Short-term exposure to air pollution makes people less able to focus on routine tasks or interpret emotions, a new study by researchers from the Universities of Manchester and Birmingham has found.

The scientists discovered that people who were even briefly exposed to high levels of particulate matter (PM) could find it harder to avoid distractions and act in a manner that was socially acceptable, a press release from the University of Birmingham said.

“Our study provides compelling evidence that even short-term exposure to particulate matter can have immediate negative effects on brain functions essential for daily activities, such as doing the weekly supermarket shop,” said co-author of the study Dr. Thomas Faherty, a postdoctoral researcher with the University of Birmingham’s School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, in the press release.

The research team exposed participants to either clean air or high air pollution levels caused by candle smoke, testing their cognitive abilities both before exposure and four hours later.

The test measured selective attention, working memory, psychomotor speed, sustained attention and emotion recognition.

The findings revealed that air pollution negatively affected emotion recognition and selective attention, regardless of whether the subjects breathed normally or just through their mouths.

“They were worse at perceiving whether a face was fearful or happy, and that might have implications for how we behave with other people,” Faherty said, as The Guardian reported. “There are associative studies looking at short-term air pollution and incidents of things like violent crime, especially in U.S. cities.”

The study, “Acute particulate matter exposure diminishes executive cognitive functioning after four hours regardless of inhalation pathway,” was published in the journal Nature Communications.

“Recent evidence suggests that short-term exposure to particulate PM air pollution can temporarily impair several key cognitive functions, including selective attention, switch costs (which are relevant to multitasking), decision-making, processing speed, functional connectivity, and even global cognitive functioning,” the authors of the study wrote.

The findings suggested that inflammation triggered by pollution could be to blame for the deficits, but noted that working memory was not affected. This indicated that some human brain functions were more resilient to short-term PM exposure.

“Poor air quality undermines intellectual development and worker productivity, with significant societal and economic implications in a high-tech world reliant on cognitive excellence,” said study co-author Francis Pope, an environmental scientist and professor of atmospheric science at the University of Birmingham, in the press release. “Reduced productivity impacts economic growth, further highlighting the urgent need for stricter air quality regulations and public health measures to combat the harmful effects of pollution on brain health, particularly in highly polluted urban areas.”

Cognitive functioning involves a variety of mental processes used to complete everyday tasks. For example, selective attention assists with goal-directed behavior and decision-making, such as prioritizing shopping list items at the supermarket, while ignoring items not on the list and resisting impulse buys.

“Participants exposed to air pollution were not as good at avoiding the distracting information,” Faherty said, as reported by The Guardian. “So that means in daily life, you could get more distracted by things. Supermarket shopping is a good example… it might mean that you get more distracted by impulse buys when you’re walking along supermarket aisles because you’re not able to focus on your task goals.”

Working memory is a place to hold and manipulate information, which is essential for tasks that need simultaneous storage and processing — those that require multitasking, like juggling multiple conversations or planning a schedule.

Socio-emotional cognition involves the detection and interpretation of emotions both in oneself and other people, helping to guide socially acceptable behavior.

Though these are distinct cognitive skills, they work in tandem to allow us to successfully complete tasks at work and in other areas of life.

The study highlights the necessity of additional research to understand how air pollution impacts cognitive function, as well as to explore its long-term effects, particularly on vulnerable populations like older adults and children.

“This study shows the importance of understanding the impacts of air pollution on cognitive function and the need to study the influences of different sources of pollution on brain health in vulnerable older members of society,” said co-author Professor Gordon McFiggans, a professor of atmospheric science at University of Manchester, in the press release.

Air pollution is the biggest environmental risk factor for human health worldwide. The detrimental effects on respiratory and cardiovascular systems from exposure to poor air quality are well-known, with links to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative conditions.

“The study was done on a clinically healthy adult population, which means that they were of good health and had no clinical respiratory or neurological problems… certain other groups might be more vulnerable to effects,” Faherty said, as The Guardian reported.

The air pollutant PM2.5 is the most responsible for negative impacts on human health, having caused approximately 4.2 million deaths in 2015.

The new study was part of a broader project that will test impacts of different pollution sources, which researchers hope will inform public health and policy measures in the future.

“The larger project… looks at different sources of pollutants, which are more common. So like cooking emissions and wood burning and car exhaust and cleaning products, to kind of tease out whether we can kind of push policy in a certain direction,” Faherty said, as reported by The Guardian. “If we know that cleaning products are causing most of these issues that I’m describing, then we can kind of push on policy to fix the things that are wrong based on the source rather than what we can just measure in the air after the fact.”

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In a new analysis, acclaimed climate scientist Professor James Hansen and colleagues said that scientists had greatly underestimated the rate of global heating, and that the international target of two degrees Celsius is “dead.”

The analysis concluded that the combination of recent reductions in shipping pollution — which have the effect of blocking the sun — and increasing emissions from fossil fuels have been greater than previously thought, reported The Guardian.

“A shocking rise of warming has been exposed by, ironically, a reduction of pollutants, but we now have a new baseline and trajectory for where we are,” said Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, as The Guardian reported.

Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist – Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree #climatecrisis Story by me www.theguardian.com/environment/…

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— Damian Carrington (@dpcarrington.bsky.social) February 4, 2025 at 12:51 PM

The study, “Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?” was published in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development.

“Global warming caused by reduced ship aerosols will not go away as tropical climate moves into its cool La Niña phase. Therefore, we expect that global temperature will not fall much below +1.5°C level, instead oscillating near or above that level for the next few years,” Hansen and colleagues wrote in the study. “The largest practical effect on humans today is increase of the frequency and severity of climate extremes. More powerful tropical storms, tornadoes, and thunderstorms, and thus more extreme floods, are driven by high sea surface temperature and a warmer atmosphere that holds more water vapor. Higher global temperature also increases the intensity of heat waves and – at the times and places of dry weather – high temperature increases drought intensity.”

Independent experts said that, though the results of the study are on the high end of the range of mainstream climate science, they cannot be ruled out, reported The Guardian.

“It’s important to emphasise that both of these issues – [pollution cuts] and climate sensitivity – are areas of deep scientific uncertainty,” said Dr. Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist who did not participate in the study. “While Hansen et al are on the high end of available estimates, we cannot say with any confidence that they are wrong, rather that they just represent something closer to a worst-case outcome.”

If the estimates are correct, more extreme weather will happen sooner, with a bigger risk that the planet will surpass tipping points like the collapse of crucial Atlantic ocean currents.

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) defined a scenario which gives a 50% chance to keep warming under 2C – that scenario is now impossible,” Hansen said, as The Guardian reported. “The 2C target is dead, because the global energy use is rising, and it will continue to rise.”

Hansen formerly worked as a climate scientist for NASA. His testimony to a United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 1988 was an early warning to the public of the greenhouse gas effect causing climate change.

According to the new analysis, without changes the planet will likely warm by about two degrees Celsius by 2045.

“The basic problem is that the waste products of fossil fuels are still dumped in the air free of charge,” Hansen said, as reported by The Guardian.

Hansen and the research team estimated that freshwater flowing into the North Atlantic from polar ice melt would cause the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) to shut down within the next two to three decades, AFP reported.

The important ocean current brings warmth to parts of the planet while carrying nutrients needed to sustain marine life.

The authors of the study said the ceasing of AMOC would “lock in major problems including sea level rise of several meters — thus, we describe AMOC shutdown as the ‘point of no return.’”

The 2015 Paris Agreement established a target of keeping global heating from surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels over a period of decades. The threshold is critical, scientists say, to preventing AMOC and other major ocean circulation systems from breaking down, as well as stopping the thawing of boreal permafrost and the collapse of warm-water coral reefs.

The past two years have brought global heating above the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Warming of two degrees Celsius would bring even greater climate impacts, including irreversible loss to the planet’s ice sheets, sea ice, mountain glaciers and permafrost.

“Failure to be realistic in climate assessment and failure to call out the fecklessness of current policies to stem global warming is not helpful to young people,” the authors of the study wrote, as reported by AFP.

“Special interests have assumed far too much power in our political systems. In democratic countries the power should be with the voter, not with the people who have the money. That requires fixing some of our democracies, including the U.S.,” Hansen said, as The Guardian reported.

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Congressional Republicans, along with the Trump administration, are trying to repeal Biden-era rules that require all lead pipes in the United States to be replaced, while lowering the lead limit in drinking water.

Repeal of the revised public health standard has been a top priority of Republicans in Congress, according to a press release from Food & Water Watch.

A joint resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives earlier this month that would repeal Biden’s water safety rule, which requires all lead water pipes to be replaced in most communities throughout the U.S. within a decade.

“Given all we know about the grave health impacts associated with lead exposure, especially for children, it’s truly unconscionable that Republicans would seek to revoke the common-sense actions taken by the Biden administration to finally tackle the pervasive threat of lead in water throughout the country,” said Mary Grant, Food & Water Watch water program director, in the press release. “Anyone who votes to repeal these critical lead contamination rules will have that vote hanging over them for years to come.”

Grand Old (Lead) Poisoning

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— Food & Water Watch (@foodandwater.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 3:30 PM

The Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) not only require the replacement of lead pipes, but stricter testing of drinking water, as well as a lower threshold for communities to be able to take action against being exposed to lead through their water — 10 parts per billion instead of 15.

Republicans are attempting to do away with the LCRI with the Congressional Review Act (CRA) — a tool that can be used by Congress to overturn some federal agency actions.

The CRA gives incoming administrations and Congress 60 legislative days in order to review last-minute rules implemented by the previous administration. Republicans have already introduced resolutions for each of the rules — the first step in the CRA repeal process, reported The Guardian.

The corporate water industry has brought a lawsuit against the LCRI, but New York is leading a number of states that are advancing a petition in defense of the rules.

If Republicans successfully repeal the LCRI, tens of millions of U.S. residents would continue to be exposed to lead-contaminated drinking water.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found that the neurotoxin can cause developmental disorders in children, lower their IQ scores and damage their blood cells and nervous systems. Lead has also been found to increase blood pressure in adults.

One million children were tested in the U.S. in 2021, with half of them showing detectable lead levels in their blood. Exposure to lead is more likely for children of color and poorer children, reinforcing historical inequities.

Erik Olson, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Action Fund’s senior adviser, said the Trump administration is “saying let them drink lead,” The Guardian reported.

“It’s a bad look to support lead poisoning children,” Olson added. “Not the best foot forward for the new Congress.”

The primary source of lead contamination of drinking water is lead service lines, Food & Water Watch said. It has been estimated by the EPA that nine million homes still receive their drinking water through these hazardous pipes.

There are no safe lead levels in drinking water.

The LCRI replaced an earlier rule issued by the first Trump administration slowing the pace of replacing lead service lines.

Environmentalists have expressed alarm about Republican efforts to repeal the LCRI, as it would effectively stop the government from requiring the replacement of lead lines or lowering lead limits in the future.

Repealing the LCRI is filibuster-proof, reported The Guardian.

An NRDC survey found that  90 percent of people polled approved of lead replacement rules. Lead pipes are an issue across the country, including in Republican districts and states.

“I would hope even some red states want lead out of their drinking water but who knows?” said Betsy Southerland, a former water office manager with the EPA, as The Guardian reported.

Sutherland called the Republican attempt to undo the LCRI and permanently stop the country from ever requiring the replacement of lead pipes “mind-boggling.”

Congress could vote on whether to repeal the historic Lead Out of Water Rule – which would protect communities and children from toxic lead water pipes – in the next few weeks! Stand up for safe and clean water by taking action here: fwwat.ch/3WwMrv5

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— Food & Water Watch (@foodandwater.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 4:03 PM

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The Western monarch butterfly population in California has plummeted to a near-record low of less than 10,000 this winter.

The 28th annual Western Monarch Count — conducted by hundreds of partners and volunteers — reported a peak monarch population of 9,119 overwintering butterflies. It was the second lowest on record since the count started in 1997, according to a press release from nonprofit Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

The low number coincides with the proposed protection of monarchs under the U.S. Endangered Species Act by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

“The population’s size is extremely concerning,” said Emma Pelton, a Xerces Society endangered species biologist, in the press release. “We know small populations are especially vulnerable to environmental fluctuations, and we think that’s what happened this year. The record high late summer temperatures and drought in the West likely contributed to the significant drop-off we saw in the third and fourth breeding generations.”

The count represents a steep decline from the more than 200,000 overwintering Western monarchs observed during each of the past three years. The all-time low was fewer than 2,000 recorded in 2020.

Since the 1980s, the Western population of monarchs has declined by over 95 percent, reported the Los Angeles Times. Back then, it was estimated that as many as four million butterflies spent the winter in California, the state’s fish and wildlife department said.

Unless urgent conservation efforts are taken, FWS says Western monarchs face a 99 percent chance of becoming extinct by 2080.

Pelton said a number of factors threaten the species throughout their migratory range, including habitat loss, pesticides and increasingly extreme weather due to climate change.

The recent Los Angeles county wildfires burned tree groves that monarchs use as overwintering habitat, including one site in Lower Topanga Canyon.

Santa Cruz County hosted the largest overwintering clusters observed during the last count. The highest mid-season counts were found at Lighthouse Field State Park with 1,406 butterflies, Natural Bridges State Park with 1,400 monarchs and Moran Lake with 645, the press release said.

San Luis Obispo County’s Pismo Beach monarch Butterfly Grove had the fourth biggest count in late November with 556 Western monarchs, followed by the Skywest Golf Course in the Bay Area with 477 individuals.

A site owned by The Nature Conservancy in Santa Barbara that had top counts in the past — including 33,200 last winter — had only 198 monarchs this time around.

“The iconic monarch butterfly is cherished across North America, captivating children and adults throughout its fascinating lifecycle. Despite its fragility, it is remarkably resilient, like many things in nature when we just give them a chance,” said Martha Williams, former director of FWS, in a December statement, as the Los Angeles Times reported. “Science shows that the monarch needs that chance.”

Western monarchs are separated from their Eastern counterparts by the Rocky Mountains. Eastern monarchs spend their winters each year in central Mexico. Both geographically distinct monarch species make their migrations over multiple generations.

Western monarchs generally overwinter clustered in sheltered tree groves along the California Coast and northern Baja, Mexico.

“A lot of people care about monarchs. Voluntary efforts like pollinator gardens and restoring habitat are probably a reason they aren’t in worse shape,” said Isis Howard, Western Monarch Count coordinator with the Xerces Society, in the press release. “However, these actions are not enough. To help monarchs recover, we need to work at a larger scale and address widespread issues like pesticide contamination and climate change that are beyond what voluntary efforts have been able to achieve.”

When the proposed listing by FWS is finalized, it is expected to lead to better support for Western monarchs, including improved overwintering habitat protection in California and increased incentives for the restoration of breeding habitat.

An ongoing concern is the contamination of milkweed by pesticides. Research by University of Nevada-Reno and the Xerces Society in California’s Central Valley found that the leaves of the plant — the monarch caterpillars’ food source — were contaminated by 64 distinct pesticides.

One of the pesticides — methoxyfenozide — is likely highly toxic to monarch caterpillars and was found in 96 percent of tested milkweed samples.

Currently the only insect species taken into consideration by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s testing of pesticides is the adult honey bee, for which methoxyfenozide was classified as “practically non-toxic.”

The Xerces Society and Earthjustice in December formally petitioned the EPA to include native wildlife such as solitary bees, bumble bees, moths and butterflies in their assessment of pesticide risks to pollinators.

“We know pesticides are a key driver of monarch and other pollinator declines. Yet there are glaring gaps in the EPA’s oversight of pesticides: the vast majority of pesticides have never been tested for their impacts on butterflies,” said Rosemary Malfi, Xerces Society’s director of conservation policy, in a statement, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. “How can we protect these essential species if we’re missing the basic information needed to make better decisions?”

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The tiger population in India doubled between 2010 and 2022 — from 1,706 tigers to approximately 3,682 — through conservation efforts focused on protecting them from habitat loss and poaching; making sure they have enough prey; increasing community living standards close to tiger areas; and reducing human-wildlife conflict, a new study has found.

India is now home to approximately 75 percent of the world’s tiger population, according to estimates from the National Tiger Conservation Authority, as The Associated Press reported.

“Recovery of large yet ecologically important carnivores poses a formidable global challenge. Tiger (Panthera tigris) recovery in India, the world’s most populated region, offers a distinct opportunity to evaluate the socio-ecological drivers of megafauna recovery,” the authors of the study wrote. “Tiger occupancy increased by 30% (at 2929 square kilometers per year) over the past two decades, leading to the largest global population occupying ~138,200 square kilometers. Tigers persistently occupied human-free, prey-rich protected areas (35,255 square kilometers) but also colonized proximal connected habitats that were shared with ~60 million people.”

The researchers found that some communities located near tiger habitats have benefited from an increase in tigers due to the foot traffic and revenue generated by ecotourism.

The study, “Tiger recovery amid people and poverty,” published in the journal Science, said India’s success shows that conservation can benefit biodiversity as well as local communities.

This tigress has reclaimed the ancient fort within Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve and made it her home. Protection, prey, peace, and prosperity have been key factors in the tiger recovery within India, according to a new Science study. Learn more in this week's issue: https://scim.ag/42yn5Ra

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— Science Magazine (@science.org) January 30, 2025 at 2:05 PM

“The common belief is that human densities preclude an increase in tiger populations,” said lead author of the study Yadvendradev Jhala, a senior scientist with the Bengaluru-based Indian National Academy of Sciences, as reported by The Associated Press. “What the research shows is that it’s not the human density, but the attitude of people, which matters more.”

Ecologists and wildlife conservationists said India’s tigers and other wildlife would benefit from source data being made available to a bigger group of scientists. Indian government-supported institutions collected the data for the study.

According to ecologist Arjun Gopalaswamy, who is an expert in wildlife population estimation, estimates from the official tiger monitoring program in India have been “contradictory” and “chaotic.” Gopalaswamy said some of the study’s figures are much higher than earlier estimates of tiger distribution taken from the same datasets. However, he said the findings seemed to have corrected an anomaly related to the size of the tiger population and their geographic spread that had been repeatedly flagged by scientists since 2011.

The researchers found that tigers had disappeared in some places not in close proximity to protected areas like wildlife sanctuaries or national parks. Tigers had also vanished in forested areas with increased human use and more frequent armed conflicts, as well as in areas that had become more urbanized.

“Without community support and participation and community benefits, conservation is not possible in our country,” Jhala said.

Ravi Chellam, a wildlife biologist who was not part of the study, pointed out that, though tiger conservation efforts were encouraging, protections needed to be extended to additional species in order to better maintain the whole ecosystem.

“There are several species, including the great Indian bustard and caracal which are all on the edge,” Chellam said, as The Associated Press reported.

Tigers roam across roughly 53,359 square miles of India, about the size of New York state. However, only 25 percent of that area is protected and has plentiful prey, with 45 percent of the big cats’ habitat shared with approximately 60 million people.

“Habitat loss, prey depletion, conflict with humans, and illegal demand for their body parts, combined with low densities and large space requirements for viable population, have driven large carnivores to numbers at which many have lost their functional role and some are on the brink of extinction,” the authors wrote in the study. “Tiger absence and extinction were characterized by armed conflict, poverty, and extensive land-use changes. Sparing land for tigers enabled land sharing, provided that socioeconomic prosperity and political stability prevailed. India’s tiger recovery offers cautious optimism for megafauna recovery, particularly in the Global South.”

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