The most financially costly climate disasters around the world in 2024 produced $229 billion in damages and killed 2,000 people, according to Counting the Cost 2024: A year of climate breakdown, the most recent analysis of insurance payouts by nonprofit Christian Aid.

Three-quarters of these calamities occurred in the United States, reported The Guardian.

“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.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Christian Aid (@christianaiduk)

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.

The post Most Costly Climate Disasters of 2024 Killed 2,000 People and Inflicted $229 Billion in Damages appeared first on EcoWatch.

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.

“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.

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.

The post Plants Are Becoming Less Nutritious Because of Climate Change, Impacting Herbivores From Insects to Giant Pandas appeared first on EcoWatch.

In the ultramafic mountains of central Sabah, Borneo, grow “giant pitcher” plants. They are characterized by their large, bell-shaped lower and upper pitchers and upright, narrow lids. The plant uses its pitchers to capture rainfall and insects.

A team of botanists from Sabah Forestry Department’s Forest Research Centre in Malaysia — along with two colleagues from Australia — has identified a new species of these distinctive plants that is the color of orangutans who live in the area, reported Phys.org.

“One of the largest species of Nepenthes described in recent years, N. pongoides is endemic to the relatively low-elevation ultramafic Meliau Range of central Sabah. Only 39 mature individuals have been observed across two subpopulations, therefore the species is here assessed as CR (Critically Endangered) under the IUCN Red List criteria owing to its extremely small population size, limited area of occurrence and very high threat of unsustainable poaching for the horticultural trade,” the research team wrote in their paper on the discovery.

In “Sabah’s hidden giant: Nepenthes pongoides (Nepenthaceae), a micro-endemic tropical pitcher plant from northern Borneo,” the team describes how they became familiar with the plant and what their expedition to the site revealed.

The researchers examined reports of an unknown Sabah mountains pitcher plant that was photographed in 2004, but had never been investigated, Phys.org reported. News of scientists having taken additional photographs in 2018 prompted members of the team to travel to the site to take a look.

On the third day after they arrived in the region, the research team found what they were searching for: a mound of igneous bounders. The area seemed suitable for a rainwater capturing plant, since there was no running water in the vicinity.

“An expedition was made to the type locality to make field observations of the taxon, record habitat, population and ecological data such as infauna, prey spectra and numbers of individuals, and to collect representative vouchers, minimising negative impacts on the small population by taking material in the form of terminal cuttings to allow for the in situ regeneration of sampled individuals from axillary nodes,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

Pitchers and habit of Nepenthes pongoides. (a) Rosette pitcher of immature plant showing highly developed peristome column. (b) Pendent pitcher of a scrambling plant. Note ventral attachment of tendril and scattered large nectar glands of same. (c) Large terrestrial pitcher. (d) Mature rosette emergent from humus-filled fissure between ultramafic boulders; a cutting from this rosette was sampled as voucher 161456. (e) An individual demonstrating occasionally observed scrambling habit. Photographs (a), (e) by A. Damit; (b), (c), (d) by A.S. Robinson. Australian Journal of Botany (2024). DOI: 10.1071 / BT24050

The team noted that the leaves of the plant were unique and that there was long red hair covering the pitcher that was almost the same color as that of the orangutans who live in the area, leading them to name the novel species Nepenthes pongoides, or “resembling orangutan.”

After subsequent research, the team discovered that the plant was the largest pitcher that had ever been identified.

“Nepenthes pongoides is described and illustrated as new to science. The species is characterised by its large size, peltate tendril exsertion, absence of upper pitchers and extremely well-developed, persistent indumentum of long, coarse, dark reddish trichomes, the extent of which is unsurpassed in any other known Bornean Nepenthes species,” the researchers wrote.

The team made two expeditions to the same region, during which they learned not only of the plant’s uniqueness, but also of its vulnerability, noting that poachers had already heard about the findings and had been harvesting the giant pitchers.

In addition to poaching, the rare plants are also susceptible to natural threats.

“As is the case for many microendemic species, the taxon is extremely vulnerable to stochastic events such as fire which, on sufficient scale, could represent extinction level events,” the researchers warned.

A member of the Nepenthes genus — which consists of over 160 species — the newest species of pitcher plant can grow as large as 45 centimeters and hold more than two liters of water.

“The documentation of such remarkable new species in comparatively well-explored rainforest regions such as those of northern Borneo highlights the importance of targeted exploration in remaining wilderness areas to uncover hidden biodiversity. Doing so closes gaps in scientific knowledge, and specifically increases the critical taxonomic and ecological knowledge necessary to support the development and implementation of conservation measures required to reduce the risk of species extinction and concomitant loss of biodiversity,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

The post New Species of Orangutan-Colored Pitcher Plant Discovered in Mountains of Borneo appeared first on EcoWatch.

Air-drying clothes in the summer is quite simple, hanging shirts and linens on picturesque laundry lines in the dry, warm air. When winter comes with its cold, wet days, it’s hard to imagine the line full of laundry in the backyard — but winter weather doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to start tumble-drying again. 

Drying clothes in a dryer adds to the environmental impact of your laundry, as machine-drying makes up 75% of the total carbon footprint of laundry. Running the dryer also costs money — depending on the efficiency of the model and number of loads, it can cost a household between $100 and $200 a year. 

While the warm summer sun might make it easier to line-dry clothes, laundry can still be line-dried in the winter, both inside and outdoors. Here’s how.

Line-Dry Clothes Outdoors

Yes, even in the coldest months of the winter, you can dry your clothes outside. 

It’s possible because of a process called sublimation, whereby water turns from a solid to a gas without having a liquid phase. Essentially, it evaporates without turning to water first. Think of the way ice cubes get smaller in the freezer over time. It’s the same basic process as freeze-drying. 

It’s best to dry outdoors on dry, sunny days if you can, and a little wind helps a lot. Even if the clothes don’t dry off completely outside, you can always finish off the process in the machine for a few minutes. 

Your clothes might come off the line rather stiff, though. To prevent this, add about half a cup of vinegar near the end of the wash cycle, which cuts through the chemical residue from the detergent that makes dry clothes stiff.

Dry Indoors 

Clothes drying on a rack indoors in New Westminster, British Columbia. Dennis Sylvester Hurd / Flickr

Drying clothes indoors can happen year-round with pretty minimal effort. It’s best if you have some drying rack or airer to hang clothes on — one that folds up, or one built into the wall. Some have multiple tiers, or additional sections that fold out to give you more space. You can also use lines that can be taken down after you’re finished.

Reduce Laundry Loads 

As tempting as it might be to reduce the number of loads, don’t overfill the machine. The spin cycle will be more effective and remove more water from the clothes when there’s more space. Your clothes will be less damp when removed, putting them in a better position to dry quicker.

Take It for Another Spin 

Another way to make sure that laundry is less wet when coming out of the washing machine: give it a second spin. Another spin cycle can get rid of excess moisture, and the extra energy to do that is negligible compared to a whole dryer cycle. While it sounds counterintuitive, you don’t necessarily want to set the spinner to a faster setting — a slower spin might actually work better to dry off clothes. After the last spin cycle, give the tub a good shake and a spin to get any excess water off.

Towel Them Off

Yes, with an actual towel. Wrap clothes up in the towel to absorb excess moisture before hanging them up. Lay the towel out flat, then lay a piece of clothing on top. Roll it up tightly, squeezing as you go, then roll it back out. This won’t remove all the water, of course, but especially for heavy items like sweaters or jeans, it’ll cut back on air-drying time 

Spread Clothes Out

Hang things up right away to avoid giving them that damp, mildewy smells — and give them space on the drying rack or clothes line. They won’t dry as well if they’re overlapping, so leave an inch of room between each item if you can. If there isn’t enough space, hang items on hangers instead. You can suspend them from curtain rods or other places around the house — maybe from a tension rod in the frame of a seldom-used door. Some drying racks even have small holes on the sides to allow for hangers. 

Use Other Heat to Dry

Even without the drying machine, other, less energy-intensive heat can be used to dry clothes. A heated clothes airer uses less energy than a tumble dryer, and can be folded up and put away. It also leaves clothes less wrinkled, so it’s good for those items that might need to be ironed after drying anyway.

For homes with radiators, you basically have a built-in heated clothes airer! Place your drying rack close to the radiator so it can take advantage of that heat, and your clothes will dry in a fraction of the time. If the radiator has a cover, lay items directly on top, flipping them after some time.

Keep in Rooms That Aren’t Humid

The last thing your drying laundry needs is more moisture. Avoid hanging clothes in damp basements, in a steamy bathroom, or the kitchen where the air can get moist from boiling water — unless there are efficient fans or other ventilation in those rooms. In humid seasons, a dehumidifier can remove excess moisture from the air. In a closed-off room with the machine running, clothes can dry pretty quickly.

Place Near a Window

Good ventilation and air flow is key. Leave the window open for a bit if you can on warmer winter days, or place the drying rack in a room that you don’t use much during the day. An open window is even more effective when paired with a fan to circulate air. Fans use much less energy than a dryer — the standard electricity usage is 33 watts, while clothes dryers are in the thousands.

Use Dryers Correctly 

When you do use the dryer, use it as efficiently as possible to avoid wasting any energy. Clean the filter after every use to remove lint — even just a little impacts drying time. Once a year, clean the vents too, following the specific cleaning directions for your model.

To dry clothes faster, put a dry towel in with wet clothes during the first few minutes, then remove and hang it up to air-dry. Dryer balls can reduce drying times too by keeping clothes from sticking to each other, allowing air to circulate around them more easily.

The post Air-Drying Clothes in Winter? Yes, It’s Possible appeared first on EcoWatch.

A team of scientists in Germany and the United States has found that many tall, heavy buildings along South Florida’s coast are sinking into the earth much faster than expected.

The researchers compared several years of satellite images to glean more information about continuing subsidence — where the altitude of a piece of land becomes lower — along a number of South Florida beachfronts, reported Phys.org.

“This study utilizes Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) to examine subsidence along the coastal strip of the Miami barrier islands from 2016 to 2023. Using Sentinel-1 data, we document vertical displacements ranging from 2 to 8 cm, affecting a total of 35 coastal buildings and their vicinity. About half of the subsiding structures are younger than 2014 and at the majority of them subsidence decays with time. This correlation suggests that the subsidence is related to construction activities,” the authors of the study wrote.

Earlier research had revealed that subsidence can be caused by many factors. Natural causes include earthquakes, gravity and water movement. Human-made causes include landscaping, fracking and the weight of the built environment, as with large buildings.

The researchers noted that many tall coastal buildings in South Florida appeared extremely heavy, and they wondered if this might be causing the ground underneath them to sink.

To investigate, the research team examined satellite imagery of several of the area’s most popular beaches and compared the buildings sitting on them over time. The imagery is precise enough that it can detect altitude changes of only a few centimeters.

The researchers discovered that all of the buildings they measured were sinking — most of them faster than expected. They highlighted a spatio-temporal connection between new construction in the study area and subsidence.

“In northern and central Sunny Isles Beach, where 23% of coastal structures were built during the last decade, nearly 70% are experiencing subsidence. The majority of the older subsiding structures show sudden onset or sudden acceleration of subsidence, suggesting that this is due to construction activities in their vicinity; we have identified subsidence at distance of 200 m, possibly up to 320 m, from construction sites,” the authors wrote in the study. “We attribute the observed subsidence to load-induced, prolonged creep deformation of the sandy layers within the limestone, which is accelerated, if not instigated, by construction activities.”

Sunny Isles Beach was home to the worst subsidence of all the areas in the study. The second was Surfside, where in 2021 a 12-story building collapsed. The researchers noted that the least subsistence occurred in Miami Beach.

Because of the recent building collapse in Surfside, the researchers took a closer look to see if subsidence could have been a contributing factor, but found no evidence that it was. They added that, if it had been sinking, structural damage wouldn’t have occurred unless the building was sinking unevenly. The team suggested more work would be needed to find out if that is happening with any South Florida buildings so the owners can be made aware of it.

“Anthropogenic and natural groundwater movements could also be driving the creep deformation. This study demonstrates that high-rise construction on karstic barrier islands can induce creep deformation in sandy layer within the limestone succession persisting for a decade or longer. It showcases the potential of InSAR technology for monitoring both building settlement and structural stability,” the authors wrote.

The study, “InSAR Observations of Construction-Induced Coastal Subsidence on Miami’s Barrier Islands, Florida,” was published in the journal Earth and Space Science.

The post South Florida’s Beachfront Buildings Sinking Faster Than Expected, Research Finds appeared first on EcoWatch.