Chicago, Illinois is kicking off the New Year with clean energy. As of Jan. 1, all of Chicago’s 411 municipal buildings, such as its international airports, fire stations, libraries and City Hall, are now powered entirely by renewable energy.
The feat has been made possible through a 5-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Constellation signed in August 2022, the Chicago Tribune reported.
“Every Chicagoan interacts with a city-owned building, whether the cultural center, City Hall, Harold Washington Library, O’Hare and Midway (international airports) or your local library. To be able to achieve this milestone on behalf of city residents is exciting,” Angela Tovar, chief sustainability officer for Chicago, told the Chicago Tribune.
Most (70%) of the municipal buildings’ 900,000 MWh of annual power demand is now met through a new, 4,100-acre solar farm called Double Black Diamond, which was established in Sangamon and Morgan counties, about 30 miles from Springfield, Illinois. Double Black Diamond, developed and operated by Swift Current Energy, is the largest solar farm east of the Mississippi.
As explained by the U.S. Department of Energy, a PPA is when one party purchases power supply from a third-party, which handles the development and operation of the power source. This allows the power source owner and operator to reap tax benefits and generate income by selling energy, while the customer who is buying the power can access clean energy without the cost of installing the infrastructure.
Through this plan, all of Chicago’s municipal buildings now run on clean energy, which the city buys from Constellation and is supplied by renewable energy sources, including the Double Black Diamond solar farm.
“It’s a plan that gets the city to take action on climate and also leverages our buying power to generate new opportunities for Chicagoans and the state,” Tovar said, as reported by Grist. “There’s opportunities everywhere.”
Constellation will provide the remaining 30% of clean energy for Chicago’s city buildings through renewable energy credits (RECs), where funding from the Chicago’s energy bills is put toward clean energy projects around the U.S., Chicago Tribune reported.
While the move to power Chicago’s municipal buildings entirely with renewable power is expected to reduce the city’s carbon emissions by around 290,000 metric tons — or around the same effect of taking 62,000 vehicles off the roads, Grist reported — some people have concerns over the inclusion of RECs in the plan.
As the Chicago Tribune reported, critics have argued that these credits are a type of greenwashing that don’t necessarily contribute to local clean energy generation.
However, the city addressed concerns over RECs, noting that the plan could still encourage more renewable energy development locally.
“That’s really a feature and not a bug of our plan,” Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer Jared Policicchio told Grist. “Our goal over the next several years is that we reach a point where we’re not buying renewable energy credits.”
Additionally, Tovar told Chicago Tribune that securing the 30% energy from RECs will give the city the time to explore solar installation on local buildings.
The city has also collaborated with Constellation and Swift Current Energy on a $400,000 annual deal for clean energy job training, American Cities Climate Challenge reported. Chicago further set a goal to power all buildings in the city, not just municipal buildings, through renewables by 2035. If it achieves the goal, Chicago would be the largest U.S. city to power all buildings entirely with clean energy, the Sierra Club reported.
Chicago joins around 700 other municipalities in the U.S. that have committed to PPAs, totaling over 18,372 MW worth of renewable energy, or enough clean energy to power about 4 million homes per year, as of 2021, the World Resources Institute reported.
Demand for critical minerals can be reduced by 58 percent by 2050 through the use of new technologies, circular economy strategies and increased recycling.
Deep-sea mining is the process of retrieving mineral deposits from the ocean floor using destructive methods such as dredging, drilling and hydraulic pumps. These methods disrupt and harm marine life and their ecosystems.
The seabed is a largely unexplored world of unidentified species and mystery. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone — a 1.7 million square mile area of the Pacific Ocean — is a focal point of deep-sea mining for its polymetallic nodules rich in minerals such as copper, nickel, manganese, cobalt, rare earth elements and other precious metals used in the making of zero-carbon technology components. This abundant expanse is the subject of 17 exploration contracts with a total area of roughly 621,371 square miles — approximately the size of Ethiopia. But it is also home to more than 5,000 recently discovered marine species.
A sea cucumber of the species Deima after being transferred into an ethanol-filled specimen jar for scientific preservation, in a laboratory at the Natural History Museum in London, England on May 24, 2023. Researchers collected thousands of samples of deep-sea anthropods from the sea bed using a remotely-operated system. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone holds great biodiversity but is also the world’s largest mineral exploration region. Leon Neal / Getty Images
The sought-after nodules embedded in the ocean floor are about the size of a potato and take millions of years to form, along with mineral-rich crusts and sulfides surrounding hydrothermal vents. Due to recent technological advancements, mining these ecologically sensitive areas is achievable by razing the surface of the seabed, sweeping away layers of biodiverse sediment and pumping displaced and often destroyed organic materials back into the water.
A star fish collected from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone before being transferred into an ethanol-filled specimen jar for scientific preservation, in a laboratory within the Natural History Museum on May 24, 2023 in London, England. Leon Neal / Getty Images
Brief History of Deep-Sea Mining
Some small-scale exploratory mining has already taken place to test deep-sea mining equipment, but no commercial mining of the seabed has yet occurred. However, some mining companies and national governments have plans to start doing so as soon as they can — possibly in the next few years. Whether that happens or not will mostly depend on how the International Seabed Authority (ISA) chooses to regulate deep-sea mining.
In 2021, Nauru — a tiny Pacific Island nation in Micronesia — gave the ISA notice that it planned to start mining in international waters. This triggered the “two-year rule,” a controversial provision of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The rule mandates that the ISA must “consider” and “provisionally approve” deep-sea mining applications, whether or not there has been a finalized set of regulations.
The two years was completed for the Nauru application in July of 2023, but the ISA meeting that followed concluded without a final rule being agreed upon. The 168-member ISA Assembly has been working on establishing the rules for deep-sea mining. ISA’s Council — made up of 36 Assembly-elected members — has a goal of adopting finalized regulations by 2025.
As of July of last year, several nations — including Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, France, Palau and New Zealand — had called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, before regulations are adopted, the ISA must address how the impacts of mining will be monitored and addressed, what level of harm is allowed and how compliance with the regulations will be enforced.
Currently, contractors like corporations or individuals are only permitted to extract seabed minerals if they are sponsored by a UNCLOS state party and have obtained an exploitation contract from the ISA.
Contractors are required to use best environmental practices and a precautionary approach in order to control or prevent hazards like pollution of the marine environment. In addition, they must develop programs for evaluating and monitoring impacts in conjunction with the ISA. Consultation between stakeholders is also mandated at crucial junctures of the exploration stage — a period that can take years.
While they wait for an international waters code of conduct, countries can still proceed with mining projects inside domestically controlled waters, or “exclusive economic zones” (EEZs).
In January of 2024, Norway started the process of opening its waters to deep-sea mining exploration, which would likely begin in the 2030s.
Most mineral deposits that are sought after by mining operations are located outside EEZs on the vast abyssal plains of international waters, such as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Arguments for Deep-Sea Mining
Those in favor of deep-sea mining say it will help meet the growing need for critical minerals used in the global decarbonization process. As we rely more on solar and wind energy, electric vehicles and other green technologies, the demand for some of these minerals could increase by four to six times. However, studies have shown that there are plenty of land-based sources for critical minerals.
Some proponents of deep-sea mining view it as a way to avoid some of the environmental hazards of mining on land, like pollution of freshwater by mining runoff and deforestation. But the destruction of marine life and ecosystems wrought by deep-sea mining means it would not be a better alternative for biodiversity or the planet.
Chairman and CEO of The Metals Company Gerard Barron, seen in 2021 near the Maersk Launcher research ship which returned to San Diego after conducting environmental impact studies on the ocean floor to learn about the effects of mining for nodules containing nickel, cobalt and manganese. Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times
Threats Posed by Deep-Sea Mining
Harms Marine Life and Ecosystems
Posters from Greenpeace against deep-sea mining displayed during the Glastonbury Festival 2024 at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 27, 2024 in Glastonbury, England. Luke Brennan / Redferns
The largest biome on the planet — 90 percent of the total marine environment — the deep sea is home to vast biodiversity that is being threatened by deep-sea mining. It is highly likely that the heavy equipment used to mine the seabed would kill less mobile deep-sea creatures.
Many deep-sea species make their homes in the polymetallic nodules that are the harvest of deep-sea mining operations. The nodules develop over millions of years, so the recovery of the ecosystems they support would be extremely slow if possible at all. The removal and destruction of these important habitats would almost surely result in the extinction of some species.
Releases Stored Carbon
Not only is the ocean floor home to an unknown wealth of species, it plays an essential role in the regulation of our planetary systems by absorbing and storing enormous amounts of the carbon dioxide humans emit through the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, industrial enterprises, agriculture and other activities.
Mining the seafloor can cause the release of carbon sequestered in sediments and reduce deep-sea biodiversity, impacting the ocean’s carbon cycle and exacerbating the climate crisis.
For each kilometer of the seabed that is mined annually, 190.2 tons of carbon could be released through sediment plumes. These plumes can block sunlight, reducing the photosynthetic abilities of marine organisms who help mitigate temperature increases worldwide by absorbing carbon for energy.
A protest against deep-sea mining by Ocean Rebellion near the mining vessel ‘Hidden Gem’ in Rotterdam, the Netherlands on Feb. 8, 2022. Charles M. Vella / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
Releases Toxic Sediment Plumes
There are many detrimental impacts to marine life and ecosystems by the release of sediment plumes during the deep-sea mining process. Among the most direct and devastating is that the plumes can suffocate and smother organisms who make their home on the seafloor. Some of these creatures are not as mobile and may be killed by the mining equipment itself.
Clouds of sediment have the potential to choke midwater marine ecosystems. The plumes can interfere with the reproduction and feeding of species through the introduction of heavy metals like cadmium and copper into the natural food chain. These metals can also be released in toxic concentrations when seafloor sediments are disturbed, polluting the water column. The metals can have deadly effects on filter feeders and organisms who are unable to move freely, like sessile suspension fauna.
A giant jawfish in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico. Reinhard Dirscherl / ullstein bild via Getty Images
The discharge of mining wastewater can also create underwater dust storms that pollute and confuse marine organisms, preventing them from navigating through the water, feeding and reproducing.
Light Pollution
Marine organisms are used to an environment that is quiet, dark and peaceful. In addition to the direct harm caused by the process of mining the ocean floor, longer ecosystem and species disruptions can result from mining activities, such as light pollution interfering with reproduction and feeding.
Noise Pollution
Sound pollution from deep-sea mining can impact large whales, narwhals, dolphins and other marine mammals who rely on echolocation — or biological sonar — to hunt, navigate and locate one another. These species are already threatened by human activities like fishing and boating, as well as human-caused climate change.
Leaves Behind Waste Materials That Poison Marine Life and Impact Fisheries and Food Security
Mining wastewater is warm and filled with chemicals, which can kill marine animals by overheating and suffocating them. The chemicals also pollute the ocean floor and water column, making the seawater toxic, as well as altering its pH and oxygen content, all of which are harmful to marine life.
Ocean advocates protest against deep-sea mining in Luís de Camões Square in Lisbon, Portugal on June 7, 2023. Jorge Mantilla / NurPhoto via Getty Images
Economic and Social Risks of Deep-Sea Mining
Deep-sea mining is conducted offshore in the depths of the ocean, but the industry would still need to build facilities onshore to process and ship materials. This would require the acquisition and development of land, which leads to habitat loss and impacts on coastal communities who rely on marine resources for their food and livelihoods.
Minerals extracted from the high seas have been designated by the UN as “the common heritage of [hu]mankind” for the benefit of all nations. However, the current ISA regulatory regime seems to support the flow of profits to mining company shareholders and developed nations, instead of to developing countries.
Why Deep-Sea Mining Is Not Necessary for Renewable Energy
Deep-sea mining is not necessary to obtain the critical minerals needed for zero-carbon technologies. In order to supply the rare earth elements needed to meet the demands of the growing renewable energy sector, mining and processing of land-based mineral reserves must be increased responsibly to minimize negative environmental and social impacts.
In the coming 15 to 20 years, recycling of minerals will hopefully become a feasible alternative to mining. According to World Bank estimates, the significant increase of end-of-life battery recycling rates by mid-century could reduce the necessity of newly mined minerals by roughly 25 percent for nickel, lithium and copper, and approximately 15 percent for cobalt. Unfortunately, there will not be an adequate supply of these minerals circulating for recycling to be a workable approach by 2030.
Improved recycling methods in established channels — electrical and electronics, for instance — could lessen some of the shorter-term pressure on supply while preparing a secondary supply chain to tackle future end-of-life carbon-neutral energy products.
Research is also being done on obtaining critical minerals from hard rock mine tailings and coal waste, rather than mining undisturbed land.
The evolution of battery technologies may also make mineral deposits found in the deep seabed obsolete for renewable products. An example is the shift from those that use nickel manganese oxides toward lithium iron phosphate batteries. While the nodules that are the focus of deep-sea mining operations are rich in cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese and rare earth elements, they do not contain an abundance of lithium and iron.
Sodium-ion batteries could also change the EV battery market, replacing cobalt and lithium with alternatives that are more abundant and less expensive.
What We Can Do to Help Stop Deep-Sea Mining
Apply the ‘Three Rs’ to Electronic Products
The more we do to ensure mining for minerals is avoided, the better it will be for the environment. One of the best ways to do this is to apply the “three Rs” — reducing, reusing and recycling — to batteries, cell phones, computers and even renewable energy products like solar panels.
Choose Sustainable Alternatives
A shift away from traditional lithium-ion and nickel manganese cobalt oxide batteries to those made with lithium iron phosphate, which do not need cobalt or nickel — raw materials sought through deep-sea mining — could help lessen the pressure to find as many critical minerals.
Other alternatives being developed include sodium-ion batteries — a more abundant and less expensive choice — which could replace cobalt and lithium.
Do Away With Electronic Waste
The vast majority of electronic waste — 90 percent — is dumped or illegally traded. More copper and cobalt is discarded each year in e-waste than could be supplied by deep-sea mining in the central Pacific Ocean for a decade.
To cut down on e-waste, we can encourage governments to pass “right to repair” legislation, as they have in Portland, Oregon. These laws ban disposable electronics, make fixing products easier and develop standards for helping consumers identify longer-lasting products.
Reduce Overconsumption
One of the best ways to reduce electronic waste is to not buy electronics you don’t really need in the first place. When you do decide to spring for a new electronic device, donate or sell your old one online or bring it to a local electronic collection center.
Another way to reduce overconsumption and e-waste is to buy quality products that will last and won’t need to be replaced quickly. You can also purchase gadgets with repair services and extended warranties. It’s always a good idea to check a product’s lifespan before purchasing it.
Avoid electronics that are trendy and will go out of style. Some products will try and tempt you with the latest upgrade when it really isn’t that different from earlier models. Avoiding the urge to stay “up to date” can mean creating a lot less e-waste. You can also support companies that use sustainable manufacturing practices.
Build a Circular Economy
A 2022 report by SINTEF found that we can reduce critical mineral demand by 58 percent by 2050 by using circular economic strategies, new technologies and increased recycling.
One option is to use the minerals we already have access to through urban mining. Another is to develop improved designs and technologies so that we can recover minerals from products that are no longer being used.
Takeaway
There are many environmental reasons not to pursue deep-sea mining — its impacts on marine animals and the environment, as well as its ecological implications.
As we stand on the cusp of a full transition away from fossil fuels to a world powered by green energy and a circular economy, it is essential that we focus our energies on sourcing minerals in a way that doesn’t decimate habitats and ecosystems. To do this, we must prioritize increased critical minerals recycling, ethical land-based mining practices and improved product designs so that they can be used and reused longer without needing to be replaced, thereby reducing demand for these elements.
An octopus on the floor of the Adriatic Sea in Croatia. Goran Safarek / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Maryland is suing W.L. Gore & Associates, the maker of Gore-Tex — a waterproof material often used in outdoor gear such as raincoats — alleging its leaders continued to use per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) “forever chemicals” long after they learned of the chemicals’ serious health risks.
The complaint filed in federal court last week by the state’s attorney general on behalf of the departments of environment, health and natural resources said the company has been aware for decades that the substances posed serious health risks to residents of Cecil County, but did not notify nearby communities or the state about the dangers, reported The Washington Post.
The lawsuit states that the company’s operations released perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a highly regulated forever chemical, into the area, contaminating drinking and surface waters, groundwater, soils, animals, plants and natural resources owned by the state, The Baltimore Banner reported.
Maryland sues W.L. Gore over decades of forever chemicals pollution
“It is unacceptable for any company to knowingly contaminate our drinking water with these toxins, putting Marylanders at risk of severe health conditions,” said Attorney General of Maryland Anthony G. Brown in a statement, as reported by The Washington Post.
Maryland seeks to hold Gore, a Delaware-based company, liable for the costs of the state’s investigation, contamination cleanup and other damages.
The company denied the state’s allegations. Over the past two years, Gore has provided water filtration and bottled water to nearby residents, conducted sampling and made efforts to limit potential damage around the sites, according to company website forward.gore.com.
Amy Calhoun, spokesperson for Gore, said the company “is surprised by the Maryland Attorney General’s decision to initiate legal action, particularly in light of our proactive and intensive engagement with state regulators over the past two years,” reported The Washington Post.
The action by the state comes after another lawsuit was filed by a family in Maryland, in addition to a class-action suit, making similar claims.
The class action, filed on behalf of residents of Cecil County last year, demanded that Gore pay for medical bills, water filtration systems and additional damages associated with harmful pollution being pumped into the mostly rural community for decades, The Associated Press reported.
“PFAS are linked to cancer, weakened immune systems, and can even harm the ability to bear children,” Brown said, as reported by The Associated Press.
PFAS are particularly harmful because they can accumulate in various environments and are almost indestructible. They can also cause developmental delays in children and increased cholesterol levels, among other health issues, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said.
Philip Federico, an attorney representing plaintiffs in lawsuits against Gore, including the class action, said the company’s efforts were “too little, much too late,” The Associated Press reported.
“It’s typical corporate environmental contamination,” Federico said. “They’re in no hurry to fix the problem.”
Federico said that, in the meantime, residents continue to suffer, and one of his clients has been diagnosed with kidney cancer.
The complaint claims Gore’s failure to warn those living close to its Maryland facilities of the potential harms has resulted in “a toxic legacy for generations to come.”
The lawsuit highlights Gore’s relationship with DuPont, pointing out that knowledge of the dangers of PFAS have been long known by both companies as they continued to rake in profits. It states that DuPont scientists knew as early as 1961 that adverse liver reactions were caused by PFOA in rats and dogs.
“Gore, through these discussions with DuPont and otherwise, knew of the potential for releases of PFOA to air and water from the Gore Facilities and yet did not inform the State,” the attorneys said in the lawsuit, as reported by The Baltimore Banner.
State officials have said recent tests of residential drinking water near certain Gore sites have shown levels of PFOA well above EPA safety limits, according to The Associated Press.
In 2014, Gore announced that PFOA had been eliminated from raw materials used in the making of Gore-Tex. However, the chemical continues to cause long-term impacts due to its persistence in the environment, the attorneys said.
“While we appreciate Gore’s limited investigation to ascertain the extent of PFAS contamination around its facilities, much more needs to be done to protect the community and the health of residents,” said Maryland Secretary of the Environment Department Serena McIlwain in a statement, as The Associated Press reported. “We must remove these forever chemicals from our natural resources urgently, and we expect responsible parties to pay for this remediation.”
The trees will be planted in forestlands and communities in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia, a press release from ADF said.
“In seeing the devastation of Helene and Milton, we felt a strong pull to make a bold commitment to recovery — and we weren’t alone. We received an outpouring of calls and emails from people eager to help the communities and forests impacted by these storms and we’re proud to be in a position to help make restoration happen,” said Dan Lambe, ADF’s chief executive officer, in the press release. “Human life and safety always take precedence in the wake of a natural disaster, so we don’t rush to replant. We collaborate with our on-the-ground planting partners to know when the time is right. And when they’re ready, we’ll be there with 10 million trees, prepared to put hope in motion.”
The global nonprofit said the precise impact to tree cover caused by the back-to-back hurricanes is still being determined, but it will be the biggest undertaking in ADF’s more than 50-year history, reported The Guardian.
ADF has worked in other areas impacted by storms, most recently with partners in Miami and along the Florida Panhandle and Gulf Coast following Hurricanes Michael and Irma.
“The emotion that you see from people when they get to get a tree, to take home to plant, to be an active part of recovery, bringing life and hope and healing back to their neighborhoods and to their community is inspiring,” Lambe said, as The Guardian reported.
After the most urgent humanitarian needs in the region have been addressed, ADF will collaborate with partners in both the public and private sectors, along with local tree planting organizations, to determine a replanting timeline, the press release said.
“What’s so cool about it is it’s every different part of the community you could imagine, every demographic, every age category. People are just so excited to be contributing to the recovery,” Lambe said, as reported by The Guardian. “And beyond the emotional side of it, in these cities, these communities and these forests, trees are not a nice-to-have, they are a must-have. From extreme heat, from biodiversity challenges, and ecosystem challenges to the just broader resilience and readiness for the next storm, trees just do so much for us. So it’s both an emotional and an environmental recovery, and we’re proud to get to be a part.”
Tampa Bay will be one of the largest focus areas. The region was heavily impacted by the gigantic wind fields of Hurricanes Debby, Milton and Helene.
“I was born and raised here, and I’ve never before seen such devastation, so many trees down,” said Debra Evenson, executive director of environmental organization Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful, one of ADF’s partners, as The Guardian reported. “Just on our property, at our office, we probably had five trees down. The devastation was everywhere. It wasn’t just one specific area, it hit all of Tampa Bay, just thousands and thousands of trees.”
A tree blocks a street after Hurricane Milton swept through downtown Tampa, on Oct. 10, 2024. Kathleen Flynn for the Washington Post
More than 25,000 volunteers will assist with the Tampa Bay area project, with early attention being given to schools, community spaces and lower-income neighborhoods.
“It’s in the community, in people’s homes, where so many were lost. They’re crepe myrtles, live oak and magnolia trees… you don’t really understand everything the trees provide until they’re gone. It’s not just air quality, it’s reducing stormwater runoff, it’s providing shade that regulates temperature. We’re in Florida, it’s 100F sometimes, and it’s like ‘why is my electric bill so high?’ It’s because you’re missing your shade trees now,” Evenson explained.
She said they would also prioritize the replacement of fruit trees in areas that need them.
“We go into areas that are food deserts, where they don’t have the funds to replant these types of big trees that grow and give shade and bear fruit. To them, this is life-changing,” Evenson added.
Lambe said another area of enormous need was historic Asheville, North Carolina, a city torn apart by Helene’s damaging winds and torrential rainfall that led to deadly flooding.
“We’ve already been distributing trees with community leaders there, to neighborhoods that are ready to replant,” Lambe said, as reported by The Guardian. “It was shocking that a community like Asheville was being impacted by a hurricane, and they don’t have a lot of experience with recovery. We’ve been able to take lessons from elsewhere and remind partners that first of all you take an inventory, do an assessment, don’t rush the restoration.”
ADF has helped plant more than half a billion trees all over the world, assisting with recovery efforts following hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes and floods in more than 60 nations since it began in 1972.
Planning to tackle a marathon in the new year? While getting in your stretches and miles of practice, you may also want to prepare for air quality when training. According to new research, poor air quality could play a role in slower marathon finish times.
Researchers at Brown University School of Public Health have found a link between the amount of fine particulate matter, or pollutants measuring less than 2.5 microns in diameter, in the air on a race day and slower average finish times for marathon runners.
Fine particulate matter can come from combustion, such as vehicle exhaust, fossil fuel plants and wildfires, as well as natural sources, like dust and dirt, as explained by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which was not involved in the study.
In a study of 1,506,137 men and 1,058,674 women who finished nine major U.S. marathons, including the Boston Marathon, from 2003 through 2019, researchers evaluated the marathon finishing times and compared them with race-day fine particulate matter levels at various points throughout the race routes. Allan Just, an associate professor of epidemiology and environment and society at Brown University, developed statistical models to determine these PM2.5 levels.
“This really sophisticated spatial-temporal model of particulate matter allowed us to plot pollution at every mile of every course,” Elvira Fleury, lead author of the study who earned a master of public health degree at Brown University and is now a doctoral student at Harvard University, said in a statement. “Without a model like this, it wouldn’t have been possible to look at so many different marathons in different states across different years.”
Researchers measured concentrations of PM2.5 in micrograms per cubic meter of air (µg/m3) and found that for every increase by 1 µg/m3 of fine particulate matter, race times slowed 32 seconds on average for men and 25 seconds for women. The team published their findings in the journal Sports Medicine.
While the findings revealed minor decreases in average finish times when particulate matter was higher, the researchers noted that even small slow-downs could affect racers, especially those trying to reach personal records.
“Think of all the effort, time and money that a professional runner like Eliud Kipchoge put into trying to break the world record and run a marathon in less than two hours,” Fleury explained. “Runners at that level are thinking about their gear, their nutrition, their training, the course, even the weather. Our results show that those interested in optimizing athletic performance should consider the effect of air pollution, as well.”
This is not the first study to examine the negative impacts of air pollution on long-distance runners. A 2010 study found that each 10 µg/m3 increase of PM10, or fine particulate matter with a diameter of less than 10 microns, was associated with a marathon performance decrease of 1.4%.
For runners who train in areas with poor air quality, the longer exposure to fine particulate matter could also increase health risks. As NRDC reported, an increase of PM2.5 in the air by 10 µg/m3 can increase risk of heart disease-related death by 10%.
“If you run in a polluted city you can decrease your performance,” Eliud Kipchoge, two-time Olympic champion and long-distance runner from Kenya, told BBC Sport Africa. “When you go to a polluted city, you really feel that your lungs are really compressed.”
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) have teamed up to install air quality sensors in sports training facilities and stadiums in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania and Zambia to better protect athletes from long exposures to PM2.5, BBC Sport Africa reported. The sensors help coaches and athletes schedule trainings and organizers plan major sporting events around poor air quality times.
As a result of the findings from the latest study on how air pollution could affect athletes, the researchers are urging for continued regulations on emissions sources to reduce fine particulate matter in the atmosphere, not only for runners but for overall public health.
More than 1,300 critically endangered land snails have been released in the Ilhas Desertas (Desert Islands) archipelago off the Moroccan coast.
The reintroduction of the tiny molluscs to their native habitat followed the rescue of two obscure species of the snail from the edge of extinction, reported The Guardian. The snails hadn’t been recorded for over a century and were thought to have disappeared.
“If it goes as well as we hope, more snails will follow them next spring. It’s a huge team effort which shows that it is possible to turn things around for highly threatened species,” said Gerardo Garcia, curator of lower vertebrates and invertebrates at Chester Zoo in the United Kingdom, as the BBC reported.
The pea-sized molluscs are native to mountainous Deserta Grande island, southeast of Madeira. Their habitat was destroyed by invasive mice, rats and goats that had been brought there by humans.
A wild refuge for the snails was restored on neighboring Bugio Island, where the invasive species were eradicated.
The reintroduction plan was coordinated by biologist Dinarte Teixeira with the Instituto das Florestas e Conservação da Natureza (IFCN) as part of the conservation program Help Desertas Snails, reported Madeira News. Participants in the effort included the Chester and Bristol Zoos and Mossy Earth in the UK, France’s ZooParc de Beauval and the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Atlantic Islands Invertebrate Specialist Group.
Four additional preliminary reintroduction projects are planned for 2025 and 2026. An ongoing monitoring program will analyze the reintroduced snails’ survival rate, as well as their potential impact on the island’s other mollusc communities. The data will be used to measure the conservation program’s success.
IFCN experts rediscovered populations of less than 200 individuals each of two subspecies of the tiny snail during conservation expeditions from 2012 to 2017, The Guardian reported. It had been feared that invasive predators had possibly decimated the species.
The snails were relocated to the zoos in France and the UK. The conservation science team, along with Madeira experts, constructed mini habitats for 60 of the snails at Chester Zoo as part of the breeding program.
“It was a huge responsibility to begin caring for them,” said Dr. Gerardo Garcia, head of ectotherms at Chester Zoo, as reported by The Guardian. “As a zoo conservation community, we knew nothing about them. They’d never been in human care before and we had to start from a blank piece of paper and try to figure out what makes them tick.”
In order to protect Bugio Island’s fragile ecosystem, humans have not been allowed on the island since 1990.
“Within a few months we were able to crack the breeding of the Desertas land snails. Crucially, we were then successful in breeding multiple generations. This was key, because it meant we could then bring in the support of other zoos and establish a network, breeding them in the substantial numbers needed to have a chance of saving the species,” said Heather Prince, Chester Zoo invertebrate specialist, as The Guardian reported.
Each snail that has been reintroduced has an individual monitoring marker. If the effort is successful, many more of the endangered snails will be released.
“These snails are incredibly precious. The Desertas Islands are the only place in the world where they can be found and so we’re striving to do everything we can to give them the best possible chance for the future. For 100 years we thought they’d gone for ever, but now there’s new hope,” Teixeira added.
“Behind the billion-dollar figures are countless lost lives and livelihoods,” said Dr. Mariam Zachariah, a researcher for World Weather Attribution at Imperial College London, in a press release from Christian Aid.
Since the financial costs are only based on insurance losses, the numbers do not reflect the true figures, which are likely to be higher, in addition to the often uncounted human costs.
Among the extreme weather events that caused the most financial damage in 2024, Hurricane Milton in October was the most costly single event, bringing $60 billion in damages with 25 lives lost. Hurricane Helene, which struck Cuba, Mexico and the U.S. in September, was close behind with $55 billion. The monster hurricane killed 232 people.
In addition to these major hurricanes, smaller storms in the U.S. killed 88 people and brought $60 billion in damages.
“The data is now also showing that climate change is doubling the likelihood of many extreme weather events like floods and tropical cyclones and increasing their intensity, leading to massive destruction and loss of life,” said Patrick Watt, chief executive officer of Christian Aid, in the report.
People living in poverty in the world’s lower income nations are disproportionately affected by the costs and impacts of climate events. This highlights the necessity for adaptation strategies to mitigate vulnerability before disasters strike.
December’s Cyclone Chido in Mayotte potentially killed more than 1,000 people.
Left to right: Satellite imagery of homes and buildings near College de Kwale in Mamoudzou, Malotte before Cyclone Chido, on March 19, 2024, and after on Dec. 16, 2024. 2024 Maxar Technologies
“The tragic impacts of Cyclone Chido in Mayotte really show how vulnerable small islands are to climate change. A single storm can severely damage critical infrastructure like power, water supply and communications across an entire island, making international support essential. Small islands must be supported to build resilience to tropical cyclones. It is not enough to just improve early warning systems, we must improve the resilience of homes and critical infrastructure to ensure that people have somewhere safe to shelter and essential services are operational during and after the storm,” said University of Reading professor Liz Stephens in the report.
Worldwide, no region escaped the devastating impacts of climate disasters this year. Flooding in China killed 315 and cost $15.6 billion, while Southwest Asia’s Typhoon Yagi took the lives of more than 800 and caused widespread destruction from Thailand to the Philippines.
Three of the 10 most costly disasters occurred in Europe, including Storm Boris and floods in Germany and Spain, which collectively claimed 258 lives and caused $13.87 billion in damages.
In Bangladesh, heatwaves affected 33 million, while West African floods displaced millions across Chad, Niger and Nigeria. Water levels in the Amazon River have fallen by 90 percent, threatening livelihoods for the region’s Indigenous communities.
“Most of these disasters show clear fingerprints of climate change. Extreme weather is clearly causing incredible suffering in all corners of the world,” Zachariah said, as The Guardian reported. “This report is just a snapshot of climate devastation in 2024. There are many more droughts, heatwaves, wildfires and floods not included that are becoming more frequent and intense.”
Christian Aid noted that other of the year’s major climate disasters had a lower immediate cost financially, but would have incalculable subsequent costs in terms of deaths; the destruction of ecosystems; and damage to sea levels, food supplies and social stability.
Watt urged the world’s policymakers to reduce emissions and increase financial compensation to poor countries.
“The human suffering caused by the climate crisis reflects political choices. There is nothing natural about the growing severity and frequency of droughts, floods and storms,” Watt said, as reported by The Guardian. “Disasters are being supercharged by decisions to keep burning fossil fuels, and to allow emissions to rise. And they’re being made worse by the consistent failure to deliver on financial commitments to the poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries.”
“In 2025 we need to see governments leading, and taking action to accelerate the green transition, reduce emissions, and fund their promises,” Watt said in the press release.
In a message ahead of the new year, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned that 2024, which is expected to soon be confirmed as the hottest year on record, is just one of many record-breaking years for high temperatures over the past decade.
“Throughout 2024, hope has been hard to find. Wars are causing enormous pain, suffering and displacement. Inequalities and divisions are rife — fueling tensions and mistrust. And today I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat,” Guterres said. As part of his message, the secretary-general warned that the previous decade has broken records for extreme heat.
“The top ten 10 hottest years on record have happened in the last 10 years, including 2024,” Guterres continued. “This is climate breakdown — in real time. We must exit this road to ruin — and we have no time to lose.”
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which is part of the UN, recently reported that 2024 is set to be named the warmest year ever recorded. The official global temperature for 2024 will be published in January, the organization reported.
Following this news, scientists are urging immediate action to safeguard the planet against the most catastrophic effects of climate change, especially as the world is already experiencing more intense and more frequent extreme weather events.
“This year we saw record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life in so many countries, causing heartbreak to communities on every continent,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement. “Tropical cyclones caused a terrible human and economic toll, most recently in the French overseas department of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. Intense heat scorched dozens of countries, with temperatures topping 50°C on a number of occasions. Wildfires wreaked devastation.”
For 2025, WMO will focus heavily on cryosphere preservation, or preserving sea ice, ice sheets and other frozen parts of Earth. As NASA reported in September 2024, both Arctic and Antarctic ice reached near record lows for 2024, with Antarctica experiencing low ice levels even in the coldest months of the year for the Southern Hemisphere.
Earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that for the first time in thousands of years, the Arctic was emitting more carbon than it was storing as a response to record-breaking temperatures, ice loss and wildfires.
Further, a recent report by the World Weather Attribution and Climate Central detailed severe impacts from climate change-related extreme weather events, which led to the premature deaths of at least 3,700 people and the displacement of millions of people in 2024. According to the report, climate change made 26 of 29 analyzed extreme weather events worse this year. Extreme heat in particular was made significantly worse by climate change, with an additional 41 days of dangerous heat in 2024, the report found.
Guterres has warned that countries will need to unite to protect people and the planet moving forward.
“In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions, and supporting the transition to a renewable future,” Guterres said. “It is essential — and it is possible.”
More than a third of animals on Earth are herbivores, but since plants don’t have a lot of calories it can be hard for grazers to eat enough to meet their energy needs. To add to the problem, climate change is lowering the nutritional value of certain foods that these plant eaters rely on.
Fossil fuel emissions produced by humans are causing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide to rise, pushing up temperatures worldwide. This is causing plants to grow faster in ecosystems across the globe, research biologist Ellen Welti with the Smithsonian Institution’s Great Plains Science Program wrote in The Conversation.
“Some studies suggest that this ‘greening of the Earth’ could partially offset rising greenhouse gas emissions by storing more carbon in plants. However, there’s a trade-off: These fast-tracked plants can contain fewer nutrients per bite,” Welti wrote in The Conversation.
Welti and colleagues looked at the ways in which nutrient dilution might impact species throughout the food web. They focused on the responses of plant-feeding populations, from giant pandas to grasshoppers.
A common cockchafer / May bug feeds on an oak leaf. Arterra / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
“When we look at future climate change, it’s not the same as the current hot years that we experience,” said Alex Ruane, co-director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies’ Climate Impacts Group. “If we were to find a location and look at a hot year that was recently experienced, it would likely have been a heat wave that would have raised the overall temperature. Climate change is different. Climate change is every day, a little bit more and more. When those heat waves come [in the future], they’re just a little bit more intense or extreme, and that has a different physiological impact [on plants].”
Welti said changes in plants’ long-term nutritional value could be one underappreciated cause of falling animal populations.
“These changes in plants aren’t visually evident, like rising seas. Nor are they sudden and imminent, like hurricanes or heat waves. But they can have important impacts over time,” Welti said in The Conversation. “Plant-eating animals may need more time to find and consume food if their usual meal becomes less nutritious, exposing themselves to greater risks from predators and other stresses in the process. Reduced nutritional values can also make animals less fit, reducing their ability to grow, reproduce and survive.”
The nutrient value of livestock feed has also been declining. It is often difficult for cattle — who spend much of their time eating — to find enough protein, as protein concentrations are falling across rangelands all over the planet, threatening livestock and ranchers.
Nutrition dilution also affects wild species like some insects.
“Insects are essential members of the web of life that pollinate many flowering plants, serve as a food source for birds and animals, and perform other important ecological services. Around the world, many insect species are declining in developed areas, where their habitat has been converted to farms or cities, as well as in natural areas,” Welti explained. “Many insects are plant feeders that are likely to be affected by reduced plant nutritional value. Experiments have found that when carbon dioxide levels increase, insect populations decline, at least partly due to lower-quality food supplies.”
Leaf-chewing insect species like caterpillars and grasshoppers suffer the most negative impacts, from smaller body sizes to reduced reproduction.
A caterpillar eats a Cataléa leaf in São Paulo, Brazil. AGB Photo Library / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Other insects like cicadas and aphids could benefit from carbon-rich plants.
“Certain types of plant-feeding animals are likely to face greater declines because they need higher-quality food. Rodents, rabbits, koalas, horses, rhinoceroses and elephants are all hind-gut fermenters – animals that have simple, single-chambered stomachs and rely on microbes in their intestines to extract nutrients from high-fiber food,” Welti added.
Welti said more research will be necessary to understand the role of nutrient dilution in the declines of individual species.
“Over the longer term, it will be important to understand how nutrient dilution is altering entire food webs, including shifts in plant species and traits, effects on other animal groups such as predators, and changes in species interactions. Changes in plant nutritional value as a result of rising carbon dioxide levels could have far-reaching impacts throughout ecosystems worldwide,” Welti said.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the Climate Change Superfund Act, which requires major emitters, such as fossil fuel companies, to compensate for damages by helping to fund climate-resilient infrastructure projects.
“By signing the Climate Change Superfund Act, Gov. Hochul is addressing the financial burden placed on New Yorkers by the fossil fuel companies,” Richard Schrader, director of New York Government Affairs at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in a statement. “It’s a key example of what putting fiscal fairness and environmental justice front and center looks like. The funds raised by this measure will allow for investment in life-saving infrastructure improvements: safeguarding coastal communities from flooding, creating systems to protect people from extreme heat, and improving responses to environmental and public health threats.”
As ABC News reported, the law will require companies with the highest greenhouse emissions from 2000 to 2018 to pay fines, with that money going to extreme weather event repairs and infrastructure upgrades.
According to Environmental Advocates NY, funding collected through the act will go toward projects such as wetland restoration, upgrades to storm water drainage systems and installations of energy-efficient cooling in both public and private buildings. The organization reported that a minimum of 35%, with a target of at least 40%, of collected funds will go to projects in disadvantaged communities.
“The Climate Change Superfund Act is now law, and New York has fired a shot that will be heard round the world: the companies most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable,” said New York Sen. Liz Krueger, a sponsor of the bill. “The planet’s largest climate polluters bear a unique responsibility for creating the climate crisis, and they must pay their fair share to help regular New Yorkers deal with the consequences.”
According to Sen. Krueger, costs of climate change-related extreme weather events in New York will reach more than $500 billion by 2050, averaging around $65,000 per household. The bill will require fossil fuel companies to pay a total of $75 billion over a 25-year time frame.
The fines will not go into effect immediately, ABC News reported. The state will first need to establish regulations around notifying companies, collecting fines and allocating funds to projects.
In the meantime, experts expect the law to face legal challenges, ABC News reported. Fossil fuel industry professionals have spoken out against the law, with the American Petroleum Institute stating, “This type of legislation represents nothing more than a punitive new fee on American energy, and we are evaluating our options moving forward.”
New York is now the second U.S. state to enact such a law. Vermont passed a similar law in May 2024, The Associated Press reported.
