According to a new study, restored grasslands will require long-term management in order to bring back specialized pollinators and ultimately restore biodiversity.

The study, published in Journal of Applied Ecology, analyzed the pollination success of native plants for varying durations of grassland management at the ski slopes in Nagano Prefecture. The restored areas studied spanned between 2 and 75 years since grassland restoration, and researchers examined native plant pollination across 28 different pollination networks. Researchers also examined old grasslands in the area for comparison.

“There is no place better suited to survey restored grasslands with very different management durations within a relatively small area than ski slopes,” Gaku S. Hirayama, doctoral student at Kobe University and corresponding author of the study, said in a statement.

As explained by the study, land use changes like agriculture and development are causing rapid decline of grasslands. In 2021, a report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) determined that 1.6 million acres of grasslands in the Great Plains of North America alone were lost in just one year. In 2022, this number increased to 1.9 million acres in this region. As BirdLife International reported, half of all grasslands on Earth have been degraded in some capacity.

But while restoration helps improve biodiversity lost to land use changes, previous research has shown that undisturbed grasslands with long-standing management practices (over centuries to millennia) have much higher levels of biodiversity and climate resilience compared to restored grasslands, emphasizing an importance in not just restoring but preserving existing ecosystems. 

“The finding shows that once valuable old grasslands are lost, their restoration cannot be achieved quickly,” Hirayama said.

Over the course of the study, the researchers examined over 10,800 pollinator visits from 294 different pollinator species to 79 flowering plants in 2021. In 2022, they observed over 19,690 pollinator visits from 297 pollinator species to 88 flowering plants. Overall, they determined that older grasslands had a greater range of native plant biodiversity than younger, restored grasslands. 

Further, the results showed that plants’ reproductive success, pollination function and pollinator network-level specialization were all worse in grasslands restored after deforestation compared to older grasslands. Overall, the study revealed that newly restored grasslands need at least 75 years for pollinator specialization and function and for plant diversity to even begin to compare to the biodiversity of older grasslands.

Pollinator specialization is important to improving plant reproduction. As Kobe University reported, younger restored grasslands still had pollinators, like flies and hoverflies, but they are more general in their pollination behaviors. By comparison, specialized pollinators are more likely to transfer pollen between plants of the same species for proper pollination.

The findings revealed that both preservation of existing grasslands and close management of restored grasslands will be important in reclaiming biodiversity.

Atushi Ushimaru, ecologist at Kobe University and a co-author of the study, explained, “It may also indicate that grassland restoration should not just be left to nature, but could require active human involvement such as by sowing seeds or by planting seedlings of native bee- and butterfly-pollinated grassland plants.”

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A lawsuit filed by a Peruvian farmer against major German energy company RWE began on Monday.

The claim, which argues that global heating fueled by the firm’s greenhouse gas emissions poses a risk to the farmer’s home, could set a new precedent for climate litigation, reported The Associated Press.

“We have waited 10 years for this day, this decisive day,” said Saúl Luciano Lliuya, as supporters cheered outside the courthouse. “I’m very excited; I hope that everything goes well.”

The lawsuit, filed in the Higher Regional Court in Hamm, western Germany, makes the case that RWE’s historical emissions have contributed to the global warming that has accelerated glacial melt near Lliuya’s hometown of Huaraz. This has caused Lake Palcacocha to rise to dangerous levels, raising the risk of disastrous flooding in the community.

Standing in front of photographs of glaciers shaped like mountains, Lliuya said that the lakes, glaciers and mountains “give us water, give us life,” as Euronews reported.

“[T]he glaciers are melting, are disappearing bit by bit. Some lakes, lakes like Palcacocha – it’s a risk to me, to more than 50,000 people who live in the zone at risk,” Lliuya said.

RWE does not operate in Peru and denied legal responsibility, saying there are many contributors to the global problem of climate change.

Lliuya first challenged RWE following a Carbon Majors Study from 2013 that said the company was responsible for 0.5 percent of post-industrialization climate change.

Huaraz is asking the energy company to pay roughly 0.5 percent of how much it will cost — an estimated $18,562 — to protect Huaraz from imminent flood risk and the overflow from the nearby lake.

“What I am asking is for the company to take responsibility for part of the construction costs, such as a dike in this case,” Lliuya told reporters in early March, as reported by Euronews.

Lliuya originally filed a lawsuit against RWE that was dismissed by an Essen court. An appeal to a higher court in 2017 led to the current hearing.

Roda Verheyen, lead lawyer in the case, said she was “calm but hopeful,” The Associated Press reported.

“[T]here is no time to be lost, because the glaciers are melting every day,” Verheyen said.

RWE said it has complied with government greenhouse gas emissions guidelines and has a target of being carbon-neutral by 2040. However, its historical contribution to global heating has brought attention to corporate responsibility for climate change in addition to cross-border legal accountability.

RWE “is still one of the biggest emitters of CO2 in all of Europe,” Verheyen said. “This is only a very first step — a trampoline for further cases of this kind.”

According to nonprofit research group Zero Carbon Analytics, there are more than 40 ongoing climate damage cases worldwide.

Flood risk from Lake Palcacocha is a real concern for the residents of Huaraz, reported NPR. A 1970 earthquake in the valley triggered a deadly landslide that took the lives of approximately 25,000 people.

In addition to the risk of flash flooding, avalanches and landslides, glacial melt is also interfering with the availability of drinking water for many communities. As ice sheets melt away, local streams have become toxic and discolored from recently exposed rocks containing heavy metals.

The region’s seasons are also affected, hindering agriculture.

“It is scary, the risk from climate change. For example, it has been raining. Even the rivers that pass through the city have risen,” Lliuya told NPR. “There is a lot of fear and the lake’s levels have risen. People are very worried.”

The case is being litigated near the head offices of RWE in Hamm and is expected to last several weeks.

“We want Saúl and the people of Huaraz to live in safety. No one should live in fear of losing their home due to the climate crisis. Polluters have to step up and pay the true price of their business model,” said Francesca Mascha Klein, a Germanwatch lawyer who is working with Lliuya on the case, as NPR reported.

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Whales are important for healthy oceans. They move tons of deep-water nutrients to the surface when they poop, and, according to new research, they also transport massive amounts of nutrients from Alaska to Hawaii in their urine.

Fifteen years ago, scientists discovered that whale poop provided a crucial resource for the growth of plankton, contributing to ocean productivity, a press release from the University of Vermont (UVM) said.

Now, a new UVM-led study has found that whales carry large amounts of nutrients across entire ocean basins — from the cold waters of their feeding grounds to the warm seas where they mate and birth their calves near the equator. Most of the nutrients are transported through their urine, with carcasses, sloughed skin, placentas and calf feces also contributing.

“These coastal areas often have clear waters, a sign of low nitrogen, and many have coral reef ecosystems,” said co-author of the study Joe Roman, a biologist at UVM, in the press release. “The movement of nitrogen and other nutrients can be important to the growth of phytoplankton, or microscopic algae, and provide food for sharks and other fish and many invertebrates.”

The researchers calculated that, throughout the world’s oceans, great whales — including gray whales, humpbacks and right whales — move roughly 4,000 tons of nitrogen annually to tropical and subtropical low-nutrient coastal areas.

These massive whales also bring over 45,000 tons of biomass. Before whaling by humans decimated whale populations, at least three times more nutrients might have been transported these incredible distances.

“We call it the ‘great whale conveyor belt,’” Roman said, “or it can also be thought of as a funnel because whales feed over large areas, but they need to be in a relatively confined space to find a mate, breed, and give birth. At first, the calves don’t have the energy to travel long distances like the moms can.”

The whales also likely stay in sandy, shallow waters to muffle their sounds.

“Moms and newborns are calling all the time, staying in communication, and they don’t want predators, like killer whales, or breeding humpback males, to pick up on that,” Roman said.

This means the nutrients that are spread throughout the ocean are concentrated in much smaller coral and coastal ecosystems, “like collecting leaves to make compost for your garden,” Roman said.

During the summer months, adult whales feed in northern latitudes like Iceland, Alaska and Antarctica, eating herring and krill to put on tons of fat. Recent research has found that North Pacific humpbacks gain approximately 30 pounds a day from spring to fall.

“They need this energy for an amazing journey: baleen whales migrate thousands of miles to their winter breeding grounds in the tropics — without eating. For example, gray whales travel nearly 7000 miles between feeding grounds off Russia and breeding areas along Baja California. And humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere migrate more than 5000 miles from foraging areas near Antarctica to mating sites off Costa Rica, where they burn off about 200 pounds each day, while urinating vast amounts of nitrogen-rich urea,” the press release said. “One study in Iceland suggests that fin whales produce more than 250 gallons of urine per day when they are feeding. Humans pee less than half a gallon daily.”

Whale migrations are the longest of any mammal on the planet.

“Because of their size, whales are able to do things that no other animal does. They’re living life on a different scale,” said co-author of the study Andrew Pershing, an oceanographer at nonprofit Climate Central, in the press release. “Nutrients are coming in from outside — and not from a river, but by these migrating animals. It’s super-cool, and changes how we think about ecosystems in the ocean. We don’t think of animals other than humans having an impact on a planetary scale, but the whales really do.”

Before industrial whaling in the 19th century, whales’ nutrient inputs would have “been much bigger and this effect would’ve been much bigger,” Pershing added.

Nutrient inputs for Earth’s largest animal ever, the blue whale, are unknown, so they were not included in the study’s primary calculations. Population numbers for blue whales who live in the Southern Ocean are still much lower than they once were after being decimated by hunting in the 20th century.

“There’s basic things that we don’t know about them, like where their breeding areas are,’’ Pershing said, “so that’s an effect that’s harder for us to capture.”

Humpbacks and blue whales were both depleted by whaling, but some humpback populations are rebounding after decades of conservation efforts.

“Lots of people think of plants as the lungs of the planet, taking in carbon dioxide, and expelling oxygen,” Roman said. “For their part, animals play an important role in moving nutrients. Seabirds transport nitrogen and phosphorus from the ocean to the land in their poop, increasing the density of plants on islands. Animals form the circulatory system of the planet — and whales are the extreme example.”

The study, “Migrating baleen whales transport high-latitude nutrients to tropical and subtropical ecosystems,” was published in the journal Nature Communications.

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In a new report, researchers have ranked global cities for flood and drought risks and determined that some of the biggest cities in the world are facing dangerous climate swings between dry and wet periods. Some cities have seen a total change in their climate, moving from typically dry regions to regions prone to flooding and vice versa, according to the study.

The report, conducted by non-governmental organization WaterAid in collaboration with researchers from the University of Bristol and Cardiff University, investigated the climate trends in the 100 most-populated cities globally as well as 12 cities where the NGO operates. 

In total, 95% of the observed cities were experiencing a shift toward wetter or dryer climates, as The Guardian reported.

According to the findings, 15% of the cities are experiencing climate “whiplash,” where they face periods of drought almost immediately followed by flooding. As The Guardian reported, the recent wildfires in Los Angeles were an example of such whiplash, with wetter periods both before and after the fires. 

The rainy period increased vegetation growth, which fueled larger fires. Now, after the fires, some people in Southern California are being evacuated amid wetter weather because of increased mudslide risks, ABC News reported.

“These are recent burn areas and are especially susceptible to heavy rain,” the Los Angeles Fire Department warned. These extreme back-and-forth patterns are happening to cities globally and could worsen, the new report warned.

About 20% of the cities in the study have shifted from more dry extreme weather to wet extremes, with 13% of these cities moving toward wetter climate extremes and 7% moving toward drier extremes. 

WaterAid

“Places that were historically wet are becoming dry and vice versa. Other places are now increasingly battered by both extreme floods and droughts. A deeper understanding of localised climate hazards can support more intelligent and bespoke planning in major cities,” Katerina Michaelides, co-lead scientist on the project and professor of Dryland Hydrology at the University of Bristol, said in a statement.

The cities facing varying climate extremes face risk of infrastructure that cannot keep up with the shifts in wet or dry weather events. As explained by WaterAid, extreme flooding threatens water sanitation and waste systems, which can lead to disease spread. On the other hand, extreme drought puts strain on water resources.

South and southeast Asia and north and east Africa were highlighted as two particularly vulnerable regions to the extreme climate whiplash, with the cities facing the highest risks including Khartoum, Sudan; Faisalabad, Pakistan; Lahore, Pakistan; Baghdad, Iraq; Surabaya, Indonesia; Nairobi, Kenya; and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

“As the nature and intensity of natural hazards change, their impacts on urban communities will be significantly shaped by social and infrastructural vulnerabilities,” said Sean Fox, associate professor of global development at University of Bristol who provided research for the report. “In other words, risk isn’t just about the chance of a flood or drought occurring, it’s also about how prepared communities are to deal with these hazards.”

To improve equitable access to water, sanitation and hygiene services and make infrastructure better prepared for changing climate and extreme weather, WaterAid is recommending for governments to prioritize climate and water actions and provide plans for adapting to climate; for developers, banks and the private sector to increase investments in climate-resilient water infrastructure and services; and for all parties involved in water services and infrastructure to prioritize the most vulnerable communities.

“We urge the UK to show leadership and maintain its influential role in tackling global climate and health challenges — essential to creating a secure world free from poverty,” Tim Wainwright, chief executive of WaterAid UK, said in a statement. “Now, we need to turn commitments into action — for leaders to build and invest in systems worldwide that can withstand extreme weather and keep clean water flowing globally.”

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In what United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin called the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history,” on Wednesday the EPA chief announced 31 deregulation actions that will roll back Biden-era environmental rules, including those concerning climate change, electric vehicles (EVs) and pollution limits for coal-fired power plants, reported The Associated Press.

If approved, Zeldin said the actions will lower prices for common expenses like home heat, purchasing a car and operating a business by eliminating trillions in “regulatory costs and hidden ‘taxes’.”

“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more,” Zeldin said in a press release from the EPA. “Alongside President Trump, we are living up to our promises to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, and work hand-in-hand with our state partners to advance our shared mission.”

Of the dozens of environmental regulations set to be rolled back is an EPA finding from 2009 that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and welfare. The Clean Air Act determination is the basis for a large number of climate regulations for power plants, automobiles and other sources of pollution.

Climate scientists and environmentalists consider the Obama-era endangerment finding a cornerstone of U.S. law, saying any attempt to reverse it is not likely to succeed.

“In the face of overwhelming science, it’s impossible to think that the EPA could develop a contradictory finding that would stand up in court,” said David Doniger, senior attorney and strategist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), in an NRDC Expert Blog post. “Indeed, the courts have repeatedly rejected attacks on the finding. Even Trump’s first-term EPA administrators understood that reversing it was ‘a fool’s errand,’ in the words of one conservative former agency official.”

Among the other regulations set to be “reconsidered” by the EPA are “regulations throttling the oil and gas industry”; mercury standards that the agency said “improperly targeted coal-fired power plants”; the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program; and regulations for wastewater from coal plants.

“From the campaign trail to Day 1 and beyond, President Trump has delivered on his promise to unleash energy dominance and lower the cost of living,” Zeldin said in a video. “We at E.P.A. will do our part to power the great American comeback.”

Zeldin spoke of the changes without mentioning the EPA’s guiding principles: to protect the environment and public health.

In an explanation of the EPA’s mission, the first Administrator of the EPA William D. Ruckelshaus said the agency has “no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce; only the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment.”

Weeks following the creation of the EPA by former President Richard M. Nixon in 1970, Ruckelshaus said its focus would be on research, as well as five areas of standards and enforcements: air and water pollution, pesticides, waste disposal and radiation, The New York Times reported.

Zeldin said limits on smokestacks linked to respiratory issues and premature deaths would be overturned, along with the Clean Air Act’s “Good Neighbor” provision requiring states to be responsible for their own pollution when it is blown into neighboring states. The EPA would also do away with enforcement efforts prioritizing the safety of predominantly poor and minority communities.

When environmental policy is created by the agency, Zeldin said it will no longer take into consideration the societal costs of storms, wildfires, droughts and other disasters that could be worsened by pollution connected to the policy.

The EPA’s announcements are not legally binding, and in nearly every case the agency would need to undergo a lengthy public comment process, as well as formulate economic and environmental justifications for each revision.

Environmentalists and democrats accused Zeldin of deserting the responsibility of the EPA to safeguard the environment and human health.

“Today is the day Trump’s Big Oil megadonors paid for,” said Democratic Senator from Rhode Island Sheldon Whitehouse, as reported by The New York Times. “Administrator Zeldin clearly lied when he told us that he would respect the science and listen to the experts.”

Jackie Wong, NRDC’s senior vice president for climate change and energy, said weakening the rules would result in increases in health problems like heart attacks and asthma.

“At a time when millions of Americans are trying to rebuild after horrific wildfires and climate-fueled hurricanes, it’s nonsensical to try to deny that climate change harms our health and welfare,” Wong said.

Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator during the Obama administration, called it “the most disastrous day in EPA history. Rolling these rules back is not just a disgrace, it’s a threat to all of us. The agency has fully abdicated its mission to protect Americans’ health and well being.”

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