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Invasive species are thriving thanks to climate change while worsening global heating

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Wednesday, July 24, 2024

From Burmese pythons and European starlings to zebra mussels and Great Lake lampreys, the United States is in the midst of an invasive species crisis, impacting local environments both on the land and in the water. There are a number of factors making this problem worse, but foremost among them is climate change. Dr. Robert C. Venette, a research biologist and director of the Minnesota Invasive Terrestrial Plants and Pests Center, is paying close attention to multiple invasive species, including "several bark beetles, emerald ash borer, spotted lanternfly, hemlock wooly adelgid, oak wilt, Palmer amaranth and Japanese knotweed, among others." But figuring out exactly how much damage they will do — and what that means for the future of the environment — isn't an easy task. "We are still witnessing the effects of climate changes that have already happened." "Forecasting which invasive species will be a concern is incredibly complex," Venette told Salon. "As temperatures warm, I expect that many invasive insects, pathogens and weeds will begin to occur farther north than they have previously. Some invasive species will be active earlier in spring and summer than they have normally. Lastly, some of these invasive species may become more abundant than they have been." Dr. Chelcy Miniat, a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) biologist at their Rocky Mountain Research Station, identified a few variables that can help determine which species will thrive and which ones will not survive as global temperatures continue to rise. "Scientists have identified some general factors that that could influence the consequences of climate change for a given invasive species at a given location," Miniat said. These include "direct effects of climate change on individual species," as well as "indirect effects that alter nutrients, water, or other resources available or interactions with other species or hosts" and "other factors such as human influences that can alter the environment for an invasive species, making it both harder or easier to invade." Miniat pointed to one of the most comprehensive summaries published in 2021 that covers knowledge of invasive species in the U.S., using the expertise of over 100 leaders in invasive species research. From that report, scientists determined that the invasive vine Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) is expanding its northern range in Eastern North America due to changing climatic conditions or that more broadly roughly 15% of invasive species can adapt and shift their ranges or environmental conditions outside of the climatic conditions in their new ranges. Zebra Mussel (Getty Images/Ed Reschke) By contrast Dr. Rob Progar — an entomologist and pathologist at the USDA's Sustainable Forest Management Research — told Salon that one problem with invasive species is that they reduce humanity's ability to adapt to the environmental impacts of climate change. "The long-lasting and devastating impacts of invasive species reduce climate change resilience by altering ecosystem structure and function," Progar said. "Changing climate can also impact forest ecosystems by increasing stress due to increased temperature extremes, drought or high levels of precipitation. These stressors can render tree species more vulnerable to infection by disease, or non-native insects." According to Progar, societies must prepare by integrating invasive species management into their climate change adaptation plans. "Increase support for national and regional networks and programs working at the intersection of climate change and invasive species," Progar said. "Ensure early detection, rapid response and safeguarding strategies account for up-to-date climate data, projections and models. Increase investment for long-term management of invasive species that threaten climate preparedness and resilience." Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes. "Reporting new finds of invasive species is incredibly important." Miniat says that there will need to be "strong collaborative partnerships between scientists, managers, landowners, [Indigenous] tribes and public and private agencies at local, regional, national and even global scales." Importantly "citizen science has a role to play in this as well. Because early detection is an important threshold in the response process, if people see an invasive species, reporting it is incredibly helpful. There are apps like EDDMaps that allow people to upload or record sightings of invasive species. These type of data can then be used by researchers to model invasive species spread." One example of a species monitored through these methods is Canada's mountain pine beetle. Although native to western Canada, as winters have warmed it has spread beyond its native range, to the point where they can live in areas that previously would've been deadly for them. The beetles destroy pine trees, threatening them across Canada, where environmental agencies urge vigilant citizens to monitor them — including in the United States. As more trees die from invasive species, their ability to capture and store large amounts of atmospheric carbon — which helps offset the impacts of climate change — is diminished, creating a negative feedback loop. "A [Mountain pine beetle] outbreak could turn Canada’s forests from a carbon sink to a carbon source, as killed trees release stored carbon back into the atmosphere – further accelerating climate change," Progar said. At the same time, Progar said that people must "reduce nature-based solutions like carbon sequestration. We need to increase coastal communities' resilience to storms, erosion, flooding, and biodiversity loss. Together, invasive species and climate change can interact to degrade natural and built infrastructure resilience, impacting rural and urban communities. We should actively work to mitigate these impacts." Venette also encouraged people to stay vigilant in monitoring for invasive species. "Reporting new finds of invasive species is incredibly important," Venette said. "Free cell phone apps, like iNaturalist, make it pretty easy, even for amateurs," Venette said. "Knowing where invasive species are is a critical first step before management plans can be developed." He also expressed optimism that, despite the damage done so far by climate change, many cherished ecosystems can still be saved. "We are still witnessing the effects of climate changes that have already happened," Venette said. "If future climate change is limited, we would expect to slow the rate of change in some ecosystems, either through species losses or additions. As a result, we would hope those ecosystems would retain their core structure and function." Read more about climate change

From disease-carrying insects to ecosystem-choking plants, invasive species flourish due to burning fossil fuels

From Burmese pythons and European starlings to zebra mussels and Great Lake lampreys, the United States is in the midst of an invasive species crisis, impacting local environments both on the land and in the water. There are a number of factors making this problem worse, but foremost among them is climate change.

Dr. Robert C. Venette, a research biologist and director of the Minnesota Invasive Terrestrial Plants and Pests Center, is paying close attention to multiple invasive species, including "several bark beetles, emerald ash borer, spotted lanternfly, hemlock wooly adelgid, oak wilt, Palmer amaranth and Japanese knotweed, among others." But figuring out exactly how much damage they will do — and what that means for the future of the environment — isn't an easy task.

"We are still witnessing the effects of climate changes that have already happened."

"Forecasting which invasive species will be a concern is incredibly complex," Venette told Salon. "As temperatures warm, I expect that many invasive insects, pathogens and weeds will begin to occur farther north than they have previously. Some invasive species will be active earlier in spring and summer than they have normally. Lastly, some of these invasive species may become more abundant than they have been."

Dr. Chelcy Miniat, a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) biologist at their Rocky Mountain Research Station, identified a few variables that can help determine which species will thrive and which ones will not survive as global temperatures continue to rise.

"Scientists have identified some general factors that that could influence the consequences of climate change for a given invasive species at a given location," Miniat said. These include "direct effects of climate change on individual species," as well as "indirect effects that alter nutrients, water, or other resources available or interactions with other species or hosts" and "other factors such as human influences that can alter the environment for an invasive species, making it both harder or easier to invade."

Miniat pointed to one of the most comprehensive summaries published in 2021 that covers knowledge of invasive species in the U.S., using the expertise of over 100 leaders in invasive species research. From that report, scientists determined that the invasive vine Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) is expanding its northern range in Eastern North America due to changing climatic conditions or that more broadly roughly 15% of invasive species can adapt and shift their ranges or environmental conditions outside of the climatic conditions in their new ranges.

Zebra MusselZebra Mussel (Getty Images/Ed Reschke)

By contrast Dr. Rob Progar — an entomologist and pathologist at the USDA's Sustainable Forest Management Research — told Salon that one problem with invasive species is that they reduce humanity's ability to adapt to the environmental impacts of climate change.

"The long-lasting and devastating impacts of invasive species reduce climate change resilience by altering ecosystem structure and function," Progar said. "Changing climate can also impact forest ecosystems by increasing stress due to increased temperature extremes, drought or high levels of precipitation. These stressors can render tree species more vulnerable to infection by disease, or non-native insects."

According to Progar, societies must prepare by integrating invasive species management into their climate change adaptation plans.

"Increase support for national and regional networks and programs working at the intersection of climate change and invasive species," Progar said. "Ensure early detection, rapid response and safeguarding strategies account for up-to-date climate data, projections and models. Increase investment for long-term management of invasive species that threaten climate preparedness and resilience."

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes.

"Reporting new finds of invasive species is incredibly important."

Miniat says that there will need to be "strong collaborative partnerships between scientists, managers, landowners, [Indigenous] tribes and public and private agencies at local, regional, national and even global scales." Importantly "citizen science has a role to play in this as well. Because early detection is an important threshold in the response process, if people see an invasive species, reporting it is incredibly helpful. There are apps like EDDMaps that allow people to upload or record sightings of invasive species. These type of data can then be used by researchers to model invasive species spread."

One example of a species monitored through these methods is Canada's mountain pine beetle. Although native to western Canada, as winters have warmed it has spread beyond its native range, to the point where they can live in areas that previously would've been deadly for them. The beetles destroy pine trees, threatening them across Canada, where environmental agencies urge vigilant citizens to monitor them — including in the United States.

As more trees die from invasive species, their ability to capture and store large amounts of atmospheric carbon — which helps offset the impacts of climate change — is diminished, creating a negative feedback loop.

"A [Mountain pine beetle] outbreak could turn Canada’s forests from a carbon sink to a carbon source, as killed trees release stored carbon back into the atmosphere – further accelerating climate change," Progar said. At the same time, Progar said that people must "reduce nature-based solutions like carbon sequestration. We need to increase coastal communities' resilience to storms, erosion, flooding, and biodiversity loss. Together, invasive species and climate change can interact to degrade natural and built infrastructure resilience, impacting rural and urban communities. We should actively work to mitigate these impacts."

Venette also encouraged people to stay vigilant in monitoring for invasive species.

"Reporting new finds of invasive species is incredibly important," Venette said. "Free cell phone apps, like iNaturalist, make it pretty easy, even for amateurs," Venette said. "Knowing where invasive species are is a critical first step before management plans can be developed."

He also expressed optimism that, despite the damage done so far by climate change, many cherished ecosystems can still be saved.

"We are still witnessing the effects of climate changes that have already happened," Venette said. "If future climate change is limited, we would expect to slow the rate of change in some ecosystems, either through species losses or additions. As a result, we would hope those ecosystems would retain their core structure and function."

Read more

about climate change

Read the full story here.
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Researchers Slightly Lower Study's Estimate of Drop in Global Income Due to Climate Change

Researchers who examined climate change’s potential effect on the global economy say data errors led them to slightly overstate an expected drop in income over the next 25 years

The authors of a study that examined climate change's potential effect on the global economy said Wednesday that data errors led them to slightly overstate an expected drop in income over the next 25 years.The researchers at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, writing in the journal Nature in 2024, had forecast a 19% drop in global income by 2050. Their revised analysis puts the figure at 17%.The authors also said in their original work that there was a 99% chance that, by midcentury, it would cost more to fix damage from climate change than it would cost to build resilience. Their new analysis, not yet peer-reviewed, lowered that figure to 91%.The Associated Press reported on the original study. Nature posted a retraction of it Wednesday.The researchers cited data inaccuracies in the first paper, particularly with underlying economic data for Uzbekistan between 1995 and 1999 that had a large influence on the results, and that their analysis had underestimated statistical uncertainty.Max Kotz, one of the study’s authors, told the AP that the heart of the study is unchanged: Climate change will be enormously damaging to the world economy if unchecked, and that the impact will hit hardest in the lowest-income areas that contribute the fewest emissions driving the planet's warming. Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School who wasn't involved with the research, said the thrust of the Potsdam Institute's work remains the same “no matter which part of the range the true figure will be.”“Climate change already hits home, quite literally. Home insurance premiums across the U.S. have already seen, in part, a doubling over the past decade alone,” Wagner said. “Rapidly accumulating climate risks will only make the numbers go up even more.”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.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

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Nature

Climate Change Is Killing the Myth of Los Angeles

I once lived in an apartment in Los Angeles that flooded every time it rained. Not just a polite drip, either. The ceiling sagged and dripped into long wet ribbons, and the wall beside my desk would bleed water like I was playing out Barton Fink in color. I wonder how that space looks now, as Southern California comes out of a long rain event where the hills above Altadena saw nearly nine inches at the site of January’s Eaton fire, between November 14 and November 21. People love to talk about tanned and toned Dallas Raines, the veteran KABC meteorologist who can summon high drama from a passing low-pressure system. Or the obligatory SUV hydroplaning down the 5 Freeway. In L.A., weather banter is its own civic dialect. We rarely admit how fragile the physical city really is, and how the very places that frame our daily lives—the courtyard where you catch the first blue of morning, the balcony where you watch the hills smolder at golden hour—can start to fail the moment the skies decide to turn. Everything here is built for one type of weather. And most of the time it works. But when it doesn’t, it really doesn’t work. L.A. has spent over a century advertising its perfect Mediterranean climate. Now increasingly frequent severe weather events are triggering citywide soul-searching about who deserves protection, what neighborhoods get resources, which elected officials are to blame, and whether the promise of this place still holds. Some parts of L.A. County picked up close to a foot of rain in 10 days in February 2023, leaving more than 80,000 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers without power, while unhoused residents faced flooded encampments, freezing nights, and packed shelters. Almost exactly a year later, emergency crews pulled a pregnant, unhoused woman from a storm drain above a raging river. The January 2025 fires in the Palisades and Altadena further exposed the gap between the city we imagine and the one we actually live in. What happens when a city built on the mythology of sublime weather has to finally face how to live with a climate that refuses to stay in line?The Los Angeles myth goes back more than a century: Between the 1880s and the 1920s, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce mailed millions of pamphlets eastward, selling Midwestern families on a kingdom of eternal spring. Sunkist built a national brand on winter oranges ripening while Chicago froze. Railroads sponsored booster fiction and postcards promising a life where weather was not an obstacle but an asset. In the dead of winter, “[you could] have a small, five-acre citrus farm and do really well and then hop on the streetcar and go to the beach for the day,” said professor Char Miller, a historian and environmental analysis scholar at Pomona College.Miller has spent decades tracing how this mythology ossified. While the pitch obscured who paid the price—Indigenous communities pushed off their land, Chinese and Japanese residents marginalized or excluded—the promise endured in part because the landscape helped carry it. But for all the valleys, deserts, and coastlines, there were also floods, fires, earthquakes, and landslides: hazards only mentioned in the fine print. There’s an old line Miller heard during his early days on the West Coast in the 1970s: “California is 90 percent paradise, 10 percent apocalypse.” It was something people once said with a kind of wry affection, the same sensibility baked into disaster films that love to see Los Angeles perpetually destroyed. It was the myth of a place that could always be rebuilt, where catastrophe was fleeting and bounty would always return. But that ratio, Miller says, is shifting, leaning more toward calamity. It was nearly midnight in New York when my phone lit up. A friend in Los Angeles was calling to ask if I wanted him to move anything out of my apartment, which had just fallen under an evacuation order while I was back East. Earlier that afternoon, on January 8, West Hollywood had been in the mid-70s—bone-dry, humidity in the 20s. The kind of day that feels ominous if you’ve lived here long enough to know what those numbers mean. By nightfall, another fire was creeping toward Runyon Canyon, the hiking trail so quintessentially L.A. it sometimes has a valet. In the weeks that followed the January fires, the political blame game was relentless. Some went after Mayor Bass, others after Governor Newsom. But the fury felt like a way to avoid the harder truth of a city playing dumb about its own new climate reality.Even while the January fires were still burning, city and state leaders promised to rebuild immediately, suspending regulations that might have slowed development in the very zones that were incinerated. “What that did was to take off the table any kind of transformation that might have slowed down the very things that that fire consumed, which is rapid growth up into fire zones,” Miller said. A recent CalMatters analysis found that nearly four million people in Southern California are living in such hazardous zones.Climate scientist Daniel Swain told me that despite all the finger-pointing after the January fires, the forecast wasn’t the problem. Meteorologists had issued “crystal clear warnings” days ahead of time. The real issue, he suggested, is that Los Angeles still treats climate disasters as if they can be willed away, as if better heroics in the moment could out-muscle physics. “We can’t expect to have a firefighting force that can magically overcome hurricane-force winds amid record dry conditions producing a blizzard of embers in the suburbs,” Swain said. “You just can’t fight that in the moment.”The deeper problem is structural. Southern California is one of the most fire-prone landscapes in the country, and millions now live in or immediately downwind of terrain primed to burn. Many neighborhoods haven’t seen major fire in decades, which feeds the illusion of safety. But growth has pushed suburbs further into the wildland-urban interface just as warming has lengthened fire season, increasing the chances that a Santa Ana wind event arrives when vegetation is crisp and unrecoverably dry. Most years won’t align as catastrophically as January did, Swain noted, but when they do the math is unforgiving.Work has to happen long before the flames arrive. Swain pointed to neighborhoods where community groups had already tackled vegetation management, replaced vulnerable vents, or cleared brush from wooden fences. Those blocks didn’t just fare slightly better, but some avoided becoming ignition points entirely. Fire resilience, he emphasized, is cumulative; every house that doesn’t burn is one less launching pad for embers to race downwind.The fixes aren’t always grand or expensive. Sometimes it’s a few hundred dollars for finer mesh vents that stop embers from blowing into attics. Sometimes it’s ripping out head-high brush along a property line. Sometimes it’s insisting that new construction in fire zones meet tougher standards or retrofitting homes that were built for a climate that no longer exists.Swain sees the January fires as a preview of what strong Santa Ana events will look like going forward. Historically, many of the strongest Santa Ana events came after at least some winter rain. Now that rain is arriving later, meaning more wind events strike when the hills are still crisped from autumn, as was the case in January. But the problem in Los Angeles isn’t just meteorological: It is political, infrastructural, and deeply cultural. Miller likes to point to other parts of the country that faced similar crossroads and chose differently. After catastrophic floods in 1998, San Antonio bought out homeowners in riparian zones rather than sending them back into danger. Houston did something similar after Hurricane Harvey. These weren’t mass seizures or punitive acts; they were buyouts at market rate, voluntary and forward-looking. “What if,” Miller wondered, “you went to people who were burned out in Altadena and the Palisades and said, ‘We’re going to pay you not to rebuild’?” It’s a planner’s maxim—build up, not out—but in Southern California, the political will rarely matches the topographic reality.And yet, amid the devastation, there were signs of another kind of civic instinct. In Altadena, neighbors organized mutual aid networks at local businesses like Octavia’s Bookshelf and Bike Oven, and community leaders helped residents navigate insurance, microloans, and temporary housing. New nonprofits sprang up to support people psychologically and financially. Miller is skeptical of rebuilding policy, but he’s quick to note the human creativity that emerged in the fire’s wake—a kind of grassroots adaptation that government hasn’t yet matched.In May, Miller remembers stepping off a plane at LAX behind someone wearing a leather jacket with two mottos curved across the back: “Never forget” on top, “Rebuild Altadena” on the bottom. “I think the bottom circle erases the top,” Miller said. “If you rebuild, you have already forgotten because you are not paying attention to what happened and why it happened.”

I once lived in an apartment in Los Angeles that flooded every time it rained. Not just a polite drip, either. The ceiling sagged and dripped into long wet ribbons, and the wall beside my desk would bleed water like I was playing out Barton Fink in color. I wonder how that space looks now, as Southern California comes out of a long rain event where the hills above Altadena saw nearly nine inches at the site of January’s Eaton fire, between November 14 and November 21. People love to talk about tanned and toned Dallas Raines, the veteran KABC meteorologist who can summon high drama from a passing low-pressure system. Or the obligatory SUV hydroplaning down the 5 Freeway. In L.A., weather banter is its own civic dialect. We rarely admit how fragile the physical city really is, and how the very places that frame our daily lives—the courtyard where you catch the first blue of morning, the balcony where you watch the hills smolder at golden hour—can start to fail the moment the skies decide to turn. Everything here is built for one type of weather. And most of the time it works. But when it doesn’t, it really doesn’t work. L.A. has spent over a century advertising its perfect Mediterranean climate. Now increasingly frequent severe weather events are triggering citywide soul-searching about who deserves protection, what neighborhoods get resources, which elected officials are to blame, and whether the promise of this place still holds. Some parts of L.A. County picked up close to a foot of rain in 10 days in February 2023, leaving more than 80,000 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers without power, while unhoused residents faced flooded encampments, freezing nights, and packed shelters. Almost exactly a year later, emergency crews pulled a pregnant, unhoused woman from a storm drain above a raging river. The January 2025 fires in the Palisades and Altadena further exposed the gap between the city we imagine and the one we actually live in. What happens when a city built on the mythology of sublime weather has to finally face how to live with a climate that refuses to stay in line?The Los Angeles myth goes back more than a century: Between the 1880s and the 1920s, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce mailed millions of pamphlets eastward, selling Midwestern families on a kingdom of eternal spring. Sunkist built a national brand on winter oranges ripening while Chicago froze. Railroads sponsored booster fiction and postcards promising a life where weather was not an obstacle but an asset. In the dead of winter, “[you could] have a small, five-acre citrus farm and do really well and then hop on the streetcar and go to the beach for the day,” said professor Char Miller, a historian and environmental analysis scholar at Pomona College.Miller has spent decades tracing how this mythology ossified. While the pitch obscured who paid the price—Indigenous communities pushed off their land, Chinese and Japanese residents marginalized or excluded—the promise endured in part because the landscape helped carry it. But for all the valleys, deserts, and coastlines, there were also floods, fires, earthquakes, and landslides: hazards only mentioned in the fine print. There’s an old line Miller heard during his early days on the West Coast in the 1970s: “California is 90 percent paradise, 10 percent apocalypse.” It was something people once said with a kind of wry affection, the same sensibility baked into disaster films that love to see Los Angeles perpetually destroyed. It was the myth of a place that could always be rebuilt, where catastrophe was fleeting and bounty would always return. But that ratio, Miller says, is shifting, leaning more toward calamity. It was nearly midnight in New York when my phone lit up. A friend in Los Angeles was calling to ask if I wanted him to move anything out of my apartment, which had just fallen under an evacuation order while I was back East. Earlier that afternoon, on January 8, West Hollywood had been in the mid-70s—bone-dry, humidity in the 20s. The kind of day that feels ominous if you’ve lived here long enough to know what those numbers mean. By nightfall, another fire was creeping toward Runyon Canyon, the hiking trail so quintessentially L.A. it sometimes has a valet. In the weeks that followed the January fires, the political blame game was relentless. Some went after Mayor Bass, others after Governor Newsom. But the fury felt like a way to avoid the harder truth of a city playing dumb about its own new climate reality.Even while the January fires were still burning, city and state leaders promised to rebuild immediately, suspending regulations that might have slowed development in the very zones that were incinerated. “What that did was to take off the table any kind of transformation that might have slowed down the very things that that fire consumed, which is rapid growth up into fire zones,” Miller said. A recent CalMatters analysis found that nearly four million people in Southern California are living in such hazardous zones.Climate scientist Daniel Swain told me that despite all the finger-pointing after the January fires, the forecast wasn’t the problem. Meteorologists had issued “crystal clear warnings” days ahead of time. The real issue, he suggested, is that Los Angeles still treats climate disasters as if they can be willed away, as if better heroics in the moment could out-muscle physics. “We can’t expect to have a firefighting force that can magically overcome hurricane-force winds amid record dry conditions producing a blizzard of embers in the suburbs,” Swain said. “You just can’t fight that in the moment.”The deeper problem is structural. Southern California is one of the most fire-prone landscapes in the country, and millions now live in or immediately downwind of terrain primed to burn. Many neighborhoods haven’t seen major fire in decades, which feeds the illusion of safety. But growth has pushed suburbs further into the wildland-urban interface just as warming has lengthened fire season, increasing the chances that a Santa Ana wind event arrives when vegetation is crisp and unrecoverably dry. Most years won’t align as catastrophically as January did, Swain noted, but when they do the math is unforgiving.Work has to happen long before the flames arrive. Swain pointed to neighborhoods where community groups had already tackled vegetation management, replaced vulnerable vents, or cleared brush from wooden fences. Those blocks didn’t just fare slightly better, but some avoided becoming ignition points entirely. Fire resilience, he emphasized, is cumulative; every house that doesn’t burn is one less launching pad for embers to race downwind.The fixes aren’t always grand or expensive. Sometimes it’s a few hundred dollars for finer mesh vents that stop embers from blowing into attics. Sometimes it’s ripping out head-high brush along a property line. Sometimes it’s insisting that new construction in fire zones meet tougher standards or retrofitting homes that were built for a climate that no longer exists.Swain sees the January fires as a preview of what strong Santa Ana events will look like going forward. Historically, many of the strongest Santa Ana events came after at least some winter rain. Now that rain is arriving later, meaning more wind events strike when the hills are still crisped from autumn, as was the case in January. But the problem in Los Angeles isn’t just meteorological: It is political, infrastructural, and deeply cultural. Miller likes to point to other parts of the country that faced similar crossroads and chose differently. After catastrophic floods in 1998, San Antonio bought out homeowners in riparian zones rather than sending them back into danger. Houston did something similar after Hurricane Harvey. These weren’t mass seizures or punitive acts; they were buyouts at market rate, voluntary and forward-looking. “What if,” Miller wondered, “you went to people who were burned out in Altadena and the Palisades and said, ‘We’re going to pay you not to rebuild’?” It’s a planner’s maxim—build up, not out—but in Southern California, the political will rarely matches the topographic reality.And yet, amid the devastation, there were signs of another kind of civic instinct. In Altadena, neighbors organized mutual aid networks at local businesses like Octavia’s Bookshelf and Bike Oven, and community leaders helped residents navigate insurance, microloans, and temporary housing. New nonprofits sprang up to support people psychologically and financially. Miller is skeptical of rebuilding policy, but he’s quick to note the human creativity that emerged in the fire’s wake—a kind of grassroots adaptation that government hasn’t yet matched.In May, Miller remembers stepping off a plane at LAX behind someone wearing a leather jacket with two mottos curved across the back: “Never forget” on top, “Rebuild Altadena” on the bottom. “I think the bottom circle erases the top,” Miller said. “If you rebuild, you have already forgotten because you are not paying attention to what happened and why it happened.”

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Indigenous

Deadly Asian Floods Are No Fluke. They’re a Climate Warning, Scientists Say

Southeast Asia has been hit by unusually severe floods this year, with late storms killing more than 1,200 people and leaving hundreds missing across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Southeast Asia is being pummeled by unusually severe floods this year, as late-arriving storms and relentless rains wreak havoc that has caught many places off guard.Malaysia is still reeling from one its worst floods, which killed three and displaced thousands. Meanwhile, Vietnam and the Philippines have faced a year of punishing storms and floods that have left hundreds dead.What feels unprecedented is exactly what climate scientists expect: A new normal of punishing storms, floods and devastation.“Southeast Asia should brace for a likely continuation and potential worsening of extreme weather in 2026 and for many years immediately following that," said Jemilah Mahmood, who leads the think tank Sunway Centre for Planetary Health in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Asia is facing the full force of the climate crisis Climate patterns last year helped set the stage for 2025's extreme weather.Atmospheric levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the most on record in 2024. That “turbocharged” the climate, the United Nation's World Meteorological Organization says, resulting in more extreme weather.Asia is bearing the brunt of such changes, warming nearly twice as fast as the global average. Scientists agree that the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events are increasing.Warmer ocean temperatures provide more energy for storms, making them stronger and wetter, while rising sea levels amplify storm surges, said Benjamin Horton, a professor of earth science at the City University of Hong Kong. Storms are arriving later in the year, one after another as climate change affects air and ocean currents, including systems like El Nino, which keeps ocean waters warmer for longer and extends the typhoon season. With more moisture in the air and changes in wind patterns, storms can form quickly.“While the total number of storms may not dramatically increase, their severity and unpredictability will," Horton said. Governments were unprepared The unpredictability, intensity, and frequency of recent extreme weather events are overwhelming Southeast Asian governments, said Aslam Perwaiz of the Bangkok-based intergovernmental Asian Disaster Preparedness Center. He attributes that to a tendency to focus on responding to disasters rather than preparing for them.“Future disasters will give us even less lead time to prepare," Perwaiz warned.In Sri Lanka’s hardest-hit provinces, little has changed since 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, said Sarala Emmanuel, a human-rights researcher in Batticaloa. It killed 230,000 people. "When a disaster like this happens, the poor and marginalized communities are the worst affected,” Emmanuel said. That includes poor tea plantation workers living in areas prone to landslides. Unregulated development that damages local ecosystems has worsened flood damage, said Sandun Thudugala of the Colombo-based non-profit Law and Society Trust. Sri Lanka needs to rethink how it builds and plans, he said, taking into account a future where extreme weather is the norm.Videos of logs swept downstream in Indonesia suggested deforestation may have made the floods worse. Since 2000, the flood-inundated Indonesian provinces of Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra have lost 19,600 square kilometers (7,569 square miles) of forest, an area larger than the state of New Jersey, according to Global Forest Watch.Officials rejected claims of illegal logging, saying the timber looked old and probably came from landholders. Billions are lost, while climate finance is limited Countries are losing billions of dollars a year because of climate change.Vietnam estimates that it lost over $3 billion in the first 11 months of this year because of floods, landslides and storms. Thailand's government data is fragmented, but its agriculture ministry estimates about $47 million in agricultural losses since August. The Kasikorn Research Center estimates the November floods in southern Thailand alone caused about $781 million in losses, potentially shaving off 0.1% of GDP.Indonesia doesn't have data for losses for this year but its annual average losses from natural disasters are $1.37 billion, its finance ministry says. Costs from disasters are an added burden for Sri Lanka, which contributes a tiny fraction of global carbon emissions but is at the frontline of climate impacts, while it spends most of its wealth to repay foreign loans, said Thudugala. "There is also an urgent need for vulnerable countries like ours to get compensated for loss and damages we suffer because of global warming,” Thudugala said.“My request ... is support to recover some of the losses we have suffered,” said Rohan Wickramarachchi, owner of a commercial building in the central Sri Lankan town of Peradeniya that was flooded to its second floor. He and dozens of other families he knows must now start over. Responding to increasingly desperate calls for help, at the COP30 global climate conference last month in Brazil, countries pledged to triple funding for climate adaptation and make $1.3 trillion in annual climate financing available by 2035. That’s still woefully short of what developing nations requested, and it's unclear if those funds will actually materialize.Southeast Asia is at a crossroads for climate action, said Thomas Houlie of the science and policy institute, Climate Analytics. The region is expanding use of renewable energy but still reliant on fossil fuels.“What we’re seeing in the region is dramatic and it’s unfortunately a stark reminder of the consequences of the climate crisis," Houlie said.Delgado reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok, Thailand, Sibi Arasu in Bengaluru, India, Eranga Jayawardena in Kandy, Sri Lanka, and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The 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.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

Climate
Agriculture
Crisis

Costa Rica Ranks Third in 2025 Global Retirement Index

Costa Rica has earned third place in International Living’s 34th Annual Global Retirement Index for 2025, a solid performance that keeps the country among the world’s top retirement spots despite a slight drop from recent years. The index, which evaluates countries based on factors like cost of living, healthcare, climate, and residency options, highlights Costa […] The post Costa Rica Ranks Third in 2025 Global Retirement Index appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

Costa Rica has earned third place in International Living’s 34th Annual Global Retirement Index for 2025, a solid performance that keeps the country among the world’s top retirement spots despite a slight drop from recent years. The index, which evaluates countries based on factors like cost of living, healthcare, climate, and residency options, highlights Costa Rica’s appeal to retirees seeking a balanced life in Central America. This year’s ranking places Costa Rica behind Panama in second and Greece in first, according to the latest data from the index released earlier this year. Retirees praise the country’s focus on nature, safety, and community bonds, often summed up in the local phrase “pura vida.” A couple living in the coastal town of Samara, for example, reports monthly expenses around $1,593, covering food, utilities, and other basics while owning their home. Healthcare stands out as a key strength, with the public Caja system costing about $80 per month and private options like a mammogram available for $50. The Pensionado residency program remains a draw, requiring a $1,000 monthly pension to qualify. Climates vary from the dry northwest in Guanacaste to humid coastal areas, giving retirees choices that fit their preferences. These elements helped Costa Rica score high in categories like climate, where it topped the list, and environmental protection, with 25% of its land set aside as protected areas. Compared to past years, Costa Rica’s position shows consistency with some fluctuations. In 2024, the country claimed first place, praised for its affordable lifestyle and strong healthcare system. It also held the top spot in 2021, when the index noted its neighborly atmosphere and stable democracy. Back in 2019, Costa Rica ranked second, just behind Mexico, due to similar strengths in cost and quality of life. In 2018, it again led the rankings, drawing attention for its no-hassle residency and year-round mild weather. The dip to third in 2025 reflects growing competition from European nations like Greece, which jumped from seventh last year thanks to its low costs, Mediterranean climate, and community feel. Panama, our regional rival, edged ahead with its Pensionado Visa discounts—such as 25% off utility bills—and diverse terrains from highlands to beaches. Still, Costa Rica outperforms many peers, outranking Portugal in fourth, Mexico in fifth, and others like Italy and France further down the list. Experts here see this as a positive sign. “Costa Rica continues to attract retirees who value stability and natural surroundings,” said a real estate advisor in Guanacaste, where expat communities thrive. The country’s emphasis on safety ranks it 39th in the 2023 Global Peace Index, ahead of many Latin American neighbors, though retirees note the need for common-sense precautions. Economic factors play a role too. Property taxes stay low, and living costs allow a comfortable existence on modest incomes. A retiree in the Central Valley might spend $400 on groceries and $275 on electricity monthly, far below similar expenses in the U.S. or Europe. Healthcare access combines public universality with private efficiency, making it a reliable choice for older adults. While the ranking slipped from recent highs, it underscores Costa Rica’s continuing strengths. Retirees from North America and Europe keep arriving, drawn to places like the Nicoya Peninsula, one of the world’s Blue Zones for longevity. The index serves as a guide for those planning moves, and Costa Rica’s spot near the top suggests it will remain a favorite. As global trends shift toward affordable, health-focused destinations, Costa Rica adapts by improving infrastructure and residency processes. For locals, the influx supports tourism and real estate, though it also raises questions about balancing growth with preservation. In a nutshell, the 2025 index reconfirms Costa Rica’s role as a leading retirement destination, even as new contenders such as our neighbor Panama, emerge. The post Costa Rica Ranks Third in 2025 Global Retirement Index appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

Climate
Health
Nature

Pennsylvania bailed on a carbon market to appease Republicans

Governor Josh Shapiro pulled out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in exchange for a budget. Critics say he “got rolled.”

Last month, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro withdrew from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI (pronounced “Reggie”), a cap-and-trade program that establishes a regional limit on carbon emissions from power plants located in the Northeast. Here’s how RGGI works: Each year, credits allowing the power plants to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide, up to the cap, are auctioned off. The proceeds from these auctions go to RGGI member states, which can reinvest them into clean energy and consumer affordability programs. Crucially, the emissions cap gradually lowers over time, theoretically ensuring that total emissions continue on a downward trend.  Pennsylvania is a giant within the program, because it has higher power sector emissions than all of the other RGGI states — Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and the District of Columbia — combined, so Shapiro’s exit sent shockwaves through the system. The Democrat withdrew from the program as part of a compromise to convince Republicans in the legislature to pass the state’s budget, which has been delayed since June, forcing schools and public transportation to dip into rainy day funds or take on debt to support services. As he signed the withdrawal bill, Shapiro said that state Republicans have used RGGI “as an excuse to stall substantive conversations about energy.” (Though Pennsylvania joined the regional pact in 2022, the move was immediately tied up in litigation, which was ongoing at the time of Shapiro’s withdrawal, meaning the state had yet to actually participate in the auctions.) “Today, that excuse is gone,” Shapiro added. “It’s time to look forward — and I’m going to be aggressive about pushing for policies that create more jobs in the energy sector, bring more clean energy onto the grid, and reduce the cost of energy for Pennsylvanians.” Read Next Why Trump can’t stop states from fighting climate change Matt Simon But some other Democrats and environmental advocates argue that the governor has essentially given away the store. “I would describe it as Faustian, except Faust got so much more out of his bargain with the devil,” Nikil Saval, a Democratic state senator, told Spotlight PA. Jackson Morris, senior state policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that Shapiro lost a chance to claim credit for a substantial environmental victory during a potential presidential run, which he is rumored to be considering.  Democrats “basically got rolled,” said Morris. “The political calculus of all this is baffling.”  Pennsylvania first moved to join RGGI in 2019 through an executive action by then-governor Tom Wolfe, but the program attracted pushback from Republicans immediately. A 2022 court order prevented the state from formally joining RGGI that year, and then the Commonwealth Court ruled Wolfe’s executive action unconstitutional in 2023. That decision is currently being reconsidered by the state’s Supreme Court, where Democrats retained their majority in elections last month. But Shapiro’s move renders that process moot. “To add insult to injury here,” said Morris, “we were about to have the answer from the court. And now we never will, because they gave up.”  “It’s not just that we fumbled the ball on the 1-yard line, but then [we] picked it up and ran it into the other end zone,” said Patrick McDonnell, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania environmental group PennFuture. (The governor’s office declined to speak with Grist on the record.)  RGGI has produced about $8.6 billion thus far for participating states. Virginia, fresh off the heels of Democratic Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger’s victory, is currently poised to rejoin the program after being forced out by the current Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin. When Youngkin’s withdrawal was found to be unlawful in court, Spanberger campaigned on returning to the compact. Some are more cautious in their criticism of Shapiro. “This decision [on RGGI] doesn’t feel final to me,” said Dallas Burtraw, a senior fellow at the research nonprofit Resources for the Future. In early 2025, Shapiro unveiled his “Lightning Plan,” a jobs-and-energy proposal that included something called the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction program. Known as PACER, it’s essentially a Pennsylvania-specific version of RGGI — a cap-and-trade program that gradually reduces emissions, creates tradable carbon credits that would (theoretically) be interchangeable with those of RGGI member states, and reinvests the profits toward lowering consumer electricity costs. “Pennsylvania is an elephant compared to the rest of RGGI,” said Burtraw, explaining the reasons that the state would want to create its own program and later link it to RGGI.  “It would have been amazing to see Pennsylvania join RGGI,” he said. “But I think that we might be setting down a pathway that’s turned out for the better.”  Others are less convinced. Joining RGGI was feasible, they say, only because it was implemented through executive action. The odds of anything like PACER making it through the state’s Republican-controlled senate are slim. “Pennsylvanians need and deserve serious plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy bills, and deliver revenue,” said state Senator Saval in a statement to Grist. “So far, senate Republicans have shown little interest in even meager efforts to do any of this. It’s hard to imagine the abrogation of RGGI would help them, as it were, to find religion on this front.” Editor’s note: The Natural Resources Defense Council is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Pennsylvania bailed on a carbon market to appease Republicans on Dec 2, 2025.

Climate
CO2
Energy

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