GoGreenNation news

California's housing crisis could be raising risk of climate disasters, researchers fear

News Feed

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

The lack of affordable housing in California's urban centers may be fueling increased development in adjacent wildlands — exacerbating the impacts of climate change, researchers fear. For the past several decades, the Golden State has made the biggest mark nationwide on the so-called "wildland-urban interface," according to a new perspective paper, published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. So large is that footprint, the authors observed, that more than one in three California households are now located either within or right next to natural environments. That proximity to wildlands, they explained, puts residents at greater risk of climate-related natural disasters, such as fires, floods and landslides. Surging development is also resulting in longer commutes — and a related rise in greenhouse gas emissions — while causing harm to area flora and fauna, the researchers noted. "Our research aims to demonstrate that you can’t extricate these environmental and ecological dynamics from urban and housing dynamics — it’s all interconnected," lead author Miriam Greenberg, a sociology professor at the University of California Santa Cruz, said in a statement. Greenberg and her colleagues are currently conducting a first-of-its kind study as to how, precisely, California's housing crisis is contributing to the expansion of the wildland-urban interface. To understand these dynamics, the team is relying on a mix of resources, such as surveys and ethnographic interviews, as well as census, mapping and ecological data along California's Central Coast. They will also be exploring indigenous land stewardship, habitat restoration and the influence of prescribed burns on the wildland-urban interface. As the researchers delve deeper into this $1.6 million, grant-funded endeavor, they shared several predictions in their new perspective paper. They hypothesized that the motivations driving people to wildland-urban interface areas has undergone a major shift: Rather than feeling close ties to nature, they are making such moves due to housing affordability. A growing number of Californians, the authors explained, have simply been priced out of cities and suburbia. The researchers predicted that the interface development that sprawls out of urban zones will largely be filled with middle-income commuters. More remote development in wildland areas will feature "an eclectic housing mix" of everything from "large gated mountaintop estates for the affluent" to "off-the-grid" trailers and vehicles, according to the paper. The authors also said they expected to find that the rise in affordability-driven migration has resulted in a general increase in inequality within the wildland-urban interface. That growth, they explained, may have worsened the effects of climate-fueled environmental disasters. “We really need to expand the frontiers of how we think about urban sustainability, because it doesn't just end at city boundaries,” co-author Hillary Angelo, an associate professor of sociology, said in a statement. “Without enough affordable urban housing, people are being pushed to riskier areas outside of cities, and that makes cities unjust while also having terrible social and environmental impacts elsewhere," Angelo added.

The lack of affordable housing in California's urban centers may be fueling increased development in adjacent wildlands — exacerbating the impacts of climate change, researchers fear.

For the past several decades, the Golden State has made the biggest mark nationwide on the so-called "wildland-urban interface," according to a new perspective paper, published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

So large is that footprint, the authors observed, that more than one in three California households are now located either within or right next to natural environments.

That proximity to wildlands, they explained, puts residents at greater risk of climate-related natural disasters, such as fires, floods and landslides.

Surging development is also resulting in longer commutes — and a related rise in greenhouse gas emissions — while causing harm to area flora and fauna, the researchers noted.

"Our research aims to demonstrate that you can’t extricate these environmental and ecological dynamics from urban and housing dynamics — it’s all interconnected," lead author Miriam Greenberg, a sociology professor at the University of California Santa Cruz, said in a statement.

Greenberg and her colleagues are currently conducting a first-of-its kind study as to how, precisely, California's housing crisis is contributing to the expansion of the wildland-urban interface.

To understand these dynamics, the team is relying on a mix of resources, such as surveys and ethnographic interviews, as well as census, mapping and ecological data along California's Central Coast. They will also be exploring indigenous land stewardship, habitat restoration and the influence of prescribed burns on the wildland-urban interface.

As the researchers delve deeper into this $1.6 million, grant-funded endeavor, they shared several predictions in their new perspective paper.

They hypothesized that the motivations driving people to wildland-urban interface areas has undergone a major shift: Rather than feeling close ties to nature, they are making such moves due to housing affordability. A growing number of Californians, the authors explained, have simply been priced out of cities and suburbia.

The researchers predicted that the interface development that sprawls out of urban zones will largely be filled with middle-income commuters.

More remote development in wildland areas will feature "an eclectic housing mix" of everything from "large gated mountaintop estates for the affluent" to "off-the-grid" trailers and vehicles, according to the paper.

The authors also said they expected to find that the rise in affordability-driven migration has resulted in a general increase in inequality within the wildland-urban interface. That growth, they explained, may have worsened the effects of climate-fueled environmental disasters.

“We really need to expand the frontiers of how we think about urban sustainability, because it doesn't just end at city boundaries,” co-author Hillary Angelo, an associate professor of sociology, said in a statement.

“Without enough affordable urban housing, people are being pushed to riskier areas outside of cities, and that makes cities unjust while also having terrible social and environmental impacts elsewhere," Angelo added.

Read the full story here.

Photos courtesy of

Related News

The birth of the climate doula

In Florida, a new pilot program teaches doulas how to prepare pregnant people for hurricanes, flooding, and extreme heat — addressing a growing climate and maternal health crisis.

In the days leading up to Hurricane Irma’s landfall in September 2017, Esther Louis made preparations to flee Florida with her husband and four children. The Category 4 Hurricane was expected to hit the Florida Keys and make it’s way up the state, posing a risk to millions of residents. One of those residents was a client of Louis’ who was nine months pregnant and living in a home that the Miami-based doula feared was in too poor of condition to withstand the storm. As a doula, Louis was trained to provide holistic care to her client, anticipating all the factors that may affect her health. She worried about how the stress of an impending hurricane and evacuation could impact her client’s pregnancy. So she offered to escort her client and her family toward Georgia, where Louis was headed and where her client had relatives. The caravan of two families departed together, inching their way in evacuation traffic to the Georgia border. What would have been an eight hour drive took 24 hours. “It was stressful,” Louis said. Her client started to experience Braxton Hicks contractions which can be caused by stress. At times they would switch drivers so she could provide emotional support to her client, who was worried about all that could go wrong on the drive. “Sometimes people go to the worst possible outcome but I’m like, ‘We’re going to get there, OK? We’re going to work it out.’” The experience was one of many instances in Louis’ career where the worsening climate crisis had complicated a client’s birthing journey. She realized that if doulas like herself had proper training on how to communicate the risks of hurricane season, flooding and even extreme heat to their clients, they would be better prepared in the event of a disaster like Irma. Read Next How climate change endangers mothers and children Zoya Teirstein They would also be filling an important information gap that could protect pregnancies, particularly for Black people, who have a higher climate risk and higher maternal mortality rates. Over the past decade, a growing body of research has linked environmental threats like extreme heat and wildfire smoke to an uptick in stillbirths, premature births and low-birth weights. These factors also cause health problems for pregnant people, including an association with developing preeclampsia, a high blood pressure condition that can be deadly. More recently, studies have linked climate-related disasters with higher rates of maternal mental health issues like postpartum depression. So in 2024, after years of providing some of this training herself to doulas in the Miami-Dade area, Louis partnered with Dr. Cheryl Holder, cofounder of Florida Clinicians for Climate Action, a nonprofit that seeks to teach health professionals how to incorporate climate change into their work. They won a grant that would help them develop a curriculum and training known as the Doula C-Hot program, to teach doulas how to assess the climate risk of their clients and help them better prepare for future climate threats. If the pilot is successful it could serve as a blueprint for how to train doulas across the country as climate educators. A survey conducted by Louis and other advocacy groups focused on maternal health found that doulas, who provide emotional and physical support to pregnant people, were already seeing the everyday risks the changing climate posed to their clients’ pregnancies and doing their best to help them cope. In New Orleans, doulas have shown up at emergency shelters to figure out what people need to safely feed their infants when access to sterile water needed for infant formula isn’t always available or places to privately breastfeed can be hard to find. And in Philadelphia, doulas are playing an important role in educating patients on environmental exposures to contaminants like lead or air pollution. Some doulas, like Houston-based Sierra Sankofa, have even developed disaster planning workshops aimed at pregnant people and families with young children that can help them better prepare for staying warm in the winter and cool in the summer. She’s covered topics like how to know if breast milk is still safe if the power has gone out and how to sanitize bottles with no electricity. Read Next Climate disasters can alter kids’ brains — before they’re even born Kate Yoder But while many doulas are already helping their patients through climate-related disasters, the survey identified another trend: 95 percent of them wanted more training and resources to help pregnant people deal with environmental threats and hazards. So far the pilot program in Florida, which has been running for almost a year, has trained 12 doulas on the impacts of climate change on pregnancy and maternal health. It follows a model developed by Holder, a collaborator on the project, who similarly trained clinicians to understand climate health risks. She wanted to focus her efforts on reaching pregnant people, particularly from the marginalized populations she already works with as a doctor. “Where else should we start, other than with pregnant folks? That’s two lives, the next generation,” she said. “And if we can’t learn lessons to save the newborn, the unborn and the mom, how are we in society going to do anything?” She knew doulas could be more effective in that work, due to the close relationships they develop with their patients and the time they spend with them. They also conduct home visits and are able to understand more holistically what may be impacting a pregnant person’s health. Nationally, doulas are being recognized for their additive care, with many states passing legislation in recent years to cover their services under Medicaid in order to improve birth outcomes, particularly for women of color. Read Next ‘How did we miss this for so long?’: The link between extreme heat and preterm birth Virginia Gewin As part of their training with the project, the doulas work with their clients to gauge their preparedness, said Louis, who helped develop the assessment tool. They ask them questions like do they have an air conditioning unit? Or someone they can borrow $50 from in case of an emergency? Do they have a place to go if a disaster hits? Depending on their answers, the doulas are then able to offer advice, like where to find a cooling center, or resources including portable air conditioners for those without AC. They also help their clients do things like look up whether they live in a flood zone, and assist them in developing plans to prepare for a hurricane or other natural disaster. They then reassess their patients after these climate-focused meetings to understand if they are now better prepared to deal with heat or hurricanes during their pregnancies. So far they’ve worked with over 40 clients. If the pilot program is successful, they hope to build out the tools and training to make it accessible beyond Florida. Already they are thinking of ways to reach more pregnant people, said Zainab Jah, a researcher evaluating the program. For one, they would like to expand the languages of their materials, which are in English. In the parts of Miami-Dade and Broward County where they work, there are communities who speak Haitian Creole and Spanish. Some of their doulas are able to translate, but they’d like to focus on language equity as they grow the program. Meanwhile, other models are being developed. In Oregon, Nurturely, an advocacy group that focuses on perinatal equity, or improving pregnancy outcomes, is working on a similar train-the-trainer model set to launch in 2026, which aims to expand the knowledge of birthworkers around wildfire season and wildfire smoke. “The perinatal period is a very delicate period. So there are niche needs and preparation for people in that category,” said Aver Yakubu, a program director with the organization. Read Next Four lost pregnancies. Five weeks of IVF injections. One storm. Zoya Teirstein & Jessica Kutz, The 19th Many of the doulas Yakubu has spoken to in the state are aware of the dangers of wildfires, but “they don’t know where to start or what to say to their patients,” she said. This training would aim to fill that information void and connect clients to resources. In Oregon, for example, pregnant Medicaid patients can use their coverage to pay for things like air conditioners and air purifiers, which can buffer them from the effects of heat and smoke. Still, there are limitations to using doulas to reach those most socioeconomically vulnerable to the climate crisis. Doula care is expensive, and while Florida can reimburse doulas under the state’s Medicaid program, it’s been difficult in practice for doulas to qualify and receive payment. In Texas, where Sankofa works, she said the current Medicaid reimbursements leave out community-based doulas who specifically help marginalized groups by only recognizing certain certifications. Many community-based doulas have received training outside of those certifying bodies and are holistically meeting the needs of their clients, she argues. She’s advocating to change the law to allow for a broader definition of who could meet those guidelines. But even if there is progress on improving doula coverage, the future of Medicaid itself is up in the air. A majority of the clients being reached by the Florida pilot program are on Medicaid, and nationally, the program covers 41 percent of all births. But with the impending cuts to the program pushed through under the Trump administration, coverage could dwindle. “I think that’s the biggest issue right now,” Jah said. “I think we’re just all actively in the space of trying to learn from one another and brainstorm to figure out what can be done. But I think that’s going to be a huge barrier.” While figuring out some of the logistical and financial obstacles will be difficult, Holder believes the training they are providing doulas is crucial to the health of pregnant people in a state where climate change is wreaking havoc. “I would really love to see this program fully tested and expanded and incorporated in general medical care,” she said. “This is the new environment we live in.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The birth of the climate doula on Nov 16, 2025.

Climate

Crisis

Health

As Nations Push for More Ambition at Climate Talks, Chairman Says They May Get It

At the halfway point of annual United Nations climate negotiations in Brazil, it appears the talks may do more than just focus on implementing past promises, as some observers had expected

Throw that out the window.The urgency of climate change is causing some negotiators to push for more big-picture action — on weak plans to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases, on too little money to help nations wracked by climate change, on putting teeth into phasing out coal, oil and gas. Because of that pressure to do more — including from Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — the diplomat chairing the talks said Saturday he'll consider a big-picture, end-of-negotiations communiqué, sometimes known as a decision or cover text.“I think things have changed, which is a very good thing,” said veteran observer Jean Su of the Center for Biological Diversity. “So I think there’s momentum that we will get some type of decision text, and our hope is that in particular there’s going to be some commitment on phasing out fossil fuels.”“I would say that what’s at stake now is probably higher than the last several COPs because you’re looking at an ambition gap,″ said former Philippine negotiator Jasper Inventor, international program director at Greenpeace International. “There’s a lot of expectation, there’s a lot of excitement here, but there’s also a lot of political signals that’s been sent by President Lula.”“We’re at the middle of the COP, and at the middle of COP is usually where the negotiators stare each other eye-to-eye. It’s almost like a staring contest,” Inventor said. “But next week, this is where the negotiations need to happen, where political decisions are made by the ministers.”Because this process stems from the Paris climate Agreement, which is mostly voluntary, these end statements grab headlines and set global tone but have limited power. The last few COP end statements have made still-unfulfilled pledges for rich countries to give money to poor nations to cope with climate change and the world to phase out fossil fuels.Key among those issues is the idea of telling nations to go back to the drawing board on what experts consider inadequate climate-fighting plans submitted this year.In the 2015 Paris agreement, which is being celebrated here on its 10th anniversary, nations are supposed to have submitted climate-fighting, emissions-curbing plans every five years. So far 116 of 193 countries have filed theirs this year, but what they promised isn’t much. United Nations and Climate Action Tracker, a group of scientists, calculates that these new pledges barely reduced future projections for Earth's warming.Even if the world does all it promises, Earth would be about seven-tenths of a degree Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) above the Paris goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, the groups estimated.So small island nations, led by Palau, asked that this conference confront the gap between what’s planned in national pledges and what’s needed to keep the world from hitting the temperature danger zone.That's not on the agenda for these talks. Nor are specific details on how to fulfill last year’s pledge by rich nations to provide $300 billion annually in climate financial aid.So when nations early on wanted to address these issues, COP President André Corrêa do Lago, a veteran Brazilian diplomat, set up special small confabs to try to decide if the controversial topics should be discussed. On Saturday, the conference punted the issue to the incoming ministers.“The parties will decide how they want to proceed,” do Lago said at a Saturday evening news conference. Given what countries are saying and past history that usually means a final end-of-COP message to the world, several experts said. In a casual exchange with a reporter about how the conference is going, COP President do Lago said: “Eh, could be better but not as bad it could be.” Momentum to phase out fossil fuels U.N. General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock, the former German foreign minister who has been to 10 of these sessions, told The Associated Press Saturday morning before the evening's session that she saw “new momentum” in Belem.“We can fight the climate crisis only together if we commit to a strong mitigation target,” she said. “This means also transitioning away from fossil fuels, investing into renewable energy.”Two years ago in Dubai, the world agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels,” but last year no mention of that was made and there've been no details on how or when to do this. Baerbock hailed as crucial Lula's call during the Leaders' Summit last week for “a road map for humanity to overcome, in a just and planned way, its dependence on fossil fuels, reverse deforestation, and mobilize the resources needed to do so.”“I think what we have before us are the ingredients of a potential high-ambition package for the outcome of this conference,” Iskander Erzini Vernoit, executive director of the Moroccan IMAL Initiative for Climate and Development, said. Getting Indigenous voices heard Indigenous groups breached and blockaded the venue twice this week with demands to be further included in the U.N. talks, despite this conference’s promotion as the “Indigenous Peoples’ COP.” The COP so far “was a testament that unfortunately, for Indigenous peoples to be heard, they actually need to be disruptive,” said Aya Khourshid, an Egyptian-Palestinian member of A Wisdom Keepers Delegation, a group of Indigenous people from around the world.Indigenous people are putting a lot of energy “to be in this space but to not necessarily be given a platform or voice at the decision table with the ministers and those who are in power,” said Whaia, a Ngāti Kahungunu Wisdom Keeper. “There's an imbalance here at COP30," she said. “There's the privileged and the not-so lucky who don't get a say on what's actually going on in their own home.”The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.This story was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

Climate

Crisis

Forests

These Special Plants Accumulate Critical Metals Without Destructive Mining

This story was originally published by bioGraphic and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Alpine pennycress is a charming little plant. Its low-growing rosette of green leaves is topped by leggy stalks bearing clusters of pinkish-white flowers. As they develop, these flowers transform into beautiful flattened seedpods that, in the words of botanist Liz Rylott from the United Kingdom’s University of York, “resemble a British old penny.” But alpine pennycress (Noccaea caerulescens) is notable for far more than its penny disguise. The plant is one of a select group—representing just 0.2 percent of the world’s known vascular plant species—that have evolved the ability to pull impressive amounts of valuable metals out of the soil. Known to scientists as hyperaccumulators, these plants undergird a developing industry that is looking to help secure the vital metals we want without wrecking the planet in the process. Hyperaccumulators come in all shapes and sizes. Petite alpine pennycress accumulates zinc and cadmium, while shrubby, moth-pollinated Phyllanthus rufuschaneyi—a plant so obscure and narrowly distributed that it doesn’t have a common name—targets nickel. Pycnandra acuminata, a tree native to New Caledonia, has sap so nickel-rich that it “bleeds” a vibrant blue-green and is known as sève bleue, or blue sap, in French. Meanwhile, common buckler-mustard (Biscutella laevigata) collects thallium, and the cobalt wisemany (Haumaniastrum robertii), a plant in the mint family native to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, pulls up copper and cobalt. In all, researchers have identified plants that hyperaccumulate arsenic, cadmium, cerium, copper, cobalt, lanthanum, manganese, neodymium, nickel, selenium, thallium, and zinc. Many of these are among the so-called critical minerals that are needed to build batteries and other components for electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels, and other facets of the green energy transition. They also include the metals that scientists warn could run short and derail global decarbonization efforts. By pulling these elements out of metal-rich soils, hyperaccumulating plants can become as much as 5 percent metal by weight—a feat that would kill most species. And in the emerging field of phytomining, scientists and industrialists are learning to extract these valuable metals in a way that is much gentler on the landscape than conventional mining. Right now, the race for critical minerals is sparking environmental destruction and human rights abuses. Cobalt mining, mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been compared to modern slavery. And concerns over access to critical minerals are stoking geopolitical tensions, including contributing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As demand for these elements increases, high-grade and easily accessible deposits are getting tapped out, sending prospectors scouting for evermore extreme places to mine—like the very bottom of the ocean. There is plenty of lower-grade ore available to be mined, as well as unprocessed mining waste and metal-polluted soils, but the traditional techniques to extract metals from these sources involve toxic chemicals and environmental destruction across wide areas. Yet harnessing the metals from lower-concentration sources, says Rylott, is exactly where phytomining shines. “Plants are really good at large, dilute problems,” says Rylott, who recently published a scientific paper reviewing how phytomining—originally an offshoot of bioremediation research—has advanced over the past several decades. Getting the metal out of hyperaccumulating plants is simple in principle: burn the plants and separate the metal from the ash. Surprisingly, the quality of the resulting metal is often more concentrated and purer than that extracted by conventional mining. And the metal doesn’t need as much refining—it may even be in a form that manufacturers can use directly, minimizing the energy and effort required for processing. The leftover organic material can even be repurposed into fertilizer. But putting that seemingly simple process into practice at industrial scale has proved difficult. Developing the infrastructure to extract metal from large amounts of plant biomass is “the greatest challenge for phytomining,” according to Antony van der Ent, a plant biologist at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, and coauthor, along with Rylott, of the phytomining review. And there are other challenges. Many hyperaccumulators are small, slow-growing plants, says Om Parkash Dhankher, a plant biotechnologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “Many of them are restricted to particular geoclimatic conditions” and are finicky to cultivate, he says. Or, worse, they grow too well, which is what happened when yellowtuft (Odontarrhena chalcidica, formerly known as Alyssum murale), a nickel hyperaccumulator native to the Mediterranean, escaped from an Oregon-based pilot project and turned into an invasive weed. Even phytomining’s boosters say the technology is likely to remain relatively niche. Aside from the technological hurdles, there simply isn’t enough metal within the reach of plant roots to supply all the world’s needs. “Phytomining cannot replace conventional mining,” Dhankher says. Despite these limitations, several phytomining startups have already begun commercial operations. Botanickel, for instance, is combining two different nickel phytomining projects—one with O. chalcidica in Greece, and another using P. rufuschaneyi in Malaysia—with the aim of producing partially plant-derived stainless steel. (Antony van der Ent serves as an advisor to the company.) GenoMines, a French firm, is using a genetically engineered plant in the daisy family and soil probiotics to farm nickel in South Africa. There are a few different ways to obtain nickel, but some of the most common are environmentally destructive techniques like pit mining and strip mining.Mary Grace Varela/Alamy Stock Photo To date, most phytomining work has focused on nickel, a high-value metal needed in large amounts to make batteries, stainless steel, and other materials. Of the 721 known hyperaccumulating plant species, more than 500 take up nickel. For them, as with all complex evolved traits, it’s a matter of survival. Around the world, geological differences in the makeup of the earth mean that some soils—like those made of serpentine or ultramafic rocks—are naturally rich in nickel. For most plants, a heavy dose of nickel is deadly. But hyperaccumulators evolved the ability to absorb the metal into their tissues, turning otherwise toxic soil into an opportunity to thrive. Some scientists think hyperaccumulators’ high concentrations of bodily nickel even help protect them from pathogens and hungry insects. In 2024, the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announced seven grants totaling US $9.9 million over the next several years to develop nickel phytomining technology that could unlock a domestic supply of the metal from the more than 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) of serpentine soils that pepper the landscape in California and Oregon, and along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border. One ARPA-E grant went to a team that includes Rupali Datta, a plant biologist at Michigan Technological University. She and her collaborators are investigating the role of soil chemistry and microbes in maximizing the phytomining potential of several known hyperaccumulators as well as vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides), a fast-growing species she’s previously used to clean up lead pollution. Meanwhile, Metalplant, a Delaware-based company, is collaborating with the Connecticut-based biotech firm Verinomics on a grant to genetically engineer O. chalcidica. Metalplant is already successfully using the species to mine nickel in Albania where it is native, but the company is hoping to tweak it to boost its nickel uptake and prevent it from becoming invasive when planted in North America. Dhankher’s own phytomining efforts got a $1.3 million boost from the ARPA-E program. He aims to develop a genetically engineered version of Camelina sativa, a fast-growing member of the mustard family that is already widely grown in the United States for biofuel, so that it can become a better nickel accumulator. “The target is to create these plants that can accumulate 1 to 3 percent nickel,” Dhanker says. An advantage of C. sativa is that in some areas phytominers could grow three crops a year. If the plants accumulate at least 1 percent of their body mass as nickel, Dhanker says they could produce up to 145,000 pounds of useful metal per square mile of soil each year. A typical electric vehicle battery contains 66 to 110 pounds of nickel. Nickel aside, phytomining also shows promise for collecting other minerals, especially cobalt, thallium, and selenium, Rylott and van der Ent wrote in their recent review. And the technique could even be used to target rare earth elements, a group of important metals that are common in the Earth’s crust but are mostly found at very low concentrations. For now, rare earth mining—an industry controlled almost entirely by China, with cascading effects on global trade relationships and supply chains—is expensive, energy intensive, and environmentally destructive. But if phytomining opens a new way to secure rare earth elements, says Lydia Bridges, a geochemist and senior sustainability consultant with Minviro, a company that helps mining operations measure and mitigate their environmental impact, “that would be pretty incredible.” Though none have yet been commercially developed, scientists have identified a few natural hyperaccumulators of rare earth elements. Using plants to mine for rare earth elements would be “a huge step towards critical mineral security and, hopefully, sustainability,” Bridges says. But she adds a note of caution: “We do need to be a bit careful of environmental burden shifting.” While a welcome innovation, phytomining—of rare earth elements or anything else—is not an environmental panacea. Growing hyperaccumulators at scale brings the same environmental woes as any other industrial crop, van der Ent points out: pesticide and fertilizer runoff, overdrawn water, and the loss of local biodiversity to a single-species operation. And while some outcrops of metal-rich soils host little life, others underpin fragile ecosystems, with, for example, metal-tolerant insects having evolved to live on hyperaccumulator plants. But what phytomining could do is produce some metal while also remediating degraded land, sequestering carbon, and serving as the fuel for energy production or the raw material for biochar fertilizer, syngas, and other chemical creations. It could be one of many small but commercially viable enterprises that make for a more sustainable world. And along the way, it’s expanding our understanding of the endless and surprising feats that plants—even the pocket-sized alpine pennycress—are capable of.

Climate

Chemicals

Pollution

Biodiversity offsets failed to protect habitat in NSW. Now federal Labor is about to make the same mistakes, critics warn

Offsets were meant to be a last resort for mitigating environmental damage from development projects, but rapidly became the defaultGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe federal government risks repeating grievous mistakes made in NSW with its proposals to change the way developers compensate for damage to the environment, scientists and legal experts have warned.As the Coalition tears itself apart again over climate, Labor’s plan to overhaul biodiversity offsets – and nature laws more broadly – has coasted under the radar with comparatively little scrutiny. Continue reading...

The federal government risks repeating grievous mistakes made in NSW with its proposals to change the way developers compensate for damage to the environment, scientists and legal experts have warned.As the Coalition tears itself apart again over climate, Labor’s plan to overhaul biodiversity offsets – and nature laws more broadly – has coasted under the radar with comparatively little scrutiny.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThe plan includes a proposal to establish a “restoration contributions” fund that developers could pay into rather than doing their own work to find a suitable project to compensate for harm their projects cause.The legislation before parliament would also overturn a ban on offsets forming part of the federal nature market under a deal reached with the Greens two years ago.But Rachel Walmsley, deputy director of policy and law reform at the Environmental Defenders Office, said the proposals would replicate a flawed system at the national level despite “so much evidence of the problems” in NSW and other jurisdictions.Environmental offsets allow developers to compensate for the damage they cause by restoring habitat for the same species or ecosystem elsewhere.It is a system of balance sheet calculations – literally – where harm to habitat is approved on a promise to even the ledger with actions that deliver an equal or greater benefit.Offsets are meant to be a last resort after all efforts to avoid or mitigate damage to nature have been attempted.But as the former competition watchdog chief Graeme Samuel found in his 2020 review of national environmental laws, they have become the default policy by which most developments with significant impacts on endangered species are approved.Problems with the system include offsets that are never delivered or are insufficient, offsets on land that already had environmental protections and restoration activities (meaning there is little to no extra benefit derived from the offset), and integrity and conflict of interest concerns that have largely escaped the watch of corporate regulators.In NSW developers have the option of finding and securing an offset themselves or buying offsets on a market where “credits” for specific ecosystems and species are attached to properties where the landholder is undertaking conservation work.Developers can also pay into a fund managed by the state’s Biodiversity Conservation Trust, which then inherits the task of finding offsets that meet the developer’s obligations.In 2021, Guardian Australia exposed a litany of failures in this NSW scheme, triggering several investigations.An auditor general report found the government had no strategy for ensuring the offset market delivered the required environmental outcomes. The auditor and a separate parliamentary inquiry found the money developers were paying into the fund managed by the trust was outstripping the supply of available offsets or credits.In plain terms, development was occurring that harmed nature, money was accumulating in the fund because there were not enough offsets to compensate for that harm and species were being pushed closer to extinction.Subsequent reviews by the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal have made similar findings and the NSW government has now taken steps to limit the circumstances in which developers can pay into the fund.Dr Megan Evans, an expert on offsetting at the University of NSW, warned the federal legislation in its current form would replicate the problems seen at state level.“We know from experience … that pay-and-go offset schemes do not work because impacts to threatened biodiversity continue to be approved and then the state is liable for spending the money to buy offsets which are then too scarce, nonexistent – because there’s no habitat left – or expensive”.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe Clean Energy Council on Friday told a Senate hearing examining the government’s bills it supported the establishment of a restoration contributions fund.The council’s policy and impact officer William Churchill said the proposed fund would give developers of renewable projects who might not be best placed to undertake on-ground restoration the “flexibility” to “discharge their offset obligations through a payment, while allowing contribution holders to deliver landscape scale restoration”.The federal government is also proposing to relax “like-for-like” rules for offsets delivered through the fund. Like-for-like rules require an environmental benefit to be delivered for the same species or ecosystem harmed by a development.Prof Brendan Wintle from the Biodiversity Council said last week the proposal was “absurd”.“You’re basically saying you can trade koalas with a land snail in Tasmania or a small plant in north Queensland,” Wintle said.Another element of the legislation would create a “top-up” provision to draw on taxpayer funds where contributions from developers fall short. Wintle’s colleague at the council, Prof Martine Maron, said this would leave taxpayers holding the bill for environmental destruction when the responsibility for that cost should fall to the developers that cause it.Some ecosystems and species were so endangered there were “serious limits to what we can actually offset”, Maron said.She said the use of offsets should be limited to cases where their environmental benefits were guaranteed and they would not simply facilitate further decline of species and ecosystems to a point that they cannot recover.“Turning offsets into an easy payment option flips the whole logic of environmental protection on its head,” she said.Guardian Australia sought comment from the environment minister Murray Watt.

Climate

Government

Nature

Climate Protesters Swelter in Brazilian Sun Outside COP30 Summit

BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -Thousands of climate protesters marched through the Brazilian city of Belem on Saturday in a noisy, diverse and peaceful...

BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -Thousands of climate protesters marched through the Brazilian city of Belem on Saturday in a noisy, diverse and peaceful display to demand more action to protect the fate of the planet and vent their anger at governments and fossil fuel industries.A short distance away, negotiators reached the halfway point in the marathon COP30 climate summit which seeks to turn years of promises into action to halt rising global temperatures and deliver support to those most affected by a warmer planet.Out on the streets Indigenous people, young activists and civil society groups came together in sweltering temperatures, singing, playing musical instruments and waving banners."This is a place for us to march and draw up a roadmap for what needs to be done at this COP: a transition away from deforestation and the use of fossil fuels," Brazil's environment minister Marina Silva said, addressing the crowds.Indigenous protester, Cristiane Puyanawa, joined the march to call for greater land rights."Our land and our forest are not commodities. Respect nature and the peoples who live in the forest," she said.COP30 has already seen myriad protests, most notably an attempt to force entry to the venue by Indigenous people that resulted in clashes with security on Tuesday, and a separate peaceful sit-in that blocked the venue on Friday morning.On Saturday, designated as a day of protest in the two-week COP summit, there was a huge security presence around the venue, including military police in riot gear, even though the march route did not directly pass it.COP30 TALKS TO MOVE INTO POLITICAL PHASEInside the talks, negotiators who have spent the week trying to thrash out progress were reporting back on what they had achieved, before they hand over their work to ministers who will seek to overcome any remaining political obstacles."As negotiators approach week two, they need to remember that climate action isn’t about abstract numbers or distant targets. It’s about people," said Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at environmental non-profit The Nature Conservancy."Every choice we make today determines the future we will share tomorrow."The sprawling summit agenda covers a huge range of issues with the intention of building on progress made in previous years - an often inch-by-inch process that has over three decades delivered some, but not enough, progress to reduce global warming.But the shape of what will emerge from the summit remains unclear, with some of the most controversial issues being discussed outside the formal process - such as increasing climate finance, moving away from fossil fuels, and how to address a collective shortfall in emissions-cutting plans.The Brazilian COP30 presidency, which is steering those sideline discussions, must decide if it wants to attempt a high-stakes balancing act and come up with a political agreement on those issues that can be endorsed by all - known in COP parlance as a 'cover decision.'Asked about such a deal - as he has been most days since the summit began on November 10 - COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago told a press conference:"For a long time, I've been saying that we are not planning a cover decision, but I also said that if there is a movement from the countries to propose a cover decision, the presidency will obviously take it into consideration. So, let's see how things evolve."(Reporting by Sebastian Rocandio, Lisandra Paraguassu and William James; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Andrea Ricci)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

Climate

Activism

Government

Suggested Viewing

The Day She Stole The Sun

In 2019, after years of severe drought, Australia endured an unprecedented bushfire crisis. The fires spanned almost the entire length of the country… and one small village on the New South Wales South Coast was hit by the full force of its destruction. The village became a national symbol for resilience and unbreakable Australian spirit. Told by the people who were there, this is not a story about tragedy, it’s a story about community. This is the story of Cobargo.

Forests

Climate

Crisis

Chicken Soup for the Soil

Chicken Soup for the Soil follows the journey of North Carolina farmers Rachel Herrick and Suzanne Nelson Karreman as they work to rehabilitate farm soil ecosystems one pasture at a time. We learn that animals are not commodities and insects are not pests. They are partners in regenerating the soil. These are grassroots farms working with Nature to help Nature bounce back.

Land Use

Agriculture

Climate

In Pursuit of Passive

Follows the construction of the first net-zero, passive house built in the Greater Tetons-Yellowstone region near Jackson, WY, while explaining the Passive House building approach for designing and constructing more sustainable buildings and exploring the many associated climate and energy performance benefits. Features the home’s designers – Lindsey Love and Lindsay Schack, co-founders of a sustainable architecture and design firm based out of Bozeman, MT and Driggs, ID – along with building and climate experts.

Energy

Solutions

Climate

Sustainable Living with Patrick Lang

A day in the life of Patrick Lang living a sustainable life in Malibu… filmed before his home and community were consumed by fire in the fall of 2018.

Sustainable

Land Use

Solutions

Silent Skies - The First Electric Plane Flyover

Silent Skies follows the groundbreaking journey of three Pennsylvania college students who orchestrated and piloted the first ever fully electric airplane stadium flyover. Stunning fans with a whisper-quiet show, this event signaled the dawn of America's transition to electric aviation. The students completed a record breaking trip flying the airplane from its base in Hartford, CT to the stadium in Easton, PA, recharging at enroute airports directly from a fleet of electric F-150 trucks. The air travel industry faces an unprecedented challenge: decarbonization. Historically, new aviation technologies are met with consumer skepticism. Demonstrating electric aircraft today, ahead of widespread adoption, is key for building consumer trust, political support, and sustained investment. The flyover was witnessed by 10,000+ attendees, thousands more on ESPN+ and created a precedent for the FAA to approve manned electric aircraft demonstrations over populated areas. Textron eAviation and Ford amplified the event through their social media channels and the film premiered at San Francisco Climate Week.

Technology

Transportation

Climate

Cookies help us run our site more efficiently.

GoGreenNation news

California's housing crisis could be raising risk of climate disasters, researchers fear

Related News

The birth of the climate doula

As Nations Push for More Ambition at Climate Talks, Chairman Says They May Get It

These Special Plants Accumulate Critical Metals Without Destructive Mining

Biodiversity offsets failed to protect habitat in NSW. Now federal Labor is about to make the same mistakes, critics warn

Climate Protesters Swelter in Brazilian Sun Outside COP30 Summit

Suggested Viewing

The Day She Stole The Sun

Chicken Soup for the Soil

In Pursuit of Passive

Sustainable Living with Patrick Lang

Silent Skies - The First Electric Plane Flyover

Join us to forge
a sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Cookies help us run our site more efficiently.

California's housing crisis could be raising risk of climate disasters, researchers fear

Related News

The birth of the climate doula

As Nations Push for More Ambition at Climate Talks, Chairman Says They May Get It

These Special Plants Accumulate Critical Metals Without Destructive Mining

Biodiversity offsets failed to protect habitat in NSW. Now federal Labor is about to make the same mistakes, critics warn

Climate Protesters Swelter in Brazilian Sun Outside COP30 Summit

Suggested Viewing

The Day She Stole The Sun

Chicken Soup for the Soil

In Pursuit of Passive

Sustainable Living with Patrick Lang

Silent Skies - The First Electric Plane Flyover

Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Join us to forge
a sustainable future