are normal. But continuously breaking, nearly breaking, or obliterating heat records isn't normal. Such historic and sustained heat is expected to increase in the coming years as added global warming exacerbates heat waves, and overall temperatures will continue to rise until emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gasses drop to zero.

So, you might ask yourself: How hot will it get??

The answer is dependent on the most unpredictable part of the climate change equation: Us. More specifically, the amount of fossil fuel emissions, largely from carbon dioxide and methane, humanity loads into the atmosphere. So while a single, neat answer isn't possible, scientists have created different heating scenarios – which are like highways to considerably different destinations – based ultimately on the choices made by prodigious carbon emitters, world governments, and beyond.

"These scenarios are so dependent on what humans are going to do – and we are not great at predicting what humans are going to do," Flavio Lehner, a climate scientist at Cornell University who researches future warming and how it will impact Earth, told Mashable.

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The good news is it's exceedingly unlikely that we're on the worst pathway, wherein Earth would warm by some 9 or 10 F (around 5 C) above the pre-Industrial Revolution levels of the late 19th century. But, crucially, it will also be challenging to end up with the best, most optimistic outcome, which would mean limiting warming to some 2.7 F (or 1.5 C) above pre-Industrial Revolution levels by this century's end. Such an ambitious climate goal would avoid the worst consequences of Earth's warming.

Already, Earth has warmed by 2 F (1.2 C) since the late 19th century.

Update: In December 2023, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that 2023 was the warmest year on record. This is little surprise: In 2023, a whopping six different months were the warmest ever recorded.

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How hot will Earth get?

About 10 years ago, things looked dire.

Fossil fuel use and carbon emissions were continually rising each year. It looked like Earth could be headed towards a truly catastrophic amount of warming, the worst-case scenario shown by the top maroon line in the graph below. (The graph was created by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the global agency tasked with providing objective analyses of the societal impacts of climate change.) This warming scenario is called "SSP5-8.5" which essentially means extremely high greenhouse gas emissions (SSP is short for "Shared Socioeconomic Pathways"). It's a world where, by 2100, global coal burning increases by a whopping 6.5 times. But coal use, while not declining, has largely stopped its yearly growth.

What's more, renewable energy – the likes of wind and solar – has vastly expanded, now providing some 13 percent of energy in the U.S. (though renewables are still currently outpaced by fossil fuels both in the U.S. and globally).

"We have entered an energy transition that wasn't apparent a decade ago," climate scientist Zeke Hausfather told Mashable. This energy change has considerably decreased the likelihood of a worst-case climate scenario.

"What we're doing is making the darker futures increasingly unlikely," Hausfather said.

On the other end of extreme scenarios is SSP1-1.9, which would limit warming to just some 2.7 F (1.5 C) above pre-Industrial Revolution levels by the century's end. It's the bottom, light blue line below. That's the warming target global leaders hoped to hit when they signed the historic Paris Agreement in 2016. But it's likely humanity will blow through this ambitious warming goal, as soon as the 2030s.

This probably leaves us in the middle ground, which still means significant warming.

"It's not good news. But it's also not the worst news," Lehner, the climate scientist at Cornell University, said.

The different future warming scenarios, largely based on carbon emissions. It's more likely we're headed towards a middle-ground scenario, similar to the orange line, "SSP2-4.5." Credit: IPCC

Crucially, high warming amounts, up to perhaps some 7 F (around 4 C), are still possible and can't be completely ruled out, Lehner said. But such warming is at the extreme edge of what's likely, he emphasized.

So how much warming is currently realistic? Something close to the SSP2-4.5 trajectory, which is the middle orange line above, explained Hausfather. That's in the 4.8 F (2.6 to 2.7 C) range above pre-Industrial levels.

"It's roughly our best estimate from policies today," Hausfather said, referencing the current climate policies enacted by nations. Roughly is an important caveat here, because other factors — such as how exactly Earth will respond to future CO2 levels in the atmosphere — are uncertain.

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How bad will global warming be?

Some 4.8 F (2.6 C) of warming this century is still a lot. That's a future any reasonable person would want to avoid.

"We can do a lot better," Hausfather emphasized. "Current policies will hopefully not be the best we can do for the rest of the century." 

Already, just some 2 F (1.2 C) of warming has stoked momentous changes. The heating has:

• made intense wildfires more frequent, because a warmer atmosphere dries out vegetation and trees, which more easily burn. ("It takes just a little bit of warming to lead to a lot more burning.")

• melted some of Earth's largest ice sheets, like on Greenland. This raises sea levels — and will continue to do so for centuries (or longer).

• amped the odds for record-breaking heat waves.

• made marine heat waves — which cause major coral die-offs — more frequent and extreme. Marine biologists expect marine heat waves this century to have "significant" and "widespread" ecological impacts, like on the fish that depend on coral ecosystems.

• made droughts more severe, like the prolonged Southwestern megadrought. Historically, droughts have significantly decreased crop yields.

• increased the odds for more extreme downpours and floods, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor.

• created warmer ocean temperatures which are jet fuel for hurricanes. Though hurricane development hinges on a number of complex weather factors, and the science of hurricane intensification is still unfolding, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects cyclone intensities to increase in a world warmed by 3.6 F (2 C).

Clearly, a world at some 2 F (1.2 C) is problematic, and for some, catastrophic.

"Already, we're seeing unprecedented events," Lehner explained. "It's not the same climate anymore. That's all happening at 1.2 [C]."

So what happens at 3.6 F (2 C), which is around a doubling of today's heat? "A lot of these impacts will double in frequency or severity," Lehner said. "In a 2 degree [C] world it's likely things are twice as bad or worse," he added, noting that not all changes will be linear (meaning changed by the same proportion to increases in heating).

An IPCC graph showing the estimated annual carbon emissions for each warming pathway. (1 gigaton of carbon, or GTCO2, is 1 billion tons.) Credit: IPCC

That's why limiting the warming, as much as possible, is critical — not just for ourselves, but for the future residents of Earth. They will experience serious sea level rise. But, it doesn't have to be devastating.

"Every 10th of a degree matters," Lehner said.

As the United Nations’ 28th Climate Conference (COP28) fills our newsfeeds, you might see an uptick in influencers talking about the climate crisis. The question won’t so much be about whether influencers will be talking about it or not, but rather how, and how accurately.

A British think tank has looked into how popular wellness influencers on Instagram — some of whom already have a history spreading health misinformation — may be just as capable of pushing climate misinformation, too.

The Institute of Strategic Dialogue, which dedicates itself to counter-extremism research, has conducted an analysis of 154 lifestyle and wellness influencers on Instagram who endorsed a theme they have called "conspirituality". This is a concept that has existed for over a decade; in 2011, academics Charlotte War and David Voas defined it as the synthesis of the male-dominated realm of conspiracy theory meeting the female-dominated New Age movement. 12 years ago they called it a "rapidly growing web movement" in which followers not only believed that a secret group is covertly controlling political and social order, but that humanity is undergoing a ‘paradigm shift’ in consciousness.

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Beginning with 30 ‘seed’ accounts they located using this kind of academic research, the ISD used data analytics tools to find the accounts that had been most frequently mentioned by the ‘seeders’ in the last year, adding those who met their definition of wellness and New Age influencers promoting conspirituality to their list; they had explicitly offered health, lifestyle or wellness advice, sell related products, and promoted some form health-related misinformation. 

The content that the analysts found was varied, from what may be more concretely described as New Age — esoteric accounts celebrating astrology, hypnotism, crystal healing — to yoga instructors and bodybuilders, nutritional therapists and wellness bloggers. Those sceptical of modern medicine were also spotted, including ‘free-birthers’ who want to ignore doctors’ advice in order to promote their view of ‘natural motherhood’ to accounts that were firmly anti-vaccine.

Climate mis- and disinformation proliferated amongst the 154 accounts, all of which had varying follower counts from the thousands to hundreds of thousands. Some of the core ideas that emerged from their posts included the outright rejection of climate change, or the human influence on it, as well as direct attacks on policies attempting to mitigate or adapt to the climate crisis, or decarbonisation. 

"Most of the accounts mentioned in our study have over 10,000 followers and many over 100,000 followers," Cecile Simmons, the study’s lead analyst, told Mashable. But she pointed out that the nano-influencers also caught in the net were highly concerning. "Some research has shown that nano-influencers can generate higher engagement level rates than bigger influencers and build trusted relationships with their audiences, projecting an image of authenticity and accessibility.

"This is particularly true of the wellness and New Age world — in worlds like yoga and meditation, there is a relationship of trust between teacher and students and charismatic New Age influencers – even with smaller followings – can influence beliefs on the topics they talk about and their audiences’ response to climate policies, potentially eroding trust in climate policies."

Mariah Wellman, assistant professor in the department of communication at the University of Illinois, researches influence and wellness and said, "To me, unfortunately, this study is not surprising. The findings align closely to what I’m seeing in my own research, especially in the context of the United States and the United Kingdom." She added that regulation and even legislation may be required to deter influencers from spreading misinformation.

One case study that the ISD spotlights in their new report is by someone who identifies as a family nurse practitioner with over 340,000 social media followers. In one post, she discusses women who have a nutrient deficiency, and then states: "This is partly because so many praise a vegan or vegetarian diet," before adding "we can all agree that the agenda is to have you believe that meat is bad for you and you’re a better person if you’re vegan."

The ISD identified more than one ‘carnivore influencer’ in its pool who promoted vegetarianism or veganism as unhealthy, and who instead erroneously portray a meat-only attitude as the most sustainable or healthy way a person can eat. 

Another case study, with over 36,000 followers, posted that the government can’t solve homelessness or child sex trafficking, but could "change the earth temperature if we all pay more taxes." One can easily see the meme potential in that post, if you ignored its entire flattening of discourse and oversimplification of three enormous societal problems. 

Isaias Hernandez, an environmental educator who creates content tackling the climate crisis under the moniker @queerbrownvegan, told Mashable that many of the influencers spreading misinformation are heavily disconnected from the grassroots communities fighting on the frontlines of climate change. "Many of these wellness influencers and people who perpetuate climate change know that our public resources as citizens have been failing the people for decades and rather than talking about capitalism, colonialism, or racism playing a huge role in the climate crisis, it is easier to scare followers into thinking that there is a specific evil force that leaves with mysteries around the world. It is not good."

The ISD report ends with an ominous warning that as the impacts of climate change become more visible, "people will turn to ‘alternate’ explanations over verified data" and that there is a pressing need to "inoculate and debunk against conspiratorial content." It adds that "the specifics of language and narratives highlights how automated content moderation may be insufficient, or broadly ill-equipped, to tackle climate change misinformation at a platform level."

Hernandez agrees, and pointed out that short posts aren’t ever going to illustrate the complexity of the climate crisis, nor the solutions to it. "Being able to have peer-to-peer discussions on social media is essential. However, it becomes dangerous when you only use binary statements to make your community accept it for what it is without providing any science, data, or information.

"If we do not find more effective ways to communicate and to call out misinformation happening online, it can get worse in upcoming years.

We've known for a while that Greenland's ice sheet is melting worryingly fast. But a new study from Northwestern University and the University of Copenhagen has found that Greenland’s thousands of peripheral glaciers have entered a new and widespread state of rapid retreat.

In their research, published in Nature on Nov. 9, the team used satellite images and rarely seen historic aerial photographs of Greenland's coastline to map the thousands of glaciers that aren't part of the island's vast central ice sheet. To complete the study, the researchers removed terrain distortion and used geo-referencing techniques to identify the exact locations shown in the photos. The unique data allowed the researchers to document and compare over a thousand glaciers, and the way they've changed over the last 130 years.

According to Yarrow Axford, Northwestern’s senior author of the study, some of the historic photographs were taken from open-cockpit airplanes during Greenland's first mapping missions.

"Those old photos extend the dataset back prior to the satellite era, when widespread observations of the cryosphere are rare," she said in a press statement. "It’s quite extraordinary that we can now provide long-term records for hundreds of glaciers, finally giving us an opportunity to document Greenland-wide glacier response to climate change over more than a century."

The multiyear study has concluded that the rate of the glaciers' retreat has increased twofold since the year 2000, and that rising air and ocean temperatures due to human-induced climate change is the reason for this negative record.

"Our activities over the next couple decades will greatly affect these glaciers," said Laura Larocca, the study's first author. "Every bit of temperature increase really matters."

Today the U.S. government released the fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), the latest government and scientist-led look into our climate reality.

The report is one of the main tasks of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), set in motion by climate change research mandates of the 1990 Global Change Research Act. The White House describes the most recent version – and the accompanying interactive website, podcast, brand new mapping tool, and first-of-its-kind online art exhibit — as the authoritative and definitive assessment on how the country is doing to address climate change. 

In stark contrast to the Trump administration's quiet rollout of the fourth National Climate Assessment in 2018, the Biden administration is inviting the world to see just how far the country's come, and the very long road it has ahead. The report is a deep, information-rich survey of the status of climate science, the warming world's human impact, and the systems and tools at use to address the country's role in facilitating and addressing climate change. It's also an outline for the types of mass investments needed to build a sustainable future.

It's an onslaught of information that reiterates long standing scientific claims, like the inevitable degradation of marine ecosystems, rising sea levels, and the fact that while the U.S. has successfully reduced a lot of its CO2 emissions, it's still responsible for a large chunk of Earth's warming — with a "Net Zero emissions" reality far away. 

But the report also provides information that hasn't been the main focus of similar U.S. climate reporting in the past, including expert thoughts on racial and environmental justice, Indigenous climate solutions, and climate change's mental health effects. 

"While there are still uncertainties about how the planet will react to rapid warming and catastrophic future scenarios that cannot be ruled out," the report reads, "the future is largely in human hands."

2022 set a record for extreme weather events affecting Americans

Building on previous National Climate Assessments, the new report found that extreme events — like drought, heatwaves, hurricanes, and wildfires — continue to increase in severity, extent, and frequency, facilitated (according to growing evidence) by human-caused climate change. 

It also documents the country's most extreme weather year yet, with 2022 setting the record in both number and cost of weather-related disasters over the last four decades. 

In 2022 alone, the report explains, the United States experienced 18 weather and climate disasters with damages exceeding $1 billion. 

To put that into perspective, the country experienced only three similar-scaled disaster events per year on average during the 1980s. Since 2018, there has been one every three weeks or less, totalling 89 billion-dollar events. 

Credit: Boston Children’s Hospital, NOAA NCEI, and CISESS NC

Black communities will bear the brunt of flooding disasters

As these extreme events increase, they will impact certain communities more than others. "Neighborhoods that are home to racial minorities and low-income people have the highest inland (riverine) flood exposures in the South, and Black communities nationwide are expected to bear a disproportionate share of future flood damages — both coastal and inland," the report states. 

This flood risk is due in part to exclusionary housing practices that also affect those communities' ability to adapt to other climate concerns. Neighborhoods that lack urban green infrastructure (or "environmental amenities") are 12°F hotter on average during a heatwave than wealthier neighborhoods, for example. 

Credit: NIEHS/Kelly Government Solutions and USGS/ASRC Federal Data Solutions; FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images; YinYang/E+ via Getty Images; Marc Dufresne/iStock via Getty Images

Addressing climate change is a pressing health issue 

While the most visible consequences of a warming climate include the physical destruction of devastating weather events, other climate change repercussions — including those brought on by increased warm periods and worsening air quality — affect humans more insidiously.  

"Health risks from a changing climate include higher rates of heat-related morbidity and mortality; increases in the geographic range of some infectious diseases; greater exposure to poor air quality; increases in some adverse pregnancy outcomes; higher rates of pulmonary, neurological, and cardiovascular diseases; and worsening mental health," the report asserts. "These risks affect all US residents but have disproportionate repercussions for under-resourced and overburdened communities and individuals, such as pregnant people, communities of color, children, people with disabilities, people experiencing homelessness, people with chronic diseases, and older adults."

Warming climates lead to worsened water and air quality, limited food access, and deaths from persistent drought, as well as changes in the "distribution, abundance, and seasonality" of vector-borne diseases like Lyme, dengue, and West Nile. It also impacts the transmission and severity of zoonotic diseases (those originating in animals) like COVID-19, the report explains.

Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory, CDC, Columbia University, University of Arizona, and University of Colorado

Even further, the displacement of communities due to climate-related changes leads to mental and spiritual harm, the report contends. "These harms may arise from forced displacement and migration, trauma, loss of sense of place and belonging, and disruption of livelihoods, lifeways, and social support systems," the authors note. 

"Mental health conditions including anxiety, depression, and suicide have become more prevalent in the US in the past decade, especially among adolescents. Climate change may increase these mental health burdens."

Indigenous self-determination is linked to climate change

In agreement with climate activists and community organizers, the report states that climate change solutions should involve the voices and cultural practices of the country's (and continent's) Indigenous communities. "Many Indigenous persons are scientists of the environment, holding holistic understandings of the interconnected drivers of climate change and evidence of climate-related changes and strategies for adaptation. For generations, Indigenous Peoples have centered their knowledge of climate change in their cultures, political organizations, and arts." 

But the report puts it even more directly: Indigenous-led climate solutions and community resilience can only be achieved alongside continued investment in their self-determination. This manifests in a community's right to facilitate a transition to renewable energy; taking over the resource management practices of lands, waters, and other resources currently under federal or state oversight; or even accessing culturally relevant climate science data. 

"Today, Indigenous initiatives addressing climate and energy are often organized as movements for protecting and advancing Indigenous rights," the report states. "These include rights to self-determination regarding climate change responses in their territories — rights that are critical to Indigenous efforts to choose the best pathways for supporting health, economic vitality, educational institutions, environmental quality, governance, cultural continuance, and spiritual traditions."

Climate justice is possible

The fifth National Climate Assessment portrays the continued evolution of our understanding of climate change and the advancement of climate science, including how slow-to-move government and industry responses have exacerbated environmental, economic, and social inequities. It also points out how seemingly positive policies to address displacement and migration, the rise of urban green infrastructure, and the transition to more sustainable energy can have a disproportionate negative impact on low income and communities of color. 

"Fossil fuel-based energy systems have resulted in disproportionate public health burdens on communities of color and/or low-income communities. These same communities are also disproportionately harmed by climate change impacts. Social systems define who is seen as deserving of local, state, and federal interventions to address climate impacts," the report asserts. "Even when all citizens are treated the same under the law, differential outcomes may result if the law ignores structural inequalities."

Counter to growing political and environmental nihilism, however, the report's authors conclude that climate justice —  a human rights approach to climate solutions that focuses on historic and current inequity to create equal access to jobs, environmental goods, and quality of life — is still very much possible, given a continued focus on inclusive climate mitigation strategies and "just transitions" to a green economy. 

"Through complex interactions, conscious and unconscious tendencies and biases, and visible and invisible social rules, social systems distribute climate risks and benefits; they also create the opportunities for climate adaptations and climate mitigation to be envisioned and acted upon."

Since 1950, we have lost half of our oceans' coral reefs. As sea temperatures rise due to the relentless burning of fossil fuels, endangering the fragile marine ecosystems, scientists are urgently looking for solutions.

One example is located off the coast in southern Texas. It's a giant 2.5-square mile artificial reef comprised of intentionally sunken vessels, concrete rail ties, and cinder block, which aims to sequester carbon while providing habitat for marine species. The project was created by scientists at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and supported by non-profit Friends of RGV Reef. It also received funding from Canadian oil giant Enbridge which, while investing in some environmental projects, has continued to emit millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases each year, build pipelines endangering both the planet and Indigenous communities and, as reported by the Guardian in 2021, worked with police to crackdown on protesters opposing the building of Line 3 in Minnesota.

The research team behind the artificial reef is trying to determine whether the human-made construction can be successful at carbon capturing and sequestration. Though the study just completed the first part of its two-year investigation, results are already encouraging: the team has found that the reef is, in fact, sequestering carbon. What's left to establish is whether the amounts captured are sufficient to make a significant impact.

With an estimated 25 percent of marine species living in and around coral reefs, the underwater ecosystems have been deemed "the rainforests of the seas." Though recently there have been encouraging discoveries of coral reefs untouched by humans, a lot more work still needs to be done to ensure their preservation. And yes, cutting down carbon emissions is number one on the list.

In the three weeks since President Joe Biden announced his American Climate Corps — a new youth-oriented job program focused on training the next generation of clean energy, conservation, and resilience workers — tens of thousands of Americans have signaled their enthusiasm for the growing green economy. For those at its helm, it's proof that a modern imagining of New Deal-era community workforces could bring us closer to a sustainable future. 

According to newly released numbers, the White House has received more than 42,000 interested sign-ups for the program. More than two-thirds of respondents are between the ages of 18-35, which National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi tells Mashable is a vindication for the Biden administration's leap into the climate sector — and its desire to build space for America's younger generations. 

"All across the country, young people want to be part of the solution. They want to be part of physically building the clean energy economy. They want skills that catapult them into careers in this new and growing clean energy economy," said Zaidi. "We've also been hearing from employers that there's a lot of value in opening up new pathways to these clean energy jobs. So we feel vindicated. We feel very positive about the momentum. We're going to keep working to recruit even more folks."

The interagency partnership — which brings together national service organization AmeriCorps, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Departments of Labor, Interior, Agriculture, and Energy — is a core part of Biden's climate agenda, a central organizing point of his 2020 electoral campaign and early policy goals. In 2021, the president and congressional Democrats sought a $30 billion allotment for a Civilian Climate Corps during early Inflation Reduction Act negotiations. Eventually dropped, the administration has sought a new pathway forward for the works program.

"This is inspired by New Deal-era concepts, but reimagined by young people and put into motion by them," Zaidi explained. His department sees the American Climate Corps as a streamlined pathway into civil service, and as a way to lower barriers to entry for folks of diverse backgrounds who might not be inclined to risk exploring jobs in emerging sectors.

"This really is all about delivering a program where no background is necessary. No experience is a requirement. Everybody is welcome. Because the only way we're going to meet the moment on climate change is if we have the full team." 

Michael Smith, CEO of AmeriCorps, told Mashable that the early sign-up numbers are extremely impressive compared to the organization's other environmental programs, possibly reflecting a successful federal response to demands for a higher minimum wage, jobs that offer tangible opportunities for change, and pathways for sustainable career development. 

"Whenever the unemployment rate is low, efforts like AmeriCorps have a little bit more of a struggle with recruitment," he explained. "Last year, AmeriCorps supported about 14,000 AmeriCorps members that are working in climate-related fields. So to see this number of over 42,000 signups is really huge."

One of the first major opportunities for American Climate Corps members will be the new AmeriCorps NCCC Forest Corps, a partnership between AmeriCorps and the U.S. Forest Service providing conservation, reforestation, and wildfire prevention jobs to an 80-person cohort. 

In its support of environmental service opportunities and as an independent agency of the federal government, AmeriCorps also partners with, and finances, state-level climate corps — a growing network of jobs programs established nationwide to fill a post-New Deal gap following President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Climate Corps. Last year, the nation's largest service organization invested $120 million in climate-related programs for its service members, which Smith explained is a 20 percent increase from its 2021 spending. 

AmeriCorps celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, with its predecessor programs — as well as outspoken climate activists — having spent even longer laying the foundation for a program like the American Climate Corps. Even more entrenched in the climate conversation, tribal governments and Indigenous communities around the country have long championed community-led climate programs and solutions. The federal government has stated its intent to collaborate with and support Indigenous communities as part of the American Climate Corps. 

"We are excited about how this work will not only address the challenges that our tribal communities are facing, but also involve them and make sure that we're honoring their practices," said Smith. "What [AmeriCorps has] heard over and over again is: 'We have been doing this work since time immemorial. We have the solutions. You bring in the investments and let us lead.' That really is the secret sauce of America and what will be the secret sauce of the American Climate Corps. We are not telling individual communities what to do. We are letting this next generation lead the work, and we are letting local communities lead the work."

Targeting conservation, environmental justice, and clean energy

Initial numbers show there's resounding interest in the Climate Corps as an option for building sustainable and inclusive futures through conservation efforts, with more than 80 percent of potential Climate Corps members marking their interest in "protecting America's public lands and waters for future generations" while signing up for the program.  

Reflective of a solidified social consciousness among America's young people, prospective trainees have an eye on environmental equity, too, as about 80 percent of sign-ups designated a desire to build skills that "advance environmental justice to ensure all Americans live in healthy, thriving communities." 

And around 70 percent expressed interest in helping deploy low-cost, reliable, clean energy.

"In the launch of the American Climate Corps, we talked a lot about inspiration from President Roosevelt and the [Civilian Conservation Corps]. But that was — you know — all white boys," Smith explained. "There was no focus on equity. There was no focus on justice. And so we are completely turning that on its head. The American Climate Corps is going to be completely centered on climate justice and equity."

The American Climate Corps' unprecedented interest also may hint at a new understanding of federal job programs and public service broadly, which, both Zaidi and Smith said, could be a pathway to more effective climate solutions. 

"There's a growing recognition that there's a broader array of careers tied to the question of whether we meet the moment on climate change or not," Zaidi said. "That tackling the climate crisis doesn't necessarily mean putting on a lab coat and going into a science building and tinkering with some new technology. That in an equal part and equal measure, we need people who are putting on a hard hat and installing a wind turbine, people who are helping weld the future into place, folks who are taking agricultural practices and innovating on them, so that we are growing things while putting carbon into the soil. It's just thrilling to see tens of thousands of young people sign up and say, 'Hey, we're interested in pathways to do just that.'"

The American Climate Corps anticipates a first-round cohort of 20,000 people, accommodating only half of the amount of those who have expressed interest so far. But growing investments in the clean energy sector, continued interest in affordable clean energy options and green jobs, and a justice-oriented framework for involving disproportionately affected communities may ensure the American Climate Corps is a lasting legacy of the Biden administration. 

"Over the last several years, in really unprecedented fashion, young people have come together, organized, marched, striked, and moved the political economy of climate action in a fundamental way," said Zaidi. "Young people have been a force of nature when it comes to the climate crisis, and now we're harnessing that incredible power to build the literal clean energy economy."

A dedicated American Climate Corps recruitment website will launch this winter, to facilitate a streamlined experience for American Climate Corps participants and organizations interested in learning about and applying for opportunities in their communities. 

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Google is expanding its flood forecasting capabilities to the United States and Canada, providing a potentially lifesaving resource as the climate crisis continues to exacerbate environmental events and threaten communities worldwide.

The company's global Flood Hub prediction tool provides real-time flood forecasts and visualizations integrated with Google Search and Maps, alerting communities and humanitarian organizations to imminent disaster. Now, users can count on improved public alerts, with the ability to enter nearly any global location on the Google Flood Hub platform — and in many places, Google Search and Maps — to proactively monitor flood risk and prepare for emergency response.

"Floods are the most common natural disaster, causing thousands of fatalities and disrupting the lives of millions every year," wrote vice president of engineering and research Yossi Matias in a Google Sustainability announcement. "As cities and individuals work to address the effects of climate change, we believe AI can play a transformative role. We're working to build more solutions — like our AI-based predictions and forecasting — that provide actionable information to help individuals stay safe and communities plan ahead." 

In May, Google turned ongoing flood forecasting research into the publicly accessible Flood Hub, providing flood indicators to more than 80 countries across Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, South America, and Central America. In its first iteration, the resource focused on "territories with the highest percentages of population exposed to flood risk and experiencing more extreme weather, covering 460 million people globally."

FloodHub will now provide information on potential riverine floods across 800 locations in the United States and Canada, covering the homesteads of more than 12 million people. 

The company's flood forecasting tools use a combination of two AI models fed with publicly available data sources. Google's Hydrologic Model forecasts the amount of water flowing in a river, while its Inundation Model predicts what areas will be affected and how high the water level will be, the company explains. The models allow the company and partnering agencies, like the United Nations, local government, and other NGOs, to issue emergency alerts up to seven days before the event.

Credit: Google

Early warning systems are becoming more essential to the general public. Continuous warming of our planet has led to worsening periods of rain, and with intense rain has come devastating flooding in regions unaccustomed to dealing with dangerous water levels. It's expected to get worse. 

Last year, Pakistan faced a deluge of rain that overpowered expected monsoon forecasts, leading to extreme flooding that many scientists called a deadly climate emergency. Just last month, New York City residents faced massive citywide flooding that shut down local transit and threatened lives and homes. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency, calling the situation a "life-threatening rainfall event."

According to FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program, more and more Americans outside of high-risk areas are experiencing unexpected flooding. "It's critical people understand their flood risk regardless of where they live, because storms are worsening, and they're here to stay," the organizations warn. A 2022 analysis of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Events Database by Pew Charitable Trusts found that flooding is a near-daily occurrence across the United States, with flooding reported almost as often inland as it was along the coast during the June-November hurricane season.

Google's response is to leverage AI tools to address the global climate crisis. 

Along with new Flood Hub regions, the company announced ongoing updates to a host of other AI-powered environmental resources, including Project Greenlight — a collaboration to optimize more fuel- and emissions-efficient traffic lights. Google also is adding on to its Search and Maps wildfire alerts and boundary tracking, intended to mitigate fire spread through machine learning-optimized firefighter training, fuel treatment planning, and wildfire suppression efforts. 

Google's Tree Canopy tool, part of the Environmental Insights Explorer platform, is expanding its data coverage to more than 2,000 cities around the world. Tree Canopy combines AI and aerial imagery to show where shaded areas are in the city, helping cities better understand where to plant more trees to reduce heat, the company explains. 

Credit: Google

"AI is already playing an important role in addressing the climate crisis. As we advance our AI research, we'll do so boldly and responsibly to help further address the effects of climate change and help more people around the world."

The North and South Pole’s ice sheets play a fundamental role in Earth’s climate regulation. The vast white landscapes of the Arctic and Antarctica are, in a way, our planet’s air conditioners, as they keep temperatures cool by reflecting back sunlight that, were it not for the frost, would be absorbed by the darker surfaces beneath, like land and the deep ocean waters. It's an intricate system now increasingly vulnerable due to the warming temperatures.

The effects of climate change on the Arctic are far better understood than those in the South Pole. For years, it looked like Antarctica was not as affected by the climate crisis as its northern counterpart, and scientists were even observing an ice growth trend. Every winter (March-October), the amount of sea ice growing around the Antarctic doubles the size of the continent, though lately this has been changing. In September 2023 the minimum Antarctic sea ice extent reached a staggering 1.5 million square kilometres (or 36%) less than the 1929-2022 average daily sea ice minimum.

Researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center are still unsure what caused the dramatic sea ice decline. "There is some discussion about the Antarctic sea ice undergoing a regime-shift since 2016 toward a generally lower extent, and that maybe this could be a response to global warming; that is, the warming signal is starting to be seen in the Antarctic sea ice above the year-to-year variability," Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), told NASA. "But it is hard to say at this point if it is a real shift and response to warming, or just a temporal multi-year variation."

NSIDC is expected to issue a full analysis of the possible causes behind 2023’s ice conditions, including aspects of the growth season, the setup going into the summer melt season, and graphics comparing this year to the long-term record.

President Joe Biden announced today the launch of the American Climate Corps, a groundbreaking federal workforce training and skills initiative intended to "mobilize the next generation of clean energy, conservation, and resilience workers."

The youth-focused initiative vows to connect more than 20,000 Americans with green career pathways through paid job training and service opportunities tackling climate change. Climate Corps projects will include helping to restore coastal wetlands threatened by flooding, deploy clean energy, manage forests and wildfire zones, implement energy efficient solutions, and more. Additionally, the administration said it will help corps members transition into "high-quality jobs" post-training.

According to the White House, the program specifically focuses on equity and environmental justice, "prioritizing communities traditionally left behind, including energy communities that powered our nation for generations, leveraging the talents of all members of our society, and prioritizing projects that help meet the Administration's Justice40 goal."

Justice40 refers to the administration's goal of ensuring at least 40 percent of certain federal investments go toward disadvantaged communities. Those investments include: climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure. No prior experience will be required for most positions, the White House said.

The program is also seeking collaborations with Tribal, State, and local governments, labor unions, and organizations across the nonprofit, private, and philanthropic sectors to develop skill-based trainings for corps members.

"The American Climate Corps, just in its first year of recruitment, will put to work a new diverse generation of more than 20,000 Americans doing the important task of conserving and restoring our lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, deploying clean energy – in many cases, distributed and community based – implementing energy efficiency technologies that will cut consumer costs for the American people, and advancing environmental justice so long overdue in so many places," White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi said in a press call Tuesday.

The rise of the "green economy" and both public and private investments in clean energy projects has resulted in an increased demand for accompanying green workforces, often listed as future investments in unveiled climate action plans. According to research from the Brookings Institute, few cities with climate action plans mentioning green job growth also include information on funding and additional support for developing this workforce.

"Hiring and training more workers in the green transition to a cleaner, more resilient economy represents a huge challenge, but also a huge opportunity," the organization notes. "To complete these projects, millions of additional workers will likely be needed in the years to come, on top of the 8 million workers already involved in renewable energy alone; yet the occupations these workers fill, the tasks they carry out, and the training pathways available to them are often poorly defined and addressed across the country."

Meanwhile, climate activists — including youth-led organizations like the Sunrise Movement — have retained pressure on the Biden-Harris administration to stand by its climate pledges, in the wake of several disappointing departures from the climate-focused campaign.

California, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, and Washington have already launched their own state climate corps programs, and Arizona, Utah, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Maryland have now announced their own initiatives with support from AmeriCorps, according to the White House.

As part of its larger climate commitments, the Biden-Harris administration will also expand pre-apprenticeship programs through the Department of Energy and Department of Labor, national service opportunities to aid wildfire crisis strategy, and the Indian Youth Service Corps, a program launched in 2022 to provide education, employment, and training opportunities to Indigenous youth participating in conservation projects on public and Tribal land, as well as the Hawaiian homelands.

Those interested in the American Climate Corps program can sign up to receive more information as the program rolls out.

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More and more often the battle to save our planet is fought in the court room. The most recent example is Held v Montana – the historic climate trial in which 16 young plaintiffs took the state of Montana to trial for violating their constitutional rights to a 'clean and healthful environment'.

The youth argued that Bill No. 971 the Montana Environmental Policy Act, which bars the state from considering the environmental impact of new energy projects, is incompatible with Montana's constitution. And they won. Though there have been other climate lawsuits in the U.S., such as Julianna v United States, this is the first to become a constitutional trial in the country.

Held v Montana joins other historic climate litigation cases across the world, such as the one at the European Court of Human Rights in which thousands of elderly women sued the Swiss government for violating their human rights through climate inaction.

In the sun-drenched land of Australia, where vibrant ecosystems once thrived, a symphony of natural wonder and ecological balance painted the landscape. The eucalyptus-scented breeze, the rustle of leaves, and the gentle gaze of koalas perched high in the trees — all once stood as testaments to the beauty and resilience of Australia's forests. But the echoes of deforestation, the ravages of climate change, and the scars of ferocious wildfires have left a profound impact, challenging the very fabric of these precious ecosystems.

These State Forests are located in Gumbaynggirr country in New South Wales, Australia. The continued logging of these natural resources throughout the eastern forests of Australia serve as a signal for increased awareness and an opportunity for collective action. 

Here we take a closer look at what's at stake and how we can collectively address this crucial issue. It is a chance for change, before the impacts become irreversible. A chance that will ensure a sustainable future for both our environment and the communities that rely on it. 

The state of logging: separating fact from fiction 

Credit: HP

Before the 1970s mature trees were harvested from State Forests in a more sustainable manner. Men with bow saws set out to carefully select specific trees, minimising damage to the surrounding environment — a task once essential for sheltering our growing population. Before the technology boom, we collaborated with the land, taking only what was necessary to build and sustain our community.

Today, the logging landscape has changed. A technologically evolved society ushered in a transformation in the logging industry. The days of hand tools have given way to heavy machinery that tears through the landscape in pursuit of trees. Vast hectares are now stripped down to bare soil. These 40-tonne machines compact the dry ground, hindering the forest's natural growth, healing and regeneration.

A common misconception prevails: that mature timber serves high-value purposes for homes and shelters. In reality, these century-old trees are relegated to "low-grade materials." They're more likely to become wood chips, pallets, and even firewood. This prompts a crucial question: Why do we permit this depletion of our valued ecosystem when sustainable tree farming offers a viable and eco-friendly alternative?

Money doesn't grow on trees

Credit: HP

Logging has consequences beyond the environment. It affects both local wildlife and carbon stores in these ancient forests. 

There is also the unseen financial burden carried by Australians through taxes. According to the NSW Forestry Corporation's (2021-22) annual report, logging native forests not only threatens species on the brink of extinction but also costs taxpayers millions. The report reveals NSW taxpayers unknowingly fund the felling of forests the public wishes to protect, making this practice not only environmentally but also economically unsustainable. 

In the 2020-21 fiscal year, the native forestry division of the NSW Government's logging operations faced a substantial $20 million loss, translating to a $441 per-hectare charge on taxpayers for logging essential native forests. It also exposed that the Forestry Corporation has run as a loss-making business unit for over a decade. The industry relies on the lucrative and more sustainable plantation sector to offset these losses.

Employment becomes a point of contention from the logging industry. Its advocates suggest that without it, livelihoods and the economy will suffer. But the forestry and logging sector plays a relatively minor role in the Australian job market. Those employed in forestry and logging within NSW representing less than 0.1%,of the total workforce, or just over 1,000 workers outlined by the WWF commissioned Frontier Economics report. 

The potential job losses anticipated following the end of deforestation could be mitigated by a thriving tourism industry. The Great Koala National Park offers the potential for nature-based tourism earnings to exceed any losses incurred.

Saving our huggable heroes

Credit: Pexels

Nestled within Australia's diverse landscapes stands a treasured emblem of its natural beauty: our beloved koala. But these gentle creatures face an uphill battle against habitat loss, disease, and shrinking food sources. The urgency to secure their future compels us to take a stand and ensure the preservation of these remarkable animals, including the ecosystems they inhabit.

The vision of The Great Australian Koala Park embodies comprehensive conservation. The Great Koala National Park would be the world’s first national park dedicated to protecting koalas. The project seeks not only to safeguard existing koala habitats but also to restore and expand these vital areas, ensuring the long-term survival of these iconic species. 

Preserving koala habitats goes beyond their survival; it nurtures diverse ecosystems. Eucalyptus forests, which are vital for these marsupials, create complex habitats supporting various life forms. These forests are more than koala homes; they're essential water catchments and vital carbon stores, playing a huge role in the fight against climate change.

This initiative also aims to protect various endangered species. It includes species that rely on old-growth and hollow trees, like yellow-bellied gliders, greater gliders, and glossy black cockatoos. Stopping logging in this area sparks forest renewal, enabling koalas and native flora and fauna to thrive and contribute to the ecosystem's rejuvenation process.

Plus, the potential economic impact is noteworthy, with nature-based tourism emerging as a multi-billion dollar industry in NSW. Destination NSW has committed substantial support to this burgeoning industry. Granting $3.5 million in the 2022-2023 period to foster this growing sector. The financial benefits clearly outweigh taxpayer-funded logging practices in the region.

How you can make a difference?

Credit: HP

When it comes to preserving Australia's natural wonders, everyone can contribute in meaningful ways. Raising awareness and engaging in conversations about the importance of conservation can spark positive and real change.

Practicing responsible tourism and embracing eco-friendly habits can also make a notable impact. By staying on designated paths, minimising waste, and choosing eco-conscious travel options, you can help protect these fragile ecosystems. Through supporting sustainable policies, such as reducing plastic use and backing wildlife-friendly products, simple actions can go a long way to aiding in conservation of the environment.  

Taking action together now is crucial, and supporting initiatives like the Great Australian Koala Park is a powerful way we can make an impact. Donating, volunteering or becoming a sponsor all directly contributes to the cause. When you visit their website, you'll discover a range of ways to engage and help spread the reach of this initiative. 

As we stand at this crossroads, the choice is clear: embrace sustainable practices and protect our natural treasures. Together we can ensure a future where both wildlife and humans can thrive. 

Together, HP and WWF are harnessing the power of forests to achieve ambitious sustainability goals, benefit climate and biodiversity, and produce meaningful results for our planet and all who live here. You can learn more about WWF’s partnership with HP here. 

The way we build our cities turns them into unbearable heat-trapping greenhouses — a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. As global temperatures rise, some cities could become unliveable unless we learn how to cool them sustainably. Mashable's How to Change a City series dedicates three of its episodes to this issue, exploring how cities can sustainably combat the urban heat island effect.

British architecture has historically been designed to deal with cold and wet weather conditions. Heat-resilient strategies like efficient cross ventilation, external shading, or sun reflection techniques have simply never been needed in the UK. But as the climate crisis accelerates, the country's weather patterns have been changing, and heatwaves are now a serious concern for both people, biodiversity, and infrastructure. Summer 2022 was the hottest ever recorded in the UK, and although 2023 has been rather cold and rainy, so far avoiding the extreme heat recorded across Europe, when it comes to climate change, what matters is the overall tendency.

The so-called urban heat island effect makes hot summers especially unbearable in cities all around the world. The excess heat coming from street traffic or commercial businesses, among others, is then trapped between lofty buildings usually comprised of glass and cement. The result? Temperatures in urban environments are often a few degrees warmer than those of the surrounding countryside.

But it doesn't have to be this way. To find out how the UK can make its cities more resilient to extreme heat, Mashable spoke to Marialena Nikolopoulou, a professor of sustainable architecture at the University of Kent and Will Cavendish, a global digital services leader at Arup who shared their expertise on building resilient cities.

There are a lot of misconceptions about climate activism. From whether or not blocking off a street to protest is a sign of privilege, to unhelpful accusations of "climate hypocrisy", to doubting whether your work even matters if thousands of people on social media don’t hear about it. But there are as many forms of activism in the world as there are activists. And not all heroes have blue ticks.

As July 2023 was officially proclaimed the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, both on land and in the oceans, six incredible climate activists got together at London’s Southbank Centre over the weekend to discuss the movement as well as climate justice and acknowledging the crisis' connection to systems of oppression. And you can watch the whole conversation on YouTube below.

Greta Thunberg, Tori Tsui, Dominique Palmer, Daphne Frias, Mya-Rose Craig, and Ati Viviam Villafaña spoke to Earthrise founder Alice Aedy about their work and the multiple crises that comprise the global climate emergency, that each of the activists and their communities face. They're the same group that came together at The New York Times Climate Hub during COP26 in 2021.

For Frias, as an American disability justice activist from Harlem, it’s fighting for intersectionality and inclusivity within the climate movement. She described the inclusive planning she has experienced within the environmentalist movement, including the Stop Cambo protests.

“It really shouldn’t be so few and far between," said Frias onstage in the Royal Festival Hall. "This should be the norm within climate justice organising and social justice everywhere. All justice is disability justice and if you’re not including the voices of disabled people in your organising, what are you really organising for? If the environmental justice movement can be inclusive of that, so can all movements...It's going to take all of us to solve this crisis."

For Palmer, a British climate justice activist, it's about acknowledging that "all of these injustices are so interlinked. We have to make sure that what we demand then shapes policy and it shapes action, so it’s so important to make that that includes vulnerable communities and marginalised communities."

Palmer spoke about climate justice and about joining the movement while living in Lewisham, South London, when she found her community was being disproportionately impacted by air pollution.

“Growing up as a young Black girl in London, I didn't really see myself as an environmentalist," Palmer said. "I didn’t see nature spaces as something that was for me or places that I quite belonged. There’s a groundwork or report that showed that communities of colour often lack access to quality nature spaces. Intersectionality is so important to have at the heart of the movement but we first need to understand: what is intersectionality, and why diversified perspectives are so important."

For Craig, as a British-Bangladeshi ornithologist, environmentalist, and diversity activist, it's the disproportionate climate damage that has become the daily reality for her relatives in Bangladesh. For Tsui, as a Bristol-based climate activist, speaker, and consultant, it’s the fight to stop the UK government from extracting oil in the North Sea.

"There is so much we can do," said Tsui. "And history has shown us, as with Stop Cambo, that we can stop and end things if we try, but it does take community. This is all our responsibility. We have duty to one another, to those who are most vulnerable, to those specifically on the frontline of the climate crisis in the global south. We are probably some of the most privileged people on this Earth, and we have a duty to do right by our global community."

It's easy to feel paralysed by all that we've lost and are currently losing to climate change — eco anxiety is real and there are strategies to mitigate it. But, as Palmer reminds us, there is still a lot we can save, and climate doomism is simply not an option.

"Climate doomism is so dangerous because it can paralyse action, whereas showing the transformative stories of people who are coming together to take incredible action, and sharing solutions and the things that we can do, can be so powerful in mobilising people," she said.

For the full chat, which is well worth your time, The Climate Conversation panel is now streaming on YouTube below:

A furious flood recently swept through Alaska's capital. A government camera, perched in the mountains above, filmed the cause.

In a world where most of the glaciers are melting and receding as the planet warms, lakes dammed up by glaciers can often form. These dams break from time to time, resulting in an event called a glacier lake outburst flood (GLOF). A section of Alaska's famed (though fast-receding) Mendenhall Glacier, called "Suicide Basin," has released these floods since 2011.

But this year, the discharge was especially intense, and most of the lake spilled out on August 5. Downstream, the Mendenhall River bulged, reaching its highest level on record. The swollen river became an emergency event as it violently pulled homes and buildings into the river.

The short footage below, captured by a U.S. Geological Survey camera above Suicide Basin, shows the glacial lake (layered with chunks of ice), rapidly draining during the outburst. The timelapse begins on May 18, 2023, and the lake fills through early August. Then, the lake level promptly drops.

In the drone video below, you can see some of the resulting collapsed structures — and some that have not yet fully collapsed into the river.

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Alaska, like much of the greater Arctic, is experiencing profound environmental change. Yes, it's still frigid for much of the year because the region receives significantly less sunlight than lower-latitude places. This won't change. But, "Alaska is at the forefront of climate change," notes the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "Because of its northern latitude and seasonal changes in sea ice, the state is warming at two to three times the rate of the global average."

The consequences include increasingly severe heat waves and the boosted risk of extreme wildfires and floods.

On July 27, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres made an urgent speech in New York, declaring that "the era of global boiling has arrived." He criticised world leaders for their insufficient and delayed responses to the climate crisis, and appealed for immediate action if we are to avoid a global catastrophe.

This summer, record-breaking heatwaves, raging wildfires, and devastating floods struck the Northern Hemisphere and displaced tens of thousands of people, ruining infrastructure and causing serious damage to biodiversity. July 2023 is on its way to be the hottest month ever recorded so far, and with no signs of significant cuts in global emissions, we can expect this to be just the beginning.

Ultimately, Guterres' message was not one of despair but an urgent call for action. "Leaders must lead", he said, and reminded that it is still possible to keep global heating increase at no more than 1.5°C compared to levels before the industrial revolution. To do so, the world must act immediately. “All actors must come together to accelerate a just and equitable transition from fossil fuels to renewables," he said, "as we stop oil and gas expansion and funding and licensing for new coal, oil, and gas.”

The last nine years have all been the hottest nine years in the nearly 150-year-old modern temperature record. That's not the least bit surprising.

Earth's temperature dial has been turned up. And as a result, heat waves, which are normal, are growing increasingly extreme — which is not normal. That's why large swathes of the U.S., China, and southern Europe are currently experiencing either record-breaking or severe temperatures. (China hit a whopping 126 Fahrenheit on July 16, a new national record.)

Added heat means more record or nearly-record hot weather becoming not just possible, but occurring more frequently. "A barely noticeable shift in the mean temperature from global warming can end up turning a 'once-per-decade' heatwave into a 'once-per-year heatwave' pretty easily," Patrick Brown, a climate scientist at Johns Hopkins University, told Mashable as a past heat wave settled over the U.S.

Shifting averages mean more extreme heat. Credit: Climate Central

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Scientists have repeatedly shown that the frequency and severity of heat waves is increasing, with perhaps a six-fold increase in frequency since the 1980s. The numbers below underscore why this is happening. The world will continue to warm through at least much of the 21st century ⁠— but, crucially, just how much is up to us.

Each decade is hotter than the last

Temperature readings and data sets from around the globe — in the U.S., Europe, and Japan — all show an almost identical and considerable rise in Earth's global surface temperature since the 1980s (though the overall global warming trend began decades earlier).

Long term trends are key. And trends are showing each decade is now significantly hotter than the last. "This is expected to continue," the United Nations World Meteorological Organization said.

Different temperature data sets all show an almost identical rise in global temperatures. Credit: WMO

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CO2 levels are the highest they've been in millions of years

CO2 is the major greenhouse gas trapping heat on Earth and driving climate change (methane plays a prominent role, too). And at some 420 parts-per-million in the atmosphere, CO2 levels are about the same as during the Pliocene or mid-Pliocene, an ancient era when sea levels were around 30 feet higher (but possibly much more) and giant camels dwelled in a forested high Arctic. (Fortunately it takes melting ice sheets and sea levels a longer time to catch up with CO2 levels.) Temperature levels during the Pliocene likely hovered at some 5 degrees Fahrenheit (around 3 degrees Celsius) warmer than pre-Industrial temperatures of the late 1800s.

We're not nearly there yet; globally, Earth has warmed by some 1.2 C (a bit over 2 F), so far. But we could get there, or nearly approach those temperature climes.

"CO2 levels are going to increase," said Dan Lunt, a climate scientist at the University of Bristol who has researched the Pliocene. "We could hit the Pliocene in terms of temperature. But it depends on how rapidly we emit [greenhouse gases]."

CO2 levels haven't been this high since the Pliocene. Credit: NASA

Global warming is driving astonishing ocean warming

Most of the heat trapped on Earth by the burning of fossil fuels is soaked up by the extremely absorbent oceans (and the oceans pay a high price for this service.)

Between 2010 and 2020, the ocean absorbed (roughly) the equivalent amount of energy released when detonating Tsar Bomba — the most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated — once every 10 minutes for 10 years. It's an unfathomable number.

"Over 90 percent of heat from global warming is warming the oceans," NASA oceanographer Josh Willis told Mashable. "The amount of warming will change the oceans for the next 50 generations or so," explained Willis.

The sea surface experiences particularly high amounts of warming which can also help drive or sustain heat on land, and stoke life-killing, extreme marine heat waves in the ocean.

Ocean heat content has been relentlessly rising for over three decades. Credit: NOAA

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Humanity will likely pass a big warming mark

The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — the global agency tasked with providing objective analyses of the societal impacts of climate change — has concluded that keeping the planet's warming limited to a 1.5-degree-Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) rise above 19th century levels would stave off the worst impacts of climate change, like the calamitous impacts of historic rainfall events, mega-droughts, and the melting of colossal ice sheets.

Yet it's now almost certain that humanity will blow through 1.5 C. And keeping temperatures below 2 C, while achievable, will require dramatically slashing carbon emissions.

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"At the current rate of progression, the increase in Earth’s long-term average temperature will reach 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above the 1850-1900 average by around 2033 and 2 °C (3.6 °F) will be reached around 2060," explained Berkeley Earth, a non-profit environmental research organization.

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All those devastating floods? That's largely because it's hotter.

Warming temperatures boost the odds of heavy, or record-breaking, rainfall.

When air temperature is warmer the atmosphere can naturally hold more water vapor (heat makes water molecules evaporate into water vapor, meaning there's more water in the air, particularly in many humid or rainy regions). Consequently, this boosts the odds of potent storms like thunderstorms, mid-latitude cyclones, atmospheric rivers, or hurricanes deluging places with more rain.

"Once you have more moisture in the air, you have a larger bucket you can empty," explained Andreas Prein, a scientist who researches weather extremes at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. As data shows, this can result in pummeling downpours. "You can release more water in a shorter amount of time — there's very little doubt about that," Prein said.

For every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming (or one degree Celsius) the air holds about seven percent more water vapor. Earth has warmed by just over 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, resulting in more storms significantly juiced with more water.

In the Northeastern U.S., for example, the amount of precipitation during the heaviest rain events has already increased by 71 percent between 1958 and 2012, and other U.S. regions have seen sizable increases, too.

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The fight against climate change is much older than you might think, with the seed of modern climate science snaking its way through the annals of academic history to a name you might not have even heard of: Eunice Newton Foote.

Foote was a women's rights activist. She was the first woman to be published in a physics journal. She hypothesized what would later be the general public's leading touchstone for measuring climate change. She was also born — perhaps shockingly — in 1819.

Most importantly, Foote's work is strong proof that we've long known the Earth's climate is sensitive to human actions. Foote's 1856 paper "Circumstances Affecting the Heat of Sun’s Rays" laid the foundation for much of our modern concept of atmospheric warming, as she theorized that changes in carbon dioxide could affect the Earth's temperature. Three years later, scientist John Tyndall would be credited for laying the groundwork of climate science. Foote's research was largely ignored during the more than 100 years following her death, until the scientific community began recognizing her early contributions in the 2010s. 

All that to say, it might be in the best interest of those viewing the Google homepage on July 17 to click on the brightly-colored illustration. On what would have been her 204th birthday, the 19th-century scientist is being recognized for her role in defining climate science as we know it, highlighting the prescient work and those who continue her legacy today.

Google's homepage Doodle, which depicts Foote at work with the two glass cylinders she used to experiment heating carbon dioxide, takes users to a short video on her achievements and a Google blog written by Kate Brandt, Google's chief sustainability officer. In addition to Foote, current actors are also getting the spotlight today, as the company announced dedicated funding and support to six women leaders in the field of climate science and preservation.

"These innovators are working to educate the public, building solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change, and advocating for policies that will help protect our planet," Brandt wrote. 

Those honored include: Dr. Anna Liljedahl, an associate scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center studying the effects of climate change on the Arctic ecosystem; Clara Rowe, CEO of restoration and conservation data network Restor; Dr. Alysia Garmulewicz and Liz Corbin, co-founders of open-source regenerative materials organization Materiom; Heidi Binko, founder of the Just Transition Fund; and Angie Fyfe, executive director of ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability USA. 

"The restoration of nature has incredible potential for climate, biodiversity and people," wrote Rowe. "In order to unlock that potential, you really need to bring together everyone involved in that work, ensure that more people can get involved and that we have a transparent view of what's happening where."

The company's philanthropic arm, Google.org, is already behind many of these projects, including the open-source networks of Restor and Materiom, as well as the ICLEI USA Action Fund. 

It's also committing another $5 million to Liljedahl and the Woodwell Research Center specifically, to support the organization's three-year deployment of an AI technology to track arctic permafrost thaw in near-real-time for the first time. 

The melting of global permafrost presents a lot of uncertainty in climate research, with thawing ice releasing microbes, gases, and more into our atmosphere. Knowledge of this melt is especially relevant as extreme weather and climate-related disasters escalate. Through its Permafrost Discovery Gateway (PDG), Woodwell has already made steps in visualizing thaw trends. 

"As the Arctic warms at nearly four times the global rate, permafrost — or ground that has remained below zero degrees Celsius for at least two consecutive years — that underlies much of the region is thawing rapidly, causing widespread ground collapse and infrastructure damage, threatening Arctic communities, and releasing carbon into the atmosphere," Woodwell explained in a statement. 

"This funding from Google.org will help us unlock completely new technological capabilities in how we do science and, ultimately, what science itself can do," said Liljedahl. 

The grant is part of the Google.org fellowship and its Impact Challenge on Climate Innovation, a $30-million commitment to fund large-scale projects that accelerate technological advances in climate information and action. 

"I'm not sure that Eunice Newton Foote could have imagined what technology would look like today," said Liljedahl, "but I do think she would have been proud to see how many women are now leading the way in protecting our planet through climate science and exploration."

Climate 101 is a Mashable series that answers provoking and salient questions about Earth’s warming climate.

A deadly deluge in China trapped passengers on a subway train with water creeping up to their necks. Rescuers floated on rafts through Vermont's capital city. A flooded river demolished national park infrastructure.

Indeed, on our continually warming planet the rains are growing more extreme, the floods more devastating.

Atmospheric scientists know why. When air temperature is warmer the atmosphere can naturally hold more water vapor (heat makes water molecules evaporate into water vapor), meaning there's more water in the air, particularly in many humid or rainy regions. Consequently, this boosts the odds of potent storms like thunderstorms, mid-latitude cyclones, atmospheric rivers, or hurricanes deluging places with more water.

"Once you have more moisture in the air, you have a larger bucket you can empty," explained Andreas Prein, a scientist who researches weather extremes at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. As research shows, this can result in pummeling downpours. "You can release more water in a shorter amount of time — there's very little doubt about that," Prein said.

Massive flooding ensues. The summer of 2021, for example, was rife with vivid, and at times jaw-dropping, examples. Damaging and sometimes extremely deadly floods recently hit Europe, New York City, India, China, Detroit, and beyond.

Importantly, a warming climate doesn't mean it's always going to rain profoundly hard. It means there are boosted odds for strong storms to pick up extra water vapor in the atmosphere, resulting in these extreme deluges that drop many inches of rain in just a few hours.

"You're loading the dice," emphasized Brian Tang, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Albany. "The risk of a lot of rain over a short amount of time will increase."

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For every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming (or one degree Celsius) the air holds about seven percent more water vapor. Earth has warmed by just over 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, resulting in more storms significantly juiced with more water. That's how urban areas, even with flood control infrastructure, can get overwhelmed with water. And sometimes, storms stall over land, resulting in immense, unprecedented flooding, like during record-breaking rains from Hurricane Harvey.

No one expects the rains to relent. Civilization's energy system is certainly headed in a significantly cleaner direction, but the global economy is still largely dominated by fossil fuels that emit potent heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, meaning the world will almost certainly keep warming for a few decades, if not well beyond. Expect extreme or unusual deluges, particularly in places that receive plentiful storms, like the Northeast. (The amount of precipitation during the heaviest rain events in the Northeast has already increased by 71 percent between 1958 and 2012, and other U.S. regions have seen sizable increases, too.)

"Our best state of knowledge is they will continue to increase," said Tang, referencing heavy rains in the Northeast. "Expect more high-intensity rainfall and more flash flooding."

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It's certainly true that flood infrastructure — like diversion channels (see the L.A. river), dykes, and reservoirs — can limit major flooding. But at some point, with amplified rainfall, there can be too much water to contain.

"You can only prepare for so much," said Prein. "It's really hard to build infrastructure that can keep up with those flood volumes."

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Such is the reality on a warming planet. When the rains come, there's boosted odds of severe, if not unprecedented, water drenching the earth. It's one of the clearest consequences of a hotter world.

"What's striking to me is seeing the rate of change," said Prein. "It's getting worse really fast — we're living in climate change now. You can see it all over the globe.

This story originally published in June 2021 and has been updated.

It's easy to feel like we won't win the fight against climate change, especially when faced with the realities of a warming planet and the ongoing issue of climate science misinformation.

Climate change is happening, though. Look no further than the Earth's increasingly devastating natural disasters, looming water crisis, and disappearing ice sheets. 

To combat warming temperatures we have to dramatically lower carbon emissions, according to the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and address the rising levels of carbon dioxide. That won't be easy.

At the 2022 Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), world leaders chose not to move away decisively from a widespread reliance on fossil fuels and posed continued concerns about failures to lower emissions. The 2022 Emissions Gap Report, released by the UN Environment Programme just before COP27, still found that there was "no credible pathway to a 1.5 C future" without "rapid societal transformation." 

"Limiting warming to 1.5 C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics, but doing so would require unprecedented changes," Jim Skea, a leading UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientist, said in 2018. 

But there is cause for hope, Charlie Jiang, a former climate campaigner at Greenpeace, told Mashable in 2019. Greenpeace climate campaigners work with climate change advocacy organizations such as Zero Hour to confront fossil fuel companies and politicians standing in the way of transformative climate change action. One of Greenpeace's strategies has been to pressure political candidates to publish comprehensive plans that invest in clean energy and phase out fossil fuels, without hurting workers.

President Joe Biden has since made several climate action pledges, including co-leading the Forest and Climate Leaders' Partnership (FCLP) deforestation initiative, scaling up production and use of zero emission vehicles (ZEVs), and a $1-billion commitment to the Green Climate Fund. The administration also set a new goal of achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.

"Amidst all the scary news that we're getting, it's a hopeful moment for bold transformation... We deserve a better future than the one that our complacent politicians and the fossil-fuel billionaires are handing to us," Jiang said.

Here's how you can join the tide against the climate crisis.

1. Get involved in climate change strikes

Uniting together across demographics can be one of the most impactful strategies in the fight to stop the effects of climate change, Jiang said.

And climate protests have long been used to call attention to growing climate issues, bad actors, and environmental threats. 

Global Climate Strike is an annual, international strike to call attention to the need for international leaders to take the climate crisis seriously. It's part of the weekly protest initiative Fridays for the Future, founded by youth climate activist Greta Thunberg, and its annual Global Day Of Climate Action.

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You can find a protest near you by visiting the websites for Fridays for the Future, the U.S. Youth Climate Strike Coalition, or the Global Climate Strike.

If you want to take further action, the Global Climate Strike website offers a wealth of resources including tips to promote the strike on social media and graphics for posters, flyers, and buttons. It even has toolkits that specific groups like employees or faith-based groups can use to encourage others to join.

If you want to take part but can't find a strike or protest where you live, the U.S. Youth Climate Strike Coalition has a comprehensive document that anyone looking to organize their own climate change protest on Fridays can use. The Global Climate Strike offers similar resources. You can also use these teachings to plan future strikes throughout the year. For additional inspiration, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Climate Protest Tracker also tracks international climate actions and their participants, objectives, and outcomes.  

2. Advocate for inclusive climate solutions

Climate activists can expand their approach by considering how environmental preservation — and climate philanthropy — operate alongside the Indigenous communities that have fought to retain stewardship of the land over centuries of colonization. 

Some are now turning towards Indigenous-led solutions to environmental degradation, climate change, and the impact of extractive industries like logging and fossil fuels, and government leaders are creating more pathways for these communities to be on the frontlines of the climate movement. 

In the nonprofit space, organizations like the Decolonizing Wealth Project, a grassroots community of funders offering untethered money to Indigenous-led organizations, and Indigenous Climate Action are fostering a more inclusive environmental movement.  

To learn more about these Indigenous climate initiatives and get involved with their work, visit the Decolonizing Wealth Project's Indigenous Earth Fund.

3. Research politicians' voting history

Knowing elected officials' track records helps you make an informed vote during elections. And avoid voting a climate denier into office.

The nonpartisan research organization Vote Smart provides information on the voting records, policy positions, and funding behind candidates and elected officials. 

During state and local races, check out Vote411's voter and ballot guides, which contain information about ballot measures, as well as current candidates' positions on a variety of issues. You can also see candidates answer questions about topics important to them and your community, so you can note if they prioritize climate change in their answers.

The League of Conservation Voters, an organization that advocates for environmental laws and works to elect pro-environmental candidates, scores Congress members on their environmental records and assigns both the House and the Senate an average rating.

Apps like ReleVote can also help you keep track of your representatives' congressional decisions, as well as monitor relevant climate and environmental legislation.  

4. Speak to elected officials

Beyond voting, you also can talk to elected officials about the specific climate change issues you care about and how you'd like to see them addressed, as a constituent.

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For example, carbon-pricing bills place a fee on carbon and, in some cases, other fossil fuels, to encourage sustainable energy alternatives and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Cities or states can also mandate that a certain percentage of their energy comes from carbon-free sources, like New York's ambitious OneNYC climate plan.

Look to see if your state or local government is considering bills like these and contact the appropriate politician to let them know why you support it. Nonprofit research institute Resources for the Future also hosts a carbon pricing bill tracker that monitors current legislation. 

Calling representatives can be impactful as well, and it's easy to find politicians' contact information with a quick Google search.

"If they [a state lawmaker] receive five calls in a day about a single issue, that is an avalanche of calls," says Jamie DeMarco, former member of the environmental grassroots organization Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL) and Maryland Director at Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

The key is to band together with others to more easily deluge a politician's office with calls, he said.

If you prefer speaking with congressional members in person, CCL trains people to lobby their senators and representatives on climate change, both in D.C. and in volunteers' home states. Volunteers speak with congressional members face-to-face about bills they want the representatives to support. This might seem radical but can be very effective, said Steve Valk, CCL's communications director.

If you're interested in joining this effort, you can find a CCL chapter in your area.

Check if your state has an office, commission, or committee that focuses on climate change and if the public can attend. You can also go to congressional members' town hall meetings. Usually there's time for the audience to express their concerns and ask questions, Valk said.

Ultimately, the world needs us to get involved, activists emphasize.

"We need everyone taking action to demand our leaders commit to stand up to the fossil fuel industry," Jiang said.

Originally published in September 2019, this story was updated with new information in July 2023. Additional reporting by Chase DiBenedetto.

The way we build our cities turns them into unbearable heat-trapping greenhouses — a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. As global temperatures rise, some cities could become unliveable unless we learn how to cool them sustainably. Mashable's How to Change a City series dedicates three of its episodes to this issue, exploring how cities can sustainably combat the urban heat island effect.

Climate change has ensured that heatwaves in India grow longer and more severe. In April, much of the country experienced consistently high temperatures earlier than usual, and many areas that tend to rely on the seasonal rain for heat relief instead faced dry conditions.

As temperatures in India soar once again, Mashable spoke to locals and experts to find out what city administrations are doing to protect their citizens from extreme heat.

Have you thanked the oceans lately?

Water can absorb colossal amounts of heat, and Earth's seas soak up over 90 percent of the heat trapped on the planet by human activities, mostly from the burning of primordial fossil fuels that release prodigious amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Normal fluctuations in ocean climate patterns, combined with such continuous background warming, is largely what's now driving anomalously high, or extreme, sea surface temperatures around the globe.

Without our ocean absorbing the lion’s share of excess heat, the land, ice, and atmosphere would have warmed more, leading to further intensified heat waves, droughts, deluges, and other extremes.

"Every time we wake in the morning, we should be saying thanks to the ocean for doing its job," Paul Durack, an oceanographer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who researches the ocean and its role in global climate variability and change, told Mashable. "The global ocean provides a key climate service." (Of course, this comes at a cost to the oceans and the life dwelling there, too. The bill always comes, as Hemingway sagely wrote.)

Between 2010 and 2020, the ocean absorbed (roughly) the equivalent amount of energy released when detonating a Tsar Bomba — the most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated — once every 10 minutes for 10 years. It's an unfathomable number.

So, when the already warming oceans get an additional kick from natural, oscillating climate patterns, like the warm El Niño phase in the Pacific Ocean, ocean temperatures reach levels far warmer than usual, which can mean over 2 degrees Fahrenheit — which is a lot for the ocean. In the map below, for example, you can see intense shades of red, signifying above-normal temperatures compared to ocean temperatures measured between 1971 and 2000.

As the oceans continue to warm, so too will the entire climate system, with the extreme events increasing in intensities and regularity.

"It’s very likely that the enhancing temperature anomalies will continue to increase," Durack explained. "The background warming for the entire globe continues to accumulate decade after decade, an unrelenting pattern that has been consistent for more than 70 years."

Reds and oranges show above-average temperatures; blues show below average. Credit: Climate Reanalyzer / University of Maine / Climate Change Institute / NSF

Relentlessly rising ocean heat content over the last few decades. Credit: NOAA

What's warming the oceans

Heat waves on land aren't caused by climate change — but climate change amplifies heat waves and makes them worse. A similar thing is happening in at least two prominent ocean basins, the Pacific and Atlantic.

In the Pacific, a powerful ocean pattern has returned. "Right now there's a developing El Niño happening," Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research who studies El Niño and global climate, among other topics, told Mashable.

El Niño is part of a normal fluctuating pattern in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, wherein warm water rises to the surface. This expansive warm region ultimately impacts weather across the globe, such as bringing wetter conditions to the southern U.S., and drier conditions in the north.

The sea surface anomalies can be striking, particularly during a stronger El Niño that's boosted by rising background warming. "As the average temperatures in the ocean warm up and you add an El Niño, then you get these real big hot spots," Meehl explained, noting some hot spots have dire impacts on coral reefs, causing some reefs to die.

See the stark Pacific warming for yourself:

The developing El Niño as seen on June 14, 2023. Credit: Climate Reanalyzer / University of Maine / Climate Change Institute / NSF

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Elsewhere, exceptional warming in the Atlantic is likely caused by a number of factors, also boosted by background warming, that aren't yet certain. The Atlantic warming is really striking, particularly a pivotal zone off of Africa called the Atlantic Main Development Region, where many tropical storms and hurricanes often start:

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What's going on? Some ocean scientists speculate that weaker winds may have slowed down a process that brings cooler northern waters down into the Atlantic. What's more, Saharan dust often blows across the Atlantic, which has a cooling effect on the ocean surface. Yet dust blowing across the ocean has been reduced this year. Other factors could be at play, too, like a longer-term warming phase in the Atlantic, called the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation, or AMO, Meehl noted.

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Whatever the ultimate confluence of causes, the big picture is clear. Earth's oceans are warming, and at times this warming will fluctuate to large-scale extremes. These events aren't going away, because ocean heating shows no signs of abating.

"The amount of heat going into the ocean continues to increase," Durack said.

It looks like an apocalyptic movie. But it's real.

New York's statewide weather network, which is operated by the University at Albany, captured a stunning timelapse of thick wildfire smoke from Canada moving into New York City on June 7. At 10 a.m., skies are a bit hazy, but blue. By 2 p.m., it's an eerie orange world.

Take a look at the NYS Mesonet footage:

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Meteorologists watched satellite footage of weather systems propelling this northern smoke toward New York City. It soon hit. And it's extreme.

"Current wildfire smoke event in NYC is off the charts relative to anything in past two decades," tweeted Stanford professor Marshall Burke, who researches wildfire impacts on people and society. Burke included the chart below:

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The polluted air is as terrible as it looks. New York governor Kathy Hochul's Twitter account said that "extremely unhealthy air quality" caused the state to extend its unhealthy air quality advisory another day.

"If you can stay indoors, stay indoors," the account tweeted.

And if you can't stay indoors, wear an effective mask, like an N95 (also, as you know, effective during pandemics caused by a certain respiratory virus).

Fire-prone Canadian forests, the source of the smoke, are having one of their worst fire years on record. Though generally wildfires can be normal and healthy parts of an ecosystem, today's fires can burn into unnatural infernos, producing unhealthy smoke that adversely impacts people's health hundreds of miles away. Different regions, at different times of year, will have a variety of influences stoking flames. Yet the continually warming atmosphere, which turns vegetation into profoundly parched fuel, is often a significant contributor in extreme fires, as are overgrown and mismanaged forests, invasive plants, and other factors.

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In some cases, the thick fire will stoke such an eerie orange scene. The orange color happens when smoke particles manipulate the sunlight traveling through the smoke. When thick enough, these particles scatter blue light (a shorter light wavelength), but yellowish-orange light (which travels in longer wavelengths) slips through the smoke, making orange skies.

Stay safe out there, everyone.

Pay attention to Greenland.

The land's colossal ice sheet — around three times the size of Texas — is melting some 270 billion tons of ice into the sea each year as Earth warms. And the inevitable sea level rise could be worse than scientists calculated: Researchers at NASA and the University of California, Irvine (UCI) found that warmer ocean water is seeping underneath and amplifying melting of Greenland's mighty Petermann Glacier, which ends in a great ice tongue floating over the sea. The scientists recently published their research in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The glacier lies in northern Greenland, a realm of the high Arctic. But that frigid location can no longer protect it. Scientists found the glacier is vulnerable to the incessantly warming seas. It's another whammy for melting Greenland, which is melting from above (warmer air) and below (warmer water).

Until 2015, satellite observations showed Petermann, a major ice outflow on Greenland, was in solid shape. Not anymore.

"Something changed during the last decade. Petermann was supposed to be a place where the ice was still stable," Enrico Ciraci, a NASA postdoctoral fellow and an Earth system scientist at UCI, told Mashable.

Ice loss is now ramping up.

"Warming oceans are accelerating the mass loss of this glacier," Ciraci, who led the research, said.

Not even the coldest glaciers are immune.

"It's surprising even Petermann isn't escaping the impacts of global warming," Josh Willis, a NASA oceanographer who researches melting in Greenland and had no involvement with the new research, told Mashable.

A graph showing continual ice mass loss on Greenland. Credit: NASA

How Greenland's melting boosts sea level rise

For some of us, sea level rise might not be nearly as apparent or poignant as the increase in inferno-like Western wildfires, record-breaking heat waves, vanishing Arctic ice, and historic deluges. But it's happening, and it's speeding up.

Since the late 19th century, global sea levels have already risen by some eight to nine inches. Sea level rise each year more than doubled from 1.4 millimeters over most of the 20th century, to 3.6 millimeters by the early 21st century. From just the years 2013 to 2018, that number accelerated to 4.8 millimeters per year.

Yet, crucially, most sea level rise simulations and predictions don't take into account what's happening under Petermann and the many glaciers like it. This means we might be underestimating sea level rise over the coming decades and beyond. In the study, the researchers noted that such ocean melting "will make projections of sea level rise from glaciers potentially double."

"This process is not accounted for in many models today for sea level rise," Ciraci explained. "The potential contribution is significant."

The process involves glaciers, which are common on Antarctica, that end in sheets of ice (called "ice shelves") that float over the ocean. The ice shelves are hugely important. There's a point, called a grounding line, where the ice meets the ocean floor, while the rest of the shelf extends over the ocean. This grounding area acts like a cork in a bottle, keeping the glacier from flowing unimpeded into the sea. But, using bounties of detailed radar satellite observations, Ciraci and his team found that Petermann's grounding zone continually moved back and forth with the ocean tides by miles. During this time, warm waters seeped into channels in the ice shelf, eating away at the ice.

Here are some powerful numbers: Since 2016, warm water seepage melted away a 670-foot-tall cavity in the glacier. Overall, the pivotal grounding zone moved back by 2.5 miles.

Ice breaking off of Petermann Glacier, at center. It's normal for icebergs to calve off glaciers, but Petermann is now retreating back as more ice melts than is naturally replenished. Credit: NASA

The ocean's global heat content has been relentlessly rising for over three decades. Credit: NOAA

Ultimately, the glacier's highest rates of melting occurred in its susceptible grounding zone. This might portend significantly more melting to come from Petermann, but exactly how much is still uncertain.

"This could indicate easier destabilizing of the glacier in the future," Ciraci said.

It's not surprising the ocean is eroding a giant glacier like Petermann. The ocean is the true keeper of climate change. It absorbs over 90 percent of the heat humans trap on Earth. It's continually warming. Already, NASA researchers — by flying over Greenland glaciers, dropping monitors into the water, and scrutinizing changes with satellites — have found ever-warming ocean water is eating away at the ends of Greenland's glaciers, hastening their melting as great chunks of ice calve into the sea.

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Now, there's proof the ocean is seeping in from below, like water seeping into your shoe after stepping into a puddle.

"It's eating away at the bottom of the ice, way more than we thought," NASA's Willis said. "Again, it's the ocean's fault."

This story was originally published on May 13, 2023 and has been updated with more information.

Amid a cacophony of proposed solutions and doomsday naysayers flailing to address a growing climate crisis, Indigenous voices are being uplifted over the din by a wave of grant funding dedicated to healing both the Earth and the wounds of colonialism.

"We're presenting a new way to do philanthropy — 'indigenizing philanthropy,' so to speak — so that both practices and the amount of resources change," explained Edgar Villanueva, founder of the Decolonizing Wealth Project, author of the "Money as Medicine" guided journal, and creator of the "7 Steps to Healing" giving framework. 

The Decolonizing Wealth Project is a network of community members, donors, and philanthropic recipients who have banded together to create more equitable, unrestricted capital opportunities for communities of color, including Indigenous land keepers, cultural preservationists, and political advocates. Through the project and its associated grant opportunities, Villanueva and the rest of the network are setting out to address the trauma of financial inequality and extractive colonialism — systems that have exacted devastating tolls on Indigenous communities in the United States — as well as challenge the inherent dynamics of control that are attached to material giving. In doing so, the project is designed to foster a sense of sovereignty among organizations and greater trust between giver and recipient, shifting power out of ivory towers and toward those on the ground. 

The reality of diverse climate philanthropy 

The organization launched its Liberated Capital funding arm in 2019 to disrupt an inequitable giving structure through a reparations- and justice-based model. "One of the driving forces behind it is that Indigenous communities are grossly underfunded and underrepresented in the sector," Villanueva explained.

Although there is a sense of urgency driving donor-based funding to address climate change, "typical philanthropic behavior" preserves an exclusive flow of capital, he said. "The vast majority of resources are going to large, white-led institutions and not Indigenous folks who have been the stewards of land for time immemorial."

Indeed, while $7.5 billion to $12.5 billion in philanthropic giving focused on climate change mitigation in 2021, "funding has disproportionately gone to large, white-funded, and white-led organizations that do not center BIPOC community needs in their climate strategies — and has prioritized 'Big Greens' rather than grassroots organizations that are more closely connected to frontline communities," according to a 2022 climate change mitigation philanthropy report from the ClimateWorks Foundation.

A 2020 report by Building Equity and Alignment for Impact (BEA) and the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School identified only one percent of environmental philanthropy being dedicated to environmental justice organizations, noting potential barriers that included a lack of access to funding information, ​​structural and institutional racism, and diverging world views and theories of change between advocates and their funders. 

In opposition to this sector-wide imbalance, Liberated Capital pools the resources of more than 600 supportive donors connected in an online community to foster liberation and racial healing through initiatives led by people of color. The organization and its donor community contribute to several grants outside of the mainstream philanthropy pipeline, including direct cash assistance and unrestricted reparations funds that benefit a diverse group of grantees.

They've also launched the Indigenous Earth Fund, an annual grant opportunity for Indigenous-led organizations targeting climate and conservation issues, acknowledging the pressing need to address this disparity in light of the growing climate crisis and increased environmental activism.

The fund supplies varied amounts of untethered grants, ranging from $50,000 to $75,000 a year, to groups working within these communities, all of which offer their own solutions and Indigenous frameworks for fixing our relationship with the Earth. Solutions range from the conservation of traditional practices and the preservation of native flora and fauna, to landback initiatives and alternative energy sources. 

"Indigenous people globally protect the vast majority of the Earth's biodiversity, are deeply connected to the land and taking care of this planet, and have not been supported in their work," Villanueva noted. "We created this fund to disrupt the flow of capital and say, 'Hey! Right here, in this country, we have amazing climate activists. They're folks who are leading efforts to conserve land, who have been doing this work and are experts in this area, and should be invested in, because they have something to teach everybody about how to take care of this planet.'"

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While the fund has given out a comparably modest $2.1 million to organizations within a multi-billion-dollar sector, the grants are still vital operating support for small, Indigenous-led organizations, and the greater effect is in connecting these community actors to previously inaccessible resources.

"The feedback has been that we are an on-ramp to support and gaining more visibility, one that opens the door for funding," Villanueva said of Liberated Capital's initiatives. "It brings credibility to their work, often for larger foundations to take note. That's because of our broader influence in the sector of philanthropy and the ways that we've been able to successfully advocate for change. When we are able to fund an organization through Liberated Capital, many of those groups are then able to leverage our investments or raise additional dollars."

Rematriating the land

The Indigenous Earth Fund launched in 2021 and announced its first $1 million cohort of 16 grantees in 2022. In 2023, the fund scaled up to award 23 recipients from a funding pool of just over $1.1 million — a hopeful signal to other philanthropic organizations that the group's mission is succeeding.

"We describe our funding as untethered resources. All of the funding that we move is general operating support. We don't require people to provide really rigorous budgets. They submit a very short narrative around what they're doing, who they are, the impact of their work," Villanueva said. "We have an advisory committee comprised of all Indigenous peoples who have expertise around the ecosystem of work happening in America and different issues, who read the proposals and collectively decide how to redistribute the money. All of that is trusting folks who are doing this work." 

In addition to an environmental focus, the fund supports organizations that are specifically Indigenous-led and that engage in community power-building, through efforts such as advocacy, public education, or otherwise advancing long-term, systemic change. Decolonizing Wealth Project is an Indigenous-founded organization itself, and the presence of Native voices on the funder's side makes all the difference to applicants, Villanueva said.

"There's very few Indigenous-specific funding initiatives. I think a lot of times, Native communities can have a distrust of big philanthropy," he explained. "For some of our partners, we are the first grant that they've ever received for their work."

One of the recipients in both cohorts is the Sogorea Te' Land Trust, an Indigenous women-led land trust formed through the organizing of inter-tribal communities in California's Bay Area. In 1999, Indigenous advocates stepped out in opposition to a construction project that threatened Sogorea Te', a 3,500-year-old Indigenous (Karkin Ohlone) village and burial site (also known as shellmounds) located at Glen Cove in Vallejo, California. Members of this coalition included Corrina Gould and Johnella LaRose, founders of Indian People Organizing for Change and later the Sogorea Te' Land Trust, who organized a mass walk, and occupation of the grounds 12 years later, to protest against the city project, demanding the return of the remains to the community. 

The years-long experience introduced Gould and LaRose to the concept of land trusts and cultural easements — or the designated stewardship of land areas — for both federally and non-federally recognized tribes, which Gould told Mashable was a kind of gatekept tool among a "boys' club" of leaders, Indigenous or otherwise. 

Credit: Sogorea Te' Land Trust

"It was important that we had this conversation about men running land trusts," Gould said about starting the Sogorea Te' group with LaRose. "What did that mean? How did that equate to what has happened to women through colonization — what continues to happen to women's bodies and what continues to happen to the Earth — in terms of rape and destruction? We talked about where it was our responsibilities as Indigenous women to bring back that balance, to remind our sons and our brothers and our nephews and uncles of their sacred responsibilities that have also been taken away through colonization. How do we as women, who have songs for the waterways and our plants, our medicines, our basket materials, bring that back?"

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The two created the Sogorea Te' Land Trust to protect sacred areas in the region despite not being a federally recognized tribe. Eventually the group took ownership of a quarter acre of land known as Lisjan in East Oakland, building the first sovereign cultural site on that rematriated piece of land in more than 250 years. Since then, the trust has taken on the fight to reclaim other pieces of land in the area, building gardens and other cultural communities and using them to preserve environmental heritage. They are also introducing Indigenous community resources like Himmetka, or climate and social emergency centers that provide water, food, and medicine to the urban populace in response to climate change.

"We are born of the land, not apart from it," Gould explained. "It's our responsibility as Indigenous people to take care of the lands that we were born to, so that's what we're doing. We're trying to figure out how we do that in this urban place."

Credit: Sogorea Te' Land Trust

Credit: Sogorea Te' Land Trust

The group also participates in, and advocates for on the state level, the broader principle of Shuumi, or land taxes paid by inhabitants to the Indigenous communities that used to live on (and now steward) the land. It's a concept introduced by the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples, and favored by many other Indigenous groups nationwide, as a solution to mass underfunding and the slow pace to give land back. "We want to be good hosts, but we need good guests," Gould said. "How can you be good guests?"

In comparison to more technological solutions favored by many environmental philanthropists, the Sogorea Te' Land Trust offers a socio-cultural, systemic solution to the climate crisis. It suggests that our climate problems are linked to the disconnect between humans and land, combined with a general disregard of native environments, and that to fix it, the land should be returned to its mothers. 

Combining Earth stewardship, education, and art

Other grantees approach environmental solutions through mass public education and representation, like those offered by the Washington-based organization Children of the Setting Sun Productions, a nonprofit conservation group and production company. 

The work of Children of the Setting Sun Productions supports the cultural and environmental protection of the Salmon People, or Coast Salish Tribes, which have been negatively impacted by extreme salmon loss in the Pacific Northwest. In collaboration with local universities, the group has led and published cultural research projects and hosted public ceremonies on college campuses. It's also building a think tank for climate solutions hosted through its burgeoning Setting Sun Institute, described on the organization's website:

A think tank rooted in Salish wisdom can yield abundant benefits. It can house expertise on water policy and the energy industry that Native-led movements can use to dismantle harmful development like river-wrecking dams and industrial-scale fossil fuel development. It can provide analysis to address thorny questions about tradeoffs between energy needs, economic development, conservation, and Tribal sovereignty. It can demonstrate the imperatives and benefits of restoring the natural world in a time of climate disruption. And perhaps most importantly, it can provide a space to grow the next generation of visionary Native leaders who can provide meaningful answers to the challenges of injustice and climate disruption.

Most notably, the organization has used multimedia storytelling and art as a form of dynamic preservation, producing documentary videos (and a feature-length film, Salmon People) that combines elder storytelling, environmental research, and the broader Washington community. 

"We're in a time where we need to step out of our own comfort zone and our own silos," said Darrell Hillaire, executive director and founder of Children of the Setting Sun Productions. "This form of activism is about telling stories about ourselves, for ourselves. It's a response to the times."

Free Borsey, the organization's project coordinator and production assistant, represents a youth-focused subsect of the Indigenous-led climate movement, one which is encouraging young activists to feel connected to the Earth, disavow materialism, and respect generational wisdom. Children of the Setting Sun Productions published its first repository of Indigenous ancestral knowledge, a book and cultural resource titled Jesintel: Living Wisdom from Coast Salish Elders, in April.

Credit: Children of the Setting Sun Productions

"One of the more overlooked jobs that Children of the Setting Sun Productions does is bring up the next generation in a hopeful, empowering space, where we are trusted with big tasks and leading projects that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do," Borsey explained. The organization also runs the Young Tribal Leaders Program, which teaches young members cultural and professional skills — ranging from podcast production to university fieldwork — benefiting both the climate movement and Indigenous advocacy. 

"By uplifting Indigenous cultures and stories," Borsey said, "you can gain more perspective on what it means to be Indigenous and to care for the land, to love the land not just as a commodity, but as something to be inherently loved and cared for."

Shifting traditional power dynamics toward healing

Leaders from both the Sogorea Te' Land Trust and Children of the Setting Sun spoke of a gradual shift they've witnessed in philanthropy, one which suggests large donors might finally be willing to listen to their ideas, and fund their efforts without the need to defend the significance of Indigenous culture and environmental spirituality at every turn. The Decolonizing Wealth Project and its Indigenous Earth Fund serve as a philanthropy-driven megaphone for this cry to reduce barriers to environmental justice and to implement community-driven solutions. 

The fund's multi-figure grassroots efforts also bolster federal and state initiatives attempting to put power in communities in order to address every level of the climate crisis.

In 2019, the state of California established an Indigenous-led Truth & Healing Council, the first state project of its kind to record the area's Native culture and document historic actions against Indigenous communities, as well as to explore restorative and reparative laws. In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a $100 million funding opportunity for "tribal initiatives that advance shared climate and biodiversity goals including research, development and implementation of traditional knowledge; workforce training, capacity building and technical support; and tribal nature-based climate conservation programs, among others." 

Funded by the Liberated Capital donors and Decolonizing Wealth Project, the California Truth & Healing Fund was introduced to "support the engagement of California Native American families, communities, tribes and organizations in the [state's] healing opportunities." Combined with the Indigenous Earth Fund, these projects support more than 30 Indigenous-led organizations and tribes in self-determination efforts.

In January, the Biden administration announced an additional $100 million in federal funding for "projects that advance environmental justice in underserved and overburdened communities across the country." It was the largest ever grant commitment from the Environmental Project Agency (EPA) pegged for environmental justice efforts, following the 2022 introduction of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and President Joe Biden's $60 billion climate commitment through the Inflation Reduction Act.

"President Biden and I have been clear: We must ground our work to address the climate crisis and our greatest environmental challenges in justice and equity. The establishment of a new office dedicated to advancing environmental justice and civil rights at EPA will ensure the lived experiences of underserved communities are central to our decision-making while supporting community-driven solutions,” said Vice President Kamala Harris in the program's announcement. 

"While we feel very proud of our $2.1 million, there's so much more investment that is needed," Villanueva said of the Indigenous Earth Fund's work. "From the Bezos Earth Fund to the World Bank, we have all kinds of folks moving significant dollars. But any solution that is not centering Indigenous people is questionable.

"I think we have got to listen to folks who have been doing this work, and have deep spiritual cultural connections to the land, to help us get our way out of this crisis."

Despite federal pledges to support communities most affected by the climate crisis, the reverberating effects of centuries of Indigenous exploitation are hard to overcome. "The same government that harmed is now leading your healing," reflected Villanueva, noting that Indigenous voices are still at risk of being left out without an overhaul of how we center and prioritize community knowledge — and the ways we financially support Indigenous problem-solving. 

"Through the opportunity to reframe money and giving as medicine, as something sacred, we've been able to tear down those traditional power dynamics of giver and recipient," he explained. "I reframe the question to be, 'How can we all be powerful? How can we all connect as humans and be liberated from that need to dominate and control?'

"We're not begging for money for Indigenous people or Black people, we're actually extending an invitation, a lifeline into your own humanity, to be a part of a collective healing process."

Satellite data can now help us better understand when coral reefs are at risk. To assess whether Belize's famous, UNESCO World Heritage-listed barrier reefs face climate damage, scientists used Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), initially developed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland for the space agency's Aqua satellite.

In a study published in A Frontiers of Remote Sensing, a team of 11 researchers from the U.S. and Belize analysed data collected between 2002 and 2022, to determine if climate change is warming Belize's shallow waters to a degree that could cause mass coral bleaching and biodiversity loss. The 185-mile-long Belize Barrier Reef is home to a variety of marine species, some of which you may be able to listen to for science.

NASA's toolkit is available to use for free, so that scientists can monitor coral reefs across the globe.

Update April 21, 2023: Earth's atmospheric carbon dioxide levels averaged over 417 ppm in 2022, and even recently reached a daily reading of over 424 ppm. When this story first published in 2019, CO2 levels hovered around 412 ppm. They keep rising, relentlessly.

When Americans celebrated the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, the planet's atmosphere was markedly different than it is today. Fifty years ago, scientists measured Earth's levels of carbon dioxide — the planet's most important greenhouse gas — at around 325 parts per million, or ppm.

Now, five decades later, that number has shot up to around 412 ppm, nearly 90 ppm higher. It's a change atmospheric researchers, geologists, and climate scientists call unparalleled in at least 800,000 years, though it's likely carbon dioxide levels haven't been this high in millions of years.

"The rate of CO2 increase since the first Earth Day is unprecedented in the geologic record," said Dan Breecker, a paleoclimatologist at The University of Texas at Austin.

"No matter how you look at this it’s totally unprecedented," agreed Kris Karnauskas, an associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

"The last time CO2 levels were this high, the sea level was many feet higher than it is today," added Matthew Lachniet, a climate scientist at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. This was a warmer geologic period on Earth called the Pliocene, spanning some 2.5 to 5 million years ago. Earth's oceans were some 30 feet higher then, noted Lachniet, after the planet's ice sheets melted into the sea.

Just how unprecedented are today's CO2 levels?

Over the last million years, Earth's CO2 levels have certainly fluctuated, but they've naturally wavered between 180 and 280 ppm, explained Jason Briner, a paleoclimatologist at the University at Buffalo.

CO2 levels over the last 800,000 years Credit: Scripps Institution of oceanography

But on Earth Day today we've "now exceeded" even the highest ceiling of natural CO2 swings by some 130 ppm. In short, it's not normal. Especially over the last 49 years, since the first Earth Day.

"Dang," said Briner. "87 ppm in 49 years."

The CO2 rate isn't just really high — it's picking up steam

In the 1970s, after the first Earth Day, CO2 levels were going up by about 1 ppm per year. But in recent years the rate has increased to, on average, more than 2 ppm, said Karnauskas. That rate is unheard of over the last 800,000 years (Scientists have direct proof of Earth's CO2 levels from as far as 800,000 years ago from air bubbles trapped in ancient ice.)

Previous rises in carbon dioxide levels have simply been more gradual events. "Past climate changes pale in comparison," said Karnauskas.

Earth can't keep up with these changes

We're pumping colossal amounts of CO2 into the planet's skies.

Normally, Earth can deal with this excess carbon. Over longer periods of time the planet absorbs the carbon into the oceans and the rocky ground. But today these changes are simply happening too rapidly. The planet just can't consume the CO2 deluge.

When the rate of CO2 release is fast, like it is now, this carbon is gulped up by the oceans, explained Breecker. Today, about 31 percent of human-generated CO2 is absorbed into the seas. But at such a fast rate (especially since the first Earth Day), the ocean surface can only soak up so much carbon dioxide at once, while the rest stays in the air and heats the planet.

When Earth has more time to deal with CO2 increases — say on the order of hundreds of thousands of years — this carbon is also stored away in rocks, in a well-understood process called "silicate weathering."

Rising CO2 ppm since around 2005 Credit: NASA / NOAA

But today, there's no time for these slow-moving natural processes to deal with historically high greenhouse gas emissions.

"The rate of CO2 emissions is very important," said Breecker. "It affects how much of the CO2 that is emitted stays in the atmosphere and thus contributes to warming."

Where we're headed

Without significant and ambitious efforts to slash carbon emissions this century, we might blow through 500 ppm.

How much warming is in store as more heat-trapping carbon amasses in the atmosphere? Fortunately, climate scientists now say we're not on the worst "business-as-usual" warming track (the red line below) anymore, because nations have made efforts and pledges to cut emissions. But considerable warming can still occur.

"Implementation of the current pledges will only reduce this to a 2.4-2.6°C temperature rise by the end of the century, for conditional and unconditional pledges respectively," according to a 2022 UN report. Important note: 2.4 C equates to 4.3 F. And 4.3 F is a huge amount of warming. Already, at some 2 F, massive Antarctic glaciers have destabilized and the U.S. is in for around another foot of sea level rise by just 2050.

This 4.3 F of warming is more in line with an "intermediate" emissions scenario (yellow line below) wherein global carbon emissions start really falling by around 2045. With fast cuts, the line will fall sooner.

The red line shows a high carbon emissions scenario. Credit: BOB KOPP / ECONOMIC RISKS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: AN AMERICAN PROSPECTUS

The UN has made clear that society must radically decarbonize to spare the future from the worst consequences of climate change. "The next few years are probably the most important in our history,” Debra Roberts, an environmental scientist and a lead author of the UN's latest climate report, said in a statement. 

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Yet with well over 400 ppm and counting, we're already locked in for significant future warming. "The Earth will continue to warm for centuries in the future," said Lachniet. "It takes the planet a while to catch up."

More heat promises more severe drought and extreme, pummeling weather. But limiting the planet's carbon load — say, to under 500 ppm — will be a boon to children today, and to humanity beyond.

"The decisions we make or don’t make today will have an influence on climate 1,000 years from now," said Lachniet. As things now look on Earth Day, the trends and magnitude of the CO2 increase since 1970 don't bode well.

"Scary times ahead," said Briner

Scientists who research Earth’s deep past have uncovered bounties and bounties and bounties of evidence that the planet’s climate has changed repeatedly and dramatically.

But nothing compares to what's happening today.

The primary lever controlling Earth's temperature is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which has naturally fluctuated over time. Rises and drops in CO2 have mirrored rises and drops in temperature, leading to the advance and retreat of colossal glaciers over the continents. (In recent geological time, an ice sheet covered modern-day Manhattan.) For some 11,000 years now, Earth has been in a relatively warmer period, a deglaciated time called an "interglacial." The great glaciers have retreated; human civilization has flourished.

Yet the heating today, largely driven by the burning of carbon-rich fossil fuels, is now accelerating into unprecedented, and deeply problematic, territory. During an interglacial period, CO2 levels rise gradually, often allowing life to adapt. But today, CO2 levels are skyrocketing. The system is out of control. This is depicted in the graph below, created by Kristopher Karnauskas, an associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

"Right now, CO2 levels are rising over 200 times faster than they did during the last deglaciation," Karnauskas told Mashable. "That number speaks to the urgency to act soon." (Here's an example of robust action to slash heat-trapping carbon emissions.)

Take a look. The nearly vertical red line is the carbon dioxide rise (after already naturally rising during the current interglacial period) since the start of the Industrial Revolution:

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are skyrocketing. Credit: Kristopher Karnauskas

In other words, what's occurring in Earth's atmosphere today is geologically unprecedented.

Today, fossil fuel giants are mechanically removing ancient, decomposed remains of dead organisms from the ground (oil, gas, and coal), and then these carbon-rich fuels are burned, with emissions going straight into the air. It's a very direct, efficient way to heat a planet.

Without these human activities, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would naturally be below 300 parts per million, or ppm, like they have for at least some 800,000 years, explained Murat Aydin, a research scientist at the University of California, Irvine, who researches atmospheric gases.

But now we're well over 400 ppm, and relentlessly rising. "That's really big," Aydin told Mashable. "That's a really big pulse in the atmosphere."

Update April 20, 2023: Earth's atmospheric CO2 levels averaged over 417 ppm in 2022, and even recently reached a daily reading of over 424 ppm.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the last 800,000 years. Credit: NASA

There's no doubt today's CO2 levels are profoundly out of whack. Researchers like Aydin have a firm grasp on the atmosphere's past carbon dioxide concentrations. The strongest evidence lies in ice cores drilled deep from Antarctic ice. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, when precipitation fell on the Antarctic ground, the water froze into ice, which also sealed off pockets of air. Ultimately, thousands of feet of ice amassed atop these bubbles, preserving the ancient atmosphere.

"It's literally a sample of the atmosphere from a long time ago," Aydin said.

The many problems with Earth's rapid heating

Yes, Earth has experienced many bouts of cooler and warmer climes, resulting in glacial and interglacial periods. But skyrocketing CO2 levels have already heated Earth by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit since just the late 19th century. More warming is inevitable — though, critically, how much more is a product of how much carbon humanity emits into the atmosphere. There are known, deployable ways to slash vast amounts of carbon emissions, like building ocean wind farms to produce energy.

The consequences of such fast, abnormal warming are already driving severe and significant change. Today's heating:

• makes intense wildfires more frequent, because a warmer atmosphere dries out vegetation and trees, which more easily burn. ("It takes just a little bit of warming to lead to a lot more burning.")

• melts some of Earth's largest ice sheets, like on Greenland. This raises sea levels, and will contribute to sea level rise for centuries.

• amps the odds for record-breaking heat waves.

• makes marine heat waves — which cause major coral die-offs — more frequent and extreme. Marine biologists expect marine heat waves this century to have "significant" and "widespread" ecological impacts, like on the fish that depend on coral ecosystems.

• makes droughts more severe, like the prolonged Southwestern megadrought. Historically, droughts have significantly decreased crop yields.

• increases the odds for more extreme downpours and floods, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor.

• creates warmer ocean temperatures which are jet fuel for hurricanes. Though hurricane development hinges on a number of complex weather factors, and the science of hurricane intensification is still unfolding, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects cyclone intensities to increase in a world warmed by 3.6 F (2 C).

Modern, and still rising, CO2 levels may take us into some unsettling global terrain. During the last interglacial period, some 125,000 to 118,000 years ago, vast amounts of ice melted on Antarctica, resulting in a whopping six to nine meters of sea level rise. This happened gradually, over thousands of years.

But as CO2 enters unchartered territory, climate scientists are carefully observing an ongoing acceleration in sea level rise, and assessing what it might mean for the billions of coastal dwellers in the decades, and centuries, ahead. Already, sea levels around the U.S. are expected to rise by a foot or so in just the next 30 years. That's rapid change.

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"The rates of change are what's concerning," Daniel Gavin, a biogeographer at the University of Oregon, told Mashable.

During past interglacial periods, glacier scientists have evidence that the ice sheet on Baffin Island — a frigid Arctic land in Northern Canada — rarely melted away. Now, they're watching it shrink each year, and suspect it will totally disappear in a few hundred years.

"The last remnants of ice on Baffin Island are going away now," said Gavin.

This story was originally published in April 2022 and has been updated.

Climate 101 is a Mashable series that answers provoking and salient questions about Earth’s warming climate.

The last time CO2 levels were as high as today, ocean waters drowned the lands where metropolises like Houston, Miami, and New York City now exist.

It’s a time called the Pliocene or mid-Pliocene, some 3 million years ago, when sea levels were around 30 feet higher (but possibly much more) and giant camels dwelled in a forested high Arctic. The Pliocene was a significantly warmer world, likely at some 5 degrees Fahrenheit (around 3 degrees Celsius) warmer than pre-Industrial temperatures of the late 1800s. Much of the Arctic, which today is largely clad in ice, had melted. Heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels, a major temperature lever, hovered around 400 parts per million, or ppm. Today, these levels are similar but relentlessly rising, at over 420 ppm.

Humanity is currently on track to warm Earth to Pliocene-like temperatures by century’s end — unless nations ambitiously slash carbon emissions in the coming decades. Sea levels, of course, won’t instantly rise by tens of feet: Miles-thick ice sheets take many centuries to thousands of years to melt. But, critically, humanity is already setting the stage for a relatively quick return to Pliocene climes, or climes at least significantly warmer than now. It’s happening fast. When CO2 naturally increases in the atmosphere, pockets of ancient air preserved in ice show this CO2 rise happens gradually, over thousands of years. But today, carbon dioxide levels are skyrocketing as humans burn long-buried fossil fuels.

"CO2 in the atmosphere has gone up 100 ppm in my lifetime," said Kathleen Benison, a geologist at West Virginia University who researches past climates. “That’s incredibly fast geologically."

"You don’t have to be a scientist to realize something totally weird is going on, and that weird thing is humans," noted Dan Lunt, a climate scientist at the University of Bristol who has researched the Pliocene.

Update April 18, 2023: Since this article was originally published in 2021, atmospheric CO2 levels have continued to rise. Scientists recorded the first reading of CO2 breaching 423 ppm on April 16. Overall, in 2022, CO2 concentrations averaged out to 417.2 ppm, which is "more than 50 percent above pre-industrial levels," according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

A NASA graphic, from 2013, showing Earth's atmospheric CO2 levels had reached levels similar to the Pliocene. Credit: NASA

The problematic Pliocene

Sure, it takes a long time for sea levels to catch up with Earth’s warming. But in a plethora of other ways, the planet is already reacting to about 2 F (1.1 C) of warming since the late 1800s: Wildfires are surging in the U.S., major Antarctic ice sheets have destabilized, heat waves are smashing records, storms are intensifying, and beyond.

More warming will further exacerbate these consequences of increased heat. It will get worse. But will it get Pliocene bad? That’s up to the most fickle, unpredictable factor of the climate equation: humans.

"CO2 levels are going to increase," said Lunt. "We could hit the Pliocene in terms of temperature. But it depends on how rapidly we emit [greenhouse gases]."

Some of the human-driven changes happening on Earth today won’t be reversed for centuries or thousands of years. In large part, that’s because civilization continues to deposit prodigious loads of carbon into the atmosphere each year, and all these heat-trapping gases won’t magically vanish from the air, even if we instantly stop adding carbon to the atmosphere. Rather, they’ll have impacts upon the planet — like gradually rising seas and acidifying oceans — for at least centuries. Already, sea levels have risen by some eight to nine inches since the late 1800s, and a conservative estimate, from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is sea levels will rise by another one to two feet by the century's end. But, this could very well be more like two or three feet, or even more depending on what Antarctica’s colossal, melting Thwaites Glacier (it’s the size of Britain) purges into the sea this century.

"Sea level rise and ocean acidification are permanent on a human time scale," said Julie Brigham-Grette, a geologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who researches how the Arctic has changed since the Pliocene.

Skyrocketing atmospheric CO2 levels. Credit: NASA

The Pliocene certainly can’t give us all the answers for where we’re headed. We don’t know, for example, how quickly the seas rose during this far-off period. But the Pliocene does show us how sensitive parts of Earth are to just a few degrees of warming. For instance, much of the vast Greenland ice sheet, which is two and a half times the size of Texas, melted during the warmer Pliocene. And ancient evidence of long-ago beaches, dated to the Pliocene, show where past shorelines lay: A ballpark height of 30 feet or so higher than today is ominous.

"That means the ice sheets are really sensitive to a modest amount of warming," said Rob DeConto, a professor of climatology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who studies the response of ice sheets to a warming climate.

This doesn’t bode well for human civilization, which heavily populates the coastlines. "That’s where civilization has built much of its infrastructure," said DeConto. "We’re a species that gravitated toward the coast."

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Pliocene warmth

Earth’s CO2 levels have always naturally wavered. Humans didn’t exist (and wouldn’t exist for millions of years) during the Pliocene — though our hirsute primate ancestors were already walking around Africa at the time.

So what explains the high Pliocene CO2 levels (400 ppm) without a world of fuel-guzzling cars and coal-fired power plants? The answer lies in deep time.

Long before the Pliocene, CO2 levels were extremely elevated during the age of the dinosaurs (which ended 65 million years ago), perhaps at some 2,000 to 4,000 ppm. Tremendous CO2 emissions, from incessant and extreme volcanism, heated Earth and allowed dinosaurs to roam a sultry Antarctic. But over millions of years, Earth’s natural processes (specifically the slow, grinding, but potent process of rocks absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere, dubbed "the rock thermostat") gradually reduced CO2 levels to some 400 ppm during the Pliocene. (We know this because there are indirect, though reliable, ways to gauge Earth’s CO2 levels from millions of years ago, including the chemical make-up of long-dead plankton and the evidence stored in the breathing cells, or stomata, of ancient plants.)

After the Pliocene, Earth continued to pull CO2 from the air, finally settling CO2 levels between some 200 to 280 ppm during the more recent ice ages, when mammoths, mastodons, and giant sloths dominated a cooler Earth, and humans eventually appeared. But humanity, by rapidly digging up and burning fossil fuels, has now promptly returned CO2 to Pliocene levels.

"We, in 150 years, have completely reversed everything the ‘rock thermostat’ has done in the last 3 million years," explained Brigham-Grette. "The transition from a warm Arctic to a cold one that has ice sheets took a million years. We’re jumping out of that in less than 150 years."

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Indeed, the Arctic has changed dramatically in just the last 40 years. Arctic sea ice is in rapid decline. Greenland’s melting is off the charts.

Humanity, fortunately, still has the ability to stabilize Earth’s temperatures this century at levels that would avoid catastrophic impacts like more extreme storms, coral devastation, punishing heat, and beyond. But, as of now, we’re on a trajectory to the climes of 3 million years ago. (And in some respects — notably atmospheric CO2 — we’re already there.)

"We’re on our way to the Pliocene," said Brigham-Grette.

This story was originally published in April 2021 and has been updated with more information about the drastic CO2 increase in Earth's atmosphere.

South Sudan, the world's newest country, has been grappling with extreme weather events for almost half of its independent history.

Devastating floods in South Sudan have displaced millions of people, subsequently worsening the country’s ongoing conflict and food security crisis. The U.N. estimates that around two-thirds of South Sudan’s population of 10 million will not have enough to eat during the lean season in 2023, which runs from April until July.

To find out about the crisis first-hand and the severe impact climate change is having on the country, Mashable spoke to Wendy Ahonda, a young climate activist from South Sudan, who has been campaigning with UNICEF for the past few years. In the aftermath of the floods in October 2022, she traveled to flood-struck areas to gather information about the needs and problems of those most affected by the crisis.

A few years ago, Britt Wray felt overwhelmed by eco-anxiety. Fielding questions from family about whether she and her husband would have children, Wray contemplated the bleak future they might inherit. At the time, Wray was a science communicator and couldn't ignore the projections of species extinction, crop failure, and increasingly disastrous weather events. Wray, who now studies the mental health effects of living through the planetary crisis caused by climate change, was stricken by a "profound sense of hopelessness" and found herself openly weeping on a train ride home one evening.

Of course, Wray is not alone. In the U.S., one survey conducted by the American Psychiatric Association found that more than two-thirds of Americans are somewhat or extremely anxious about climate change. When the Lancet polled 10,000 youth between the ages of 16 and 25 from around the world, researchers found that more than half reported feeling sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty. (Wray was a member of the research team that published those findings.)

The trouble with eco-anxiety, a blanket term typically used to describe distress associated with climate change, is that there's no easy fix. As Wray points out, anguish is a normal response to the circumstances, and yet that despair can be so debilitating that someone experiencing it might need professional mental health help. If high-quality treatment is even available, it still doesn't change the reality that the planet continues to tilt toward ecological chaos as politicians and corporations fail to meaningfully act.

In her book, Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis, Wray attempts to chart a path forward for those who feel uneasy or even stuck when it comes to eco-anxiety. Wray's approach is holistic, weaving together various strands of thought from psychology and public health to help readers cultivate the resilience and emotional intelligence they'll need to fight for the planet — and to survive the calamities that might come.

These skills are critical not just for people's long-term well-being but also as a bulwark against forms of extremism like ecofascism, which view the threat of environmental collapse as a problem caused by growing populations of racial and ethnic groups. The shooter who targeted and killed several Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, in 2022, cited ecofascism in a manifesto.

"People are feeling unsafe and scared, because of what's going on," Wray says. "While some, because of their environmental values, are deeply oriented toward compassion for other people and other species and wild places, some will interpret this through their own values and beliefs, and will enact violence as a way to make them feel more safe."

While Wray covers numerous, often overlapping coping strategies in Generation Dread, she shared with Mashable three tactics that people might find surprisingly helpful.

Use eco-anxiety as 'super fuel'

Climate change prompts people to feel more than just difficult emotions. Existential in nature, it forces people to consider their mortality, the prospect of widespread deprivation and upheaval, and the possibility that many won't survive. It's no wonder, then, that some might first try to suppress their anxiety and grief. But Wray proposes a different, counter-intuitive approach.

"If you can have some self-compassion, if you can allow [those feelings] to be there, and then start doing the deep uncomfortable work of confronting the grief related to loss and mortality, or anxiety about how bad this is going to get, it teaches us things," says Wray. "The torment becomes a way of tapping into existential meaning."

Instead of a paralyzing burden, eco-anxiety can become "super fuel" that helps people learn how to cope and respond to climate change, perhaps through activism, community building, and making different consumer choices, like driving less and using less energy. But first, Wray says that wrestling with painful emotions related to climate change could, for example, prompt someone to imagine their deathbed and consider what really mattered to them. Would they be happy having spent a lifetime chasing money instead of purpose? Did their everyday actions match their values?

Wray says this "massively clarifying exercise" can help people step into a "climate journey." What that looks like depends on the person, but Wray describes it as using one's talents, skills, and passion to respond to the crisis, which in turn helps them remain excited about the work while giving them opportunities to make meaning and live with purpose.

Don't skip 'internal activism'

Some eager to start their climate journey might want to shift all their efforts to activism, but Wray says that can be a mistake without also undertaking "psychological and emotional resiliency training" that helps alleviate despair and burnout. Wray calls this "internal activism," a term coined by climate-aware psychotherapist Caroline Hickman to describe the work of being with difficult emotions, without self-judgment, and learning to integrate them into one's life instead of trying to avoid or bury them. When that is done in tandem with self-care, it can lead to more flexible thinking, which is also critical to responding to the challenges that climate change will bring.

Critics of this approach might call it navel-gazing, or insist there's no time to do anything but organize politically, but Wray describes such complaints as a "tired binary."

Wray argues that people need to develop skills like binocular vision, a concept she adapted from psychoanalyst Shierry Weber Nicholsen. Wray describes this skill as focusing on the "worst forms of climate change chaos" while opening an eye toward the "imaginative possibilities for a better future." With that ability, people can hold what feel like two opposing ideas at once, a form of flexible thinking that can make it easier to find strength and take action.

Wray also advocates for stretching one's "window of tolerance," a psychological space in which life feels manageable and fulfilling. That window shrinks when people feel hyper- or under-aroused, which can happen as a result of trauma, anxiety, and depression, among other experiences. Despair can set in when people lose their capacity to cope, making it much harder to fight climate change.

On the other hand, that window expands with resilience-building practices that help regulate difficult emotions, says Wray. Such strategies include mindfulness, meditation, gratitude journaling, yoga, quality sleep, and spending time with loved ones — basically anything that soothes the nervous system.

"We can be much better external activists when we're good at doing the internal part of self-care, too," says Wray.

Prioritize social connections

Coping with eco-anxiety can feel very individualistic. People focus on their consumer choices, perhaps buying an electric car and avoiding single-use plastic products. Or they might work through their emotions with a therapist. While these aren't bad strategies, Wray says there's much to be gained through social connectedness. Of course, being part of collective efforts to pressure governments and corporations can be rewarding. But relationships also make a difference when climate change brings any number of disasters, including extreme weather events.

Wray points to studies on how communities with high levels of social connectedness and social trust cope following a crisis. That research suggests that strong relationships and the ability to achieve shared goals together lead to more positive outcomes than in communities where social capital is low. When people come to each other's aid, it can provide degrees of immediate and sometimes lasting psychological relief. That's possibly why people with high connectedness may be less likely to develop mental health disorders following a disaster.

Wray challenges people to imagine a future in which people can leverage strong social relationships and mutual aid to rebuild faster after destruction and, as a result, potentially experience post-traumatic growth instead of persistent or chronic stress. That might look like using community and religious centers, schools, and civic spaces to bring people together to tackle problems like how to protect the vulnerable in a heat wave.

"If we continue to override or just ignore this aspect we will not be serving ourselves well," says Wray. "We can go back to the old ways of living in community, living rooted with others, and doing what's needed to be reciprocal and mutualistic in the way that we organize our social lives."

UPDATE: Apr. 11, 2023, 5:00 a.m. EDT This story, originally published in May 2022, was updated in April 2023.

UPDATE: May. 22, 2022, 8:40 a.m. EDT This story has been updated to reflect that Britt Wray was a science communicator before she began researching the mental health effects of climate change.

If you're feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, please talk to somebody. You can reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988; the Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860; or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text "START" to Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or email info@nami.org. If you don't like the phone, consider using the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Chat at crisischat.org. Here is a list of international resources.

It’s World Water Day and we live in a time and on a planet where access to safe drinking water is a fundamental human right. Cool, right? We also live on a planet where as many as 3.6 billion people experience water stress for at least a month each year.

Leading up to the first United Nations water summit since 1977, a newly released U.N. World Water Development Report warns that humanity is walking a dangerous path toward losing its most precious resource due to "vampiric overconsumption and underdevelopment." The report states that the biggest causes for the water crisis are climate change and the increased industrial and urban demands, as well as the unsustainable management of the ever-expanding agriculture sector, which uses a staggering 70 percent of the world’s freshwater supply.

The worrying report was published just days after the latest Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) report which warned that humanity is nearing its last chances to defuse "the ticking time bomb" of increasingly severe climate change, as U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres put it.

But it’s not all gloom. Despite the stark warning, the Water Development Report actually focuses on solutions. A global water crisis is only imminent if not addressed in time, and the good news is we already have a lot of the projects and initiatives we need to tackle the problem.

It’s important to keep our eyes on world leaders as they’re the most responsible decision makers in the fight to preserve our water. But not all solutions come from governments. Here are a few important water conservation and flood management solutions Mashable has explored in the past.

1. Making wild rivers national parks

Just a week before the release of the U.N. water report, Albania declared its Vjosa River a national park, making it the first of its kind in Europe. The decision means that the continent’s 'last wild river’ will be protected from the future construction of artificial barriers detrimental to its precious ecosystems, which were previously threatened by the Balkan nation’s plans to build hydropower stations in the area. The news also brought hope to climate organizers, as Vjosa’s preservation as a wild river would not have been possible were it not for the years-long campaigning by NGOs and environmental groups.

2. Sand dams

In the past few years, historic droughts and megadroughts were among the climate disasters that wreaked havoc in countries from Kenya to the U.S. and China. 2023 is just starting, but a dry, warm winter in Europe has already caused concerningly low water levels in Venice’s historic canals as early in the year as February.

In 2022, the horn of Africa experienced extremely severe droughts which displaced a staggering 16 million people in the region. Mashable looked at how sand dams offered sustainable local relief for the community in Kenya’s Turkana County.

3. Fog collection

Near the mountains of Morocco, local communities face permanent displacement due to increasingly frequent droughts. To offer a solution, Water Foundation has collaborated with Aqualonis to install a fog collecting net called CloudFisher that captures raindrops on the hills of Mount Boutmezguida, transforming the fog into drinkable water for the local community.

4. Sustainable desalination

Some communities have scarce access to drinking water, but are surrounded by bountiful amounts of seawater. The concept of water desalination is nothing new; countries in the Middle East have been using it for years. The sustainability of the industry, however, is a relatively new concept.

In 2021, Mashable explored how Dutch/British company Desolenator relies on solar power to reduce energy consumption and remove chemical byproducts.

5. Rain-collecting architecture

Small-scale and individual solutions also matter. We recently told the story of Diana Kellogg’s oval girls’ school in the Thar desert which, among other amazing features, uses ancient rain harvesting techniques to ensure water supply for the whole building.

Floods are also part of the water crisis

It may sound counterintuitive, but severe droughts often lead up to severe floods, as they dry out the soil to a point where it cannot soak water anymore. Regardless of droughts, the permeability of surfaces is a main factor in whether a place floods or not. Healthy soil is a natural sponge that can easily absorb large water quantities. In modern cities, though, soil is a rarity; healthy soil — even more so. As the amount and intensity of urban flooding increases, architects and urban planners across the world work to substitute concrete with greenery, showing us that nature already has all the solutions we need for a more environmentally sustainable, equitable future.

The Thwaites Glacier, an ice formation the size of Florida, can change the world. And the latest research shows that some of its most vulnerable spots are in greater danger than previously thought.

Thwaites holds a colossal amount of ice, enough to gradually raise sea levels by over two feet, though its collapse in a heating climate could unleash many more feet from neighboring glaciers. The Antarctic glacier has destabilized, retreating back nearly nine miles since the 1990s. If much of it progressively melts in the coming decades and centuries, large swathes of coastal cities and populated areas around the globe could become submerged, and easily thrashed by storms. For this reason, scientists are now intensely researching where Thwaites is melting, and how fast it might melt. These are monumental questions for Earth's future denizens.

You can read the full story about the melting Thwaites Glacier on Mashable.

The Thwaites Glacier, an ice formation the size of Florida, can change the world. And the latest research shows that some of its most vulnerable spots are in greater danger than previously thought.

Thwaites holds a colossal amount of ice, enough to gradually raise sea levels by over two feet, though its collapse in a heating climate could unleash many more feet from neighboring glaciers. The Antarctic glacier has destabilized, retreating back nearly nine miles since the 1990s. If much of it progressively melts in the coming decades and centuries, large swathes of coastal cities and populated areas around the globe could become submerged, and easily thrashed by storms. For this reason, scientists are now intensely researching where Thwaites is melting, and how fast it might melt. These are monumental questions for Earth's future denizens.

Take it from researchers who traverse the continent's callous ice plains to document Thwaites' rapid changes.

"Thwaites is the one spot in Antarctica that has the potential to dump an enormous amount of water into the ocean over the next decades," Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a professor of glaciology at Penn State University, told Mashable in 2021.

That's why, for better or worse, Thwaites has earned the moniker "Doomsday Glacier." But, crucially, civilization is not inherently doomed, climate scientists emphasize. We are not hapless; we have energy choices that can limit the worst consequences of climate change.

The latest 2023 research, straight from the West Antarctic source, further shows how the glacier is melting. The critical point is beneath Thwaites' ice shelf, which is the end of the glacier that reaches over the ocean. Crucially, ice shelves ground themselves to the ocean floor, acting somewhat like "a cork in a bottle" to hold back the rest of colossal glaciers from flowing unimpeded into the sea. So if the ice shelf eventually goes, so can the glacier (though this process progresses from over many decades to centuries).

Glaciologists drilled through nearly 2,000 feet of Thwaites' ice shelf to lower down a yellow, miniature submarine-like robot called Icefin, into the dark water, allowing them to view what's happening at this vulnerable grounding region. The recent research, just published in the science journal Nature, shows two main findings:

• The glacier continues to melt underwater, but along the flat expanses that make up a majority of this ice shelf, this thinning is occurring more slowly (some six to 16 feet, or two to five meters, per year) than researchers expected.

• Yet, Thwaites is melting faster than expected in cracks beneath the critical floating ice shelf. Scientists suspect relatively warmer water is seeping into the natural cracks and crevasses, which amplifies melting at these weaker points (shown in the footage below).

While glaciologists are still revealing the complicated underwater melting mechanisms, the bigger picture is clear. The glacier is losing ice; and just small amounts of ice loss in this critical grounding zone may result in major overall ice loss.

"Our results are a surprise but the glacier is still in trouble," Peter Davis, an oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey who took some of the recent measurements at Thwaites, said in a statement. "If an ice shelf and a glacier are in balance, the ice coming off the continent will match the amount of ice being lost through melting and iceberg calving. What we have found is that despite small amounts of melting there is still rapid glacier retreat, so it seems that it doesn’t take a lot to push the glacier out of balance."

The Icefin robot exploring the ocean under sea ice. Credit: Schmidt / Cornell / Icefin

What scientists saw beneath the Doomsday Glacier

On the recent excursion to West Antarctica, researchers camped on the remote Thwaites ice shelf and dropped the robot Icefin down into the water beneath. The rare imagery shown in the British Antarctic Survey video below reveals what's happening to the thinning ice. Melting in cracks has left "staircase-like" formations on the Doomsday Glacier's underside.

"Warm water is getting into the cracks, helping wear down the glacier at its weakest points," Britney Schmidt, an associate professor of astronomy and earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University who worked on the new Thwaites' research, said in a statement.

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The Icefin footage is invaluable, because there's currently no other way to access this almost unreachable zone in one of the most remote places on Earth. And the new footage underscores an important point: researchers don't yet fully grasp the melting processes underneath one of the world's largest, and most momentous, glaciers.

"It’s showing us that this system is very complex and requires a rethinking of how the ocean is melting the ice, especially in a location like Thwaites," Davis said.

On this map of Antarctica, the Thwaites Glacier is shown on the left, located in West Antarctica. Credit: British Antarctic Survey

How much sea level rise is expected?

Already, sea levels globally have risen by some eight to nine inches since the late 1800s. But considerably more is in store.

• Today, Thwaites' melting contributes four percent to the ocean's sea level rise. In the coming decades and centuries, however, that number may shoot up if the glacier becomes detached from the ocean floor and "the cork pops off the bottle," so to speak. Ice could flow unimpeded into the sea, eventually resulting in feet of sea level rise.

• Sea level rise is accelerating, driven by the melting of ice and the thermal expansion of the oceans. Seas are currently rising by about one-eighth of an inch each year. Between now and 2050, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expects sea levels around the U.S. to rise by around another foot.

• By the end of the century, climate scientists estimate global sea levels overall will rise by some 1.5 to 2.5 feet, and continue rising. How much is largely dependent on how colossal glaciers like Thwaites and nearby Pine Island respond to warming conditions, and warming waters.

Ocean heat content has been rising for decades because the seas absorb over 90 percent of the heat humanity traps on Earth. Credit: NOAA

Importantly, the effects of warming on ice masses like Greenland and Antarctica hinge largely on the most unpredictable part of the climate change equation: humans. Driven by prodigious fossil fuel burning, heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has skyrocketed in the last century. CO2 levels are now the highest they've been in over 3 million years. How high will they go?

[This story was originally published on Feb. 18 and has been updated with more information about the Thwaites Glacier.]

It's not hard to find dying glaciers.

In any glaciated country there is a spot to see receding glaciers, said Mauri Pelto, a glaciologist at Nichols College. The diminishing rivers of ice are perhaps the most visible consequence of the planet's accelerating climate change.

"Glaciers provide some of the clearest evidence of climate change that is — at least in principle — understandable for everybody: ice melts in a warming atmosphere," noted glaciologist Michael Zemp, who is the director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service.

A dead Icelandic glacier, named Okjökull, made international news a few years ago when scientists announced that a metal memorial would soon commemorate the shrunken ice mass. But before many glaciers recede beyond view in the coming decades, or die completely, there are still exceptionally accessible places to see these glorious natural phenomena, which for millennia have coursed down mountains and through valleys. It's a poignant way to witness the profound scope of change now transpiring on Earth. The places, detailed below, don't require mountaineering.

You can stroll over to them and see Earth's transformation for yourself.

Yes, some may argue, with good reason, that traveling to any such places aboard fuel-guzzling airliners — which emit prodigious amounts of carbon — may hasten the disappearance of these glaciers. But human curiosity and travel aren't going away, and the intention here is not to reprove or moralize about travel, which is just one component of Earth's skyrocketing carbon problem. For those who find themselves in glacier country, the opportunities to see dying glaciers are rich and accessible, if somewhat bitter at times.

"I’m trying to be more hopeful these days, but the news is not so good," admitted Joe Shea, an assistant professor of environmental geomatics at the University of Northern British Columbia. Shea published research that projected substantial losses to Himalayan glaciers this century.

Indeed, Oddur Sigurðsson, the veteran geologist in the Icelandic Meteorological Office who declared Okjökull dead, documented some 300 smaller glaciers in the northern part of the country in the year 2000. But by 2017, 56 of those glaciers had vanished. "The last two decades have been extreme," Sigurðsson said, noting that global warming and an amplification of this warming in the Arctic melted this ancient ice.

Sigurðsson easily sees the change, from year to year. "What's happening is obvious to everyone," he said.

Comprehensive new glaciology research released in 2023 concluded that, by 2100, the planet will lose a whopping 49 to 83 percent of its glaciers. But we don't have to lose them all. Society can make the major systemic changes to our energy and industrial infrastructure to slash its enormous carbon emissions. "If there’s one thing to take away from our study, it’s that every increase in temperature matters," Dave Rounce, a glacier researcher at Carnegie Mellon University who led the study, said online. "We, as a society, have the ability to make a difference to save a considerable amount of glaciers and lower the impacts associated with glacier loss."

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Note: There are some 27,000 (shrinking) glaciers in Alaska alone. These are just some of the world's most accessible glaciers, according to glaciologists that know glaciers best.

Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska

Mendenhall Glacier and Lake in Juneau, Alaska. Credit: Shutterstock / fon thachakul

Undoubtedly, Alaska's receding Mendenhall Glacier is one of the best places to both witness a momentous glacial recession and learn about the diminished glacier. During the warm season months, from May through September, the U.S. Forest Service bolsters their staff of educational rangers at Mendenhall.

"Walk up to a ranger and ask a question," suggested Laurie Lamm, acting director of the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center.

For Mendenhall staff, the retreat is conspicuous. "From one year to the next you really notice a difference," Lamm added.

For those of us that don't regularly gaze upon Mendenhall, Lamm recommends the Trail of Time walk, about a mile long. There are markers along the path that show where the glacier used to exist, decades ago. At the portion of the trail closest to the visitor center, you can feel ice-scarred, bare rock, uncovered by Mendenhall's consistent retreat.

In recent decades, the glacier's recession has varied, at times pulling back 500 feet in a single year. Between 2005 and 2009 the glacier retreated an average of 170 feet per year. Today, the glacier is also thinning, as it shrinks in on its sides. "That's really been the most dramatic to view," Lamm said.

Alaska versus the Lower 48

Aside from Mendenhall, Alaska is teeming with great glacier-viewing choices, noted Pelto.

Many are visible from the road, like the Portage Glacier, which has steadily retreated since 1911. Others, like the Herbert Glacier (near Mendenhall), require a hike over uneven terrain. "The key is most glaciers are not easy to get to, so determine an area you want to visit, and then a glacier that fits your accessibility criteria," advised Pelto.

Compared to the Lower 48, Alaska has profoundly more accessible glaciers to view. Even Montana's Glacier National Park notes as much online, in bold font: "Hoping to see one before they are gone, many visitors come to the park to see a glacier. Ironically, Glacier National Park isn't the easiest place to see an active glacier."

"Massive glaciers can be viewed with relative ease in Alaska's national parks," the park adds.

Glacier experts agree. "Most [Lower 48] glaciers have receded from view," noted Andrew Fountain, a professor of geography and geology at Portland State University.

Indeed, Glacier National Park, which in 1966 had 35 named large, active glaciers, had only 26 by 2015. "The trend of glacier retreat is expected to continue as temperatures rise," the park noted online.

Left: 1926 Grinnell Glacier in 1926. Credit: University of Montana / Morton J. Elrod, K. Ross Toole Archives

Right: 2008 Grinnell Glacier in 2008. Credit: Lisa McKeon / USGS

But, for those able and interested in hiking, glaciers certainly abound in the Lower 48. Fountain notes that there are hikes of varying degrees of difficulty in national parks, like Mount Rainer, Yosemite, and Rocky Mountain. For example, the glaring vanishing act that is the Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park can be seen via a "very challenging day hike from the Many Glacier area," according to the park.

Athabasca Glacier, Canada

Athabasca Glacier off of Icefields Parkway in Jasper National, Canada. Credit: Shutterstock / Kevin_Hsieh

Glacier scientist Shea suggests seeing Athabasca Glacier, right off of the 114-mile Icefields Parkway in the Canadian Rockies.

"It’s an amazing spot," Shea said. "You can just get out of your car and look."

In the early 20th century, the glacier once existed where the road runs today. The recession there is extreme, Shea noted. The glacier has lost half of its volume over the last 125 years, receding back about a mile.

Grosser Aletsch, Switzerland

The Aletsch Glacier, Switzerland. Credit: Shutterstock / Oleg V. Ivanov

"Nothing is more impressive than visiting glaciers in real life," said the World Glacier Monitoring Service's Zemp. He suggested a few accessible places in Switzerland, including the longest Swiss glacier of them all, Grosser Aletsch.

The glacier is over 14 miles (23 kilometers) long. But it has lost about 2 miles of length since 1870, according to Glacier Monitoring Switzerland.

"Climate change is global, but we feel the impact locally," writes Kulturbärg (in translation), a Swiss cultural organization that educates Grosser Aletsch visitors. "If we trust the glacier as a witness of our climate, we must take seriously the observed increase in extreme melting events."

Sólheimajökull, Iceland

The receding Sólheimajökull in 2015. Credit: Oddur Sigurðsson

"Icelandic glaciers are among the most easily accessible glaciers in the world," said Iceland's Sigurðsson. "You can drive to the edge in some places."

Of note is Sólheimajökull, Iceland's southernmost glacier. Sigurðsson has documented it receding for decades:

Left: 1997 Sólheimajökull photographed in 1997. Credit: Oddur Sigurðsson | 1997

Right: 2010 Sólheimajökull photographed in 2010. Credit: Oddur Sigurðsson | 2010

If warming trends continue as they are — meaning carbon emissions continue largely unchecked — Iceland glaciers will likely decrease in number by 40 percent by the century's end, and "virtually disappear by 2200," according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

This ice would be gone, and so would a valued part of Icelandic culture.

"[The glaciers] are beautiful," said Sigurðsson. "They are a very interesting natural phenomenon. They contain history. They contain the entire history of the entire Icelandic nation."

Mer de Glace, France

Glacier Mer de Glace. Credit: Shutterstock / Radoslav Stoilov

Mer de Glace, France's largest glacier, is shrinking.

The glacier is quite accessible, noted Nichols College's Pelto. A train brings you right to it.

In 1988, it took just three stairs-steps to reach the ice, according to Helene Fouquet, a Bloomberg reporter in France. Now, visitors take some 370 stairs down to reach the ice.

Over the last century, Mer de Glace's surface has melted down by around 100 meters (or about 328 feet).

Glacier melting trends are expected to continue, unabated. "We’re not trying to figure out whether the glaciers will melt in the future," Alex Gardner, a NASA glaciologist, told Mashable in 2019. "We're just trying to find out how much and how fast."

Temperatures are projected to keep rising, relentlessly, specifically because atmospheric levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide are now skyrocketing. What's more, the rate of this carbon increase is unprecedented in both the historic and geologic record.

Ice will melt, both at sea and on land. Though some glaciers will vanish this century, civilization's efforts to slow carbon emissions in the coming decades can still play a critical role in curbing much of this melt, noted the University of Northern British Columbia's Shea.

"The choices we make now will make a difference," he said. "But we need to start mitigating [carbon] 20 years ago.

This story, originally published in 2019, has been updated with new projections about how fast Earth's glaciers will melt.

As a polar vortex threatens dangerously cold weather across large parts of the United States this week, the potential for "bomb cyclones" has increased significantly.

We were the first to call it a "weather bomb" or "bomb cyclone," and now that that term has taken off in the broader media, it's important to understand just what it means.

Though the term may be new to you, "bomb cyclone" isn't a new weapon developed by some mad scientist, or a desperate attempt by weather nerds to get clicks. Instead, it's a type of storm that is relatively rare, but which you've probably experienced before.

It refers to a meteorological phenomenon known as bombogenesis, in which a storm's minimum central pressure drops by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours. Such storms are most commonly seen in the fall and winter along the East Coast, and most major snowstorms that hit the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast meet this definition.

These storms are awesome to behold, transforming from small splotches of cloud cover to fully formed, comma-shaped behemoths in as little as 24 hours.

"Bomb cyclone" may seem like an obscure expression invented by meteorologists for attention, or to describe some sinister atmosphere terrorism plot, but it's actually rooted in the science of meteorology.

With weather communication, as well as science communication in general, it can often be difficult to engage a wide audience and make them aware of imminent risks. Pulling terminology from the scientific lexicon is a valid way to do that, provided that the terms match the phenomena being predicted.

Nuclear fusion as a source of energy for electricity is plausible, an experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Northern California has demonstrated. Using 192 lasers, the research undertaking reached the point in fusion experimentation known as "fusion ignition" for the first time.

At a press conference Tuesday morning, Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm called it a "fusion breakthrough that will go down in the history books."

While this doesn't mean you can flip on the lights in your house and use fusion energy for at least decades, history will indeed record today as a breakthrough. Here's what it may say: On Dec. 5, 2022, the Lawrence Livermore team aimed many lasers at some hydrogen atoms, pulled the trigger, and for a split-second the atoms became a plasma that generated a fusion reaction. The lasers gave off 2.05 megajoules of energy, and that energy in turn caused a reaction that heated those atoms to millions of degrees Celsius. Under such sunlike conditions, these types of atoms fuse and become helium, and in this case, that fusion gave off 3.15 megajoules of energy. 

In other words, this fusion reaction produced about 1.5 times as much fusion energy as the lasers gave off with their beams.

You can think of previous fusion experiments as a little like matches striking against the phosphorus strip on the matchbox and producing sparks. This was the first time the match head actually produced a flame. But this flame is still too short-lived and inefficient to light the paper stick, and then be used to light other things. 

Scientists have been working toward a demonstration like this for almost 100 years, ever since British physicist Arthur Eddington’s 1926 paper, "The Internal Constitution of the Stars," was published. And researchers have been fusing atoms for decades. You can even make a fusion reactor in your garage if you want (probably don’t do this).

The challenge was fusing those atoms efficiently enough to call it an energy source instead of a big energy drain, and in a manner of speaking, that remains the challenge moving forward.

Fusion may well be the king of all clean energy sources at some point, potentially later this century. But fusion’s development timeline unfortunately means, breakthrough or not, it’s not a realistic solution to the climate crisis. Lawrence Livermore’s latest fusion reaction produced a net gain in energy within the boundaries of the experiment itself, but what it didn’t do, crucially, was produce enough energy to power the facility that performed the experiment with enough left over to do it again, thus becoming a self-sustaining engine that puts electricity onto the power grid. 

Blue lasers compressing a fuel capsule at the National Ignition Facility. Credit: LLNL / National Ignition Facility

This isn’t some dark secret. Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory broke this part down at Tuesday’s event (using rounded numbers): "The laser requires about 300 megajoules of energy from the wall, to drive two megajoules of laser energy which drove three megajoules of fusion yield," she said, adding, "Our calculations suggest that it’s possible with a laser system at scale to achieve hundreds of megajoules of yield. So there’s a pathway to a target that produces enough yield, but we’re very distant from that right now."

At face value, it’s disappointing that the overall efficiency of this system is less than one percent, given that it’s being touted as perhaps the biggest fusion breakthrough of all time. But there are other methods that don’t rely on 192 lasers, and might have a better shot at generating grid energy. One trusty method uses a magnetic field to contain the aforementioned millions-of-degrees-hot fuel and hold it in place, instead of laser-blasting it into oblivion. Such experiments produced similar breakthroughs back in the early 1990s — though nothing as headline-grabby as an actual ignition. 

But, by coming in the same year as a doubling of private sector funding for nuclear fusion as an energy source, this ignition breakthrough is well-timed to redefine fusion in the popular imagination. Fusion has also been part of recent energy security discussions brought about by the war in Ukraine. As Russian control over oil and gas supplies jeopardizes Europe's ability to provide enough energy to heat itself this winter, and as Ukraine and Russia have waged battles near exponentially more dangerous nuclear fission facilities, the promise of a plentiful and relatively safe form of energy has never been more welcome.

There's a famous cliché about fusion being "30 years away" forever. Now we need a new joke, because that timeline is out of date, and we know fusion really is coming. But in the meantime, it'd be wise to keep building powerful wind turbines, and don't go selling your solar panels.

This was supposed to be the year of climate action. Such was the promise world leaders made during COP26 at the end of 2021. As we’re still waiting to see the majority of those words turned into action, it’s safe to say that 2022 ends as the year that obliterated existing climate records at a scale that even climate scientists did not forecast.

The climate-related damage in the Global South is disproportionately greater than that in the Global North. Yet, the heat waves, droughts, and storms some of the world’s richest nations experienced this year shows that no place on Earth is immune to the consequences of the climate crisis. As global greenhouse gas emissions hit an all-time high in 2022 with no signs of slowing down, this list of the year’s climate disasters Mashable reported on paints a very clear picture of a planet in crisis.

Heat waves

The summer of 2022 broke heat records all across the globe, but Europe’s persistent heat waves surpassed even climate scientists’s predictions.  As one of the continent’s most shocking heat records, the UK recorded its hottest temperature ever on July 19 when temperatures reached 40.2 degrees Celsius (104.4 degrees Fahrenheit). If this doesn’t feel like much, consider that this is double the average UK temperature for July (around 21 degrees Celsius). 

It wasn’t just that day — a prolonged period of heat brought drought to the country to the point where the government imposed a hosepipe ban to limit water waste.

Following these towering temperatures, we spoke to Len Shaffrey, professor of climate science at the University of Reading, who talked us through Europe’s record-breaking heatwave, as well as its subsequent wildfires in London, Kent, and as far north as Sheffield, and explained why the continent has been warming faster than the global average.

Droughts

Unprecedented heat across the globe brought with it devastating drought in 2022, with extremely dry conditions experienced across most of Europe, the west of China, parts of sub-Saharan Africa and the U.S. Higher temperatures don't cause every drought, but they can make droughts profoundly worse: It's now easier to fall into drought, and harder to climb out. 

Emptying rivers, lakes, and water reservoirs revealed forgotten relics, such as Buddhist statues in China, dinosaur footprints in the U.S., and ominous hunger stones in the Czech Republic:

For half a decade, extreme droughts have been worsening in the Horn of Africa. In 2022, around 20 million people were affected by drought in the vast region spanning between Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. In October, we spoke to Jackson Mutia, a UNICEF WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) adviser in Turkana County, Kenya, about how sand dams have been used to trap and store drinkable water to help those affected by droughts. It’s a simple technology and a modest solution that pales in comparison to the scope of the crisis. But as a small-scale solution, sand dams can save lives. Watch the video to see how the technology works.

Floods and storms

This summer, a severe monsoon season and melting glaciers caused by climate change brought unfathomable amounts of water to Pakistan, leaving behind utter destruction. The devastating floods swept away buildings and even entire villages, ruined an estimated 4 million acres of crops and other infrastructure, and killed more than 1,100 people. The weather impacted at least 33 million residents.

Other countries like Australia, South Sudan, and South Africa also suffered severe floods in 2022, while historic hurricanes raged in North America.  

In the United States, Hurricane Ian is now considered the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida since 1935. It affected an estimated 3 million people, cost the country $67 billion in damage, and added to the ever-growing scientific evidence that the climate crisis’ impacts the scale and intensity of storms. Mashable science editor Mark Kaufman explored exactly how in this article.

Ice sheet melting

Coastal nations and fragile ecosystems are on the frontlines of the climate crisis, as sea levels rise largely due to humanity's relentless melting of giant ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

A study published in September by a team helmed by geological oceanographer Alastair G. C. Graham gave evidence that Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier, infamously nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier, has been melting faster than previously thought. In this comprehensive piece, Mashable editor Mike Pearl explains the science and implications of a faster melt, while emphasising the need to move away from the glacier’s unhelpful nickname —  what we currently need is not doom, but action.

That is not to say we shouldn’t be alarmed by the melting of ice sheets; we have seen their very real impact this year. During a heartbreaking COP27 speech in November, Tuvalu’s foreign minister Simon Kofe announced that the small Pacific island, which predictions suggest will disappear within the next century, will be digitally mapped and recreated in the metaverse. This digital ‘solution’ will help preserve a version of the island, which locals could ‘visit’ even after their homeland is lost to sea level rise.

The melting ice sheet is itself a disappearing land for some. In Antarctica, emperor penguin populations have been declining as the animals’ breeding ground continues to shrink. In May, we spoke to one of the scientists who have infiltrated a clunky robot within a group of emperor penguins, in an attempt to study their behaviour and adaptability to climate change. 

Where do we go from here?

The Earth is in crisis and we’re already losing a lot. Eco-anxiety and mourning are an integral stage in the process of recognising the scale of damage human activity inflicts on the planet.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and lost, you’re not alone. But eco-anxiety can be a great catalyst for action, as Mashable's senior features writer Rebecca Ruiz points out in three surprising ways to cope with climate change  — a piece we can’t recommend enough. With sufficient recognition and support, climate anxiety can be transformed into climate action. Not all of us have the access or ability to attend protests and demonstrations, but we all have our unique sets of skills that we can contribute. If you don’t know where to start, we recommend reading All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis — a comprehensive anthology of climate essays, poems and illustrations by women on the forefront of the climate crisis, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson. From taking lessons from the past, to inspiring stories of climate action and communal support, like in the essay "Community is Our Best Chance" by Christine E. Nieves Rodriguez, the book equips the reader with all the tools to better understand the crisis we’re in,  and find their own unique role in the climate movement.

And lastly, yes, we all leave a footprint on the planet, but don’t forget who the real villain is (spoiler alert: it’s not you that time you forgot to bring your reusable bag at the grocery store).

Tuvalu has announced plans to recreate itself in the metaverse, in an attempt to "preserve" the Pacific Island nation before rising sea levels engulf it completely. The government has also stressed the urgency of a shared global effort to fight climate change, which has put Tuvalu under constant threat.

"As our land disappears, we have no choice but to become the world’s first digital nation," said Tuvalu's foreign minister Simon Kofe in a speech to the COP27 climate summit, delivered against the backdrop of a digital island. "Our land, our ocean, our culture are the most precious assets of our people — and to keep them safe from harm, no matter what happens in the physical world, we'll move them to the cloud."

Tuvalu is under extreme threat from global warming, with scientists predicting it will become uninhabitable within the next 100 years or less. High tides cause severe flooding at the start of every year, and residents fear it is only getting worse. Last year Kofe addressed the COP26 while standing thigh-deep in water in order to stress the dire importance of climate action.

"Since COP26, the world has not acted, and so we in the Pacific have had to act," said Kofe in this year's address. "We have seen temperature rise projections remain well above 1.5 degrees Celsius, foretelling the imminent disappearance of islets like this one."

With a total land area of just 10 square miles spread across its nine low-lying islands, Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world by area. It is also the third smallest by population, with approximately 12,000 people calling it home. The digitisation project will begin with recreating Teafualiku Islet, Tuvalu's smallest island and the first part of the country that will be lost if sea levels continue to rise.

Tuvalu's small size makes recreating it in the metaverse a considerably less daunting task than if a larger country such as China were to attempt it. Even so, digitally replicating a country is still an arduous undertaking, particularly considering the level of accuracy this project will no doubt aim for. Metaverse graphics generally aren't exactly dazzling either, but regardless of how good they are the digital Tuvalu will inevitably lose much of its beauty in translation.

It's far from a perfect solution, if it can be called a solution at all. But at least it's better than letting an entire Pacific Island nation's culture, history, and landmarks literally disappear into the sea.

"Piece by piece we'll preserve our country, provide solace to our people, and remind our children and our grandchildren what our home once was," Kofe told the COP27. "Only considered global effort can ensure that Tuvalu does not move permanently online and disappear forever from the physical plane. 

"Without a global conscience and a global commitment to our shared wellbeing, we may soon find the rest of the world joining us online as their lands disappear."

This isn't the first time Tuvalu has investigated how digital solutions might mitigate the disastrous impact of climate change. In 2021 the government took steps toward establishing a Tuvalu National Digital Ledger, which would secure its citizens' data on a public blockchain. Including identity, citizenship, and financial information, this blockchain aims to ensure Tuvalu's continued existence if its entire land mass is eventually engulfed by the sea.

Of course, neither the blockchain nor the metaverse is any substitute for actually having dry land to live on.

The United Nations will launch a new high-tech space system to track the largest methane polluters, announced at global climate conference COP27 on Nov. 11. The UN-monitored platform, called the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS), will provide "neutral and reliable" reporting statistics for the climate change causing gas. It's set to launch in 2023.

Using satellite data, the system will monitor major emission events and publish figures on methane leaks. Governments, companies, and operators emitting the most methane will then be contacted by the international body to reduce their emissions, after which the data will be made available to the public. It's the "first publicly available global system capable of transparently connecting methane detection to notification processes," the United Nations explained.

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While it's a great step towards enhanced climate monitoring, there are no enforcement mechanisms to actually make emitters cease polluting beyond reporting. Actors will be encouraged to participate in UN mitigation processes. The system also received initial funding from the European Commission, the U.S. government, Global Methane Hub, and, notably, the Bezos Earth Fund.

Methane is the second biggest contributor to human-caused global warming, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), and one of the most concerning greenhouse gasses, trapping heat on the planet's surface 28 times more than carbon dioxide does. It's also steadily increasing in quantity each year, with 2021 setting the record amount of increase in parts per billion since 1983.

Even with such large quantities, discovering the cause of methane pollution isn't as simple as it may seem. As explained by Mashable science reporter Mark Kaufman, "Methane can come from some disparate, indirect, awfully hard-to-monitor sources... Some elusive methane sources include 'fugitive gases' (like leaking methane from oil drilling sites) and methane from remote biological sources (like bacteria decomposing plants in wetlands). Atmospheric scientists can actually identify when methane comes from biological sources, as opposed to fossil fuels. But, scientists can't easily distinguish between the types of biological sources."

Scientists used a plethora of techniques to monitor the amount of methane entering the atmosphere. "To track and estimate these emissions, scientists collect emission data from world nations, observe emissions from space, take readings from aircraft, towers, and cars, and more," Kaufman writes.

The United Nations MARS initiative combines these systems into a single tracking platform, using data from NASA and the European, German, and Italian space agencies. In the future, the system will also include data from private satellite operators, the Associated Press reported.

With the consolidation of several systems to detect methane and the United Nations backing, the MARS program is an optimistic monitoring effort in the upward battle against climate pollution.

New research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit disrupting online hate and misinformation, demonstrates how Google has enabled greenwashing at the hands of Big Oil — and profited from this.

The CCDH, focusing exclusively on U.S.-based users, found that major oil and gas companies including BP, Shell, and ExxonMobil have bought ads on Google searches in response to questions like "eco-friendly companies", "net zero" and "how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?" These ads redirect to companies and their greenwashing content.

Greenwashing is the increasingly popular PR tactic "where a company uses advertising and public messaging to appear more climate friendly and environmentally sustainable than it really is. It’s also a technique used by certain companies to distract consumers from the fact that their business model and activities actually do a lot of environmental harm and damage," according to international environmental law charity ClientEarth, whose definition the report uses. This strategy has risen in recent years, as public pressure and discourse has mounted on companies that have historically harmed the environment through business practices.

The report examined the spendings of five large oil and gas companies: ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, and Saudi Aramco. The CCDH used data analytics tool Semrush, compiling a dataset of over 30,000 Google Search ads placed on 61,216 separate search queries by oil companies between Sept. 1, 2020 and Aug. 31, 2022. The organisation also looked into how much money was spent on each of these ads.

In total, Big Oil spent $23.7 million on Google Search ads over the past two years. Half of that — $10.9 million — was spent exclusively on greenwashing. These ads were viewed over 58 million times and clicked over 1.8 million times.

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Notably, users who were searching for information on greenhouse gases, renewables, and carbon offsets were targeted. All five of the companies in question advertised under searches concerning "eco friendly companies" or variations on the term "eco friendly", such as "eco friendly stock companies".

The CCDH outlines that BP spent over $5.3 million on ads in response to search queries regarding methane, renewable energy, and climate change; ExxonMobil spent nearly $4 million, similarly, on directing Google users to ads on carbon capture, greenhouse gasses, and net zero.

The trend is consistent with the remaining companies: Shell spent $1.2 million on users seeking information on net zero companies and solar energy. According to the report, Shell's spending peaked in December 2020, the same month Dutch climate activists launched a legal case against the company; in 2021, a landmark court case ruled that by 2030, the oil company must cut its CO2 emissions by 45 percent compared to its levels in 2019.

Meanwhile, Saudi Aramco spent $317,710 on greenwashing ads regarding renewable energy and carbon capture. Chevron spent $112,854 on like-minded advertising.

The result of this spending is evident in Google searches for "eco-friendly companies", for instance, which would provide an ad for one of the Big Oil companies sitting at the top of Google search rankings.

Last year, Google announced that it would ban ads spreading climate misinformation. Google's ads team said they would "prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change".

"Google has repeatedly promised to stop profiting from climate change disinformation," says Imran Ahmed, CEO of the CCDH. "Our latest research shows that Google has broken this promise, and continues to profit by helping some of the world’s worst polluters to distort their role in causing the climate crisis."

Seeing as though Google's ad business generated $147 billion last year, is $23.7 million of greenwashing ads even worth it for the company's bottom line.

In a statement to Mashable, Google said, "Last year, we launched a new, industry-leading policy that explicitly prohibits ads promoting false claims about the existence and causes of climate change. In creating this policy, we worked with and consulted a range of experts and authoritative sources on the topic of climate science. When we find content that crosses the line from policy debate or a discussion of green initiatives to promoting outright climate change denial, we remove those ads from serving".

Google also said that it has "been clear" that it will "continue to allow ads and monetization on other climate-related topics, including public debates on climate policy, the varying impacts of climate change, new research and more".

However, it has "robust ad policies that expressly prohibit ads/advertisers from using misrepresentation"; in other words, it would prohibit advertisers "fraudulently claiming" that their products or services enforce green practices or policies. The company says that in 2021, it removed over 3.4 billion ads, including more than 38 million that violated their misrepresentation policy.

Google says it has reviewed the ads shared in the CCDH report.

"They do not violate our policies."

While counting snow crabs at sea in 2021, fisheries biologist Erin Fedewa saw that something was deeply amiss.

Fedewa, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientist, spends three or four months with a team that collects crabs from 376 stations in Alaska's Bering Sea each year. Some of these areas always teem with crabs. Scientists count thousands. But in 2021, thousands dwindled to hundreds.

"The survey last year was a huge red flag for me," she told Mashable.

The harbingers proved right. The population of snow crabs has crashed after hitting record highs somewhat recently, in 2018. Numbers have fallen so low, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, for the first time, canceled the snow crab fishing season this year. The NOAA abundance surveys found the total snow crab population in the eastern Bering Sea dropped from an estimated 11.7 billion in 2018 down to 1.9 billion in 2022 (these surveys are a critical piece, but not the only piece, that NOAA uses to determine long-term population trends). That's a drop of well over 80 percent.

The agency thinks a dramatic episode wiped out billions of the creatures.

"As biologists, all we can point to is some sort of large-scale mortality event," Fedewa said.

And it's an episode NOAA believes was ultimately stoked by exceptionally warm ocean waters in the Arctic. In other words, it could be a consequence of climate change, which can make environmental impacts significantly more extreme.

A NOAA graph showing the major decline in total Bering Sea snow crab abundance, in billions, as estimated from the agency's annual bottom trawl survey. 2020 is a missing data point because the survey was canceled due to the global pandemic. Credit: NOAA / Alaska Fisheries Science Center

How the snow crabs could have vanished

The Bering Sea, where crabs have historically flourished, is experiencing momentous upheaval.

"The Bering Sea is changing dramatically right now," Matthew Bracken, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Irvine who researches marine ecosystems and their communities, told Mashable.

The northeast Pacific Ocean experienced a potent marine heat wave — a prolonged period of unusually warm ocean temperatures — in 2019. "That heat wave as well as earlier heat waves have been attributed to climate change," NOAA concluded. (Overall, the Bering Sea experienced unprecedented warming between 2017 and 2019.) That's because, similar to more frequent heat waves on land, marine heat waves are growing more frequent and intense in a warming world. Oceans are absorbing nearly unfathomable amounts of heat, and higher temperatures boost the odds of a marine heat wave occurring and persisting. Human warming of the planet is likely to blame. As researchers concluded in a recent study on marine heat waves in this region, "[temperature] forcing by elevated greenhouse gases levels has virtually certainly caused the multi-year persistent 2019–2021 marine heatwave."

The question that looms large is how this heat stoked a massive die-off of crabs. That is under investigation, but the crucial point is that warmer temperatures can amplify mechanisms of death like increased predation, starvation, and disease. (As the graph above shows, snow crab numbers are already fickle to begin with. The species experienced a dramatic fall in 1999, which may also have been stoked by environmental changes.)

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Here's what could have happened in warmer waters:

• Loss of sea ice = loss of crab refuge: Unsurprisingly, warmer ocean waters are a major contributor to sea ice declines. In March of 2019, for example, the lackluster Bering Sea ice almost completely disappeared — at a time when this water should have been blanketed in ice. Sea temperatures were above average, and the ice extent was the lowest in the satellite record. This loss of ice doesn't bode well for snow crabs. When bounties of sea ice melts, the water sinks to the sea floor by summer and creates a "cold pool" (of water less than 35.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius) that's too frigid for predators, like hungry cod, to roam. "That's a refuge for baby crabs," said Bracken. In 2019, there might have been no refuge for baby crabs.

• Warmer waters = more disease: Warmer waters allow diseases (like bitter crab syndrome) to thrive. Disease could have spread through the snow crab population. "Whenever you have warming water temperature, that provides a venue for disease to come into the system," Bracken explained. "More pathogens can survive."

  "The Bering Sea is changing dramatically right now."

It's also possible that, with significantly less sea ice, open waters could have allowed fishing vessels into previously inaccessible areas. Yet NOAA's Fedewa notes an important issue here. The commercial fishing industry targets mature crabs — the type they can sell. Yet the agency found declines across all sizes of crab — not just the targeted crabs — which Fedewa said suggests the population decline was caused by a "bottom-up driver," meaning something widespread impacted crab numbers at lower levels in the food chain (not from above, like extreme overfishing).

It's within the realm of possibility that the crabs migrated and eluded the expansive surveys. But that currently seems unlikely. For example, a survey in the northern Bering Sea didn't account for the vanished crabs. There aren't clear answers as to where they could have crawled, though NOAA plans to investigate other seafloor areas.

Snow crabs photographed by NOAA. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

In some "light at the end of the tunnel" news, Fedewa noted that NOAA's intensive surveys discovered new, younger crab "recruits" in their trawling survey gear. These crabs may be five or so years away from leaving their nursery grounds, but this could mean that some of the depleted population could potentially bounce back.

NOAA and other fishery scientists will continue to research what has driven this historic collapse. In total, the estimated mass of male snow crabs that can be legally harvested fell by 44 percent in 2022 (compared to 2021). Tellingly, that's under one-third of the 20-year average, NOAA found. It's a giant biodiversity loss, as well as an economic loss. The Alaskan industry produced some $132 million in snow crab revenue a couple years ago.

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The evidence, however, supports the momentous changes taking place in the Arctic. It's not surprising that snow crabs — an Arctic species — would be impacted by a warming ocean.

"Science points to temperature and bigger picture climate change," Fedewa said.

In recent years, climate change has been worsening droughts in the Horn of Africa. In Turkana County, Kenya, UNICEF has started producing sand dams to provide safe drinking water to those affected. We sat down with UNICEF WASH Specialist Jackson Mutia to discuss the technology and the impact it’s had on the community.

Hurricane scientists and research meteorologists are intensively studying how storms like the powerful and historic Hurricane Ian are impacted by the warming globe. Some impacts of climate change are certain — such as more rain, flooding, and storm surge. Others are being investigated, and Hurricane Ian will add to the sum of this growing scientific evidence. 

Mashable spoke with the scientists below following the destructive Hurricane Ida, which struck Louisiana in 2021.

Heavier deluges and more serious flooding

Hurricanes are producing heavier rains because the warming climate has amped the odds for storms to produce more rain, Brian Tang, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Albany who researches hurricanes, told Mashable.

As Mashable previously reported: "When air temperature is warmer, the atmosphere can naturally hold more water vapor (heat makes water molecules evaporate into water vapor), meaning there's more water in the air, particularly in many humid or rainy regions. For every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming (or one degree Celsius), the air holds about seven percent more water vapor. Earth has warmed by just over 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, resulting in more storms significantly juiced with more water. This means storms now have boosted odds of dumping significantly more rain.

"You're loading the dice," Tang emphasized.

Since the 1950s, the heaviest rains have increased over most areas where climate scientists have good data (like North America, Europe, and many other regions), a major UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report recently concluded.

So far, Earth has warmed by some 1.1 degrees Celsius, or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, above 19th-century levels. If Earth warms to 2 C (or 3.6 F), which is an increasingly likely outcome, hurricane scientists expect rainfall rates within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of a storm's center to increase by 10 to 15 percent. That portends major flooding during hurricanes.

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Higher storm surge

Hurricanes can push violent, destructive surges of seawater into the coast. A hurricane's powerful winds drive these surges. Ida's surge was potent. But, crucially, sea levels are increasing as Earth's great ice sheets melt into the ocean. That inevitably means higher storm surges.

"Sea level is rising," Phil Klotzbach, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University who researches hurricanes, told Mashable. He noted how this results in more coastal areas inundated with damaging saltwater.

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Sea levels have already risen by some eight to nine inches since the late 1800s. And as Mashable previously reported: "Sea levels rose faster in the 20th century than in any prior century over the last three thousand years, the IPCC found, based on research of fossilized coastal creatures. By this century's end, under intermediate (not extremely high or low) carbon emission scenarios, the IPCC predicts sea levels will rise by another 1.5 to 2.5 feet, and then continue rising."

Already, hurricanes produce more destruction and property damage than they would have a century ago. Areas like Florida, the Texas coast, and other Gulf states now have considerably more infrastructure and homes. Hurricanes have more targets. "They're causing more damage," emphasized Klotzbach. "There's more people and stuff in harm's way."

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Intensifying storms?

An actively researched question in atmospheric science today is how the changing climate will impact the intensity of storms (meaning sustained wind speeds). There is evidence, for example, that storms in the Atlantic Ocean have had a detectable increase in intensification events between 1982 and 2009, and that tropical storm intensity has increased globally over the last few decades. Of particular interest to storm researchers are the conditions that stoke tropical storms to "rapidly intensify," meaning a storm's winds increase by at least 35 mph in a 24-hour period.

Yet many tropical storm researchers emphasize that more storm observation is necessary, in the years and decades ahead, to truly know how climate change is affecting hurricane intensity.

For a foolproof way to say with certainty how climate change affects hurricane intensity, we need to wait decades and see how the trend evolves, said Falko Judt, a research meteorologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "As usual, hindsight is 20/20."

"It's something that requires more research to understand," added Tang, but also noted it seems like there's been a recent uptick in the number of storms that have rapidly intensified. What's more, the frequency of strong Atlantic tropical storms (Category 3 or higher) have increased since 1979.

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Yet the uncertainty lies in how scientists observe storms today, versus humanity's limited view of storms before the 1980s. Today, scientists have state-of-the-art weather satellites and a fleet of aircraft gathering all sorts of information about hurricanes. But this 40-year-long, increasingly detailed observation period is much shorter than other climate records, like records for global temperature, drought, and wildfires. So when recent years show evidence of stronger storms, is it because they're happening, or are scientists now seeing them happen with more advanced tools?

"There are indications that rapid intensification episodes have increased over the last decades," said Judt. "This could be a sign of climate change 'supercharging' the ocean and atmosphere. But we're also detecting rapid intensification better than say 40 years ago. So is this trend real or an artifact of better technology?"

It's an open, evolving question.

Atmospheric scientists, however, can potentially tease out the impact climate change had on a storm like Ian or Ida with "attribution studies." These are complex hypothetical computer simulations that assess "what would have happened if there was no global warming," noted Judt. They show the influence climate change had on an extreme event. These attributions are often done with heat waves.

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Warming oceans may influence storms

The oceans are heating up as the climate warms, and warm oceans are "jet fuel for hurricanes," explained Klotzbach. (Warmer oceans fuel tropical storms as more water naturally evaporates into the air, giving storms energy and moisture to intensify.) The extremely absorbent oceans soak up over 90 percent of the heat that humans, due to fossil fuel burning, trap on Earth. The seas will continue warming well beyond this century.

A graph showing the continuous rise in ocean heat content over the last few decades. Credit: NOAA

This ocean warming seems like it should easily portend stronger hurricanes. Hurricane Ida in 2021 definitely passed through some extremely warm waters. But when it comes to extremely dynamic processes like relatively short-lived, churning cyclones, it's not that simple. "It's pretty clear that — everything else equal — hurricanes intensify faster in a warmer world," said Judt. "But everything else is not equal." Future storms are a complicated mix of an atmosphere and ocean that are both interacting and changing. Wind patterns change too, said Judt. And warmer temperatures may actually act to stabilize the atmosphere, which isn't good for storms (tropical storms form in unsettled, disturbed atmospheric environments), explained Klotzbach.

As the years and decades pass, however, the warming ocean may indeed win out over other factors, resulting in more intense storms, said Klotzbach. For example, in a world considerably warmer than Earth today (a 2 C world, where we're almost certainly headed), climate projections currently suggest there may be a greater proportion of higher intensity storms. Yet, crucially, there's currently no evidence there will be more storms overall.

This story will be updated with significant hurricane and climate research.

As many climate change activists are pointing out lately, the "doomsday" implied in the term "Doomsday Glacier" — the nickname given to the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica — may be coming soon. But what will that day actually be like?

As noted in a scary new paper in the journal Nature Geoscience by a team led by geological oceanographer Alastair G. C. Graham, the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica may be closer to a major disintegration event than previously thought.

Here’s what’s new in our understanding of this situation: This new study involved analyzing ridges on the sea floor. These rib-like formations reveal strong evidence of the glacier’s location for centuries as the tide nudged it each day. This is different from previously gathered data about the glacier, which was pulled from satellite maps of the ice as it edges closer and closer toward a total (or near total) collapse into the ocean.

Using this new way of measuring the glacier’s "footprints" if you will, we now know a sudden melting event occurred over the course of six months at some point in the past 200 years. In that brief span, the section of glacier causing those formations on the ocean floor retreated at twice the rate that satellite photos had been able to detect. That means in addition to the steady loss of mass scientists already knew about, there are also rarer, and scarier, pulses of very rapid disintegration. 

"Thwaites is really holding on today by its fingernails, and we should expect to see big changes over small timescales in the future," marine geophysicist Robert Larter, one of the study’s co-authors, said in a statement to the press.

Some of the ridges detected on the seafloor from the Thwaites glacier as it moved with the tides. Credit: Ali Graham

So the breakup of this glacier appears imminent, and the consequences of that breakup are no joke. According to a 2020 estimate from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, four percent of climate change-caused sea-level rise so far came from Thwaites alone, and a sudden total collapse would raise sea levels 25 inches more. (Importantly, a Thwaites collapse could eventually — over a longer timeframe of perhaps centuries — unleash up to eight more feet of sea level rise from its glacial neighbors.)

"Scientists want to find out how quickly this could happen," the communications manager for the Collaboration, Athena Dinar, wrote in a statement. 

How quickly is the Thwaites Glacier melting?

The question of how fast Thwaites is deteriorating is an urgent one. For around the past decade, the glacier has receded by about half a mile per year by relatively warmer ocean waters eroding the glacier from below — which is a lot. "It is a tremendous rate of retreat," Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a professor of glaciology at Penn State University who visits and researches the Thwaites Glacier, previously told Mashable.

But if Thwaites loses its grounding to a key ridge on the ocean floor, this rate of retreat could increase significantly (the new research showed that Thwaites experienced an ice loss of 1.3 miles per year at some point in the past two centuries).

A sudden glacial breakup will see a mind-boggling quantity of new water suddenly dumped into the ocean, and it’s hard not to imagine the water rising all at once, like when you dunk a big ice cube into a full glass. 

And perhaps an overnight, catastrophic inundation could happen, but the available evidence from this new study points to even the "doomsday" scenario spanning six months at least. That’s frightening, and similar shifts in the movement of ocean water have historical precedents, but thankfully, compared to the all-at-once scenario, six months is enough time for people who live in low-lying, coastal neighborhoods to evacuate. 

See the potential sea-level rise for yourself

The unsettling new Louisiana coastline. Credit: Screenshot / NOAA

You can see for yourself what the collapse of the Thwaites Glacier would look like thanks to Sea Level Rise Viewer, a web application created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This redraws any U.S. coastline to factor in any given amount of sea level rise (in 12-inch increments).

It would, for instance, devastate southern Louisiana and Mississippi. In New York, however, Manhattan would get merely splashed — despite flood danger in low-lying areas like Hudson Yards. The city where I live, Los Angeles, would mostly be spared, apart from the area around Venice Beach. 

Alarming name might mask a larger problem

By no means is any of this intended to soft-pedal the horrors of sea level rise, but it’s worth noting that scientists have expressed their misgivings about attaching apocalyptic significance to Thwaites in particular, notably in an article by Jackson Ryan of CNET. "On the one hand, it is a wakeup call, aka take these things seriously," NASA earth scientist Eric Rignot told Ryan. "On the other hand, it summarizes the situation as if there was only one bad glacier out there."   

As Ryan points out in that article, the "Doomsday Glacier" moniker "might actually do more harm than good," since there are other, bigger ice formations to worry about. And as Ryan notes, "One of the chief reasons scientists feel uneasy about the phrase is that it suggests we're already doomed."

"Doom" is a tricky rhetorical device to use effectively in this context, since, as the IPCC’s sixth report pointed out, better climate policies are likely to result in climate benefits decades from the time they go into effect — perhaps as much as 30 years down the road, according to chapter 4 of the report. So we’re not doomed, yet at the same time, nothing we do now may benefit present-day young adults until they’re on the verge of old age.

This means if the so-called “Doomsday Glacier” is clinging by a thread, it truly may be too late to prevent it from melting.

So to recap: Thwaites may hit the critical point scientists fear, and fully disintegrate. When and if it does, the results may well be cataclysmic, but they won’t be apocalyptic. 

During one of the hottest summers on record, rivers and water reservoirs have been vanishing. This worrying consequence of the climate crisis has revealed forgotten secrets usually submerged deep underwater. 'Hunger stones' in the River Elbe, dinosaur footprint in Texas, megalithic monuments in Spain, and Buddhist statues in China are only a few of the fascinating relics found at the bottoms of our drying rivers. But while some parts of the world saw unprecedented drought, others were hit by devastating floods. In Pakistan, over 33 million people have been displaced due to the ongoing record-breaking floods which created a new body of water so large that it can now be seen from space.

A severe monsoon season — the latest indicator that our climate crisis is quickly becoming a humanitarian one as well — has hit Pakistan and is leaving behind a wave of destruction.

The deadly flash flooding is the product of an eight-week, unbroken cycle of storms, with deluges that have swept away buildings and even entire villages, ruined an estimated 4 million acres of crops and other infrastructure, and killed more than 1,100 people, according to the Associated Press. The weather has impacted at least 33 million residents.

While monsoons and flood seasons are common in tropical areas and countries bordering the Indian Ocean, storms are becoming increasingly dangerous. The new extremes are a culmination of rising global temperatures, which allow the atmosphere to hold more water and boosts the odds of extreme downpours. Intense flooding has become increasingly common, and climate scientists only expect these deluges and other extreme weather events to grow even more extreme.

Additionally concerning, not everyone has rushed to aid communities in Pakistan trying to bail themselves out of the extreme flooding, even though it's the fifth most populous country in the world and has ranked among the highest in climate risk assessments. On Aug. 30, the United Nations issued a flash appeal to international governments asking for additional aid beyond a U.N. pledge of $160 million.

Sherry Rehman, a senator and Pakistan's federal minister for climate change, has remained outspoken about the current crisis, calling the situation "a real Planet SOS" caused by an "apocalyptic flood".

The disparate reaction to this ongoing disaster mirrors real-world inequalities in international aid and, fundamentally, the climate crisis, as historically colonized, poor, and "Global South" countries bear the brunt of climate change and pollution.

In his appeal, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated the need for other countries to step up. "South Asia is one of the world’s global climate crisis hotspots. People living in these hotspots are 15 times more likely to die from climate impacts," he said. "Today, it’s Pakistan. Tomorrow, it could be your country."

It's clear that it's the job of world leaders like Guterres to address the growing inequalities of both humanitarian and climate crises. Individuals can still help to raise awareness in community-driven ways, remaining conscious of how our donations can replicate the same power imbalances, and reiterate that we have to start stepping up to help those affected by devastating climate events.

Pakistan floods: How to support relief organizations

The immediate needs of those affected by flash flooding include emergency rescue, temporary shelter, and basic needs like food, water, hygiene, and medical assistance. Both local and international nonprofits have been hard at work to get these supplies out to communities, working alongside government rescue operations.

The Prime Minister Flood Relief Fund 2022 is a joint appeal by the Government of Pakistan and the U.N. to address the humanitarian needs of more than 5 million people. The fund is distributing the U.N's pledged $160 million to "food security, assistance for agriculture and livestock, shelter and non-food items, nutrition programs, primary health services, protection, water and sanitation, women’s health, and education support, as well as shelter for displaced people." Individuals can also donate to the fund.

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International humanitarian organizations are also working to get to people on the ground to assist with recovery and rescue efforts for those misplaced or trapped by the flash floods.

GoFundMe Hub

On Aug. 31, GoFundMe launched a hub of verified fundraisers overseen by its Trust & Safety team. The page also includes guidance on how to start individual fundraisers for friends and family members in Pakistan and how to collect donations for verified organizations and nonprofits. GoFundMe accepts donations from all over the world, but only people living in the site's supported countries can start fundraisers.

For example, the Indus Relief 2022 GoFundMe supports families in the Upper Sindh, as well as local organizations working with vulnerable and affected populations, like the Legal Aid Society, the Edhi Foundation, the Child Life Foundation, and the Indus Earth Trust. It was started by Pakistani writer and columnist Fatima Bhutto, artist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia advisor Menaal Munshey, and you can find more information and updates about this fundraiser on its Instagram page.

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CARE

CARE is an international nonprofit working to end poverty, provide access to education, and address humanitarian crises on-the-ground. Organization members are distributing emergency relief supplies, including tents, tarps, emergency latrine kits, and hygiene items like toothbrushes, soap, period products, and underwear, among other aid. CARE Pakistan country director Adil Sheraz has called for community support to help "women, children, and people with special needs" in particular, who are in need of temporary shelter and essentials. CARE has established a donation hub specifically for Pakistan flood relief, which will go to building hygiene kits, blocks of emergency latrines, and temporary shelters.

Save the Children

As of Aug. 30, Save the Children, an international humanitarian organization focused on protecting the rights of children, has deployed humanitarian response teams across severely affected areas, including Shikarpur and Jacobabad in the Sindh, to distribute temporary shelters, kits with basic household necessities, hygiene and menstruation supplies, as well as food. Right now, donations to Save the Children's Emergency can't be earmarked for Pakistan flood relief specifically, but go towards several emergency efforts.

International Rescue Committee

The International Rescue Committee provides emergency relief to refugees and those impacted by humanitarian crises. The organization has conducted on-the-ground needs assessments in Pakistan and has said its focus is on providing clean drinking water, food, safe latrines for women and girls, hygiene products, and critical healthcare for those affected. Donations to the IRC support its broader humanitarian initiatives in both Pakistan and other conflict-affected areas. The donations fund medical care, emergency relief kits, and food.

International Medical Corps

The International Medical Corps, a first response organization helping those affected by conflict, disaster, or disease around the world, has partnered with the Department of Health in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh to provide essential medical care, water purification, as well as mental health support and other WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) services.

Local organizations are, as always, providing immediate relief to their communities. if you're unable to make international donations to Pakistan-based nonprofits, consider sharing their work online to connect organizations to those that can.

Alkhidmat Foundation

The Alkhidmat Foundation is one of the country's leading humanitarian non-profits, providing disaster, health, education, and community services, as well as financial assistance. Currently, the foundation is organizing humanitarian relief for flood victims in the form of medical camps and treatment, freshly-cooked food and ration kits, and temporary shelter tarps.

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Legal Aid Society Pakistan

The Legal Aid Society of Pakistan is a non-profit organization founded in 2013 to support marginalized and underprivileged communities in gaining fair and equal legal support. The LAS team is collecting donations in order to distribute dry ration kits and other forms of support for displaced households.

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HERPakistan

HERPakistan, founded in 2018 by Sana Lokhandwala and Sumaira Lokhandwala, is an education and advocacy nonprofit that provides menstrual health, puberty, and sexual health education and supplies to girls around Pakistan. The organization is providing emergency period supplies to girls and women affected by the crisis.

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Karachi Relief Trust

The Karachi Relief Trust is a disaster management volunteer organization originally founded to help the victims of the 2007 Cyclone Yemyin, which destroyed parts of India and Pakistan. Since then, the organization has continued to provide basic necessities, shelter, medical assistance, and ration kits to those affected by floods and other humanitarian crises. Right now, the trust is providing food, shelter, medical supplies, and household goods to flood victims.

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Saylami Welfare International Trust

The Saylami Welfare International Trust was founded 22 years ago by Hazrat Allama Maulana Muhammad Bashir Farooqi to address poverty and inequality in Pakistan. It has since founded 600 chapters around the world to provide various education, health, welfare, and disaster services. Currently, the trust is collecting funds to create and distribute ration bags, shelter kits, mosquito kits, and provide food and medical services to 200 affected people.

Keep sharing information about flooding in Pakistan

The lack of attention to Pakistan's two-month-long flooding crisis is a major concern for local leaders, activists, and humanitarian organizations. In order to galvanize broader international support for those affected, individuals need to amplify the direct needs of communities. Follow climate activists, like Rise Up founder Vanessa Nakate or Fridays for Future organizer Dominique Palmer, as well as climate scientists, like professors Katharine Hayhoe, Daniel Swain, and Ed Hawkins, who are sharing further context to these climate crises.

Activists and organizers around the world have also compiled a flood relief google sheet, which lists organizations and people in need of support, as well as additional information like where they're located and how you can assist their efforts.

Advocate for aggressive climate policy

Severe floods and extreme weather phenomenon like these will continue — and they'll increase in extremity. It's no longer a question of individual choice, but a political issue that must be addressed in aggressive and intersectional ways. Disasters like this will continue to affect various global communities in different, often more dangerous ways, likely without a redistribution of climate care, investment, and infrastructure.

In order to move beyond climate misinformation and economic and ecological inequality, we all have to pay attention and speak up. Become a climate advocate in your area, join global activists in protest, and donate to organizations lobbying global actors to make impactful policy change.

This story will continue to be updated.

UPDATE: Aug. 31, 2022, 1:50 p.m. EDT This story was updated with additional information about GoFundMe's verified fundraiser hub.

When John Oliver wants to prove a point, you know it's likely he'll set up a legitimate business to highlight the sheer BS of it all.

And in this week's Last Week Tonight, the host did it again, setting up his own carbon registry, Oliver's Offsets, to prove how easy it is to look like you're aiming for net zero emissions by 2050 without doing anything tangible to reduce them.

In a deep dive segment, Oliver unpacked the dubious corporate tactic of relying on carbon offsets to fulfil the net-zero emissions targets of a company in a high polluting industry, instead of backing it up with actual actions to reduce emissions. It's all part of the devious fossil fuel propaganda we all buy into.

"We know carbon offsets are bullshit, both because you're a reasonably intelligent person and because you know exactly what show you are watching right now — I don't open my beak to squawk out good news. This thing pops open for sad news and porridge and I'm all out of porridge right now," he said.

"But exactly how offsets are bullshit is really interesting, because it's easy to say that you are reducing carbon emissions, but it is much harder to prove it."

Oliver provides really helpful definitions of what carbon offsets are, looks at what the world's largest net-zero pledging companies claim their offsets do versus what they're actually doing to reduce the amount of carbon they're sending into the atmosphere, and the incredibly lax regulations in place around this.

And yes, to drive the point home, Oliver sets up his own carbon credits scheme so you too can throw money at the problem!

In case you hadn’t noticed, things aren’t fine with our planet. But as Greta Thunberg would say, some of us still aren’t panicking enough.

Earth is growing hotter by the year, with heat records being smashed around the globe. Extreme weather events are getting worse, and the Arctic is not looking good, even though nations around the globe have committed to keeping average global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Sure, it can be hard to get your head around exactly how human-induced climate change is affecting our globe when each day we just go about our daily lives, scrolling through TikTok, and making weekend plans. But if you actually hear from those at the forefront of this emergency, along with scientists and researchers, you might be moved to realise it’s everyone's problem — and to act in ways that might help fix it.

Being informed about climate change and its very real consequences is crucial for all human beings. The truth is no easy pill to swallow, and anxiety about climate change is real, but our lives and the continued existence of our planet depends on people knowing what’s up. Maybe you don’t have the time or inclination to sit down with the studies, like Mashable science editor Mark Kaufman does for you in his series, Climate 101. No problem. You can turn to a handy documentary and get educated on what’s happening to the only Earth we’ve got.

We've rounded up the best climate change documentaries and where to watch them. Plus, we've added a tip on how to help in real life, after these films leave you wondering what the hell to do next.

1. 2040

What would the world look like in 20 years if we actually implemented existing technological solutions to tackle climate change? In 2019, Australian filmmaker Damon Gameau wanted to find out in order to write a visual letter to his 4-year-old daughter, Velvet. Rather than sitting in the grim reality of the present, Gameau travelled the globe to chat with people who are developing ways to reduce our emissions, sequester excess carbon from the system, and disrupt the economic system — in renewable energy, regenerative farming, marine permaculture, and electric, shared transportation. With knowledge of these projects in hand and a kickass animation team, Gameau presents optimistic, hypothetical landscapes of what our world could look like if we used them. He calls it "an exercise in fact-based dreaming,” and it is truly wondrous and hopeful to behold.

How to watch: 2040 is now available to rent/buy from Amazon, Google Play, Microsoft, iTunes, and others.

After the film: Create your own personalised action plan for 2040 on the website, which lets you select preferences and generate manageable options. We don't all have $50K to donate, but there are things each of us can do!

2. Our Planet

"All across our planet, crucial connections are being disrupted." Credit: Sophie Lanfear

Sir David Attenborough’s absolutely stunning 2019 Netflix series, Our Planet, explores Earth’s important habitats and the life they support, and shows how they’re being affected by rising temperatures and sea levels, ocean acidification, and subsequent wildlife population decline. Over eight episodes, you’ll wander through frozen landscapes, jungles, forests, coastal areas and reefs, deserts, grasslands, and down into the dark depths of the ocean to see the devastatingly real impact climate change is having on the animals and plants who live in these places.

Directed by Adam Chapman, Our Planet channels classic Attenborough, artfully and thoughtfully communicating a spectacular sense of how everything is connected, from food chains to weather patterns — and how climate change is affecting it all. “All across our planet, crucial connections are being disrupted,” Attenborough narrates. “The stability that we and all life relies upon is being lost. What we do in the next 20 years will determine the future for all life on Earth.”

Every single image in this series will make you gasp out loud. You won’t unsee the walruses.

How to watch: Our Planet is now streaming on Netflix.

After the film: Check out the series website for five ways you can help.

While you're at it, check out Attenborough's most recent documentary, A Life on Our Planet, in which he charts his incredible career while urging legitimate, immediate action on climate change. For a strong climate change 101 documentary, you can also check out Attenborough's Climate Change: The Facts on BBC iPlayer.

3. An Inconvenient Truth + An Inconvenient Sequel

In 2006, former Vice President Al Gore dropped An Inconvenient Truth on the world, with a data-driven presentation on the urgency of climate change that branded the need to tackle its human-made causes as a moral and ethical issue. Ten years later, he followed it up with a sequel, and both are worth your time. Though it delivers data (like the hottest years on record and ocean temperatures) only up until 2005, An Inconvenient Truth gives a sense of just how long we’ve been having this conversation, the trivial steps policymakers have made or not, and the frustration over a lack of concern from our leaders. The film outlines the basic science behind global warming, makes plain the connection between CO2 levels and global temperature rise, and hammers home the fact that today’s levels and those predicted by scientists are way beyond Earth’s natural cycle. The film also makes the link between rising global and ocean temperatures and extreme weather events like Hurricane Katrina, something that unfortunately finds a brutal update in the second film.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, released in 2017, picks up 10 years later in the same presentation format with new, sobering data, and with Gore hitting the ground and travelling to key locations like Florida, where extreme weather events have gotten worse.

It's also well worth watching Gore speaking to climate activist, Earth Uprising founder, and Global Climate Strike organizer Alexandria Villaseñor for the Washington Post in 2021 for a deeper reflection on the impact of the films.

How to watch:

An Inconvenient Truth is now streaming from Kanopy and Hoopla in the U.S, and Prime Video in the UK.

An Inconvenient Sequel is now streaming from Kanopy in the U.S. and available to rent/buy from Amazon, Microsoft, iTunes in the UK.

After the film: Check out Gore's nonprofit The Climate Reality Project and see what they're up to near you.

4. Fire in Paradise

Extreme weather events like California’s raging wildfires are hard to comprehend unless you’re on the ground, like the residents of the small town of Paradise. Directed by Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari, Netflix’s Fire in Paradise details the experiences of residents who survived the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, California, which killed 85 people and caused $16.5 billion in damage.

The 40-minute documentary recreates this disaster through interviews with unfathomably courageous Cal Fire and volunteer firefighters, 911 fire dispatch operators, and residents who found themselves trapped by walls of flame on all sides. Combining these with news coverage and harrowing phone footage, Fire in Paradise takes you minute-by-minute through the disaster to show just how quickly these fires spread, engulfing houses, businesses, and roads. It also puts them in the context of the increasingly frequent and intensified wildfires California is experiencing due to climate change.

How to watch: Fire in Paradise is now streaming on Netflix.

After the film: Read up on these charities detailed in a feature Mashable ran in 2018 after the fires. Check their websites to see what they need right now, and consider donating or volunteering. If you’re looking for further onscreen investigation into those affected by California’s fires, watch Derek Knowles and Spencer Seibert’s After the Fire, which follows residents of Sonoma Valley after the devastating wildfires there in 2017.

5. Lowland Kids

Isle de Jean Charles, a sinking island on the coast of Louisiana, is set to completely disappear one day in the near future thanks to rising sea levels. Lowland Kids, a 20-minute short documentary that premiered at SXSW in 2019, introduces you to Howard and Juliette, teen siblings who have grown up on the island and are soon to become America’s first climate refugees. With poignant direction from Sandra Winther, stunning cinematography, and frank, incredibly sad interviews, the film presents an intimate portrait of a family at the precipice of involuntary upheaval, exploring the idea of home and displacement due to climate change.

How to watch: Lowland Kids is now streaming on Vimeo.

After the film: For more stories from this part of the world, watch the Smithsonian Channel’s five-part series, Last Call for the Bayou: Five Stories from Louisiana’s Disappearing Coastline.

6. Chasing Coral

A shocking before and after shot. Credit: XL Catlin Seaview Survey / The Ocean Agency / Richard Vevers

If you don't know what coral bleaching actually means, what it looks like, and why it's an undeniable indicator of climate change, Netflix’s Chasing Coral will leave you in no doubt. (It's when corals, stressed by temperatures changes, expel algae that live within their tissues, causing them to turn white.) Directed by Chasing Ice’s Jeff Orlowski, the documentary follows a team of dedicated divers, photographers, and marine and coral reef biologists studying the loss of the world’s reefs.

Human-induced climate change is the biggest threat to coral reefs — more so, even, than pollution and unsustainable fishing. Global warming, rising sea temperatures, and ocean acidification have devastated reefs in the Florida Keys, American Samoa, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Hawaii, New Caledonia, and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The film shows not only how these ecosystems are inherently connected to ours, but also how devastating it is for the team who sees the reef close up, diving every day to manually track its ecological collapse. There are plenty of archival comparisons throughout the film illustrating reef demise, but nothing will prepare you for the time lapse revealed at the end.

How to watch: Chasing Coral is now streaming on Netflix.

After the film: Check out the Chasing Coral website for ways to take action.

7. The Condor and the Eagle

Directed by Sophie and Clément Guerra, The Condor and the Eagle examines a key contributor to climate change — the fossil fuel industry — and its disproportionate impact on Indigenous communities. In interviews with Indigenous leaders, activists, and organisers, the film makes plain the serious impact the coal and oil industry is having on First Nations communities, while heralding the need for inclusive solutions to the global crisis.

The documentary focuses on the work of activists Bryan Parras and Yudith Nieto in Manchester, Houston; Lubicon Cree activist Melina Laboucan-Massimo from Alberta, Canada, where the destructive oil extraction development known as the Tar Sands is; Ponca Nation activist Casey Camp-Horinek; and human rights defender Patricia Gualinga of the Ecuadorian Amazon Indigenous community Pueblo Kichwa de Sarayaku. The Condor and the Eagle details the lack of consultation with local communities from exploitive, unchecked fossil fuel companies, and how local groups are speaking to one another to figure out ways to resist development.

How to watch: The Condor and the Eagle is available to rent from Films for Action.

After the film: Check out the filmmakers' Impact campaign for events, discussions, and workshops online or near you.

8. I Am Greta

Sit outside Swedish parliament with the young climate activist — right from the beginning. Credit: Hulu

You know who Greta Thunberg is. The young superstar activist has been campaigning for action on climate change since she was 15 years old, ditching school every Friday from August 2018 to sit outside the Swedish parliament and demand government action. Thunberg's action saw press swarming, politicians hand-wringing, and the emergence of the massive FridaysForFuture youth-organised global climate strike movement. Since then, Thunberg's been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, named TIME Person of the Year, and asked for less 'blah, blah, blah' and more honesty at COP26.

But I Am Greta is a quieter film than you'd think. Released in 2020 and directed by Nathan Grossman, the documentary offers a truly personal look at Thunberg's actions, closely following the 15-year-old activist and her father, Svante, from her "Skolstrejk för klimatet" demonstrations to her 2018 speech at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Poland, and meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in 2019. Most importantly, the film joins Thunberg aboard the Malizia II, the electricity-generating sailboat Thunberg traveled Britain to New York City in before she shamed apathetic grown-ups at U.N. Climate Action Summit in 2019.

How to watch: I Am Greta is now streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ in the UK.

After the film: Follow Thunberg's work, and here are five more young climate activists to follow too.

9. The Great Green Wall

Africa's ambitious Great Green Wall is the focus of this stunning documentary, the 8,000-kilometre wall of trees cultivated by communities across the continent to restore land ravaged by the effects of climate change. City of God director Fernando Meirelles executive produced this one, with Malian singer and activist Inna Modja hosting. The documentary travels through the Sahel region (encompassing Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and The Gambia), where temperatures are rising 1.5 times faster than the global average, according to a U.N. report.

How to watch: The Great Green Wall is now streaming on Kanopy in the U.S. and available to rent on Sky in the UK.

After the film: Check out the Great Green Wall website for more community initiatives.

10. Kiss the Ground

Woody Harrelson narrates this 2020 documentary that takes a look at a solution to climate change that the actor says "is right under our feet, and it's as old as dirt." It's soil, and "due to its vast scale and its ability to sequester immense quantities of greenhouse gases, it could just be the one thing that can balance our climate, replenish our fresh water supplies, and feed the world." The documentary initially plays to our more self-motivated tendencies, getting our attention by championing the health benefits of eating nutrient-rich food grown in healthy soil (with a fleeting cameo from Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen, why not), but for the most part, it hammers home soil's critical ability to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and stabilise Earth's climate.

It's unsettling to watch as the film unpacks the pressing threat of soil desertification (land that is turning to desert), the damage caused by industrial agriculture (the quick history of chemical pesticide use in America is alarming), and the fact that within 60 years, the U.N. predicts the world's remaining topsoil will be gone. But instead of resting on this doomscape, the film optimistically showcases those championing regenerative agriculture, running composting and sustainable waste management facilities, and fighting to restore balance to the planet through the dirt under your feet.

How to watch: Kiss the Ground is now streaming on Netflix.

After the film: Check out Kiss the Ground's stewardship and farmland programs that support farmers and their adoption of regenerative agriculture, and check out the website's map where you can find regenerative local farms.

11. How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change

If you’re looking for a straightforward, textbook look at the causes and impact of climate change, this is not it. Directed by Oscar-nominated Gasland director Josh Fox, How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change is as unpindownable and strange as its title. Summarising the globe's situation with overwhelmingly personal bluntness, Fox brings a colloquially relatable level of alarm to the film, saying after one particularly doomed montage, "I don't know about you, but I'm about ready to watch a few cat videos right now."

Nonetheless, he interviews climate scientists and environmental analysts and scholars, and joins those on the frontline in order to ask the question: What happens to human beings when our industrial development puts incredible stress on civilization, from coastal areas affected by rising sea levels to places plagued by extreme weather events like drought, hurricanes, tornados, and wildfires?

How to watch: How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change is now streaming on iTunes.

After the film: Check out the film's website for ideas on how to take daily action.

12. Anote's Ark

Directed by Matthieu Rytz, Anote's Ark focuses on the Republic of Kiribati and the viewpoint of Anote Tong, the nation's former president whose work advocating for action on human-induced climate change and ocean conservation has seen him nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Sundance-premiered film explores the Pacific Island which, like many in the region, is facing peril from rising sea levels, with many attempting to migrate elsewhere. This includes Tiemeri, who was born in Kiribati but aims to move her family to New Zealand.

How to watch: Anote's Ark is now available to stream on Prime Video.

After the film: Check out the film's website for further information on how to take action, and read Mashable's three-part multimedia project that spotlights the daily lives of Marshall Islands residents. 

13. Before the Flood

If you’re not into climate change documentaries helmed by celebrities, this one might not be for you. However, even if you're not a fan of Hollywood actor, Before the Flood presenter, and U.N. Messenger of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio, his use of star power and sizable budget to draw attention to the climate crisis in this documentary is undeniably impactful, encouraging people to admit what they don’t know and make the decision to get educated. “The truth is, the more I’ve learned about this issue and everything that contributes to the problem, the more I realise how much I don’t know,” he says.

Released in 2016, Before the Flood covers many of the same areas as Al Gore's films, functioning as a strong primer on climate change, the damage we’ve done, and what’s likely to happen if we fail to act. DiCaprio spent two years traveling to key locations: the melting ice sheets in Kangerlussuaq in Greenland and Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic; flooding Florida with its electric flood pumps and raised roads; and the Sumatran rainforest, where deforestation is causing wildlife habitat destruction and increased industrial carbon emissions. DiCaprio also interviews a heck of a lot of people, everyone from world leaders, including then-President Barack Obama and Pope Francis (seriously, the Pope), to Arctic explorers and guides, climatologists, astronauts, scholars, economists, marine ecologists, and Elon Musk inside Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada.

Though it’s four years old now, the arguments are frustratingly the same today. The documentary was filmed in conjunction with the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, and since then, things have happened. “You just have to take it on faith that these countries are going to follow through with what they say. How likely is that?" DiCaprio narrates. If you can get past the fact that DiCaprio learned his first lessons about the repercussions of thoughtless decadence from a painting that sat over his crib as a child (Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. Seriously.) then you can get into this.

How to watch: Before the Flood is now streaming on Disney+.

After the film: Check out the Before the Flood website for ideas on how to help.

14. Chasing Ice

Directed by Chasing Coral’s Jeff Orlowski, Chasing Ice focuses its efforts on visionary environmental photographer James Balog and the documentation known as the Extreme Ice Survey, which saw him and a group of adventurers hauling time-lapse cameras across the Arctic ("not the nicest environment for technology") to show the effects of global warming on glaciers. It’s this type of difficult, taxing, and dangerous time-lapse filming that has made communicating the effects of climate change to the public incredibly effective, and it’s the same strategy Orlowski’s team uses in Chasing Coral, to devastating effect.

Balog first captured images in the Arctic in 2005 on assignment for National Geographic, an experience that would change him from climate change skeptic to campaigner and evidence provider. As well as stunning cinematography from Orlowski, Chasing Ice includes footage from Balog’s history-making, 75-minute, time-lapse capture of the calving (when big ice chunks break off a glacier) of the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland. It’s hard to forget, and impossible to dispute.

How to watch: Chasing Ice is now available to rent/buy from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube.

After the film: Watch Chasing Coral (see above).

15. Thank You for the Rain

Kenyan farmer and climate activist Kisilu Musya filmed the experiences of his home and village with his wife, Christina, and demonstrated how climate change is making extreme weather events there more extreme, meaning very real consequences for his family and community. He teamed up with Norwegian filmmaker and activist Julia Dahr to make Thank You for the Rain, which delves into climate justice, climate refugees, and gender equality from a perspective not always seen in mainstream climate documentaries.

How to watch: Thank You for the Rain is now available to rent on Vimeo.

After the film: Check out the film's website to see how you can demand climate action, host a screening, or support Musya's work.

16. Cowspiracy

Made in 2014 by filmmaker Kip Andersen, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret investigates the relatively unchallenged livestock industry and its destructive effect on the planet, its catastrophic natural resource usage, and the major role animal agriculture plays in global warming. But hey, nobody wants to talk about it, right?

The film argues the main focus for many environmental groups combatting climate change is fossil fuels, while Andersen finds a lack of cooperation with leaders within the movement to discuss animal agriculture — although many tell him how dangerous it could be to speak truth to power within this realm. It will make you rethink what you eat, at the very least.

How to watch: Cowspiracy is now streaming on Netflix.

After the film: Check out the film's website for ideas on how to take action, primarily including ways to pick plants over meat.

17. Anthropocene: The Human Epoch

In 2016, an international group of scientists, the Anthropocene Working Group, declared the end of Earth’s Holocene epoch, arguing that we’ve entered what’s known as the Anthropocene epoch, in which human activity has irreversibly changed and now determines the planet’s natural systems. It’s this term that inspires this documentary, created by Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, and Edward Burtynsky, and narrated by Alicia Vikander. Self-described as “a cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet,” Anthropocene: The Human Epoch takes a look at how much human activity has permanently impacted the natural world on a colossal scale.

How to watch: Anthropocene: The Human Epoch is now streaming on Kanopy.

After the film: Check out the filmmakers' favoured organisations to support on the website.

18. Racing Extinction

The rate of species going extinct is accelerating. (Here are all we lost in 2019.) The U.N. attributes this to changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species, in that order, some of which The Discovery Channel's Racing Extinction digs into. Created by the Ocean's 11-style team behind The Cove, the film uses plenty of clever filming techniques to dig into some serious truths about the human impact on wildlife. Using lab experiments and photo comparison, the team examines the effects of ocean acidification and rising temperatures on marine ecosystems, and employs high-definition infra-red cameras to reveal CO2 emissions from transportation and factories. As this is indeed the Cove team, the documentary also deploys undercover cameras and covert techniques to examine the other threat to species across the globe: the illegal wildlife trade.

How to watch: Racing Extinction is now available to buy/rent on iTunes or Amazon.

After the film: Learn more about protecting the Endangered Species Act. It's important.

19. Paris to Pittsburgh

If you’re not sure what you can do on a local level to contribute to the goals of the Paris Agreement and aren’t happy to wait around for the federal government, check out this empowering documentary. Directed by National Geographic filmmaker Sidney Beaumont and documentarian Michael Bonfiglio, Paris to Pittsburgh follows Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in 2017 (before Joe Biden's rejoining) and the Mayor of Pittsburgh's decision for the city to stay in. Citizens hit the streets, which drove a national movement in cities around America that pledged to uphold the Paris goals and commit to using 100 percent renewable energy.

Narrated by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's Rachel Brosnahan, the documentary consults climate scientists, geologists, politicians, and local pioneers to understand what those cities are actually doing to achieve this. This includes renewable energy efforts in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, hammered by extreme weather events like Hurricane Maria, which caused widespread power outages, and Miami, Florida, affected by flooding from rising sea levels. Plus, it names and shames climate deniers within the American government, and points out shameful budget cuts to the EPA by the Trump administration.

How to watch: Paris to Pittsburgh is now streaming on Disney+.

After the film: Check out the We Are Still In campaign and read about how individuals can get involved.

20. Ice on Fire

Yes, this one has Leonardo DiCaprio's fingerprints on it too, but it's a strong enough film to make this list. Executive-produced and narrated by the actor, HBO's Ice on Fire takes a look at the devastating potential impact the melting Arctic ice caps will have on the Earth. Through interviews with scientists and experts, the Cannes-selected documentary investigates the fact that methane gases released into the atmosphere from the melting caps will have catastrophic repercussions on the planet. Making plain the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions, the film consults innovative scientists focused on strategies to pull CO2 from the atmosphere, as well as other renewable and sustainable projects, offering up a much-needed but time-sensitive glimmer of hope. Technology got us into this mess, maybe it can get us out of it.

How to watch: Ice on Fire is now streaming on HBO Max, HBO Now, HBO Go, and Kanopy.

After the film: Get readin' — there are a bunch of resources on HBO's site worthy of your time.

21. This Changes Everything

Directed by Avi Lewis and inspired by Naomi Klein’s nonfiction book This Changes Everything, this documentary visits communities on the front lines of climate change. Filmed over 211 shoot days in nine countries and five continents over four years, and narrated by Klein herself, the film visits those demanding change from power: from First Nations communities around the Alberta Tar Sands to post-Hurricane Sandy New York; farmers in Montana’s Powder River Basin to anti-gold mine protesters in Halkidiki, Greece; and communities protesting coal plants in wetlands in Sompeta, Andhra Pradesh, as well as those living through air pollution in China’s cities.

This Changes Everything illustrates the effects of government inaction on climate change, examining the false benefits promised to local communities surrounding fossil fuel plants and the growth of only those exploiting natural resources at the top of the economic system. Klein offers some hope, suggesting that we could seize this current climate crisis to tackle our failed economic systems and create something better, and that change happens only through pressure from below.

How to watch: This Changes Everything is now available to rent/buy on Amazon.

After the film: You could read the book or check out the team's directory of those creating solutions to the climate crisis.

22. Climate Refugees

Directed and produced by Michael P. Nash in 2010, Climate Refugees is a documentary about the human face of climate change: how people, towns, and even whole countries are moving around the globe due to rising sea levels and following extreme weather events, and how increasing global temperatures affect food supply for populations. It's 10 years old now, and situations have sadly gotten worse for some in the areas Nash visits, but it's still an important film to consult.

About 40 percent of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of the coast, and these communities are at the forefront of the impact of climate change, including Pacific Island nations like the Maldives and Tuvalu, impacted by rising seas and severe storms. Nash travelled around the world for 18 months talking to people in those communities, as well as aid workers and activists, scientists, and politicians including Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and Newt Gingrich.

How to watch: Climate Refugees is now streaming on Hoopla and Kanopy in the U.S. and Amazon Prime in the UK.

After the film: Watch Lowland Kids (see above) and read Mashable's three-part multimedia project that spotlights the daily lives of Marshall Islands residents. 

23. Disobedience

If you’re feeling hopeless in the face of climate change and aren’t sure whether there’s anything you can do, check out Disobedience. Directed by Kelly Nyks, the film is a convincing presentation of what happens when people get sick of waiting for governments to act and unite to take things into their own hands, like the 50,000-strong human chain formed in Aliağa, Turkey in 1990, to protest the planned coal power plant. Featuring interviews with This Changes Everything author Naomi Klein, activist Lidy Nacpil, co-founder of 350.org Bill McKibben, online activist network Avaaz.org founder Ricken Patel, and other leaders in this realm, the film examines the power of climate activism and using your own resources to change things.

How to watch: Disobedience is now streaming from the film's official website.

After the film: Read Mashable's article on how to become an activist, no matter your age, and check out Mashable's Social Good Series for more inspiration on how to get involved in the fight to tackle climate change.

Importantly, if all of this has triggered some severe climate change anxiety, here's how to cope.

The blast was astonishing.

When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, it sent shock waves around the planet. The imagery awed earth scientists. And now, researchers have found the eruption pumped enough water vapor into the atmosphere to fill a whopping 58,000 swimming pools — an amount never before observed.

The water reached a layer of the atmosphere called the stratosphere, higher than where big jetliners fly. The stratosphere exists between some eight to 33 miles above Earth's surface.

"We’ve never seen anything like it,” Luis Millán, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who led the new research, said in a statement. Millán and his team used observations from NASA’s Aura satellite, an instrument that tracks gases in Earth's atmosphere, to confirm the extreme water injection into the atmosphere.

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Credit: NASA

All that water from a single eruption will have a planetary, though small and temporary, climate impact. That's because water vapor is a greenhouse gas, meaning it traps heat on the planet, similar to carbon dioxide, which is now skyrocketing in Earth's atmosphere. This water vapor impact will "not be enough to noticeably exacerbate climate change effects," NASA said.

(Today's climate change is largely driven by human actions, not natural events like volcanic eruptions.)

Where did this bounty of water — which was nearly four times the amount the colossal 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo blew into the stratosphere — come from? Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai is a submarine volcano, meaning the basin where the eruption occurs is underwater. It lies nearly 500 feet under the surface, giving the eruption vast amounts of water to violently blow into the sky.

If the eruption happened deeper, the enormous mass of seawater would have "muted" this immensely explosive eruption, NASA noted. But all the right elements came together, creating a blast that continues to amaze scientists.

Earth is wild.

Portable air conditioners are a total game changer — and yes, you totally need one.

Here's something Megan Thee Stallion won't tell you: Sometimes a Hot Girl Summer™ can get a little *too* hot. And unless you have access to a pool or plan on finding a Boat Friend, staying indoors is a must in extreme circumstances where the heat index exceeds 100 degrees; dehydration, heat stroke, and heat exhaustion can strike after just 10 to 15 minutes of outdoor activity.

But what if it's just as sweltering inside your house as it is on your patio? Even with proper ventilation, a sun-baked living room can quickly turn into an oven on an average August day. In that case, experts recommend relying on something other than a fan or an open fridge door for your primary indoor cooling setup — namely, an air conditioner.

There's a good chance your home's already equipped with an A/C unit: The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported last year that A/C equipment is used in 87 percent of households throughout the United States — a statistic that shoots up to 94 percent when you venture down into the hot-humid South. And whereas central A/C systems were once a luxury reserved for the 1 percent, they're now very common in new single-family homes; about 60 percent of U.S. households were using them as of 2015.

While many older houses and apartments have been "retrofitted" with central air, a good chunk of us — about one in four households — still depend on individual A/C units to cool a room or two. Those devices generally fall into one of three categories:

1. A wall or window air conditioner is an A/C unit that gets mounted inside — get this — a wall or window. Without going into too much jargon-y detail, the unit lowers a room's temperature by sucking the hot air inside of its system with a blower motor, then passing the air over a condenser or cooling coil containing a chemical refrigerant. The air is then blown out of the unit drier and a few degrees colder, leaving the room all nice and air conditioned and slightly dehumidified. The leftover heat extracted by its compressor is expelled via a vent on the side (on a wall-mounting unit) or back (on a window-mounting unit) of the device.

2. A portable air conditioner is a free-standing, rolling floor A/C unit that vents hot air out of an exhaust host connected to a window.

3. An evaporative cooler, also known as a "swamp cooler," is a device that cools air by adding humidity to it (as opposed to a traditional A/C unit, which acts as a dehumidifier). Once the warm air is drawn into the unit, it's pushed through water-soaked pads that turn it into a (chillier) gas via the process of evaporation.

Window- and wall-mounted machines are probably what came to mind when you read the phrase "individual A/C units" because they're everywhere — just walk outside in any city during the summer and you'll see them clinging to the sides of buildings (while dripping condensation on many a passerby). However, many modern living situations are better suited for a portable air conditioner or an evaporative cooler.

If you're not sure what kind you need, here's a quick primer:

You should install a window/wall air conditioner if: You need to save space inside a room; you only need to cool one room at a time; your home needs dehumidifying; or you want an Energy Star-certified unit. (More on that momentarily.)

You should install a portable unit if: You don't want to diminish the amount of natural light entering a room; you want/need to move your A/C unit frequently; you live in a humid area; you only need to cool one room at a time; you don't want to deal with a complicated installation process; your home needs dehumidifying; or if window-mounted units are prohibited by your lease or HOA.

You should install an evaporative cooler if: You live somewhere with a dry climate; you want a unit that runs naturally (i.e., without chemical refrigerants); you're on a budget; or you think exhaust hoses are unsightly.

If a portable A/C or evaporative cooler sounds like the best air conditioning option for you, keep reading for a brief buying guide.

How to shop for a portable air conditioner or evaporative cooler:

Let's start with the more straightforward of the pair: evaporative coolers. Inside every unit, there will be a blower motor or fan and a handful of pads that absorb water from a built-in tank or reservoir, which you'll have to fill every once in a while. (Pro tip: Use ice water for an extra-cold chill.) Each model will have a cubic feet per minute (CFM) rating, which indicates how much air it moves every 60 seconds; the higher the CFM rating, the more powerful the unit. Whichever size or model you choose, the device should be run in a room where a window or two is cracked to prevent the space from getting too damp.

Whereas there's just one kind of evaporative cooler, portable air conditioners are available in two different exhaust hose configurations: single hose and dual hose.

Single-hose units have only one exhaust hose (duh), which expels both the heat produced by the compressor and the indoor air its system pulls in to cool said compressor. They're typically cheaper and lighter compared to dual-hose units, but there's a catch: Their design creates negative air pressure inside of a room, causing warm air from the outside or nearby rooms to seep under doors and through window gaps. As a result, they're not very efficient and have to work harder than their dual-hose counterparts to cool a room.

Dual-hose units have — you guessed it — two exhaust hoses: one that vents hot air, and one that pulls in cool air from outdoors to prevent the compressor from overheating. Any air that's sucked in from a room gets put back in said room, making negative air pressure a non-issue and more effectively chilling an enclosed space.

Whether you opt for a single- or dual-hose unit, it'll likely come with a window kit for installation. Many machines will have a built-in pan, bucket, or tray to collect condensation, which you'll need to empty occasionally, although some newer units feature self-evaporating systems that recycle the moisture they produce. (Very rarely will you come across a unit with a drain pump.) Both single- and dual-hose units should be used only when your windows are closed.

Lastly (but perhaps most importantly), be sure to keep in mind the acronym "BTU" while you're hunting down the right portable air conditioner. (That stands for "British thermal unit," which is the amount of heat necessary to heat a pound of water by 1 degree Fahrenheit.) In the simplest sense, an air conditioner's BTU indicates how much energy it's capable of processing in an hour, i.e. its cooling power. Moral of the story: The higher a unit's BTU, the more space it can chill and the faster it can chill said space.

Are portable air conditioners eco-friendly?

At the time of publication, no portable air conditioners have been certified as Energy Star by the Environmental Protection Agency — so unfortunately, no. But you can take certain measures while running your portable A/C to make sure you don't single-handedly trigger a climate catastrophe (on top of the one that's already in full swing), like buying a unit with a programmer timer that shuts it off when you're not home. For eco-friendly window and wall units, check out this roundup we put together.

What is the best portable air conditioner?

We generally recommend portable air conditioners for the best cooling power, but there's a time and place for an evaporative cooler, too. Below, you'll find our top picks based on online reviews written by the people who know the units best: actual customers who have installed them in their homes.

While July 2021 was marked by devastating floods across Europe, this summer the continent is enduring a record-breaking heatwave. Many European regions have reached all-time high temperatures, resulting in the spread of wildfires. This includes the UK, where temperatures reached 40.2°C for the first time in history. To make sense of it all, we spoke to Len Shaffrey‬, professor of climate science at the University of Reading, who talked us through the heatwave's timeline and explained why Europe has been warming faster than most of the world.

In a hotter climate regime, expect the unprecedented.

On July 19, an exceptional heat wave smashed the UK's all-time heat record. Temperatures provisionally reached 40.2 degrees Celsius (104.4 degrees Fahrenheit) at London's Heathrow Airport, obliterating the previous record of 38.7 C set in 2019. If confirmed, that makes Tuesday the country's hottest day on record, and temperatures are likely to rise further through the day. As heat-trapping carbon levels skyrocket in Earth's atmosphere, heat waves are growing more intense.

Update on July 19, 2022 at 3 p.m. ET: At least 34 sites exceeded the UK's previous national record of 38.7 C (104.4 F), according to the UK Met Office. Coningsby, a region north of London, hit 40.3 C.

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Climate change doesn't make extreme events. It makes extreme events more extreme. This topples records, and exposes people to unhealthy or deadly environments — particularly if they're not acclimated to such conditions.

The world will continue to warm ⁠— but, crucially, just how much is up to us ⁠— through at least much of the 21st century. There will be more unprecedented heat.

⁠"Climate change has already influenced the likelihood of temperature extremes in the UK. The chances of seeing 40°C days in the UK could be as much as 10 times more likely in the current climate than under a natural climate unaffected by human influence," Nikos Christidis, a scientist at the Met Office, explained. "The likelihood of exceeding 40°C anywhere in the UK in a given year has also been rapidly increasing, and, even with current pledges on emissions reductions, such extremes could be taking place every 15 years in the climate of 2100."

Records won't often simply break by tiny increments. They will be smashed, as the new heat event in the UK showed. In the U.S. and Canada in 2021, records fell by as many as some 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Rapid warming means we must expect extreme event records to be broken – not just by small margins but quite often by very large ones," Rowan Sutton, the director of Climate Research in the UK National Centre for Atmospheric Science, said in a statement.

Importantly, these record heat waves are happening in a world that has warmed by some 1.1 C Celsius, or 1.9 F, since 1880. Because prodigious carbon emissions continue to amass in Earth's atmosphere, earth scientists expect the planet to warm by at least some 1.5 C or 2 C (compared to 19th-century temperatures) this century.

"Right now, CO2 levels are rising over 200 times faster than they did during the last deglaciation [starting some 18,000 years ago]," Kristopher Karnauskas, an associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Mashable earlier this year. "That number speaks to the urgency to act soon."

Fortunately, there are known, meaningful ways to slash the heat-trapping carbon emissions saturating our atmosphere.

How to protect yourself from extreme heat

Be careful in extreme heat. Heat illnesses happen when the body cannot cool itself down.

In places like the UK, where the populace isn't acclimated to triple-digit temperatures and may not live in homes equipped to stay cool during unprecedented heat waves, people can be more susceptible to heat illness, which includes heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

You can delve deeper into avoiding heat illness in this Mashable story. However, here are some expert recommendations from Mike Tipton, a professor of human and applied physiology at the University of Portsmouth and an expert in thermoregulation.

The idea is to minimize your own heat production, minimize the heat you're gaining from the environment, and maximize the heat you lose:

• Stay hydrated: "You should be taking fluid as you would medicine in these conditions," said Tipton.

• Stay out of the sun. If you're outside, stay in the shade.

• Avoid activity — that will churn heat in your body.

• Use a fan to blow air over the body. Air currents evaporate sweat from the skin, removing more heat. Don't just fan your head. "It's best to fan the whole body," said Tipton. You can mist the body, too, to amplify heat loss with "artificial sweat." But if you're in an excessively hot room or area over 95 degrees Fahrenheit (try to avoid these places!), fans aren't recommended because they can potentially heat your body.

• Immerse hands in cool water. "Your hands are great at losing heat," noted Tipton.

• Wear light or as little clothing as possible, so sweat can evaporate from the skin.

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These recommendations, unfortunately, will become increasingly salient in the years ahead.

"These are very extreme weather events," Tipton told Mashable last year. "We're not seeing a small increase in flooding or heat. These are enormous changes."

Extreme deluges are growing more and more common.

Yellowstone National Park superintendent Cam Sholly said on Monday that record flooding has necessitated the closure of all inbound traffic into the iconic park for at least a couple of days (though northern parts of the park will be closed for a long time). Extreme rains triggered rock and mudslides, which destroyed large swathes of a crucial road leading to the park's North Entrance. Yellowstone's helicopter manager captured footage of the raging Gardner River and the washed-out road from a park helicopter, which you can see in the footage the park tweeted below.

The park called the rains and flooding "unprecedented."

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UPDATE: Jun. 15, 2022, 9:12 a.m. EDT Yellowstone National Park announced on June 14 that the "Northern portion of Yellowstone National Park [is] likely to remain closed for a substantial length of time due to severely damaged, impacted infrastructure." As you can see in the footage above, the road damage is certainly significant.

This heavy rain originated over the Pacific Ocean as a potent atmospheric river, which is a formidable band of moisture (sometimes dubbed a "river in the sky") that streams over the Pacific Ocean and into the Western U.S. By the time it reached the Yellowstone region, the dynamic weather system's severe thunderstorms doused the land. Crucially, the rain, and consequent flooding, from atmospheric rivers is growing worse as the climate continuously warms.

That's because a warmer atmosphere naturally holds more water. This boosts the odds of potent storms — like thunderstorms, mid-latitude cyclones, atmospheric rivers, or hurricanes — deluging places with heavier downpours.

"Once you have more moisture in the air, you have a larger bucket you can empty," Andreas Prein, a scientist who researches weather extremes at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Mashable last year. This can result in pummeling downpours. "You can release more water in a shorter amount of time — there's very little doubt about that," Prein said.

Surging rivers are often a consequence of these potent rains. On June 13, the Yellowstone River smashed its record peak height, rising by over six feet in just 24 hours. The historic floods even washed a family's home into the river.

Meanwhile, the raging Gardner River (seen above) destroyed the road into the community of Gardiner, a popular stop for park visitors. The town is now suddenly cut off from food deliveries and essential services.

ECHO is a small yellow robot currently living with a colony of emperor penguins in Antarctica. The robot is part of a project by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution studying climate change's impact on the South Pole's most iconic inhabitants. Physicist Daniel Zitterbart, who has been working alongside ecologist Céline Le Bohec, tells us about how ECHO works, what the project is trying to achieve, and his hopes for the future.

Companies across the world have been putting efforts to provide fresh water to drought-facing regions. Places like Israel already use desalination technology to provide potable water for their population. But as the climate crisis worsens, it has become necessary for these systems to break away from fossil fuels. Elemental Water Makers is one of the companies working on solar-powered desalination systems. But unlike others, they have found a way to minimize energy consumption by employing the power flow from residue brine water.

Friday is Earth Day, the day when our climate anxiety reaches its peak and we gaze in horror at what we've done to the planet. As such, Google is marking the occasion with a graphic reminder of our failings, publishing a bleak Earth Day Google Doodle which illustrates the horrible impact climate change has already had.

April 22's Google Doodle includes a variety of GIFs created from photos of real locations, all taken over several years. Each time-lapse GIF will be displayed for a few hours throughout the day, giving you time to marinate in exactly how we've destroyed the world.

Though Google was presumably spoiled for choice when finding landscapes ravaged by climate change, it mercifully restricted itself to just four.

As such, the 2022 Earth Day Google Doodle will show the glacier at the peak of Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro melting away between December 1986 to 2020; glacial retreat in Sermersooq, Greenland from December 2000 to 2020; shocking coral bleaching around the Great Barrier Reef's Lizard Island from March 2016 to October 2017; and the destruction of the Harz Forests in Elend, Germany between December 1995 and 2020.

Glacier retreat at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania from December 1986 to 2020. Credit: Google

Glacier retreat in Sermersooq, Greenland from December 2000 to 2020. Credit: Google

Coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef from March 2016 to October 2017. Credit: Google / The Ocean Agency

Destruction of the Harz Forests in Germany from December 1995 to 2020. Credit: Google

Most of the pictures in the Google Doodle were taken from Google Earth, however the footage of Australia's coral bleaching came from The Ocean Agency, a non-profit conservation organisation. The Doodle is set to go live in the U.S. on April 21 at 9 p.m. PDT.

This Earth Day Google Doodle is notably more dire than the one published last year, which had a more optimistic, tree-planting vibe. But then again, you can't say the situation doesn't call for it. We need to take immediate and drastic action to halt climate change, otherwise the disappearance of natural wonders such as these will soon be the least of our problems.

Climate 101 is a Mashable series that answers provoking and salient questions about Earth’s warming climate.

Update Apr. 7, 2022, 11:10 AM ET: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that in 2021 atmospheric levels of methane had increased by a record amount for the second straight year. The original methane story from April 2021 continues below.

The potent greenhouse gas methane continues to increase in Earth's atmosphere, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

The NOAA graph below paints a clear picture. Following a temporary flattening or stabilization of methane levels in the aughts, the odorless, invisible gas has continually risen since around 2008, and more recently has accelerated.

Methane is a problematic greenhouse gas because it traps heat on the planet 28 times better than carbon dioxide. (Methane lives in the atmosphere for about a decade before breaking down into the major greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.) Over the last two centuries, as fossil fuel use and cattle ranching expanded around the globe (both make methane emissions), atmospheric methane levels have over doubled, causing a whopping quarter of the human-caused warming on Earth. It's why methane is considered the "second most important greenhouse gas" created in large part by human activity (behind CO2).

But explaining the recent, stark methane rise, at a time when climate scientists emphasize greenhouse gas emissions must rapidly fall, isn't simple (sorry!). A number of human-caused and natural factors are at play. Yet scientists are investigating, and closely watching the potential culprits.

"Methane levels are going up but our community does not have a clear answer about why," said Manvendra Dubey, an atmospheric chemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. "Many natural and anthropogenic [human-caused] sources are contributing."

Rising methane levels in the atmosphere. Methane concentrations reached a record high in 2021, averaging 1,895.7 ppb (parts per billion). Credit: NOAA

Why solving the methane mystery is a challenge

Methane is a tough nut to crack. Comparatively, it's easier to account for the sources of carbon dioxide. That's because when carbon-rich fossil fuels like gasoline, coal, or methane (aka "natural gas") are burned, they create CO2. So knowing how much fuel civilization burns (we do) gives a relatively clear idea of how much CO2 humanity is loading into the atmosphere (a colossal amount).

"CO2 is much more clear-cut from a scientific point of view," explained Steven Smith, an earth scientist at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

In contrast, methane can come from some disparate, indirect, awfully hard-to-monitor sources. "Methane is a much more complicated beast," said Dubey. To track and estimate these emissions, scientists collect emission data from world nations, observe emissions from space, take readings from aircraft, towers, and cars, and more.

Though the major methane contributors are detailed in the section below, some elusive methane sources include "fugitive gases" (like leaking methane from oil drilling sites) and methane from remote biological sources (like bacteria decomposing plants in wetlands). Atmospheric scientists can actually identify when methane comes from biological sources, as opposed to fossil fuels. But, scientists can't easily distinguish between the types of biological sources (such as methane from wetlands versus methane from cows). This leaves a somewhat murky methane picture, for now.

What's more, it's possible that natural events in the atmosphere have also impacted methane numbers. Atmospheric scientists sometimes call the atmosphere a great big laboratory teeming with chemical reactions between different gases and particles. And in this atmospheric laboratory, researchers in 2017 found evidence of a decline in a molecule (called OH) that naturally breaks down methane. This would make methane more abundant. But, this effect remains uncertain: Other research has found the declines of OH to be quite small.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas. Credit: NOAA

What are the sources of methane?

There's a diversity of methane sources. But the factors or processes contributing to the current surge is the big question. "The [methane] budget is complex, so many combinations of processes could be responsible for the increase since 2007," explained Ed Dlugokencky, a research chemist at NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory.

Here are some major methane sources:

• Wetlands: Wetlands — places like marshes, bogs, and swampy areas where microbes release methane — are naturally responsible for some 30 percent of global methane emissions. This makes wetlands, particularly in the warm tropics, the single largest source of methane. They'll always emit lots of methane. But there's evidence that methane emissions from wetlands may have increased, explained Scot Miller, a professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins University who researches greenhouse gas emissions. And in the future, research suggests that as the globe warms and rainfall increases in many areas, wetlands may grow wetter or expand, resulting in more methane emissions.

• Fossil fuels: "Oil and natural gas emissions on a global scale are a really important source of methane," noted Miller. Methane often leaks from pipelines, or is released when oil or coal is extracted from the earth. China, for example, emits more methane than any other nation (largely from coal mining), and these emissions rose each year between 2010 and 2015. In the U.S., methane leaks prodigiously from some oil and gas sites, and emissions are significantly higher than government estimates. Like wetlands, fossil fuels are a major methane contributor and could also be a player in the recent methane surge.

• Agriculture: Cows burp methane, and cows dominate the world's sprawling pasturelands, which take up an area almost the size of North America. "By far and away the largest agricultural source of methane is cows," said Miller. (Other types of agriculture, like rice paddies, contribute methane too.) Overall, humanity produces three times more meat than it did half a century ago, in part resulting in some 1 billion million cattle alive, and burping, today. Cattle and pasturelands, a potent methane source, might certainly contribute to the recent methane surge.

• Landfills: Our decomposing waste contributes around 12 percent of methane into the atmosphere each year. This is a sizable problem, and environmental experts propose capturing this gas, so less of it enters the atmosphere.

What's not *currently* a major methane source

The Arctic's permafrost — a layer of soil that stays frozen for years at a time — stores bounties of carbon, in the form of dead plants. There's more than twice as much carbon stored in these frozen soils than in the entire atmosphere. And the Arctic is rapidly heating, meaning some permafrost is thawing.

But, as of now, researchers haven't found evidence that methane is leaching in significant amounts from the warming Arctic — not yet, anyway. (But this is a worrisome possibility that could unleash a vicious cycle of more warming, known as a "feedback loop," as the release of more greenhouse gases drives more thawing soil.)

"There's no direct evidence of permafrost contributing to the global methane rise," said Dubey. "I'm not saying it won't happen in the future," he added.

What about that methane "pause"?

Methane levels in the atmosphere stayed relatively steady from around 2000 to 2007. This temporary pause in the methane rise remains an open area of investigation, too.

"That pause is still a real mystery," said Miller.

It's possible the collapse of the Soviet Union in the nineties resulted in a major fall in agricultural emissions, leading to the temporary methane plateau. Some research suggests that nations like the U.S. clamped down on "fugitive emissions," meaning fewer methane releases from the fossil fuel industry at the time. Or the pause could be part of a natural atmospheric cycle, as the atmosphere naturally broke down methane during that period.

Atmospheric scientists don't have a timetable of when we might expect a more certain picture of why methane started rising, and accelerating, again. Yet the bigger climate picture is already clear: Methane levels are headed in the wrong direction.

The more heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the more Earth will warm. Already, the warming trend is stark. The last time Earth had a month of normal temperatures — compared to the 20th century — was in February 1985.

Today, April 6, Pinterest is rolling out a new policy to eradicate climate change misinformation across both user generated content and ads.

The new policy removes content that denies the existence or impacts of climate change, the human influence on climate change, or that climate change is backed by scientific consensus. It will also ban content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus, misrepresents scientific data, or misleads users about public safety emergencies like natural disasters and extreme weather events.

The platform has also updated its advertising guidelines to prohibit ads containing conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation related to climate change. This is especially important since “it is unequivocal that climate misinformation combined with advertising tools delays meaningful climate action," said Jake Dubbins, the Co-Chair of Conscious Advertising Network which, along with the Climate Disinformation Coalition, is partnering with Pinterest on the move.

Pinterest is also recruiting Pinterest Creators from around the globe to "fuel inspiration around living a greener life" through original content including thrifting tips, clothes upcycling, and minimizing food waste. The platform will be rolling out its own daily editorial content around sustainable living in the lead up to Earth Day on April 22.

Pinterest reports that searches for climate-friendly tips are on the rise. As of February 2022, searches for "zero waste tips" had increased by six times, "recycling clothes ideas" by four times, "recycled home decor" by more than 95 percent, and "zero waste lifestyle" by more than 64 percent compared to February 2021.

This policy change makes Pinterest the first major digital platform to have clearly defined guidelines against climate misinformation across both user content and advertising. Pinterest has previously banned health misinformation, weight loss ads, and political ads.

When Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado and her husband Sebastião Salgado purchased a cattle farm in Amazonia’s Atlantic Forest, the land was destroyed by deforestation. With over 2 million trees planted in under 30 years, the pair's incredibly successful conservation efforts are a beacon of hope in Brazil, where devastating deforestation rates are pushing the Amazon rainforest to a catastrophic tipping point.

The Instituto Terra (aka the Earth Institute) now works to transfer knowledge, skills, and seeds that can help revive other forests teetering on the brink of destruction.

Climate 101 is a Mashable series that answers provoking and salient questions about Earth’s warming climate.

The oceans are the true keeper of climate change.

Earth's seas soak up over 90 percent of the heat humanity is now trapping on the planet, a nearly an unfathomable amount of energy that expands the oceans. And as Earth's ice sheets and glaciers melt in a hotter world, this new water inevitably pours into the seas.

Since the late 19th century, sea levels have already risen by some eight to nine inches. But much more sea level rise is imminent, because the planet has warmed significantly over the last hundred years. In a new report authored by top researchers at a diversity of U.S. agencies — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA, the Department of Defense, and beyond — scientists project sea levels will rise by some 10 inches to a foot along the U.S. coast over just the next three decades.

In a hotter world, seas are rising faster. "Over the last 50 years, there's been an acceleration," William Sweet, a NOAA oceanographer and one of the report's lead authors, told Mashable.

And after 2050, the waters will continue rising. Crucially, how much more is contingent upon how much society heats the planet by burning ancient, decomposed deposits of carbon-rich organisms (stored underground as fossil fuels). Already, heat-trapping CO2 levels in the atmosphere are the highest they've been in some 3 million years. Sea levels could rise an additional foot and a half this century, or multiple feet.

Melting from Earth's massive ice sheets, which blanket Greenland and Antarctica, will figure prominently in the coming decades.

"The ice sheets are just getting warmed up," Josh Willis, a NASA oceanographer not involved with the report, told Mashable.

How we know sea levels are rising

Satellites have revolutionized our ability to measure changing sea levels.

That's because the sprawling oceans — influenced by the likes of varying temperatures, geography, ocean currents, and tides in disparate places — make it enormously difficult to measure how seas are changing globally. But satellites in space, like NASA's Jason-3, beam radio waves to the ocean surface that bounce back to the satellite. This gives oceanographers a precise recording of sea surface height over wide swathes of the ocean.

An extensive system of tide gauges confirms what satellites like Jason-3 record from space. There are other stark indicators, too. Along much of the U.S. coastline, high-tide flooding is now 300 to over 900 percent more frequent than it was 50 years ago, notes NOAA. It's also why an octopus washed into a Miami parking garage amid a high tide event. The totality of the evidence is clear.

"We know the ocean is rising," said NOAA's Sweet.

Sea level rise each year more than doubled from 1.4 millimeters over most of the 20th century, to 3.6 millimeters by the early 21st century. From just the years 2013 to 2018, that number accelerated to 4.8 millimeters per year.

Sea level rise between 1993 to present, as measured by satellites. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

• Why the sun isn't causing today's climate change

• Why the first big U.S. ocean wind farm is a big deal

• The deep sea discoveries and sightings of 2021 are amazing

Why scientists expect sea levels to rise significantly

In the coming decades, two factors will largely drive rising sea levels around the U.S., and the globe.

1. Thermal expansion: As the seas absorb more heat, they expand. The oceans have warmed each year for decades, and in 2021 the ocean "was the hottest ever recorded by humans," scientists concluded in a major study. Historically, thermal expansion has been responsible for one-third of sea level rise.

2. Melting ice sheets and glaciers: Globally, nearly all mountain glaciers are shrinking. You might consider glimpsing them while you can. Much of this glacial water ultimately enters the ocean. Separately, the colossal ice stores on Greenland and Antarctica are melting into the sea, too. The reasons for this are numerous: Warming air directly melts Greenland's ice. Warming oceans also melt the ends of Greenland's glaciers. In Antarctica, a warmer atmosphere is ultimately driving warmer seawater beneath the ends of gigantic Antarctic glaciers. This has destabilized them and amplified ice loss.

   Just how much ice have the ice sheets lost? A prodigious amount. Satellites beam lasers onto the great remote ice sheets to document their mass. The Greenland Ice Sheet, about three times the size of Texas, lost some 200 gigatons annually between 2003 and 2019. (A gigaton equals 1 billion metric tonnes.) Meanwhile, Antarctica, a continent whose mountains are up to their necks in ice, lost some 118 gigatons each year.

Melting ice sheets and glaciers have accounted for two-thirds of sea level rise. But in the coming years, ice sheets will play a larger role. There's considerably more ice to melt.

How thermal expansion and added water mass (from ice sheets and glaciers) add up to significant sea level rise. Credit: NASA

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NOAA's Sweet, an author of the sea level rise report, has strong confidence in the sea level rise projections over the next few decades. That's because the graphed trajectory of how sea levels will rise, based on the reality that rates have observably increased, matches with careful computer simulations, or models, of how sea levels will rise.

"That's two lines of evidence pointing to similar numbers," Sweet explained.

But beyond 2050, the trajectory of the climate, and oceans, is more uncertain, and largely dependent on the most unpredictable part of the climate equation. That's us.

So the new sea level rise report created five different potential sea level futures between 2050 and 2150, based upon how much heat-trapping carbon global civilization adds to the atmosphere this century. (These five emissions scenarios were made, and deeply vetted, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.)

It may sound awfully pessimistic to hear that sea levels will inevitably continue to rise past 2050. These ideas can fuel doomism and helplessness about our climatic future. But climate scientists emphasize that such doomist notions are misguided. Rather, it shows we still have enormous sway over how much the climate warms — and the seas rise — later this century. "We have a significant amount of influence over how much warmer it gets," Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist and the director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute, previously told Mashable.

The following five long-term (2050-2150) sea level rise scenarios cover a wide range of possibilities. The "low" scenario — involving an extremely ambitious climate target — requires global nations stabilizing Earth's warming at around 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above 19th-century temperature levels by mid-century.

Compared to sea levels in 2000, the "Intermediate" scenario for the U.S. below, which projects 1.3 feet of sea level rise by 2050 and several feet by 2100, is a world warmed by around 2 C (3.6 F) by mid-century.

Five potential sea level rise scenarios for both the U.S. and the globe. Credit: NOAA 2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report

Crucially, there are looming unknowns about how much ice sheets will respond to different amounts of warming later this century. (This is OK and expected: These scenarios are a "what if" guide.) That's because Earth's current, rapid warming is historically unprecedented. Humanity, and earth scientists, have never witnessed Greenland and Antarctica continually melt.

"We haven't watched these ice sheets melt before," said Willis. "The last time they did it was 20,000 years ago and we weren't paying attention."

The geologic record shows that our great ice sheets have experienced major ice loss in the past. During a warm period some 125,000 years ago, massive amounts of ice on Antarctica melted, raising sea levels by some six to nine meters. Fortunately, oceanographers don't think that type of melting will happen suddenly (think a process unfolding over hundreds of years). But that process could begin, perhaps this century.

Already, Antarctica's Florida-sized Thwaites Glacier has destabilized. "Thwaites is the one spot in Antarctica that has the potential to dump an enormous amount of water into the ocean over the next decades," Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a professor of glaciology at Penn State University, told Mashable in 2020. Anandakrishnan is a veteran researcher of this threatening, remote glacier.

Yet amid some future uncertainty, substantial sea level rise is still certain. Some 10 inches to a foot is due around the U.S. by 2050. That portends lots of American flooding.

"By 2050, moderate flooding ⁠— which is typically disruptive and damaging by today’s weather, sea level and infrastructure standards ⁠— is expected to occur more than 10 times as often as it does today," Nicole LeBoeuf, NOAA's National Ocean Service Director, said in a statement.

This is not ideal. But, importantly, Willis emphasized that we can limit significantly worse flooding if we slash our emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Nothing else is going to blunt sea level rise. The world isn't going to suddenly cool on its own.

"There are no big natural cycles that will save us," he said.

At nearly 6,900 feet up in California's Sierra Nevada, researchers are diligently watching the snow.

The historic Central Sierra Snow Lab, run by the University of California, Berkeley, has collected snow and weather information continuously in these mountains since 1957. Their work is increasingly salient: California, a region already prone to "boom and bust" water cycles, largely relies on snowpack for its water. But in a warming climate, that state's precipitation is becoming more extreme and erratic. That means intense periods of wet extremes followed by dry stretches — the type that help set the stage for inferno-like wildfires.

Over 2020 and 2021, Californians experienced the driest two-year stretch in decades. 2021 was the driest water year since 1924. So in 2022, the Golden State could certainly use a strong snow season. But after getting deluged with snow in December, a key region in the Sierra Nevada has now experienced record-breaking dryness. Last week, the Central Sierra Snow Lab reported over a month (32 days) of no measurable precipitation, the longest such streak they've ever recorded. Now, the record has been smashed, reaching 37 days. Some 1.6 inches of snow on Feb. 15 ended the unenviable streak.

Winter is when notoriously sunny California gets its precipitation. So an unusually long mid-winter dry spell is problematic.

"It's quite concerning. Once winter's over, we don't have a lot of opportunity to make up for it," Andrew Schwartz, the lead scientist at the Central Sierra Snow Lab, told Mashable.

Schwartz emphasized he's not yet panicked about the possibility of a failed water year, which portends more drought. The latter part of February can still bring bounties of snow, and storms can hammer the Sierra Nevada in March, too. But time is ticking during the Golden State's wettest period.

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The reality that California overall could have a somewhat drier winter, however, isn't unexpected. It's a La Niña year, meaning a broad swathe of the equatorial Pacific Ocean has cooled. Ultimately, this cooler water influences events in the atmosphere, which drives winter storms northward. This water tends to miss California.

In 2022, for example, there are places in Western Canada that have received 1000 percent of their normal precipitation, explained Jeff Weber, a research meteorologist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

"The water is going somewhere," Weber said.

Extended periods of drought or dryness in California aren't inherently bad. It's natural. And the state has an extensive reservoir system to manage its precious, and vacillating, water supply.

But, crucially, a warming climate — which will continue warming for at least a few more decades if not considerably longer — exacerbates water shortages in the drought-prone region. In a hotter climate, less water flows into reservoirs as more of it evaporates or soaks into the parched ground. The Golden State is losing "runoff efficiency." Future snows and rains must then reload the dry soil before water can again run through watersheds, and into reservoirs.

"A warming planet amplifies these problems," explained Weber, who researches water in the Western U.S.

Water shortages are particularly bad for agriculture. California grows over a third of the nation's vegetables and two-thirds of the country's fruits and nuts, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. But with less water comes rationing. In 2021, a rice farmer found that selling his water was more profitable than growing with it. More croplands go fallow. By 2040, some 535,000 acres of farmland could be lost to the drier environment.

The natural world, too, suffers profoundly from drying conditions and warmer climes. Tens of millions of California trees died during the 2012 to 2015 drought, as the dehydrated, enfeebled plants couldn't fend off hungry bark beetles. Between 2010 and 2019, parched conditions contributed to a massive tree die-off of over 147 million trees. These dead trees now provide ample fuel for future wildfires.

For now, the year's snow at Donner Summit, where the research lab is located, is still above average, thanks to prodigious December snows. But the big picture is clear: The warming climate is magnifying already intense environmental swings in California.

"The extremes are getting more extreme," said Schwartz.

Read more about climate change at Mashable:

• A world warmed by 2 degrees is way hotter than it sounds

• 'When will the megadrought end?' is the wrong question to ask

• The guardians of Wikipedia's climate page

• Why the first big U.S. ocean wind farm is a big deal

• The devious fossil fuel propaganda we all use

It's not quite the right time to debunk that myth about lightning never striking the same place twice, as an enormous bolt has set a new global record.

The longest single flash of lightning has been captured by satellites of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, recorded and announced by the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday.

The "megaflash" stretched 768 kilometres (give or take 8 kilometres) or 477.2 miles (give or take 5 miles) across parts of the southern U.S. including Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi on April 29, 2020.

Satellite image of the lightning flash over the southern United States on Apr. 29, 2020. Credit: WMO

The flash in question measures as long as the distance between New York City and Columbus, Ohio. Or if you want another, between London and Hamburg.

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The previous record was 60 kilometres shorter, recorded across the sky in southern Brazil on (fittingly) Halloween in 2018.

It's actually one of two records broken, with the greatest duration for a single lightning flash of 17.102 seconds (give or take 0.002 seconds) recorded in thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina on June 18, 2020. This lengthy flash broke the previous record by a mere 0.37 seconds, also measured over northern Argentina on March 4, 2019.

Count out 17 seconds right now, I'll wait.

Satellite image of the lightning flash over Uruguay and Argentina on June 18, 2020. Credit: WMO

The new records were captured by NOAA's latest GOES-16/17 satellites which use geostationary lightning mappers (GLMs) to monitor extreme lightning continuously over the western hemisphere up to 55⁰ latitude.

The findings were published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society on Tuesday by the WMO's Committee on Weather and Climate Extremes, which keeps the organisation's records of global extremes associated with different weather types.

"These extremely large and long-duration lightning events were not isolated but happened during active thunderstorms," committee member Ron Holle said in a press statement. "Any time there is thunder heard it is time to reach a lightning-safe place.”

If the WMO isn't cranking up AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" today, they're doing it wrong.

With plastic continuing to flood into the seas, this giant curtain of bubbles is preventing some of the pollution from getting through.

The Great Bubble Barrier is essentially a filtering system, pumping air through a tube at the bottom of a waterway.

Keeping coral reefs healthy is extremely important as climate change encroaches on our most valuable habitats.

Stanford scientists have developed a low-cost measuring technique to assess the health of an entire reef from just a few small measurements.

Black carbon is one of the heaviest air pollutants and a significant health threat for people living in urban areas. Working towards a cleaner future, Mumbai-based studio Carbon Craft Design lock captured black carbon inside tiles. At the moment, a single tile can store up to 5 kilograms of CO2e and the company hopes their model can one day become the norm.

Climate 101 is a Mashable series that answers provoking and salient questions about Earth’s warming climate.

Top U.S. earth scientists announced Thursday that 2021 was among the hottest years on record. 

Specifically, the average global surface temperature was the sixth warmest, according to both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), making the last eight years the eight warmest in over 140 years of reliable record-keeping. Temperatures in 2021 were nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1.1 Celsius) hotter than average temperatures in the late 19th century. Crucially, however, climate scientists emphasize it's the long-term temperature trend that really matters and best illustrates how global surface temperatures are changing, rather than what occurs during a particular year or group of years.

And the decades-long trend is unambiguous. Temperatures have been on an upward trajectory for nearly half a century. 

"It is the long-term effects on climate that we're really worried about," Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist and researcher at the environmental science organization Berkeley Earth, told Mashable. "It is crystal clear that temperatures are going up, and they're going up quickly."

(Matching NASA and NOAA's temperature analysis, Berkeley Earth also independently found that 2021 was the sixth warmest on record.)

Average global surface temperatures since 1880 Credit: NASA

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Amid the rising global temperature trend there are small bumps, like little peaks and valleys. This is due to recurring, short-term climate patterns impacting the larger warming signal. The most influential of the patterns occur in the sprawling Pacific Ocean, which can see year-to-year periods of sea surface warming (El Niño) or cooling (La Niña). This temporarily pushes overall global temperatures up or down. That's why the decades-long story is crucial to watch. It cuts through the noise. 

"We live on a dynamic planet with lots of daily, weekly, monthly, and annual fluctuations," emphasized Sarah Green, an environmental chemist at Michigan Technological University who had no involvement with the 2021 climate reports. "If you're looking for long-term changes, you have to average over the long term."

"The focus on short-term variability is not really helpful," agreed Hausfather.

In 2021, La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean had a cooling effect on Earth. But even so, the human impact on our climate remains outsized. To illustrate, 2021 makes 1998 look like an unusually cool year. But 1998 was "crazy warm" at the time, noted Hausfather, as the warming trend was enhanced by a potent El Niño event in the Pacific Ocean.

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Today's relentlessly rising temperatures are no surprise. Large-scale human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels refined from ancient, carbon-rich, decomposed creatures, have driven momentous changes in the atmosphere. For example, levels of the most important greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, are now the highest they've been in some 3 million years, and are still rising. Each passing year, humanity emits prodigious amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

With current carbon-cutting commitments from global nations, the world is on track to warm by some 2.7 C (nearly 5 F), which would have extreme, disastrous environmental consequences. Already, the consequences of warming are serious. For example:

• Extreme fires: Increased temperatures and dryness parch vegetation and allow wildfires to burn more rapidly, significantly contributing to unnatural infernos and extreme urban firestorms. ("It takes just a little bit of warming to lead to a lot more burning.")

• Severe deluges: A warmer climate allows the atmosphere to hold more water.  This boosts the odds for more severe and record-breaking deluges.

• Destabilized ice sheets: Warmer ocean waters have destabilized the Florida-sized Thwaites Glacier. It's receding back; if it collapses it can ultimately raise sea levels in the coming centuries by many feet.

• Ocean heating: The ocean absorbs over 90 percent of the heat humanity traps on Earth. That's a nearly unfathomable number. This portends continued sea level rise, great disruptions to animal life, and beyond. Ocean heat hit a record high in 2021.

• More vector-borne disease: As the climate warms, creatures that infect us with pathogens (vectors like mosquitoes and ticks) spread. 

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The impacts of climate change will only grow until nations drop carbon emissions to around zero. But with each passing year, efforts to limit warming to some 2 C (3.6 F) above 19th-century levels grow more daunting. The big solutions, however, like the vast expansion of powerful ocean wind farms and electric vehicle adoption, are well-known. 

"The more you delay, the harder it is," said Green.

Deltec Homes have built more than 5,000 disaster-resistant houses over the last 50 years, which are engineered to withstand a Category 5 hurricane.

Architecture studio LANDPROCESS has transformed Thammasat University’s once grey rooftop into an organic farm.

The community-ran garden is powered by solar panels and uses a special rainwater collection system for irrigation. As extreme weather events increase, the studio is on a mission to optimise water infiltration by bringing nature back to the city.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans needed a plan to resettle residents safely and ensure a disaster of that scale never happened again.

In 2006, Dr. Elizabeth English founded the Buoyant Foundation Project, which retrofits already existing structures into flotation devices. The project has already been successfully implemented in flood-threatened areas in the U.S., Nicaragua, Bangladesh, and Vietnam.

"Another world is necessary, another world is possible," Vanessa Nakate told protesters in Glasgow, which is currently hosting the United Nations climate summit, COP26.

That positive message was the theme of the speech by the 24-year-old Ugandan, a prominent activist who called out a lack of inclusion in the climate movement after an AP photo cropped her out of an image with four young, white activists.

She said that Africa and the global south were facing some of the worst consequences of climate change, but from that disaster could emerge a more just world.

"We won't have to fight for limited resources because there will be enough for everyone," Nakate said of her imagined future. "There is food to eat and water to drink. Children can go to school without fear of dropping out."

Nakate urged protesters to keep holding their leaders accountable in order to make this world a reality.

Climate 101 is a Mashable series that answers provoking and salient questions about Earth’s warming climate.

Some things are not what they appear.

At a giant climate summit, global nations are meeting for the 26th time (COP26) to find ways to limit Earth's overall warming this century to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-Industrial Revolution temperatures. This ambitious warming target is certainly much lower than where civilization is currently headed — to an extreme 3 C (5.4 F) or so.

Yet 2 C, an average global temperature, would not actually be a low or small level of warming. Crucially, the amounts of warming where people live will be much greater, and the impacts in the ocean will be significant and long-lasting. These momentous effects are often overshadowed by a single, slight number.

"We really need to avoid the trap of emphasizing the global average," said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist and the director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research center.

Earth scientists continually emphasize that humanity isn't inescapably doomed by the coming, inevitable disruptions to the climate. It's just the opposite. Society still has an extraordinary amount of influence in the matter: The more warming, the worse the impacts. But Earth's inhabitants should be aware that a 2 C world has extreme effects. It's all the more reason to avoid any warming above 2 C.

Average global temperatures on Earth. Credit: NASA

Heating the land

Since the late 19th century, humanity has warmed Earth's total surface by 1.2 C, or a little over 2 F. This number is deceiving, because the phenomenally absorbent oceans soak up bounties of heat, which lowers the global average. But on land, significantly more warming has occurred, around 1.9 C, or some 3.5 F, Hausfather explained.

In other words, humanity will blow through the 2 C warming target in places people live and experience environmental extremes like severe heat, wildfires, drought, and beyond.

Climate change boosts the odds for record-breaking or more frequent extreme events. "It pushes the envelope of what is possible higher," emphasized Hausfather. "What really affects people is the extremes."

To illustrate, higher overall temperatures:

• amp the odds for record-breaking heat waves.

• make severe wildfires more frequent, because a warmer atmosphere dries out the vegetation and trees, which more easily burn. ("It takes just a little bit of warming to lead to a lot more burning.")

• melt some of Earth's largest ice sheets, like on Greenland. This raises sea levels, and will contribute to sea level rise for centuries.

• make droughts more severe, like the prolonged Southwestern megadrought. Historically, droughts have significantly decreased crop yields.

• increase the chances for more pummeling, extreme downpours and floods, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor. (This happens over oceans and land.)

A recent, potent example of boosted odds for extremes was the record-shattering heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and parts of Canada in June 2021. Temperatures hit 116 F in Portland, breaking the previous record by a whopping nine degrees.

"In a world without climate change, that would have been essentially impossible," said Hausfather, citing research that found the heat wave would have been a 1-in-150,000-year event.

But in a 2 C world, the researchers found such an event would occur "roughly every 5 to 10 years."

That's intense.

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The relentlessly warming oceans

If it weren't for the impressively absorbent oceans, Earth today would be significantly hotter. That's because much of the planet's unnatural, human-made heat is going into the water — not the air.

"Over 90 percent of heat from global warming is warming the oceans," said NASA oceanographer Josh Willis.

The ocean, then, is doing a great service for us, but at its own expense and the life there. Even if humanity stabilizes the climate at a relatively modest 2 C of warming, the oceans will still keep absorbing heat. This happens naturally, and will continue for around a millennium.

"The amount of warming will change the oceans for the next 50 generations or so," explained Willis.

Deep circulating currents, sometimes dubbed conveyor belts, cycle water from the ocean's surface to the cold depths. Generally, this takes 1,000 years, or more. The ocean's uptake of humanity's excess heat will only stop when the entire ocean reaches an equilibrium, or match, with the warmer surface.

The top 2,300 feet of the seas, where most marine life dwells, has already warmed some 1.5 F since the early 1900s. The consequences of a continually warming ocean are many:

• When the ocean soaks up heat, it expands. This "thermal expansion" raises sea levels, and since 2004 has contributed to one-third of sea level rise. (By the end of the century, climate scientists estimate sea levels will rise by another 1.5 to 2.5 feet, and still continue rising.) "Even if we stop warming at 1.5 [C] degrees, the oceans are still going to keep rising for 1,000 years, because they're still absorbing that heat," said Willis.

• Warmer oceans, particularly around the balmy equator, are already forcing animals to leave and find homes in cooler waters.

• Higher water temperatures are eating away at the ends of massive glaciers in Greenland, destabilizing them and further adding to sea level rise.

• A warming ocean is losing oxygen (warmer liquids hold less gas), with serious consequences for sea creatures. This includes less oxygen for animals like fish to breathe, and even causes blindness in some marine dwellers.

• Similar to heat waves on land, warmer oceans make marine heat waves — which cause major coral die-offs — more frequent and extreme. Marine biologists expect marine heat waves this century to have "significant" and "widespread" ecological impacts, like on the fish that depend on coral ecosystems.

• Warm ocean temperatures are jet fuel for hurricanes. Though hurricane development hinges on a number of complex weather factors, and the science of hurricane intensification is still unfolding, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects cyclone intensities to increase in a 2 C world.

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That's not all. The oceans also naturally absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which acidifies the water. Crucially, today's CO2 levels are the highest they've been in some 3 million years, meaning the oceans are now acidifying at a relatively fast pace. Biologists are researching what this portends for ocean life, but already know that more acidic waters can hinder shell-building in vital marine creatures like corals, oysters, and clams, exposing them to predators and harm.

"It's devastating to some ecosystems," said Willis.

When out at sea, Wills has marveled at the expansive ocean, particularly the Pacific, which makes up about one-third of Earth's surface.

"It's so big. It seems so immovable and permanent," said Willis. "But it's changing because of us."

UPDATE: Nov. 8, 2021, 9:38 a.m. EST: This article has been corrected to say the top 2,300 feet of the ocean has warmed 1.5 F since the early 1900s. The article originally said 1.5 C.

Related video: Watch how the sea will drown major cities if the planet continues to warm

Global warming only cares about one number: The amount of carbon amassing in the atmosphere.

And the amount of the most important greenhouse gas, CO2, is skyrocketing. It's a rate of increase that's unprecedented in the geologic record. What's more, heat-trapping atmospheric CO2 levels, now exceeding 414 parts per million, are the highest they've been in some 3 million years.

Crucially, even the worst pandemic in a century — with unparalleled disruptions to daily life and transportation — failed to meaningfully slow the continued rise of atmospheric CO2. Two new reports from researchers with the Global Carbon Project, an international science group that tracks greenhouse gases, show that after an unprecedented 2020 drop in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning, emissions have essentially rebounded to pre-pandemic levels as economies restarted their engines.

This reality underscores how transformative systemic change, like economies and transportation largely powered by renewable energy, are needed to radically slow Earth's relentless warming. This hasn't yet occurred.

"We haven't changed the world's infrastructure in any fundamental way," Rob Jackson, a professor of earth system science at Stanford University who worked on both reports, told Mashable. "We expected fossil carbon emissions to snap back when the world's economies recovered. That's what happened."

The new reports are published online in the journal Earth System Science Data and the science preprint site arXiv.

In 2020, CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning dropped 5.4 percent from 2019 levels to (a still colossal) 34.8 billion tons of CO2. "It was the biggest drop we've ever seen," Jackson said. But the latest estimates found that 2021 emissions (at some 36.4 billion tons of CO2) will nearly rebound to 2019 levels.

Importantly, the recent CO2 dip and subsequent rebound are really peanuts in the greater carbon picture. The pandemic-induced 2020 drop was never something to get too excited about. Society still emitted bounties of carbon into the atmosphere. "Being thrilled about 'only' 34.8 [billion tons] of CO2 in 2020 is like saying you've cut back on smoking to only 19 cigarettes per day instead of 20," said Kristopher Karnauskas, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder who had no involvement with the research.

The total amount of atmospheric carbon (currently at some 414 ppm) is like a bank account. Each sum of annual emissions is like a deposit. That's why, even with a five percent lower emissions deposit in 2020, Earth's total levels of atmospheric CO2 still went up.

The good news is there are large-scale, momentous solutions for cutting carbon, and they are known. It's not rocket science (or, more aptly, nuclear fusion). For example, in highly-populated coastal regions there's the expansion of reliable, off-shore wind farms that produce bounties of energy. But these are not easy, nor cheap, solutions to deploy. That's why global nations are now attending their 26th UN climate conference ("COP26"), and atmospheric CO2 is still going up.

"That trend is going to be really hard (but not impossible) to slow down," explained Karnauskas. "For the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to actually decline (not just slow down the rise), we will have to basically stop emitting carbon into the atmosphere."

CO2 emission trends, including the dip and rise in 2020-2021. Credit: GLOBAL CARBON PROJECT

Skyrocketing atmospheric CO2 concentrations compared to the last 800,000 years. Credit: NASA

Global leaders at COP26 are meeting to find ways to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, the likes of collapsed ice shelves, unprecedented droughts, and catastrophic storms. This means slashing emissions enough to stabilize Earth's climate at some 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius (2.7 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-Industrial Revolution temperatures. With current carbon-cutting commitments from world nations, the world is on track to warm by some 3 C (5.4 F), which would have extreme, disastrous environmental consequences.

While individual choices do of course matter some (eating less meat, using public transport, and avoiding extremely wasteful single-use plastics are healthy and societally responsible things to do), the COP26 summit is about pushing nations to make robust, society-wide changes that momentously limit emissions (like electrified transportation). As our energy paradigm exists today, even a homeless person has an unsustainably high fossil fuel footprint.

Amid the pre-vaccine pandemic in 2020, the global drop in emissions was largely caused by a drop in the burning of oil and coal. In the U.S., for example, motor gasoline consumption dropped by 14 percent. Now it's rising again, but in positive news, may stay somewhat lower as more workers continue working from home. Meanwhile, coal use fell in China and India during the pandemic, but has now sharply rebounded.

"While we saw big drops, we're now seeing big increases," noted Jackson.

The new reports include a dose of optimism amid the looming challenges ahead: proof that national economies can still advance with clean energy. The researchers found that 23 nations saw "significantly decreased" CO2 emissions while their economies grew in the decade before the pandemic hit. These countries include the likes of the UK, the U.S., Germany, and Japan.

Carbon dioxide is the most important greenhouse gas. Credit: NASA

Since humanity started burning fossil fuels for power (around 1850), the U.S. has emitted the most heat-trapping carbon of any nation, and still remains one of the four largest emitters today (together with China, India, and the European Union). One of the goals of COP26 is to get the big four to commit to sizable carbon reductions this year.

To eventually stabilize the climate (ideally at around 2 C or less), global carbon emissions must drop to zero, and stay there. That's because the CO2 already in the atmosphere (the "bank account") doesn't just rapidly vanish. It takes ages for the oceans and earth to soak up this potent greenhouse gas.

"The problem is it stays there for centuries," said Jackson.

Related video: Climate change is literally shifting Earth's axis

There's been a bunch of speeches and calls to action being thrown around at COP26 this year, but there's a few that stand out — including this one from BLACKPINK.

The K-pop superstars were named in February as goodwill ambassadors for the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference, currently taking place in Glasgow, Scotland. BLACKPINK were invited by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to be advocates for COP26, and they've been posting hugely popular videos to YouTube about the conference and calling for action on climate change, including one co-created with the British Embassy in Korea. They also spoke about it at the U.N.'s Climate Ambition Summit in 2020, and performed at YouTube's Dear Earth event.

In their latest video posted to their 69 million subscribers on Wednesday for COP26, Lisa, Jisoo, Rosé, and Jennie call on their fans (known as "Blinks") for advocating climate action in their area, but also call on world leaders at the conference to, you know, actually do something?

"As you, the world's leaders, gather to focus on our climate crisis, we hope you will make the decisions necessary to protect our planet now and forever," says Jisoo.

"Six years ago in Paris, you pledged to do just that and to limit global warming ideally to 1.5 degrees," says Rosé. "The recent U.N. Panel on Climate Change warned that this opportunity may be slipping from our grasp."

"We do not want to get there," says Jisoo. "The most important thing is that we all take responsibility, because it just won't be achieved without collective action."

Want more?

• Climate protesters go hard as COP26 commences

• Greta Thunberg asks for less 'blah, blah, blah' and more honesty at COP26

• The United Nations (in dinosaur form) is asking leaders to address climate change

Visualizations created by Climate Central show just how devastating climate change's unchecked impacts will be if drastic action is not taken.

Beachfront residents in Sydney, Australia are paying massive amounts of money to help construct a 7-meter high concrete wall that’s meant to act as the last point of defense for their homes.

The only problem? It might be doing more harm than good.

Bitcoin mining is as popular as ever, but it's a massive energy suck.

Now, a new, greener option may be in sight. A geothermal power plant near the Tecapa volcano in El Salvador is now being used to mine bitcoin.

The first-ever Earthshot Prize ceremony, run by The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, saw some of the world's leading public figures congregating to honour pioneers in climate activism and those spearheading environmental initiatives globally.

At the ceremony in London, five winners were awarded prizes of £1 million each. The prize is architected to "incentivise change" over the next ten years, with the intention of launching collective and optimistic activism.

The prize name and principles are derived from President John F. Kennedy's Moonshot initiative, which pushed the U.S. as a nation to reach a goal of landing human beings on the moon. The Earthshot Prize is organised around "earthshots" — five goals to bare in mind as the world fights to preserve the earth, including: protect and restore nature; clean air; build a waste-free world; revive our oceans; and fix the climate.

The Republic of Costa Rica was awarded for its restoration efforts, particularly for its scheme based on paying and working with local citizens to restore their natural forests and ecosystem. Since this programme launched, Costa Rica has reversed decades of deforestation, also leading to a boom in ecotourism and funnelling funds into the country.

New-Delhi based Takachar, a technology start-up, won for its infusion of inventive technology to put an end to the burning of agricultural waste. The technology attaches to tractors in rural and remote farms in India, converting the crop residues into products like fuel and fertiliser.

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Coral Vita, an initiative in the Bahamas, also received the prize for helping to restore the world's dying coral reefs, working with local communities and public officials to do so. Meanwhile, the city of Milan, Italy, was recognized for a city-wide initiative tackling hunger and reducing waste. Their aim is to cut waste in half by 2030, working with the likes of food banks, charities, NGOs, and universities.

Finally, Enapter, a company specialising in hydrogen generators, was awarded for its green hydrogen technology, an inventive electrolyser aiming to transform how the world powers homes and buildings.

“Our five inspirational winners show that everyone has a role to play in the global effort to repair our planet," said Prince Williams, per a press release sent to Mashable. "We need businesses, leaders, innovators, and communities to take action. And, ultimately, we need all of us to demand that the solutions get the support they need. Because the success of our winners is our collective, global Earthshot.”

The winners were chosen out of 15 finalists who were shortlisted out of a whopping 750 nominations. An expert panel made the final decision, with members including Sir David Attenborough, natural historian and broadcaster, Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo, Jack Ma, co-founder of Chinese tech company Alibaba, and singer Shakira.

Discussions are already sprouting between the foundation and the winners to determine how their prize money will be utilised. All 15 finalists will receive support from the The Earthshot Prize Global Alliance, a network of NGOs, philanthropies, and private sector businesses.

We love a good photo hunt, and we love it even more when such a hunt can actually be helpful for scientific research.

That's the premise of the "Walrus from Space" project. This partnership between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) turns to internet people like you and me for help spotting groups of walrus that pop up in satellite photos.

The project, revealed on Thursday, aims to take "a census of Atlantic walrus and walrus from the Laptev Sea" populations by having an army of citizen scientists pore over satellite imagery in search of the marine mammals. Spotting them in satellite imagery isn't the easiest task since most walrus aren't looking up and saying "cheese," but participating actually does serve a helpful purpose.

"Walrus are facing the reality of the climate crisis: their Arctic home is warming almost three times faster than the rest of the world and roughly 13% of summer sea ice is disappearing per decade," the WWF announcement reads.

"The data collected in this census of Atlantic and Laptev walrus will give scientists a clearer picture of how each population is doing—without disturbing the animals. The data will also help inform management decisions aimed at conservation efforts for the species."

Getting involved isn't difficult. First, you'll need to head over to the Walrus from Space project website and create an account. (Minimal personal info is required, mainly just an email and password.) Once that's done, you'll need to activate your account by signing in via email. That takes you to a training area where the website demonstrates how the very simple image viewing and editing tools work.

Each satellite image covers a square region measuring 200 meters (roughly 656 feet). Participants have the ability to zoom in several times as well as tweak the brightness, contrast, and sharpness of each image. There's a test after that where you're asked to spot any walrus (or lack thereof) in a series of 20 images.

It's a simple interface where you're just flagging each image by one of three criteria: "Walrus present" when you can see one or more of the marine mammals; "No walrus present" when there are none; and "Poor image" when it's just not possible to see, perhaps because of too much cloud cover or shade that even the image editing tools can't defeat.

There's also a help panel that you can call up at anytime for tips if you've having trouble differentiating walrus from other features of the environment. The panel also answers some basic question, including an explanation of just how helpful it is to have an army of citizen scientists helping with a project like this.

The first phase of the project involves whittling down the mountain of images — roughly 600,000 annually — to only include those where walrus appear. Once that's done, the project will move to "phrase 2," when the number of walrus in each image will actually get counted. It sounds like this will be an ongoing process, with the two phases overlapping as more images are collected each year.

This seems like the kind of internet activity that's great for kids and families especially. Poring over satellite imagery in search of walrus can be a fun game that, alongside the necessary context, could help expose younger minds to the importance of science and scientific investigation as a team effort.

Whether it's saving the walrus or anything else, humanity's ongoing battle to stem off the worst impacts of climate change is going to have to be a team effort.

Related video: Coral reefs in Hong Kong are dying. These 3D printed tiles could bring them back to life.

The oldest, thickest, and toughest Arctic sea ice is weakening.

Arctic sea ice has starkly declined over the last 40 years, though polar scientists believed a region dubbed the "Last Ice Area" was largely resistant to melting as the planet warmed. Yet new research published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters shows a hole nearly the size of Rhode Island opened up there in 2020, meaning even places with robust ice some 15-feet thick (or more) is increasingly susceptible in today's warming climate.

"The scary thing is this area might not be as resilient as we think it is," Arctic scientist Kent Moore told Mashable. Moore is a professor of physics at the University of Toronto Mississauga who led the research.

The Last Ice Area extends from northern Greenland westward through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (the islands above Canada's mainland). The ice crunches together between the islands, growing particularly thick and robust. Even when nearly all Arctic ice eventually melts each summer, perhaps sometime around mid-century as Earth continually warms, ice in the Last Ice Area (and the unique life it supports) may still remain. But how much ice might remain is now a prominent question.

"This area is transitioning to thinner ice," said Moore.

The NASA satellite images below show the especially large 1,160-square mile hole, called a "polynya," that opened up in the Arctic sea ice above Canada’s Ellesmere Island in May 2020. The thinning sea ice was no match for a powerful storm.

"The thinner ice can more easily be moved around or broken apart by strong storms, high winds, and large waves," said Zachary Labe, an Arctic researcher at Colorado State University who had no role in the research. "Arctic sea ice is becoming thinner around the entire Arctic Ocean and during every month of the year."

"This is just one indicator of how human-caused climate change is dramatically transforming the Arctic with a shift from older and thicker ice to younger and thinner ice," Labe added.

In 2021, older, multiyear ice nearly dropped to a record low.

Scientists observed a large polynya (right) north of Ellesmere Island in May of 2020, along with smaller holes (left). Credit: NASA EOSDIS Worldview

The large May 2020 polynya was the first time polar researchers watched such a big hole opening up in the Last Ice Area. The study's leader, Moore, looked back at older satellite footage and spotted only two other (previously unnoticed) instances of polynyas forming there, in 2004 and 1988. During the 2004 event, which scientists have more data about, the winds were even stronger than in 2020, but the hole was smaller.

"The difference now is that the ice is thinner overall," said Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center who had no role in the research.

The big Rhode Island-sized polynya suggests as Earth warms more big holes could open up in the Last Ice Area in the coming years, decades, and beyond, explained both Meier and the study's author, Moore.

In the greater Arctic, diminished and thinning sea ice has major implications:

• Sea ice provides necessary habitat for unique Arctic life. "If we lose the ice, we lose all the ice-dependent ecosystems," emphasized Moore. This includes many walruses, polar bears, bird species, fish species, and beyond. In the case of polar bears, the loss of ice extends the period of time these marine mammals must fast as they wait for their feeding grounds to freeze up each winter. As ice continues to dwindle, biologists expect many polar bear populations to die out this century.

• Less sea ice means an increasingly warmer Arctic, as open water soaks up more sunlight (sea ice reflects about 80 percent of sunlight back into space). In part due to diminished sea ice, the Arctic is warming about three times faster than the rest of the globe, and this warming makes wildfires more extreme during the summer, particularly in Siberia and the Arctic Circle. In 2019 and 2020, Arctic scientists observed unprecedented burning in the Arctic, as persistent, record-breaking heat settled over the region. This could be the start of a new Arctic fire regime.

• Permafrost, ground that typically stays frozen, is thawing. Arctic infrastructure like roads, buildings, and oil tanks, is beginning to fail.

• Although it's still a hot area of atmospheric research with no clear consensus, there's some evidence a heating Arctic affects global weather patterns, creating stagnant weather events like longer heat waves in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. 

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Both the Arctic, and the greater world, are changing in profound ways. Even the Last Ice Area isn't immune.

"The planet is changing, and it's changing more rapidly than we thought," Moore said.