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New major crosses disciplines to address climate change

News Feed
Thursday, April 18, 2024

Lauren Aguilar knew she wanted to study energy systems at MIT, but before Course 1-12 (Climate System Science and Engineering) became a new undergraduate major, she didn't see an obvious path to study the systems aspects of energy, policy, and climate associated with the energy transition. Aguilar was drawn to the new major that was jointly launched by the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) in 2023. She could take engineering systems classes and gain knowledge in climate. “Having climate knowledge enriches my understanding of how to build reliable and resilient energy systems for climate change mitigation. Understanding upon what scale we can forecast and predict climate change is crucial to build the appropriate level of energy infrastructure,” says Aguilar. The interdisciplinary structure of the 1-12 major has students engaging with and learning from professors in different disciplines across the Institute. The blended major was designed to provide a foundational understanding of the Earth system and engineering principles — as well as an understanding of human and institutional behavior as it relates to the climate challenge. Students learn the fundamental sciences through subjects like an atmospheric chemistry class focused on the global carbon cycle or a physics class on low-carbon energy systems. The major also covers topics in data science and machine learning as they relate to forecasting climate risks and building resilience, in addition to policy, economics, and environmental justice studies. Junior Ananda Figueiredo was one of the first students to declare the 1-12 major. Her decision to change majors stemmed from a motivation to improve people’s lives, especially when it comes to equality. “I like to look at things from a systems perspective, and climate change is such a complicated issue connected to many different pieces of our society,” says Figueiredo. A multifaceted field of study The 1-12 major prepares students with the necessary foundational expertise across disciplines to confront climate change. Andrew Babbin, an academic advisor in the new degree program and the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Associate Professor in EAPS, says the new major harnesses rigorous training encompassing science, engineering, and policy to design and execute a way forward for society. Within its first year, Course 1-12 has attracted students with a diverse set of interests, ranging from machine learning for sustainability to nature-based solutions for carbon management to developing the next renewable energy technology and integrating it into the power system. Academic advisor Michael Howland, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, says the best part of this degree is the students, and the enthusiasm and optimism they bring to the climate challenge. “We have students seeking to impact policy and students double-majoring in computer science. For this generation, climate change is a challenge for today, not for the future. Their actions inside and outside the classroom speak to the urgency of the challenge and the promise that we can solve it,” Howland says. The degree program also leaves plenty of space for students to develop and follow their interests. Sophomore Katherine Kempff began this spring semester as a 1-12 major interested in sustainability and renewable energy. Kempff was worried she wouldn’t be able to finish 1-12 once she made the switch to a different set of classes, but Howland assured her there would be no problems, based on the structure of 1-12. “I really like how flexible 1-12 is. There's a lot of classes that satisfy the requirements, and you are not pigeonholed. I feel like I'm going to be able to do what I'm interested in, rather than just following a set path of a major,” says Kempff. Kempff is leveraging her skills she developed this semester and exploring different career interests. She is interviewing for sustainability and energy-sector internships in Boston and MIT this summer, and is particularly interested in assisting MIT in meeting its new sustainability goals. Engineering a sustainable future The new major dovetail’s MIT’s commitment to address climate change with its steps in prioritizing and enhancing climate education. As the Institute continues making strides to accelerate solutions, students can play a leading role in changing the future.    “Climate awareness is critical to all MIT students, most of whom will face the consequences of the projection models for the end of the century,” says Babbin. “One-12 will be a focal point of the climate education mission to train the brightest and most creative students to engineer a better world and understand the complex science necessary to design and verify any solutions they invent." Justin Cole, who transferred to MIT in January from the University of Colorado, served in the U.S. Air Force for nine years. Over the course of his service, he had a front row seat to the changing climate. From helping with the wildfire cleanup in Black Forest, Colorado — after the state's most destructive fire at the time — to witnessing two category 5 typhoons in Japan in 2018, Cole's experiences of these natural disasters impressed upon him that climate security was a prerequisite to international security.  Cole was recently accepted into the MIT Energy and Climate Club Launchpad initiative where he will work to solve real-world climate and energy problems with professionals in industry. “All of the dots are connecting so far in my classes, and all the hopes that I have for studying the climate crisis and the solutions to it at MIT are coming true,” says Cole. With a career path that is increasingly growing, there is a rising demand for scientists and engineers who have both deep knowledge of environmental and climate systems and expertise in methods for climate change mitigation. “Climate science must be coupled with climate solutions. As we experience worsening climate change, the environmental system will increasingly behave in new ways that we haven’t seen in the past,” says Howland. “Solutions to climate change must go beyond good engineering of small-scale components. We need to ensure that our system-scale solutions are maximally effective in reducing climate change, but are also resilient to climate change. And there is no time to waste,” he says.

Combining engineering, earth system science, and the social sciences, Course 1-12 prepares students to develop climate solutions.

Lauren Aguilar knew she wanted to study energy systems at MIT, but before Course 1-12 (Climate System Science and Engineering) became a new undergraduate major, she didn't see an obvious path to study the systems aspects of energy, policy, and climate associated with the energy transition.

Aguilar was drawn to the new major that was jointly launched by the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) in 2023. She could take engineering systems classes and gain knowledge in climate.

“Having climate knowledge enriches my understanding of how to build reliable and resilient energy systems for climate change mitigation. Understanding upon what scale we can forecast and predict climate change is crucial to build the appropriate level of energy infrastructure,” says Aguilar.

The interdisciplinary structure of the 1-12 major has students engaging with and learning from professors in different disciplines across the Institute. The blended major was designed to provide a foundational understanding of the Earth system and engineering principles — as well as an understanding of human and institutional behavior as it relates to the climate challenge. Students learn the fundamental sciences through subjects like an atmospheric chemistry class focused on the global carbon cycle or a physics class on low-carbon energy systems. The major also covers topics in data science and machine learning as they relate to forecasting climate risks and building resilience, in addition to policy, economics, and environmental justice studies.

Junior Ananda Figueiredo was one of the first students to declare the 1-12 major. Her decision to change majors stemmed from a motivation to improve people’s lives, especially when it comes to equality. “I like to look at things from a systems perspective, and climate change is such a complicated issue connected to many different pieces of our society,” says Figueiredo.

A multifaceted field of study

The 1-12 major prepares students with the necessary foundational expertise across disciplines to confront climate change. Andrew Babbin, an academic advisor in the new degree program and the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Associate Professor in EAPS, says the new major harnesses rigorous training encompassing science, engineering, and policy to design and execute a way forward for society.

Within its first year, Course 1-12 has attracted students with a diverse set of interests, ranging from machine learning for sustainability to nature-based solutions for carbon management to developing the next renewable energy technology and integrating it into the power system.

Academic advisor Michael Howland, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, says the best part of this degree is the students, and the enthusiasm and optimism they bring to the climate challenge.

“We have students seeking to impact policy and students double-majoring in computer science. For this generation, climate change is a challenge for today, not for the future. Their actions inside and outside the classroom speak to the urgency of the challenge and the promise that we can solve it,” Howland says.

The degree program also leaves plenty of space for students to develop and follow their interests. Sophomore Katherine Kempff began this spring semester as a 1-12 major interested in sustainability and renewable energy. Kempff was worried she wouldn’t be able to finish 1-12 once she made the switch to a different set of classes, but Howland assured her there would be no problems, based on the structure of 1-12.

“I really like how flexible 1-12 is. There's a lot of classes that satisfy the requirements, and you are not pigeonholed. I feel like I'm going to be able to do what I'm interested in, rather than just following a set path of a major,” says Kempff.

Kempff is leveraging her skills she developed this semester and exploring different career interests. She is interviewing for sustainability and energy-sector internships in Boston and MIT this summer, and is particularly interested in assisting MIT in meeting its new sustainability goals.

Engineering a sustainable future

The new major dovetail’s MIT’s commitment to address climate change with its steps in prioritizing and enhancing climate education. As the Institute continues making strides to accelerate solutions, students can play a leading role in changing the future.   

“Climate awareness is critical to all MIT students, most of whom will face the consequences of the projection models for the end of the century,” says Babbin. “One-12 will be a focal point of the climate education mission to train the brightest and most creative students to engineer a better world and understand the complex science necessary to design and verify any solutions they invent."

Justin Cole, who transferred to MIT in January from the University of Colorado, served in the U.S. Air Force for nine years. Over the course of his service, he had a front row seat to the changing climate. From helping with the wildfire cleanup in Black Forest, Colorado — after the state's most destructive fire at the time — to witnessing two category 5 typhoons in Japan in 2018, Cole's experiences of these natural disasters impressed upon him that climate security was a prerequisite to international security. 

Cole was recently accepted into the MIT Energy and Climate Club Launchpad initiative where he will work to solve real-world climate and energy problems with professionals in industry.

“All of the dots are connecting so far in my classes, and all the hopes that I have for studying the climate crisis and the solutions to it at MIT are coming true,” says Cole.

With a career path that is increasingly growing, there is a rising demand for scientists and engineers who have both deep knowledge of environmental and climate systems and expertise in methods for climate change mitigation.

“Climate science must be coupled with climate solutions. As we experience worsening climate change, the environmental system will increasingly behave in new ways that we haven’t seen in the past,” says Howland. “Solutions to climate change must go beyond good engineering of small-scale components. We need to ensure that our system-scale solutions are maximally effective in reducing climate change, but are also resilient to climate change. And there is no time to waste,” he says.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Related News

South Korea's fishermen keep dying. Is climate change to blame?

An increase in deadly incidents has been partly caused by climate change, an inquiry found.

South Korea's fishermen keep dying. Is climate change to blame?Jean MackenzieSeoul correspondentBBC/Hosu LeeBoat owner Hong Suk-hui says the seas are becoming more dangerousHong Suk-hui was waiting on the shore of South Korea's Jeju Island when the call came. His fishing boat had capsized.Just two days earlier, the vessel had ventured out on what he had hoped would be a long and fruitful voyage. But as the winds grew stronger, its captain was ordered to turn back. On the way to port, a powerful wave struck from two directions creating a whirlpool, and the boat flipped. Five of the 10 crew members, who had been asleep in their cabins below deck, drowned."When I heard the news, I felt like the sky was falling," said Mr Hong.Last year, 164 people were killed or went missing in accidents in the seas around South Korea – a 75% jump from the year before. Most were fishermen whose boats had sunk or capsized."The weather has changed, it's getting windier every year," said Mr Hong, who also chairs the Jeju Fishing Boat Owners Association. "Whirlwinds pop up suddenly. We fisherman are convinced it is down to climate change."South Korean CoastguardFive of Mr Hong's crew members drowned when this fishing boat capsized in FebruaryAlarmed by the spike in deaths, the South Korean government launched an investigation into the accidents.This year, the head of the taskforce pinpointed climate change as one of the major causes, as well as highlighting other problems - the country's aging fishing workforce, a growing reliance on migrant workers, and poor safety training.The seas around Korea are warming more rapidly than the global average, in part because they tend to be shallower. Between 1968 and 2024, the average surface temperature of the country's seas increased by 1.58C, more than double the global rise of 0.74C.Warming waters are contributing to extreme weather at sea, creating the conditions for tropical storms, like typhoons, to become more intense.They are also causing some fish species around South Korea to migrate, according to the country's National Institute of Fisheries Science, forcing fisherman to travel further and take greater risks to catch enough to make a living.Environmental campaigners say urgent action is needed to "stop the tragedy occurring in Korean waters".BBC/Hosu LeeSome fish species are migrating from the waters around South KoreaOn a rainy June morning, Jeju Island's main harbour was crammed with fishing boats. The crews hurried back and forth between sea and land, refuelling and stocking up for their next voyage, while the boats' owners paced anxiously along the dock watching the final preparations."I'm always afraid something might happen to the boat, the risks have increased so much," said 54-year-old owner, Kim Seung-hwan. "The winds have become more unpredictable and extremely dangerous."A few years ago, Mr Kim began to notice that the popular silvery hairtail fish he relied on were disappearing from local waters, and his earnings plunged by half.Now his crews have to journey into deeper, more perilous waters to find them, sometimes sailing as far south as Taiwan."Since we're operating farther away, it's not always possible to return quickly when there's a storm warning," he said. "If we stayed closer to shore it would be safer, but to make a living we have to go farther out."BBC/Hosu LeeFishermen on South Korea's Jeju Island say hairtail fish have become scarcerProfessor Gug Seung-gi led the investigation into the recent accidents, which found that South Korea's seas appear to have become more dangerous. It noted the number of marine weather warnings around the Korean Peninsula - alerting fishermen to gales, storm surges, and typhoons - increased by 65% between 2020 and 2024."Unpredictable weather is leading to more boats capsizing, especially small fishing vessels that are going further out and are not built for such long, rough trips," he told the BBC.Professor Kim Baek-min, a climate scientist at South Korea's Pukyong National University, said that although climate change was creating the conditions to make strong, sudden wind gusts more likely, a clear trend had not yet been established – for that, more research and long-term data is needed.BBC/Hosu LeeCaptain Park fishes for anchovies from this small boatOne foggy morning, we left shore in the dark on a small trawler with Captain Park Hyung-il, who has been fishing anchovies off Korea's south coast for more than 25 years. He sang sea shanties, determined to stay upbeat. But when we reached the nets he had left out overnight, his mood crumpled.As he wound them in, the anchovies could barely be seen among the hordes of jellyfish and other fodder. Once the anchovies had been separated out, they filled just two boxes."In the past, we'd fill 50 to 100 of these baskets in a single day," he said. "But this year the anchovies have vanished and we're catching more jellyfish than fish."This is the predicament facing tens of thousands of fishermen along South Korea's coastlines. Over the past 10 years, the amount of squid caught in South Korean waters each year has plummeted 92%, while anchovy catches have fallen by 46%.BBC/Hosu LeeThere are far fewer anchovies to be sorted by fishing workersEven the anchovies Park had caught were not fit for market, he said, and would need to be sold as animal-feed."The haul is basically worthless," he sighed, explaining it would barely cover the day's fuel costs, let alone his crew's wages."The sea is a mess, nothing makes sense anymore," Park continued. "I used to love this job. There was joy knowing that someone, somewhere in the country was eating the fish I caught. But now, with barely anything to catch, that sense of pride is fading."And, with livelihoods disappearing, young people no longer want to join the industry. In 2023 almost half of South Korea's fishermen were over the age of 65, up from less than a third a decade earlier.Increasingly, elderly captains must rely on help from migrant workers from Vietnam and Indonesia. Often these workers do not receive sufficient safety training, and language barriers mean they cannot communicate with the captains – further compounding the dangers.Woojin Chung, South Korea's chief representative at the UK-based Environmental Justice Foundation, described it as "a vicious and tragic cycle".When you combine more extreme weather with the pressure to travel further, the increased fuel costs this brings, and the need to rely on cheap, untrained foreign labour, "you have a higher chance of meeting disaster", she explained.BBC/Hosu LeeFishermen Jong-un (left) and Yong-mook (right) were killed in a fishing boat accident this yearOn 9 February this year, a large shipping trawler sank suddenly near the coastal city of Yeosu, killing 10 of the crew. It was a bitterly cold, windy day, and smaller boats had been banned from going out, but this trawler was deemed sturdy enough to withstand the gales. The reason it went down is still a mystery.One of those killed was 63-year-old Young-mook. A fisherman for 40 years, he had been planning to retire, but that morning someone called and asked him to fill a last-minute opening on the boat."It was so cold that once you fell in you wouldn't survive the hypothermia, especially at his age," said his daughter Ean, still distraught over his death.Ean thinks it has become too easy for boat owners to blame climate change for accidents. Even in cases where bad weather plays a role, she believes it is still the owners' responsibility to assess the risks and keep their crew safe. "Ultimately it is their call when to go out," she said.BBC/Hosu LeeYoung-mook's daughter Ean (right) wants boat owners to make their vessels saferAs a child, she remembers her father's fridge would be filled with crabs and squid. "Now the stocks are gone, but the companies still force them to go out, and because these men have worked as fishermen their whole lives, they don't have alternative job options, so they keep fishing even when they're too frail to do so," she said.Ean also wants owners to better maintain their boats, which are aging too. "Companies have insurance, so they get compensated after a boat sinks, but our loved ones can't be replaced."The authorities, aware they cannot control the weather, are now working with fishermen to make their boats safer. As we were with Mr Hong, whose boat capsized earlier this year, a team of government inspectors arrived to carry out a series of on-the-spot checks on two of his other vessels.The government's taskforce is recommending that boats be fitted with safety ladders, fisherman be required to wear life jackets, and that safety training be mandatory for all foreign crew. It also wants to improve search and rescue operations, and for fisherman to have access to more localised and real-time weather updates.Some regions are even offering to pay fishermen for the jellyfish they catch, to try to clean up the seas, while squid fishermen are being given loans to protect them from bankruptcy, and encourage them to retire.BBC/Hosu LeeBecause the problem will likely worsen. The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation forecasts that total fish catches in South Korea will decline by almost a third by the end of this century, if carbon emissions and global warming continue on their current trajectories."The future looks very bleak," said the anchovy fisherman Captain Park, now in his late 40s. He recently started a YouTube channel documenting his catches in the hope of earning some extra money. Park is the third generation of his family to do this work and likely the last."Back then it felt romantic getting up early and heading out to sea. There was a sense of adventure and reward.""These days it's just really tough."Additional reporting by Hosu Lee and Leehyun Choi

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London Judge Finds Global Mining Company BHP Group Liable in Brazil’s Worst Environmental Disaster

A London judge has ruled that BHP Group is liable for Brazil’s worst environmental disaster

LONDON (AP) — A London judge ruled Friday that global mining company BHP Group is liable in Brazil’s worst environmental disaster when a dam collapse a decade ago unleashed tons of toxic waste into a major river, killing 19 people and devastating villages downstream.High Court Justice Finola O’Farrell said that Australia-based BHP was responsible, despite not owning the dam at the time, finding its negligence, carelessness or lack of skill led to the collapse.Anglo-Australian BHP owns 50% of Samarco, the Brazilian company that operates the iron ore mine where the tailings dam ruptured on Nov. 5, 2015. Sludge from the burst dam destroyed the once-bustling village of Bento Rodrigues in Minas Gerais state and badly damaged other towns. Enough mine waste to fill 13,000 Olympic-size swimming pools poured into the Doce River in southeastern Brazil, damaging 600 kilometers (370 miles) of the waterway and killing 14 tons of freshwater fish, according to a study by the University of Ulster in the U.K. The river, which the Krenak Indigenous people revere as a deity, has yet to recover.A decade later, legal disputes have prolonged reconstruction and reparations and the river is still contaminated with heavy metals. Even as Brazil tries to define itself as a global environmental leader while hosting the U.N. COP30 climate summit, advocacy groups say the dam collapse is a reminder of industry-friendly policies that have ecological protection. Victims of the disaster called the ruling a historic victory in seeking justice.“We had to cross the Atlantic Ocean and go to England to finally see a mining company held to account," said Mônica dos Santos of the Commission for Those Affected by the Fundão Dam. Gelvana Rodrigues, whose 7-year-old son, Thiago, was killed in a mudslide, celebrated the step forward and said she wouldn't rest until those responsible are punished."The judge’s decision shows what we have been saying for the last 10 years: it was not an accident, and BHP must take responsibility for its actions,” Rodrigues said. The judge agreed with lawyers representing 600,000 Brazilians and 31 communities in the class-action case who argued that BHP was heavily involved in the Samarco operation and could have prevented the disaster, but instead encouraged raising the dam to allow more production. “The risk of collapse of the dam was foreseeable,” O'Farrell wrote in the 222-page decision. "It is inconceivable that a decision would have been taken to continue raising the height of the dam in those circumstances and the collapse could have been averted."BHP said that it plans to appeal.The claimants are seeking 36 billion pounds ($47 billion) in compensation, though the ruling only addressed liability. A second phase of the trial will determine damages. The case was filed in Britain because one of BHP’s two main legal entities was based in London at the time.Under the agreement, Samarco — which is also half owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale — agreed to pay 132 billion reais ($23 billion) over 20 years. The payments were meant to compensate for human, environmental and infrastructure damage.BHP had said the U.K. legal action was unnecessary, because it duplicated matters covered by legal proceedings in Brazil.The judge ruled that those who were compensated in the settlement in Brazil could still bring claims, though they might be limited by any waivers they signed. Brandon Craig, BHP’s president of Minerals Americas, said that nearly half of the claimants could be eliminated from the group because of settlement agreements they signed in Brazil.BHP shares fell more than 2% on the London market after the ruling and the company said that it would update its financial provisions.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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The climate paradox of having a dog

My dog contributes to climate change. I love him anyway.

I’ve been a vegetarian for over a decade. It’s not because of my health, or because I dislike the taste of chicken or beef: It’s a lifestyle choice I made because I wanted to reduce my impact on the planet. And yet, twice a day, every day, I lovingly scoop a cup of meat-based kibble into a bowl and set it down for my 50-pound rescue dog, a husky mix named Loki.  Until recently, I hadn’t devoted a huge amount of thought to that paradox. Then I read an article in the Associated Press headlined “People often miscalculate climate choices, a study says. One surprise is owning a dog.”  The study, led by environmental psychology researcher Danielle Goldwert and published in the journal PNAS Nexus, examined how people perceive the climate impact of various behaviors — options like “adopt a vegan diet for at least one year,” or “shift from fossil fuel car to renewable public transport.” The team found that participants generally overestimated a number of low-impact actions like recycling and using efficient appliances, and they vastly underestimated the impact of other personal decisions, including the decision to “not purchase or adopt a dog.”  The real objective of the study was to see whether certain types of climate information could help people commit to more effective actions. But mere hours after the AP published its article, its aim had been recast as something else entirely: an attack on people’s furry family members. “Climate change is actually your fault because you have a dog,” one Reddit user wrote. Others in the community chimed in with ire, ridiculing the idea that a pet chihuahua could be driving the climate crisis and calling on researchers and the media to stop pointing fingers at everyday individuals.  Goldwert and her fellow researchers watched the reactions unfold with dismay. “If I saw a headline that said, ‘Climate scientists wanna take your dogs away,’ I would also feel upset,” she said. “They definitely don’t,” she added. “You can quote me on that.” Loki grinning on a hike in the Pacific Northwest. Claire Elise Thompson / Grist The study set out to understand how to shift behavior by communicating climate truths. Instead, its media coverage revealed a troubling psychological trade-off: When climate-related messaging strikes a nerve, it may actually turn people off from the work of shifting societal norms.  It’s an instinct I understand on some level. I love Loki, and my knee-jerk reaction is to defend the very personal choice of sharing one’s life with a dog. I also sympathize with redirecting the blame toward the biggest polluters: billionaires and fossil fuel companies (not Bon-Bon, the pet chihuahua in question). But is it irresponsible to shrug off any conversation about the environmental impact of our pets — something far more within our control than, say, the overthrow of capitalism?  Is there a way to have a frank discussion about the climate impact of our personal lives without it going to the dogs? Oftentimes, when I’m questioning how a particular climate behavior might fit into my life, I try to imagine how it looks in my vision of a sustainable future. It’s why, for instance, I don’t own a car and am dedicated to riding public transit, even though it isn’t always super convenient. I’m keen to be an early adopter of systems I believe in. But I struggle to imagine a future without companion animals, even knowing about their environmental impact — which is admittedly substantial. Dogs and cats eat meat-heavy diets, which is where the bulk of their carbon pawprint comes from. A 2017 study from UCLA found that dogs and cats are responsible for about 25 to 30 percent of the environmental impact of meat consumption in the United States. That’s equivalent to a year’s worth of driving by 13.6 million cars. For pets that eat traditional kibble or wet food, that protein may come from meat byproducts — otherwise-wasted animal parts, such as organs and bones, not approved for human consumption. But an increasing number of pet owners are opting to feed their fur babies “human-grade” meat products, which requires additional resources and generates extra emissions.  After they eat, of course, they poop. A lot. At least for dogs, that poop typically gets bagged in plastic and sent to the landfill. And it turns out all the biodegradable poop bags I’ve diligently bought over the years don’t help matters much; they also release greenhouse gases in landfills, and most composting programs don’t accept pet waste. With more dogs around than ever before — the U.S. dog population has steadily increased from 52.9 million in 1996 to a new peak of 89.7 million in 2024 — their overall climate toll is more than a chihuahua-sized issue. But pets are also more than just sources of carbon pollution. According to a 2023 Pew Research poll, 97 percent of owners say they consider their pets to be part of their families, with 51 percent of respondents saying they are on the same level as a human family member. So whenever their climate impact crops up in the discourse, as it has periodically, it makes sense that people tend to get defensive. Read Next Rez dogs are feeling the heat from climate change Taylar Dawn Stagner This don’t-you-dare-take-away-my-dog-you-horrible-environmentalist backlash is certainly not the first time the climate movement has been accused of depriving people of the things they love. Climate policy has long been painted as a force for austerity, coming for your burgers, your gas stoves, your coal-mining jobs. That framing has been politically potent, used by fossil fuel interests and their allies to stoke resentment and delay government action. Big Oil at once wants us to believe that the climate crisis is our fault and that we shouldn’t have to give up anything to fix it.  For some climate advocates, the solution has been to shift messaging away from individual responsibility and focus instead on big, systemic changes like overhauling our electricity and transit systems through governmental investment in clean energy. In her essay “I work in the environmental movement. I don’t care if you recycle,” author and podcaster Mary Annaïse Heglar wrote: “The belief that this enormous, existential problem could have been fixed if all of us had just tweaked our consumptive habits is not only preposterous; it’s dangerous … It’s victim blaming, plain and simple.”  Heglar and others have taken a strong stance against environmental purity — the idea that you can’t care about or advocate for systems-level change if you aren’t first changing your own habits. But not everyone agrees that individual actions should be completely deemphasized in the climate conversation. Kimberly Nicholas, a climate scientist and author of the popular book Under the Sky We Make, has argued that wealthy people living in wealthy countries — and globally, “wealthy” is a lower bar than you might think — do have a responsibility to slash their outsize carbon emissions. And particularly for those of us living in democracies, personal action isn’t just about the choices we make as consumers.  “There’s still an ongoing tension between personal and system change, or individual and collective action,” Nicholas said. “It’s really hard to get that right — to get the right balance there that acknowledges the role and the importance of both, and to talk about and study and describe both in a way that motivates people to take high-impact actions.” Goldwert saw that tension play out in her maligned climate communications study. In the experiment, participants reviewed 21 individual climate actions (like eating less meat) and five systemic actions (like voting) and rated their commitments to taking each action. Two test groups then received clarifying information about the relative impact of the 21 individual actions — one group was asked to estimate their ranking before learning how they actually ranked, the other group received the information straight-up. But participants didn’t receive any data about the carbon-mitigation potential of the five collective actions, which would be far more difficult to quantify.  What Goldwert’s team found surprised them: The teachings did nudge people toward higher-impact personal actions, but their stated likelihood of engaging in collective ones actually went down — a backfire effect that hints at the perils of focusing too much on personal lifestyle choices. “It might be kind of like a mental substitution,” Goldwert said. “People feel like, ‘OK, I’ve done my part individually. I kind of checked the box on climate action.’”  Participants were also asked to rate the “plasticity” of each of the actions, or how easy it would be to adopt. And those measurements revealed another nuance in how people view different forms of climate action. For the individual-focused options, participants were more likely to commit to actions they saw as requiring little effort. For the systemic actions, they were more interested in whether it would have an impact — something researchers are still working on quantifying.  “If you think voting or marching is just symbolic or ineffective, you’re not going to engage,” Goldwert said. “We have to show people evidence that their voice or their vote can shift policy, corporate practices, or social norms.” I, for one, was surprised to see that participants rated the commitment to “not purchase or adopt a dog” as easy. When I asked Goldwert what might be behind that, she noted that dog ownership is a decision people don’t make very often. It also doesn’t require any action at all for people who already don’t own dogs. The results surely would have been different if the listed action was “get rid of your existing dog.” (Which it was not — a point that readers seemed to miss, based on Reddit comments about the study and the “crazy emails” Goldwert said she received.) Still, for an animal lover like me, the idea of never adopting another dog doesn’t feel easy to commit to at all. It feels like an immense sacrifice. The sadness I feel at the thought of a future without dogs points me to another important factor when it comes to motivation for climate action: joy.  Loki in one of his most dramatic napping positions. Claire Elise Thompson / Grist Actions we take to try and mitigate the climate crisis may be partially driven by how easy they are for us or how effective we believe them to be — but any choice we make is also driven by what we find joy in. It’s an essential part of staying committed and resilient in the fight for a better future. In this way, carbon-intensive activities like dog ownership have value beyond their weight in emissions. “People have an emotional attachment to the people and animals and creatures that we love,” Nicholas said. “And that is actually, I think, very powerful. We’re not only going to solve climate change by lining up all the numbers — we certainly need to do that, but we have to tap into what people really care about and realize all those things are on the line and threatened by the amount of climate change we’re heading for with current policies.”  Would I fight to ensure that dogs, like my beloved Loki, can continue wagging happily on this planet? Heck yes, I would. I’ve always felt that being a pet person goes hand-in-hand with a sense of altruism and responsibility. And if not giving up our pets means fighting climate change, by voting, marching, donating, advocating, and consuming like our pets’ lives depend on it, I think we can all get on board.  That might also mean adjusting our pets’ diets. While making my dog a full vegetarian seems challenging (though technically possible), just cutting out beef has a significant impact — shifting to “lower-carbon meats” was even one of the high-impact actions included in Goldwert’s study. That’s one Loki can easily commit to. And we already buy insect-based treats, which leave a pungent odor in my pockets but seem to please his taste buds. There are also ways that dog ownership intersects with other climate-related behaviors. Anecdotally, I would say I travel less because I have a dog whose care I need to think about. Walking him every day has also made me vastly more connected to my local environment, the goings-on in my neighborhood, and my neighbors themselves — all of which are important aspects of building climate resilience. Some dogs have even been trained to sniff out invasive species and help identify environmental contaminants. (Not Loki, who has never worked a day in his life.) Read Next Dogs are sniffing out a legacy of pollution on the Blackfeet nation Zoya Teirstein Though I’d never thought about it quite this way before I read Goldwert’s study, the climate actions I take have a lot to do with the love I feel for Loki. Not because I want to leave a better world for him — I recognize the reality that I will almost certainly outlive him — but because my feelings for him bring me closer to the love I feel for all living things on this planet. This “ice age predator” who shares my home, as the anthropologist and comedian David Ian Howe puts it, is a living reminder of the relationship humans have with other species, going back many thousands of years. As the saying goes, “‘Be the person your dog thinks you are.’” And next time you get a little worked up about the realities of the climate crisis and your accountability within it, consider taking yourself on a walk. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The climate paradox of having a dog on Nov 14, 2025.

Climate
Animals
Energy

Plan for Australia’s largest carbon capture project near Darwin criticised as creating ‘dumping ground’

Climate advocates fear the project, proposed by Japanese oil and gas giant Inpex, would turn the area into the ‘world’s largest carbon dumping ground’Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereOil and gas giant Inpex has proposed Australia’s largest carbon capture facility in waters off the Northern Territory, which climate advocates have warned could turn Darwin into a carbon dumping ground.The Bonaparte carbon capture and storage (CCS) project proposes to pipe and store 8m to 10m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into an underground aquifer located about 250km offshore west of Darwin, according to documents lodged with the federal environment department. Continue reading...

Oil and gas giant Inpex has proposed Australia’s largest carbon capture facility in waters off the Northern Territory, which climate advocates have warned could turn Darwin into a carbon dumping ground.The Bonaparte carbon capture and storage (CCS) project proposes to pipe and store 8m to 10m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into an underground aquifer located about 250km offshore west of Darwin, according to documents lodged with the federal environment department.Analysts said those volumes – if achieved – would make it one of the largest CCS projects in the world, while noting that most failed to meet their targets.The Bonaparte project, a joint venture between Inpex, TotalEnergies and Woodside Energy, involved sourcing CO2 from “a range of industrial facilities in the region”, including nearby liquefied natural gas plants, and eventually imports from the Asia Pacific. Carbon emissions would be transported offshore via a pipeline through Darwin harbour. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletterEnvironmentalists have raised concerns that the project would be used to justify the further expansion of fossil fuels in the territory.Globally, 77 CCS projects were now in operation, capturing about 64m tonnes a year, according to an industry status report.Josh Runciman, the lead Australian gas analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said most CO2 captured by the industry was used for enhanced oil recovery, a way to extract more oil and gas from reservoirs.In practice, he said most CCS projects designed purely to capture and store carbon dioxide had “massively underperformed”, and many ceased operation sooner than intended.Australia now had two commercial scale CCS projects: Santos’s Moomba project in South Australia and Chevron’s Gorgon facility in Western Australia. The Inpex proposal would be much larger.“A 10m tonne per annum target would make this the largest CCS project globally,” Runciman said – but even assuming it reached those targets, that would be a “very small fraction” of the CO2 emissions globally from oil and gas.The Gorgon facility, which started injecting carbon dioxide in 2019, had captured less than half of the volumes it had originally intended, at a cost of more than $200 a tonne, he said.The Guardian contacted Inpex for comment but did not receive a response. In July, the company’s managing director, Tetsu Murayama, said in a statement: “The Bonaparte CCS project could substantially contribute to decarbonising northern Australia and potentially the wider Indo-Pacific region.”skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Clear Air AustraliaAdam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisisPrivacy 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 Bonaparte project was one component of larger plans to convert Darwin’s Middle Arm Peninsula into a hub for carbon import and storage, with Dutch company Vopak separately developing a dedicated import terminal for liquefied CO2.Environment Centre NT said the proposals risked turning the Top End into the “world’s largest carbon dumping ground”.The group’s senior climate campaigner, Bree Ahrens, said: “This is a dirty deal to import the world’s pollution, and the Albanese Government needs to rule it out.”The environmental organisation expressed concerns that CCS was being used to greenwash a massive expansion of gas production in the Northern Territory.“Carbon capture and storage is just a fossil fuel industry’s excuse to keep extracting coal and gas while pretending to care about climate change.

Climate
CO2
Water

Labor must not partner with climate vandals on Australia’s new environmental laws | Tim Flannery

If the government cuts a deal with them, it risks repeating the mistakes of the Abbott era, sacrificing progress for politicsThis week the National Liberal Coalition has rewound the clock a decade. When Tony Abbott’s government abolished the Climate Commission in 2013, I knew it was a political act of climate vandalism. Abbott simply didn’t want to hear the facts: that pollution from coal, oil and gas were cooking our planet.For a decade after, denial evolved: from shouting that global heating wasn’t real, to claiming it could be solved later. Continue reading...

This week the National Liberal Coalition has rewound the clock a decade. When Tony Abbott’s government abolished the Climate Commission in 2013, I knew it was a political act of climate vandalism. Abbott simply didn’t want to hear the facts: that pollution from coal, oil and gas were cooking our planet.For a decade after, denial evolved: from shouting that global heating wasn’t real, to claiming it could be solved later.While the LNP wallows in denial, the Albanese government is rewriting Australia’s most important environment law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. It’s critical that the PM doesn’t try to cut deals on this law with the same climate deniers who dismantled Australia’s climate ambition last time.The last few weeks we’ve seen on display a Liberal National Coalition dominated by climate vandals, repulsed by renewables and trapped in a toxic relationship with expensive, polluting coal and gas. For years they have pretended that denial is debate. Now the Liberal party has openly abandoned net zero emissions by 2050 altogether, essentially saying let climate disasters rip, and to hell with our kids. It is the same approach that tore down a carbon price, dismantled the Climate Commission and wasted a decade in which we could have been getting a head start on building Australian jobs in renewables, electric vehicle batteries and green steel.Let’s be clear: there is no credible reason to scrap our net zero target. The Liberal party’s decision would be laughable if it were not such a callous act of recklessness. Reaching net zero by 2050 or before has the overwhelming support of scientists, economists, industry, energy experts and governments around the world motivated by indisputable evidence. A sweeping majority of Australians, alongside peak business and civil bodies, back the target. All that is left is the stubborn ideologues shouting at the tide as it floods their front door.What does net zero emissions actually mean? And is it different to the Paris agreement? – videoTo hand such wreckers a say over the future of Australia’s environment laws would be madness. These are the same forces that unleashed a lost decade of climate inaction. The lesson from that period could not be clearer: when denialists set the terms, progress burns. That failure is only reinforced by the fossil fuel industry’s hold on our politics.For two years Labor has promised that this reform will be a once-in-a-generation fix to Australia’s broken nature laws. The Great Barrier Reef has experienced the sixth mass bleaching event in a decade, but the package will allow new coal and gas projects to be approved without any consideration of their climate impacts. Under the government’s plan, fossil fuel corporations would need to disclose only a fraction of their pollution and an unverified plan to reduce it, and even that information would not be used to influence a decision.The Albanese government has approved 32 new or expanded coal, oil and gas developments, including the North West Shelf expansion, Australia’s most polluting project in a decade. Together, these approvals will pump up to 12.8m tonnes of climate pollution into the atmosphere in Australia, making it harder for Australia to meet its own targets. The global impact is in the order of billions of tonnes of pollution.And 42 more projects are in the pipeline. Many would run well into the second half of this century, some even beyond 2100.Climate pollution is the biggest threat to our reefs, forests and wildlife. Any credible environment law must tackle it at its source. To claim the Safeguard Mechanism will sort it out later is folly. The Safeguard only applies after a project has been approved. It is like letting the arsonist start the fire, then hoping the firefighter can control it later. By then, the damage is under way.We cannot afford more delay. Every fraction of a degree of heating harms our environment – and all of us that rely on it. Every new tonne of pollution makes the task harder. Australia’s laws must ensure that high-polluting projects cannot be waved through.There is a better path. The government can still implement credible reform that increases protection for climate and nature, and without the now rejected ‘climate trigger’. That means three simple things. First, require all projects to fully disclose their climate pollution, including the emissions when fossil fuels are burned overseas. Second, make sure this information is independently assessed and used in decision-making. And third, allow the environment minister to put limits on projects that are incompatible with Australia’s climate targets, policies and international commitments.Canada requires analysis of both direct and downstream emissions. The EU and the UK have similar standards. Last year, the UK supreme court ruled that ignoring the climate impact of new fossil fuel projects was unlawful. Australia is on the frontline of climate damage. We must not be shirkers.When I look back on 2013, what stands out is not just that the Climate Commission was scrapped, but that the science was ignored. A decade later, the same political forces that tore down that work are trying to drag us backwards again. If the government cuts a deal with them, it risks repeating the mistakes of the Abbott era, sacrificing truth for expedience and progress for politics.Australia has a choice. We can keep approving new coal and gas projects that push us further from safety, or we can finally pass a law that protects our magnificent environment, creatures and people.

Climate
Government
Pollution

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