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Polar bear DNA changing in response to climate change

A new study has found that polar bear DNA might be evolving to help these creatures adapt to the stresses of our changing climate. The post Polar bear DNA changing in response to climate change first appeared on EarthSky.

According to new research, polar bear DNA might be changing to help these creatures adapt to a changing climate. Image via Hans-Jurgen Mager/ Unsplash. EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar is available now. Get yours today! Makes a great gift. By Alice Godden, University of East Anglia. Edits by EarthSky. The Arctic Ocean current is at its warmest in the last 125,000 years, and temperatures continue to rise. Due to these warming temperatures, more than 2/3 of polar bears are expected to be extinct by 2050. Total extinction is predicted by the end of this century. But in our new study, my colleagues and I found that the changing climate has been driving changes in polar bear DNA, potentially allowing them to more readily adapt to warmer habitats. Provided these polar bears can source enough food and breeding partners, this suggests they may potentially survive these new challenging climates. Polar bear DNA is changing We discovered a strong link between rising temperatures in southeast Greenland and changes in the polar bear genome, which is the entire set of DNA found in an organism. DNA is the instruction book inside every cell, guiding how an organism grows and develops. In processes called transcription and translation, DNA is copied to generate RNA. These are messenger molecules that transmit genetic information. This can lead to the production of proteins, and copies of transposons, also known as “jumping genes.” These are mobile pieces of the genome that can move around and influence how other genes work. Different regions, different genomes Our research revealed big differences in the temperatures in the northeast of Greenland compared with the southeast. We used publicly available polar bear genetic data from a research group at the University of Washington, U.S., to support our study. This dataset was generated from blood samples collected from polar bears in both northern and south-eastern Greenland. Our work built on a Washington University study which discovered that this southeastern population of Greenland polar bears was genetically different to the north-eastern population. Southeastern bears had migrated from the north and became isolated and separate approximately 200 years ago, it found. Researchers from Washington had extracted RNA – the genetic messenger molecules – from polar bear blood samples and sequenced it. We used this sequencing to look at RNA expression – essentially showing which genes are active – in relation to the climate. This gave us a detailed picture of gene activity, including the behavior of the “jumping genes,” or transposons. Temperatures in Greenland have been closely monitored and recorded by the Danish Meteorological Institute. So we linked this climate data with the RNA data to explore how environmental changes may be influencing polar bear biology. Polar bears face challenging conditions thanks to climate change. But they might be responding to this challenge at a genetic level. Image via Dick Val Beck/ Polar Bears International. Impacts of temperature change We found that temperatures in the southeast were significantly warmer and fluctuated more than in the northeast. This creates habitat changes and challenges for the polar bears living in these regions. In the southeast of Greenland, the edge of the ice sheet – which spans 80% of Greenland – is rapidly receding. That means vast ice and habitat loss. The loss of ice is a substantial problem for the polar bears. That’s because it reduces the availability of hunting platforms to catch seals, leading to isolation and food scarcity. EarthSky’s Will Triggs spoke to Alysa McCall of Polar Bears International on Arctic Sea Ice day – July 15, 2025 – to hear about how the decline in arctic sea ice is affecting polar bears and beluga whales. How climate is changing polar bear DNA Over time, it’s not unusual for an organism’s DNA sequence to slowly change and evolve. But environmental stress, such as a warmer climate, can accelerate this process. Transposons are like genetic puzzle pieces that can rearrange themselves, sometimes helping animals adapt to new environments. They come in many different families and have slightly different behaviors, but in essence are all mobile fragments that can reinsert randomly anywhere in the genome. Approximately 38.1% of the polar bear genome is made up of transposons. For humans that figure is 45%, and plant genomes can be over 70% transposons. There are small protective molecules called piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) that can silence the activity of transposons. But when an environmental stress is too strong, these protective piRNAs cannot keep up with the invasive actions of transposons. We found that the warmer southeast climate led to a mass mobilization of these transposons across the polar bear genome, changing its sequence. We also found that these transposon sequences appeared younger and more abundant in the southeastern bears. And over 1,500 of these sequences were upregulated, meaning gene activity was increased. That points to recent genetic changes that may help bears adapt to rising temperatures. What exactly is changing in polar bear DNA? Some of these elements overlap with genes linked to stress responses and metabolism, hinting at a possible role in coping with climate change. By studying these jumping genes, we uncovered how the polar bear genome adapts and responds in the shorter term to environmental stress and warmer climates. Our research found that some genes linked to heat stress, aging and metabolism are behaving differently in the southeast population of polar bears. This suggests they might be adjusting to their warmer conditions. Additionally, we found active jumping genes in parts of the genome that are involved in areas tied to fat processing, which is important when food is scarce. Considering that northern populations eat mainly fatty seals, this could mean that polar bears in the southeast are slowly adapting to eating the rougher plant-based diets that can be found in the warmer regions. Overall, climate change is reshaping polar bear habitats, leading to genetic changes. Bears of southeastern Greenland are evolving to survive these new terrains and diets. Future research could include other polar bear populations living in challenging climates. Understanding these genetic changes helps researchers see how polar bears might survive in a warming world, and which populations are most at risk. Alice Godden, Senior Research Associate, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Bottom line: A new study has found that polar bear DNA might be evolving to help these creatures adapt to our changing climate. Read more: Polar bears have unique ice-repelling furThe post Polar bear DNA changing in response to climate change first appeared on EarthSky.

Climate
Animals
Food

In Alaska’s Warming Arctic, Photos Show an Indigenous Elder Passing Down Hunting Traditions

An Inupiaq elder teaches his great-grandson to hunt in rapidly warming Northwest Alaska where thinning ice, shifting caribou migrations and severe storms are reshaping life

KOTZEBUE, Alaska (AP) — The low autumn light turned the tundra gold as James Schaeffer, 7, and his cousin Charles Gallahorn, 10, raced down a dirt path by the cemetery on the edge of town. Permafrost thaw had buckled the ground, tilting wooden cross grave markers sideways. The boys took turns smashing slabs of ice that had formed in puddles across the warped road.Their great-grandfather, Roswell Schaeffer, 78, trailed behind. What was a playground to the kids was, for Schaeffer – an Inupiaq elder and prolific hunter – a reminder of what warming temperatures had undone: the stable ice he once hunted seals on, the permafrost cellars that kept food frozen all summer, the salmon runs and caribou migrations that once defined the seasons.Now another pressure loomed. A 211-mile mining road that would cut through caribou and salmon habitat was approved by the Trump administration this fall, though the project still faces lawsuits and opposition from environmental and native groups. Schaeffer and other critics worry it could open the region to outside hunters and further devastate already declining herds. “If we lose our caribou – both from climate change and overhunting – we’ll never be the same,” he said. “We’re going to lose our culture totally.”Still, Schaeffer insists on taking the next generation out on the land, even when the animals don’t come. It was late September and he and James would normally have been at their camp hunting caribou. But the herd has been migrating later each year and still hadn’t arrived – a pattern scientists link to climate change, mostly caused by the burning of oil, gas and coal. So instead of caribou, they scanned the tundra for swans, ptarmigan and ducks.Caribou antlers are stacked outside Schaeffer's home. Traditional seal hooks and whale harpoons hang in his hunting shed. Inside, a photograph of him with a hunted beluga is mounted on the wall beside the head of a dall sheep and a traditional mask his daughter Aakatchaq made from caribou hide and lynx fur.He got his first caribou at 14 and began taking his own children out at 7. James made his first caribou kill this past spring with a .22 rifle. He teaches James what his father taught him: that power comes from giving food and a hunter’s responsibility is to feed the elders.“When you’re raised an Inupiaq, your whole being is to make sure the elders have food,” he said.But even as he passes down those lessons, Schaeffer worries there won’t be enough to sustain the next generation – or to sustain him. “The reason I’ve been a successful hunter is the firm belief that, when I become old, people will feed me,” he said. “My great-grandson and my grandson are my future for food.” That future feels tenuous These days, they’re eating less hunted food and relying more on farmed chicken and processed goods from the store. The caribou are fewer, the salmon scarcer, the storms more severe. Record rainfall battered Northwest Alaska this year, flooding Schaeffer’s backyard twice this fall alone. He worries about the toll on wildlife and whether his grandchildren will be able to live in Kotzebue as the changes accelerate.“It’s kind of scary to think about what’s going to happen,” he said.That afternoon, James ducked into the bed of Schaeffer’s truck and aimed into the water. He shot two ducks. Schaeffer helped him into waders – waterproof overalls – so they could collect them and bring them home for dinner, but the tide was too high. They had to turn back without collecting the ducks. The changes weigh on others, too. Schaeffer’s friend, writer and commercial fisherman Seth Kantner grew up along the Kobuk River, where caribou once reliably crossed by the hundreds of thousands. “I can hardly stand how lonely it feels without all the caribou that used to be here,” he said. “This road is the largest threat. But right beside it is climate change.”The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environmentCopyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – December 2025

Animals
Climate
Culture

Ignore the Influencers: Simple Showers Are Still Best

By Carole Tanzer Miller HealthDay ReporterSATURDAY, Dec. 13, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Listen to the influencers, skin-care specialists say, and your...

By Carole Tanzer Miller HealthDay ReporterSATURDAY, Dec. 13, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Listen to the influencers, skin-care specialists say, and your daily shower could do more harm than good."Your skin is a barrier," said Dr. Nicole Negbenebor, a dermatologic surgeon at University of Iowa Health Care, told The Associated Press. "So you want to treat it right, and then sometimes there can be too much of a good thing."If you’re double-cleansing, exfoliating, piling on scented body rubs and shower oils and spending a lot of time in the water, you’re probably going overboard, she and other skin-care experts agree.A daily shower with lukewarm water and hypoallergenic cleanser — preferably one that’s fragrance-free, and a slather of lotion or oil afterward are all you need, they say.Here’s a guide from dermatologists to sudsing up without getting carried away:Pay attention to time and temperature. Staying in the shower too long or cranking the temperature up too high can strip away natural oils your skin needs. The upshot: You’ll be dry and irritated.Pick the right soap. Choose one, dermatologists suggest, for sensitive skin and avoid antibacterial soaps, which can cause dryness. (Antibacterial soaps can, however, be beneficial for folks with hidradenitis suppurativa, an autoimmune condition that causes abscesses and boils on the skin, they point out.)Despite the influencers, double-cleansing isn’t necessary. No need, doctors say, to use oil-based cleansers to break down makeup and excess oil and then a water-based cleanser to remove any residue. And, they add, you sure don’t need to do that to your whole body."People overuse soap all the time," Dr. Olga Bunimovich, an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Pittsburgh, told The AP. "You should not be soaping up all of your skin period." Instead, she advised, use soap to wash skin folds and your privates.Oil up. Once you’re out of the shower but still damp, an oil will lock in moisture that hydrates the skin, Negbenebor said. Just remember: Oil itself is a sealant, not a moisturizer.Don’t go overboard with exfoliating. Using a body scrub or loofah to remove dead cells is good for the skin, but not every day, especially if you have dry skin, acne or eczema. Using products that contain lactic or glycolic acid is a gentler way to exfoliate — but not all the time.While you’re being kind to your skin, think about the environment, too. Nearly 17% of U.S. indoor water use is in the shower, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Shorter showers are good for the earth — and a lukewarm one that lasts long enough to clean your body should be sufficient most of the time.The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has more about showering.SOURCE: The Associated Press, July 10, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Health
Water

Some big water agencies in farming areas get water for free. Critics say that needs to end

The federal government is providing water to some large agricultural districts for free. In a new study, researchers urge the Trump administration to start charging more for water.

The water that flows down irrigation canals to some of the West’s biggest expanses of farmland comes courtesy of the federal government for a very low price — even, in some cases, for free.In a new study, researchers analyzed wholesale prices charged by the federal government in California, Arizona and Nevada, and found that large agricultural water agencies pay only a fraction of what cities pay, if anything at all. They said these “dirt-cheap” prices cost taxpayers, add to the strains on scarce water, and discourage conservation — even as the Colorado River’s depleted reservoirs continue to decline.“Federal taxpayers have been subsidizing effectively free water for a very, very long time,” said Noah Garrison, a researcher at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “We can’t address the growing water scarcity in the West while we continue to give that water away for free or close to it.”The report, released this week by UCLA and the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, examines water that local agencies get from the Colorado River as well as rivers in California’s Central Valley, and concludes that the federal government delivers them water at much lower prices than state water systems or other suppliers.The researchers recommend the Trump administration start charging a “water reliability and security surcharge” on all Colorado River water as well as water from the canals of the Central Valley Project in California. That would encourage agencies and growers to conserve, they said, while generating hundreds of millions of dollars to repair aging and damaged canals and pay for projects such as new water recycling plants.“The need for the price of water to reflect its scarcity is urgent in light of the growing Colorado River Basin crisis,” the researchers wrote. The study analyzed only wholesale prices paid by water agencies, not the prices paid by individual farmers or city residents. It found that agencies serving farming areas pay about $30 per acre-foot of water on average, whereas city water utilities pay $512 per acre-foot. In California, Arizona and Nevada, the federal government supplies more than 7 million acre-feet of water, about 14 times the total water usage of Los Angeles, for less than $1 per acre-foot. And more than half of that — nearly one-fourth of all the water the researchers analyzed — is delivered for free by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to five water agencies in farming areas: the Imperial Irrigation District, Palo Verde Irrigation District and Coachella Valley Water District, as well as the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District in Nevada and the Unit B Irrigation and Drainage District in Arizona. Along the Colorado River, about three-fourths of the water is used for agriculture.Farmers in California’s Imperial Valley receive the largest share of Colorado River water, growing hay for cattle, lettuce, spinach, broccoli and other crops on more than 450,000 acres of irrigated lands. The Imperial Irrigation District charges farmers the same rate for water that it has for years: $20 per acre-foot. Tina Shields, IID’s water department manager, said the district opposes any surcharge on water. Comparing agricultural and urban water costs, as the researchers did, she said, “is like comparing a grape to a watermelon,” given major differences in how water is distributed and treated.Shields pointed out that IID and local farmers are already conserving, and this year the savings will equal about 23% of the district’s total water allotment. “Imperial Valley growers provide the nation with a safe, reliable food supply on the thinnest of margins for many growers,” she said in an email.She acknowledged IID does not pay any fee to the government for water, but said it does pay for operating, maintaining and repairing both federal water infrastructure and the district’s own system. “I see no correlation between the cost of Colorado River water and shortages, and disagree with these inflammatory statements,” Shields said, adding that there “seems to be an intent to drive a wedge between agricultural and urban water users at a time when collaborative partnerships are more critical than ever.”The Colorado River provides water for seven states, 30 Native tribes and northern Mexico, but it’s in decline. Its reservoirs have fallen during a quarter-century of severe drought intensified by climate change. Its two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are now less than one-third full.Negotiations among the seven states on how to deal with shortages have deadlocked.Mark Gold, a co-author, said the government’s current water prices are so low that they don’t cover the costs of operating, maintaining and repairing aging aqueducts and other infrastructure. Even an increase to $50 per acre-foot of water, he said, would help modernize water systems and incentivize conservation. A spokesperson for the U.S. Interior Department, which oversees the Bureau of Reclamation, declined to comment on the proposal.The Colorado River was originally divided among the states under a 1922 agreement that overpromised what the river could provide. That century-old pact and the ingrained system of water rights, combined with water that costs next to nothing, Gold said, lead to “this slow-motion train wreck that is the Colorado right now.” Research has shown that the last 25 years were likely the driest quarter-century in the American West in at least 1,200 years, and that global warming is contributing to this megadrought.The Colorado River’s flow has decreased about 20% so far this century, and scientists have found that roughly half the decline is due to rising temperatures, driven largely by fossil fuels.In a separate report this month, scientists Jonathan Overpeck and Brad Udall said the latest science suggests that climate change will probably “exert a stronger influence, and this will mean a higher likelihood of continued lower precipitation in the headwaters of the Colorado River into the future.” Experts have urged the Trump administration to impose substantial water cuts throughout the Colorado River Basin, saying permanent reductions are necessary. Kathryn Sorensen and Sarah Porter, researchers at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, have suggested the federal government set up a voluntary program to buy and retire water-intensive farmlands, or to pay landowners who “agree to permanent restrictions on water use.”Over the last few years, California and other states have negotiated short-term deals and as part of that, some farmers in California and Arizona are temporarily leaving hay fields parched and fallow in exchange for federal payments.The UCLA researchers criticized these deals, saying water agencies “obtain water from the federal government at low or no cost, and the government then buys that water back from the districts at enormous cost to taxpayers.”Isabel Friedman, a coauthor and NRDC researcher, said adopting a surcharge would be a powerful conservation tool. “We need a long-term strategy that recognizes water as a limited resource and prices it as such,” she wrote in an article about the proposal.

Water
Government
Climate

Park Service orders changes to staff ratings, a move experts call illegal

Lower performance ratings could be used as a factor in layoff decisions and will demoralize staff, advocates say.

A top National Park Service official has instructed park superintendents to limit the number of staff who get top marks in performance reviews, according to three people familiar with the matter, a move that experts say violates federal code and could make it easier to lay off staff.Parks leadership generally evaluate individual employees annually on a five-point scale, with a three rating given to those who are successful in achieving their goals, with those exceeding expectations receiving a four and outstanding employees earning a five.Frank Lands, the deputy director of operations for the National Park System, told dozens of park superintendents on a conference call Thursday that “the preponderance of ratings should be 3s,” according to the people familiar, who were not authorized to comment publicly about the internal call.Lands said that roughly one to five percent of people should receive an outstanding rating and confirmed several times that about 80 percent should receive 3s, the people familiar said.Follow Climate & environmentThe Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, said in a statement Friday that “there is no percentage cap” on certain performance ratings.“We are working to normalize ratings across the agency,” the statement said. “The goal of this effort is to ensure fair, consistent performance evaluations across all of our parks and programs.”Though many employers in corporate American often instruct managers to classify a majority of employee reviews in the middle tier, the Parks Service has commonly given higher ratings to a greater proportion of employees.Performance ratings are also taken into account when determining which employees are laid off first if the agency were to go ahead with “reduction in force” layoffs, as many other departments have done this year.The order appears to violate the Code of Federal Regulations, said Tim Whitehouse, a lawyer and executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The code states that the government cannot require a “forced distribution” of ratings for federal employees.“Employees are supposed to be evaluated based upon their performance, not upon a predetermined rating that doesn’t reflect how they actually performed,” he said.The Trump administration has reduced the number of parks staff this year by about 4,000 people, or roughly a quarter, according to an analysis by the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group. Parks advocates say the administration is deliberately seeking to demoralize staff and failing to recognize the additional work they now have to do, given the exodus of employees through voluntary resignations and early retirements.Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) said the move would artificially depress employee ratings:“You can’t square that with the legal requirements of the current regulations about how performance reviews are supposed to work.”Some details of the directive were first reported by E&E News.Park superintendents on the conference call objected to the order. Some questioned the fairness to employees whose work merited a better rating at a time when many staff are working harder to make up for the thousands of vacancies.“I need leaders who lead in adversity. And if you can’t do that, just let me know. I’ll do my best to find somebody that can,” Lands said in response, the people familiar with the call said.One superintendent who was on the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation, said in an interview that Lands’ statement “was meant to be a threat.”The superintendent said they were faced with disobeying the order and potentially being fired or illegally changing employees’ evaluations.“If we change these ratings to meet the quota and violated federal law, are we subject to removal because we violated federal law and the oath we took to protect the Constitution?” the superintendent said.Myron Ebell, a board member of the American Lands Council, an advocacy group supporting the transfer of federal lands to states and counties, defended the administration’s move.“It’s exactly the same thing as grade inflation at universities. Think about it. Not everybody can be smarter than average. If everyone is doing great, that’s average,” he said.Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement that the policy could make it easier to lay off staff, after the administration already decimated the ranks of the parks service.“After the National Park Service was decimated by mass firings and pressured staff buyouts, park rangers have been working the equivalent of second, third, or even fourth jobs protecting parks,” Pierno said.“Guidance like this could very well be setting up their staff to be cannon fodder during the next round of mass firings. This would be an unconscionable move,” she added.

Climate
Conservation
Government

New York takes additional steps to address ‘forever chemicals’

The Department of Environmental Conservation issued new proposals to address PFAS in biosolids and wastewater.

The Department of Environmental Conservation issued new proposals to address PFAS in biosolids and wastewater.

Conservation
Waste
Water

Trump DEI crackdown expands to national park gift shops

The Trump administration’s efforts to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from the federal government is hitting gift shops at national parks. In a memo last month, acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron called for a review of the items available for purchase in park gift shops. The memo says that items should be...

The Trump administration’s efforts to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from the federal government is hitting gift shops at national parks. In a memo last month, acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron called for a review of the items available for purchase in park gift shops. The memo says that items should be reviewed for compliance with an order from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to cease activities related to DEI, accessibility or “environmental justice.” Like the order before it, the memo does not appear to define DEI.  Asked whether this means that any product related to people who are minorities would be impacted, a spokesperson for the Interior Department replied, “As you saw the memo, then you know that is not what it says.” Instead, said the spokesperson, Burgum’s order “directs federal agencies to ensure that government-affiliated retail spaces remain neutral and do not promote specific viewpoints.” “To comply with this order, the National Park Service is conducting a review of retail items to ensure our gift shops remain neutral spaces that serve all visitors,” added the spokesperson, who did not sign their name in the response. “The goal is to keep National Parks focused on their core mission: preserving natural and cultural resources for the benefit of all Americans.” The review’s deadline is next Friday. The memo does not appear to lay out specific criteria for the review. The memo was made public this week by the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy organization. “Banning history books from park stores and cracking down on park T-shirts and keychains is not what national park visitors want from their Park Service,” said Alan Spears, the group’s senior director for cultural resources, in a written statement.  “The National Parks Conservation Association opposes this latest move from the administration because we, like the majority of Americans, support telling the full American story at our parks. That means acknowledging hard truths about slavery, climate change, and other topics that challenge us as a nation,” he added. The memo comes as part of a broader Trump administration push to reshape the portrayal of history at national parks and beyond. Earlier this year, the administration directed National Park Service units to review all public-facing content for messaging that disparages Americans or that “emphasizes matters unrelated to the beauty, abundance, or grandeur” of natural features. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Government
Climate
Conservation

Making clean energy investments more successful

Tools for forecasting and modeling technological improvements and the impacts of policy decisions can result in more effective and impactful decision-making.

Governments and companies constantly face decisions about how to allocate finite amounts of money to clean energy technologies that can make a difference to the world’s climate, its economies, and to society as a whole. The process is inherently uncertain, but research has been shown to help predict which technologies will be most successful. Using data-driven bases for such decisions can have a significant impact on allowing more informed decisions that produce the desired results.The role of these predictive tools, and the areas where further research is needed, are addressed in a perspective article published Nov. 24 in Nature Energy, by professor Jessika Trancik of MIT’s Sociotechnical Systems Research Center and Institute of Data, Systems, and Society and 13 co-authors from institutions around the world.She and her co-authors span engineering and social science and share “a common interest in understanding how to best use data and models to inform decisions that influence how technology evolves,” Trancik says. They are interested in “analyzing many evolving technologies — rather than focusing on developing only one particular technology — to understand which ones can deliver.” Their paper is aimed at companies and governments, as well as researchers. “Increasingly, companies have as much agency as governments over these technology portfolio decisions,” she says, “although government policy can still do a lot because it can provide a sort of signal across the market.”The study looked at three stages of the process, starting with forecasting the actual technological changes that are likely to play important roles in coming years, then looking at how those changes could affect economic, social, and environmental conditions, and finally, how to apply these insights into the actual decision-making processes as they occur.Forecasting usually falls into two categories, either data-driven or expert-driven, or a combination of those. That provides an estimate of how technologies may be improving, as well as an estimate of the uncertainties in those predictions. Then in the next step, a variety of models are applied that are “very wide ranging,” Trancik says, “different models that cover energy systems, transportation systems, electricity, and also integrated assessment models that look at the impact of technology on the environment and on the economy.”And then, the third step is “finding structured ways to use the information from predictive models to interact with people that may be using that information to inform their decision-making process,” she says. “In all three of these steps, how you need to recognize the vast uncertainty and tease out the predictive aspects. How you deal with uncertainty is really important.”In the implementation of these decisions, “people may have different objectives, or they may have the same objective but different beliefs about how to get there. And so, part of the research is bringing in this quantitative analysis, these research results, into that process,” Trancik says. And a very important aspect of that third step, she adds, is “recognizing that it’s not just about presenting the model results and saying, ‘here you go, this is the right answer.’ Rather, you have to bring people into the process of designing the studies and interacting with the modeling results.”She adds that “the role of research is to provide information to, in this case, the decision-making processes. It’s not the role of the researchers to push for one outcome or another, in terms of balancing the trade-offs,” such as between economic, environmental, and social equity concerns. It’s about providing information, not just for the decision-makers themselves, but also for the public who may influence those decisions. “I do think it’s relevant for the public to think about this, and to think about the agency that actually they could have over how technology is evolving.”In the study, the team highlighted priorities for further research that needs to be done. Those priorities, Trancik says, include “streamlining and validating models, and also streamlining data collection,” because these days “we often have more data than we need, just tons of data,” and yet “there’s often a scarcity of data in certain key areas like technology performance and evolution. How technologies evolve is just so important in influencing our daily lives, yet it’s hard sometimes to access good representative data on what’s actually happening with this technology.” But she sees opportunities for concerted efforts to assemble large, comprehensive data on technology from publicly available sources.Trancik points out that many models are developed to represent some real-world process, and “it’s very important to test how well that model does against reality,” for example by using the model to “predict” some event whose outcome is already known and then “seeing how far off you are.” That’s easier to do with a more streamlined model, she says.“It’s tempting to develop a model that includes many, many parameters and lots of different detail. But often what you need to do is only include detail that’s relevant for the particular question you’re asking, and that allows you to make your model simpler.” Sometimes that means you can simplify the decision down to just solving an equation, and other times, “you need to simulate things, but you can still validate the model against real-world data that you have.”“The scale of energy and climate problems mean there is much more to do,” says Gregory Nemet, faculty chair in business and regulation at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was a co-author of the paper. He adds, “while we can’t accurately forecast individual technologies on their own, a variety of methods have been developed that in conjunction can enable decision-makers to make public dollars go much further, and enhance the likelihood that future investments create strong public benefits.”This work is perhaps particularly relevant now, Trancik says, in helping to address global challenges including climate change and meeting energy demand, which were in focus at the global climate conference COP 30 that just took place in Brazil. “I think with big societal challenges like climate change, always a key question is, ‘how do you make progress with limited time and limited financial resources?’” This research, she stresses, “is all about that. It’s about using data, using knowledge that’s out there, expertise that’s out there, drawing out the relevant parts of all of that, to allow people and society to be more deliberate and successful about how they’re making decisions about investing in technology.”As with other areas such as epidemiology, where the power of analytical forecasting may be more widely appreciated, she says, “in other areas of technology as well, there’s a lot we can do to anticipate where things are going, how technology is evolving at the global or at the national scale … There are these macro-level trends that you can steer in certain directions, that we actually have more agency over as a society than we might recognize.”The study included researchers in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Colorado, Maryland, Maine, California, Austria, Norway, Mexico, Finland, Italy, the U.K., and the Netherlands. 

Energy
Business
Government

Coalmine expansions would breach climate targets, NSW government warned in ‘game-changer’ report

Environmental advocates welcome Net Zero Commission’s report which found the fossil fuel was ‘not consistent’ with emissions reductions commitments Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe New South Wales government has been warned it can no longer approve coalmine developments after the state’s climate agency found new expansions would be inconsistent with its legislated emissions targets.In what climate advocates described as a significant turning point in campaigns against new fossil fuel programs, the NSW Net Zero Commission said coalmine expansions were “not consistent” with the state’s legal emissions reductions commitments of a 50% cut (compared with 2005 levels) by 2030, a 70% cut by 2035, and reaching net zero by 2050.Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Continue reading...

The New South Wales government has been warned it can no longer approve coalmine developments after the state’s climate agency found new expansions would be inconsistent with its legislated emissions targets.In what climate advocates described as a significant turning point in campaigns against new fossil fuel programs, the NSW Net Zero Commission said coalmine expansions were “not consistent” with the state’s legal emissions reductions commitments of a 50% cut (compared with 2005 levels) by 2030, a 70% cut by 2035, and reaching net zero by 2050.The commission’s Coal Mining Emissions Spotlight Report said the government should consider the climate impact – including from the “scope 3” emissions released into the atmosphere when most of the state’s coal is exported and burned overseas – in all coalmine planning decisions.Environmental lawyer Elaine Johnson said the report was a “game-changer” as it argued coalmining was the state’s biggest contribution to the climate crisis and that new coal proposals were inconsistent with the legislated targets.She said it also found demand for coal was declining – consistent with recent analyses by federal Treasury and the advisory firm Climate Resource – and the state government must support affected communities to transition to new industries.“What all this means is that it is no longer lawful to keep approving more coalmine expansions in NSW,” Johnson wrote on social media site LinkedIn. “Let’s hope the Department of Planning takes careful note when it’s looking at the next coalmine expansion proposal.”The Lock the Gate Alliance, a community organisation that campaigns against fossil fuel developments, said the report showed changes were required to the state’s planning framework to make authorities assess emissions and climate damage when considering mine applications.It said this should apply to 18 mine expansions that have been proposed but not yet approved, including two “mega-coalmine expansions” at the Hunter Valley Operations and Maules Creek mines. Eight coalmine expansions have been approved since the Minns Labor government was elected in 2023.Lock the Gate’s Nic Clyde said NSW already had 37 coalmines and “we can’t keep expanding them indefinitely”. He called for an immediate moratorium on approving coal expansions until the commission’s findings had been implemented.“This week, multiple NSW communities have been battling dangerous bushfires, which are becoming increasingly severe due to climate change fuelled by coalmining and burning. Our safety and our survival depends on how the NSW government responds to this report,” he said.Net zero emissions is a target that has been adopted by governments, companies and other organisations to eliminate their contribution to the climate crisis. It is sometimes called “carbon neutrality”.The climate crisis is caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere, where they trap heat. They have already caused a significant increase in average global temperatures above pre-industrial levels recorded since the mid-20th century. Countries and others that set net zero emissions targets are pledging to stop their role in worsening this by cutting their climate pollution and balancing out whatever emissions remain by sucking an equivalent amount of CO2 out of the atmosphere.This could happen through nature projects – tree planting, for example – or using carbon dioxide removal technology.CO2 removal from the atmosphere is the “net” part in net zero. Scientists say some emissions will be hard to stop and will need to be offset. But they also say net zero targets will be effective only if carbon removal is limited to offset “hard to abate” emissions. Fossil use will still need to be dramatically reduced.After signing the 2015 Paris agreement, the global community asked the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess what would be necessary to give the world a chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C.The IPCC found it would require deep cuts in global CO2 emissions: to about 45% below 2010 levels by 2030, and to net zero by about 2050.The Climate Action Tracker has found more than 145 countries have set or are considering setting net zero emissions targets. Photograph: Ashley Cooper pics/www.alamy.comThe alliance’s national coordinator, Carmel Flint, added: “It’s not just history that will judge the government harshly if they continue approving such projects following this report. Our courts are likely to as well.”The NSW Minerals Council criticised the commission’s report. Its chief executive, Stephen Galilee, said it was a “flawed and superficial analysis” that put thousands of coalmining jobs at risk. He said some coalmines would close in the years ahead but was “no reason” not to approve outstanding applications to extend the operating life of about 10 mines.Galilee said emissions from coal in NSW were falling faster than the average rate of emission reduction across the state and were “almost fully covered” by the federal government’s safeguard mechanism policy, which required mine owners to either make annual direct emissions cuts or buy offsets.He said the NSW government should “reflect on why it provides nearly $7m annually” for the commission to “campaign against thousands of NSW mining jobs”.But the state’s main environment organisation, the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, said the commission report showed coalmining was “incompatible with a safe climate future”.“The Net Zero Commission has shone a spotlight. Now the free ride for coalmine pollution has to end,” the council’s chief executive, Jacqui Mumford, said.The state climate change and energy minister, Penny Sharpe, said the commission was established to monitor, report and provide independent advice on how the state was meeting its legislated emissions targets, and the government would consider its advice “along with advice from other groups and agencies”.

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Government
Conservation

Nope, Billionaire Tom Steyer Is Not a Bellwether of Climate Politics

What should we make of billionaire Tom Steyer’s reinvention as a populist candidate for California governor, four years after garnering only 0.72 percent of the popular vote in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, despite obscene spending from his personal fortune? Is it evidence that he’s a hard man to discourage? (In that race, he dropped almost $24 million on South Carolina alone.) Is it evidence that billionaires get to do a lot of things the rest of us don’t? Or is it evidence that talking about climate change is for losers and Democrats need to abandon it?Politico seems to think it’s the third one: Steyer running a populist gubernatorial campaign means voters don’t care about global warming.“The billionaire environmental activist who built his political profile on climate change—and who wrote in his book last year that ‘climate is what matters most right now, and nothing else comes close’—didn’t mention the issue once in the video launching his campaign for California governor,” reporter Noah Baustin wrote recently. “That was no oversight.” Instead, “it reflects a political reality confronting Democrats ahead of the midterms, where onetime climate evangelists are running into an electorate more worried about the climbing cost of electricity bills and home insurance than a warming atmosphere.”It’s hard to know how to parse a sentence like this. The “climbing cost of electricity bills and home insurance” is, indisputably, a climate issue. Renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels, and home insurance is spiking because increasingly frequent and increasingly severe weather events—driven by climate change—are making large swaths of the country expensive or impossible to insure. The fact that voters are struggling to pay for utilities and insurance, therefore, is not evidence that they don’t care about climate change. Instead, it’s evidence that climate change is a kitchen table issue, and politicians are, disadvantageously, failing to embrace the obviously populist message that accompanies robust climate policy. This is a problem with Democratic messaging, not a problem with climate as a topic.The piece goes on: “Climate concern has fallen in the state over time. In 2018, when Gov. Gavin Newsom was running for office, polling found that 57 percent of likely California voters considered climate change a very serious threat to the economy and quality of life for the state’s future. Now, that figure is 50 percent.”This may sound persuasive to you. But in fact, it’s a highly selective reading of the PPIC survey data linked above. What the poll actually found is that the proportion of Californians calling climate change a “very serious” threat peaked at 57 percent in 2019, fell slightly in subsequent years, then fell precipitously by 11 points between July 2022 and July 2023, before rising similarly precipitously from July 2024 to July 2025. Why did it fall so quickly from 2022 to 2023? Sure, maybe people stopped caring about climate change. Or maybe instead, the month after the 2022 poll, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant climate policy in U.S. history, and people stopped being quite so worried. Why did concern then rise rapidly between July 2024 and July 2025? Well, between those two dates, Trump won the presidential election and proceeded, along with Republicans in Congress, to dismantle anything remotely resembling climate policy. The Inflation Reduction Act fell apart. I’m not saying this is the only way to read this data. But consider this: The percentage of respondents saying they were somewhat or very worried about members of their household being affected by natural disasters actually went up over the same period. The percentage saying air pollution was “a more serious health threat in lower-income areas” nearby went up. Those saying flooding, heat waves, and wildfires should be considered “a great deal” when siting new affordable housing rose a striking 12 percentage points from 2024 to 2025, and those “very concerned” about rising insurance costs “due to climate risks” rose 14 percentage points.This is not a portrait of an electorate that doesn’t care about climate change. It’s a portrait of an electorate that may actually be very ready to hear a politician convincingly embrace climate populism—championing affordability and better material conditions for working people, in part by protecting them from the predatory industries driving a cost-of-living crisis while poisoning people.This is part of a broader problem. Currently, there’s a big push from centrist Democratic institutions to argue that the party should abandon climate issues in order to win elections. The evidence for this is mixed, at best. As TNR’s Liza Featherstone recently pointed out, Democrats’ striking victories last month showed that candidates fusing climate policy with an energy affordability message did very well. Aaron Regunberg went into further detail on why talking about climate change is a smart strategy: “Right now,” he wrote, “neither party has a significant trust advantage on ‘electric utility bills’ (D+1) or ‘the cost of living’ (R+1). But Democrats do have major trust advantages on ‘climate change’ (D+14) and ‘renewable energy development’ (D+6). By articulating how their climate and clean energy agenda can address these bread-and-butter concerns, Democrats can leverage their advantage on climate to win voters’ trust on what will likely be the most significant issues in 2026 and 2028.”One of the troubles with climate change in political discourse is that some people’s understanding of environmental politics begins and ends with the spotted owl logging battles in the 1990s. This is the sort of attitude that drives the assumption that affordability policy and climate policy are not only distinct but actually opposed. But that’s wildly disconnected from present reality. Maybe Tom Steyer isn’t the guy to illustrate that! But his political fortunes, either way, don’t say much at all about climate messaging more broadly.Stat of the Week3x as many infant deathsA new study finds that babies of mothers “whose drinking water wells were downstream of PFAS releases” died at almost three times the rate in their first year of life as babies of mothers who did not live downstream of PFAS contamination. Read The Washington Post’s report on the study here.What I’m ReadingMore than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacentersAn open letter calls on Congress to pause all approvals of new data centers until regulation catches up, due to problems such as data centers’ voracious energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and water use. From The Guardian’s report:The push comes amid a growing revolt against moves by companies such as Meta, Google and Open AI to plow hundreds of billions of dollars into new datacenters, primarily to meet the huge computing demands of AI. At least 16 datacenter projects, worth a combined $64bn, have been blocked or delayed due to local opposition to rising electricity costs. The facilities’ need for huge amounts of water to cool down equipment has also proved controversial, particularly in drier areas where supplies are scarce.These seemingly parochial concerns have now multiplied to become a potent political force, helping propel Democrats to a series of emphatic recent electoral successes in governor elections in Virginia and New Jersey as well as a stunning upset win in a special public service commission poll in Georgia, with candidates campaigning on lowering power bill costs and curbing datacenters.Read Oliver Milman’s full report at The Guardian.This article first appeared in Life in a Warming World, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by deputy editor Heather Souvaine Horn. Sign up here.

What should we make of billionaire Tom Steyer’s reinvention as a populist candidate for California governor, four years after garnering only 0.72 percent of the popular vote in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, despite obscene spending from his personal fortune? Is it evidence that he’s a hard man to discourage? (In that race, he dropped almost $24 million on South Carolina alone.) Is it evidence that billionaires get to do a lot of things the rest of us don’t? Or is it evidence that talking about climate change is for losers and Democrats need to abandon it?Politico seems to think it’s the third one: Steyer running a populist gubernatorial campaign means voters don’t care about global warming.“The billionaire environmental activist who built his political profile on climate change—and who wrote in his book last year that ‘climate is what matters most right now, and nothing else comes close’—didn’t mention the issue once in the video launching his campaign for California governor,” reporter Noah Baustin wrote recently. “That was no oversight.” Instead, “it reflects a political reality confronting Democrats ahead of the midterms, where onetime climate evangelists are running into an electorate more worried about the climbing cost of electricity bills and home insurance than a warming atmosphere.”It’s hard to know how to parse a sentence like this. The “climbing cost of electricity bills and home insurance” is, indisputably, a climate issue. Renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels, and home insurance is spiking because increasingly frequent and increasingly severe weather events—driven by climate change—are making large swaths of the country expensive or impossible to insure. The fact that voters are struggling to pay for utilities and insurance, therefore, is not evidence that they don’t care about climate change. Instead, it’s evidence that climate change is a kitchen table issue, and politicians are, disadvantageously, failing to embrace the obviously populist message that accompanies robust climate policy. This is a problem with Democratic messaging, not a problem with climate as a topic.The piece goes on: “Climate concern has fallen in the state over time. In 2018, when Gov. Gavin Newsom was running for office, polling found that 57 percent of likely California voters considered climate change a very serious threat to the economy and quality of life for the state’s future. Now, that figure is 50 percent.”This may sound persuasive to you. But in fact, it’s a highly selective reading of the PPIC survey data linked above. What the poll actually found is that the proportion of Californians calling climate change a “very serious” threat peaked at 57 percent in 2019, fell slightly in subsequent years, then fell precipitously by 11 points between July 2022 and July 2023, before rising similarly precipitously from July 2024 to July 2025. Why did it fall so quickly from 2022 to 2023? Sure, maybe people stopped caring about climate change. Or maybe instead, the month after the 2022 poll, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant climate policy in U.S. history, and people stopped being quite so worried. Why did concern then rise rapidly between July 2024 and July 2025? Well, between those two dates, Trump won the presidential election and proceeded, along with Republicans in Congress, to dismantle anything remotely resembling climate policy. The Inflation Reduction Act fell apart. I’m not saying this is the only way to read this data. But consider this: The percentage of respondents saying they were somewhat or very worried about members of their household being affected by natural disasters actually went up over the same period. The percentage saying air pollution was “a more serious health threat in lower-income areas” nearby went up. Those saying flooding, heat waves, and wildfires should be considered “a great deal” when siting new affordable housing rose a striking 12 percentage points from 2024 to 2025, and those “very concerned” about rising insurance costs “due to climate risks” rose 14 percentage points.This is not a portrait of an electorate that doesn’t care about climate change. It’s a portrait of an electorate that may actually be very ready to hear a politician convincingly embrace climate populism—championing affordability and better material conditions for working people, in part by protecting them from the predatory industries driving a cost-of-living crisis while poisoning people.This is part of a broader problem. Currently, there’s a big push from centrist Democratic institutions to argue that the party should abandon climate issues in order to win elections. The evidence for this is mixed, at best. As TNR’s Liza Featherstone recently pointed out, Democrats’ striking victories last month showed that candidates fusing climate policy with an energy affordability message did very well. Aaron Regunberg went into further detail on why talking about climate change is a smart strategy: “Right now,” he wrote, “neither party has a significant trust advantage on ‘electric utility bills’ (D+1) or ‘the cost of living’ (R+1). But Democrats do have major trust advantages on ‘climate change’ (D+14) and ‘renewable energy development’ (D+6). By articulating how their climate and clean energy agenda can address these bread-and-butter concerns, Democrats can leverage their advantage on climate to win voters’ trust on what will likely be the most significant issues in 2026 and 2028.”One of the troubles with climate change in political discourse is that some people’s understanding of environmental politics begins and ends with the spotted owl logging battles in the 1990s. This is the sort of attitude that drives the assumption that affordability policy and climate policy are not only distinct but actually opposed. But that’s wildly disconnected from present reality. Maybe Tom Steyer isn’t the guy to illustrate that! But his political fortunes, either way, don’t say much at all about climate messaging more broadly.Stat of the Week3x as many infant deathsA new study finds that babies of mothers “whose drinking water wells were downstream of PFAS releases” died at almost three times the rate in their first year of life as babies of mothers who did not live downstream of PFAS contamination. Read The Washington Post’s report on the study here.What I’m ReadingMore than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacentersAn open letter calls on Congress to pause all approvals of new data centers until regulation catches up, due to problems such as data centers’ voracious energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and water use. From The Guardian’s report:The push comes amid a growing revolt against moves by companies such as Meta, Google and Open AI to plow hundreds of billions of dollars into new datacenters, primarily to meet the huge computing demands of AI. At least 16 datacenter projects, worth a combined $64bn, have been blocked or delayed due to local opposition to rising electricity costs. The facilities’ need for huge amounts of water to cool down equipment has also proved controversial, particularly in drier areas where supplies are scarce.These seemingly parochial concerns have now multiplied to become a potent political force, helping propel Democrats to a series of emphatic recent electoral successes in governor elections in Virginia and New Jersey as well as a stunning upset win in a special public service commission poll in Georgia, with candidates campaigning on lowering power bill costs and curbing datacenters.Read Oliver Milman’s full report at The Guardian.This article first appeared in Life in a Warming World, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by deputy editor Heather Souvaine Horn. Sign up here.

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