A crushing “spiral of silence” keeps Americans from discussing the threat of climate change, a new study has found.
The findings, published on Thursday in PLOS Climate, highlight a dynamic that cuts to the heart of the country’s failure to take significant action to slow climate change.
“When we don’t hear an opinion, or we don’t hear our thoughts out there, we assume we’re in the minority, and we become sort of afraid to speak out about it,” said lead author Margaret Orr, who studies communication at George Mason.
This silence, in turn, helps contribute to a lack of significant action — both individually and socially, the researchers argue.
Jamaica has been at the forefront of climate financing since becoming the first country to issue a climate catastrophe bond in 2021. By pioneering financial mechanisms to mitigate climate change, sustainability leaders have been able to make important strides in areas such as sustainable agriculture and renewable energy.
Investors have opportunities to diversify their portfolio through Jamaica’s stock exchange and via bank and credit unions that have climate-friendly loans for solar panels and electric vehicles.
The decline of the island’s ice and increasingly volatile weather have made it hard to maintain some Indigenous traditions. The effects of those changes and other impacts of the climate crisis on mental health can be harder to see.
Zhou, Z., Wu, Z., Liu, C., Shao, L., Zhang, Y., Liu, W., Shen, H., Yao, D., Fan, H., Zheng, C., & Gao, X. (2025). The path to carbon neutral shipping: A comparative analysis of low carbon technologies. Journal of Environmental Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jes.2025.04.034
Abstract
Ship operations are crucial to global trade, and their decarbonization is essential to mitigate climate change. This study evaluates the economic viability of existing and emerging decarbonization technologies in maritime shipping using the levelized cost of energy methodology. It includes a detailed comparative analysis based on essential criteria and sensitivity assessments to highlight the economic impacts of technological advancements. Key factors influencing total costs include fuel costs, carbon pricing, and energy demands for carbon capture. The findings reveal that methanol is more cost-effective than heavy fuel oil (HFO) when priced below 3000 CNY/t, assuming HFO costs 4400 CNY/t. Additionally, methanol with post-combustion carbon capture is less expensive than pre-combustion carbon capture. When carbon prices rise above 480 CNY/t, carbon capture technologies prove more economical than purchasing carbon emission allowances for HFO and liquefied natural gas. Enhancing the use of exhaust gas waste heat is recommended for cost savings. Post-combustion carbon capture also shows greater efficiency, requiring about 1.1 GJ/t less energy than pre-combustion methods, leading to lower overall costs. Future research should focus on market mechanisms to stabilize fuel prices and develop less energy-intensive carbon capture technologies. This study offers critical insights into effective decarbonization strategies for advancing global maritime trade in the present and future.
Mohan, P. S. (2025). Climate Reparations for a Just Response to Climate Change: A Review of Historical Responsibility and Future Implications. WIREs Climate Change, 16(2), e70007. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.70007
Abstract
For decades, international climate discussions have neglected the question of who compensates for climate‐induced loss and damage. COP27 marked a turning point, placing the issue at the forefront. There is a growing movement advocating for a reparative approach to address the climate crisis. The central premise is that nations with significant historical industrial contributions and unsustainable practices should provide assistance to vulnerable communities, particularly those in the Global South, who experience disproportionate impacts despite their minimal contribution. Unlike mitigation and adaptation focused on future impacts, climate reparations address present damage. While the concept of climate reparations has gained mainstream traction recently, it remains a contentious topic requiring a clear explanation and historical grounding. This review defines the concept of climate reparation. It highlights the observed disparity in vulnerability, wherein nations with substantial emissions may experience less severe impacts compared to developing countries. The review scrutinizes the growing reparations movement and supporting research, discussing reparations as a strategy to rectify colonial legacies, foster resilience, and redefine climate action. Finally, the paper acknowledges existing challenges and criticisms associated with climate reparations.
A major US government website supporting public education on climate science looks likely to be shuttered after almost all of its staff were fired, the Guardian has learned.
Climate.gov, the gateway website for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa)’s Climate Program Office, will imminently no longer publish new content, according to multiple former staff responsible for the site’s content whose contracts were recently terminated.
Hanife, B., Cianconi, P., Grillo, F., Paulinich, A., & Janiri, L. (2025). Climate anxiety as a call to global justice. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1547678. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1547678
Abstract
Climate anxiety (or eco-anxiety) is a growing psychological phenomenon linked to the increasing awareness of the environmental crisis caused by climate change. However, it is better understood within the context of the anthropogenic mechanisms that have contributed to pollution and climate change and that are failing to control their consequences, creating a sense of mistrust and uncertainty toward the national and international institutions. Moreover, the impacts of climate change are unequally felt by the rich and the poor also across generations, and policies designed to manage climate change have starkly unequal consequences and the processes by which are decided tend to exclude the poor and the powerless. Nevertheless, even if the groups most at risk for climate change consequences are minorities and marginalized communities, it does not appear that they are the main subjects of criticism and protest, and respondents of color appear to be more likely than white respondents to report feeling traumatized, but less likely to report feeling most of the negative emotions and more likely to feel optimistic and hopeful. Those findings in literature opens the discussion to many questions. Could this apparent discrepancy in climate anxiety reports indicate a difference in historical and cultural perceptions of climate change? Can we consider climate anxiety as a cultural syndrome? Can recognizing these differences in the expression of climate anxiety raise awareness of the unequal impacts of climate change itself and the priority of tackling climate injustice?
HFC-23 emissions from chemical plants in eastern China and elsewhere likely violate an international climate agreement despite readily available pollution controls. Advocates are pressing for action.
Climate disruption poses an existential threat to the future of children around the world, with wildfires, floods, extreme heat and more putting lives in peril.
The children of today and tomorrow are not to blame for this crisis, and yet, future generations are likely to suffer it the most. And for some people of faith, that is an unacceptable moral failing, and as such, they feel called to remedy this injustice.
The World Council of Churches represents half a billion Christians and has published “Hope for Children Through Climate Justice,” a handbook for communities of faith looking to hold financial actors accountable for their fossil fuel investments.
Frederique Seidel is the senior program lead on children and climate at the World Council of Churches. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Imagine heading into space, landing on the moon and walking in the dust. As you adjust to the weightlessness, you see something unexpected on the horizon. You’re looking back at the Earth, experiencing the “overview effect”. How would you feel? What would you see, hear, touch, taste and smell?
We asked these questions when we launched a creative writing workshop to harness the beauty and power of storytelling, education, theatre, and music to inspire a greener, healthier and fairer world for future generations.
One of us, Cecilia Mañosa Nyblon, brought together a team from the University of Exeter, the Met Office and international experts including marine scientists, poets, soundscape artists, musicians, playwrights and children’s authors who recognise the power of the arts to bridge the gap between science and society.
In 2021, our team launched We Are the Possible. This international award-winning programme brings together artists, scientists, educators and health professionals to connect hearts and minds. Together, we develop creative content and performances that are presented to policymakers and the public at annual UN climate summits and other public events.
As Kathleen Jamie, Scotland’s makar (national poet), said during the 2021 UN climate summit in Glasgow: “We can’t have that massive event around nature and environment without a poetry presence there.”
Since 2021, this programme has engaged more than 16,000 people in the UK, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan. Our projects have reached more than 33 million people worldwide through mainstream media, social media and online platforms. By inspiring global and local audiences, we hope to mobilise communities to care for and protect our planet.
“We Are the Possible” collaborated with artists, scientists, educators, musicians and schoolchildren to perform at Cop28, the UN climate summit, in Dubai in 2023.
The project’s creative lead, Sally Flint, weaves the words of climate scientists, health professionals, storytellers, artists, youth, educators and translators into an anthology of 12 poems or stories for the 12 days of each UN climate summit, showing what people value most and what’s at stake in our changing planet.
In our anthology for Cop28 (the 2023 climate summit in Dubai), Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who spent years negotiating for climate action at the UN summits, shared that “while this remains vital, I have also realised that connecting with people from the heart and with love is the most powerful place to start.”
Scientists have the data. We have the technological solutions. But governments and leaders are failing to act with urgency. The climate crisis is our biggest communication failure.
Culture has the power to help people imagine and inspire action through dialogue, images, storytelling and shared experiences. But for far too long, the arts, cultural heritage and creative industries have been absent in climate policy frameworks. In 2024, ministers of culture and education gathered in Abu Dhabi to establish a framework which recognises the transformative power and impact of culture and arts education for sustainable development.
Since Cop28, our team has been working with our partner, a not-for-profit called the Emirates Literature Foundation, to involve Indigenous poets through visual artforms. This involvement shines a light on the importance of Indigenous knowledge in our climate conversations to heal and restore our planet.
We have also collaborated with a sustainable theatre company called The Theatre of Others to deliver The Earth Turns and Bright Light Burning. These immersive theatre performances (inspired by We Are the Possible anthologies) and panel discussions involve both policymakers and the public. After one of the performances, Jonathan Dewsbury, director of capital operations and net zero at the UK government’s Department for Education, told us: “If we don’t grab the arts, the poems, the music and embed them into our top policy thinkers, our top decision-makers, we are not going to make the right choices, the right solutions.”
Carpet weaving is an important part of Azerbaijan’s cultural identity. At Cop29 (the 2024 UN climate summit in Azerbaijan), one group of academics and students at Khazar University in Baku wove a traditional “Chelebi” carpet. This conveyed a message of unity and environmental stewardship through symbolic patterns inspired by We Are the Possible’s anthology.
Ocean-literate cultures
Around 50% of countries have no mention of climate change in their school curriculum, according to Unesco. Most teachers (95%) feel that teaching about climate climate change is important but less than 30% say are ready to teach it. Meanwhile, 75% young people around the world say they are frightened about their future.
Schools Across the Ocean, the education strand of We Are the Possible, is addressing this climate education gap. Led by our colleague, senior lecturer in education Anita Wood, this initiative has already connected more than 2,000 schoolchildren (aged 8-13) and more than 100 teachers in the UK, United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and other countries.
Inspiring children to put their words and artwork of hope about the ocean.
This six-week programme involves providing a toolkit for teachers plus activities and online workshops that engage children in science, art, storytelling and action for the ocean. The goal is for more children to understand why we all need a healthy ocean, develop their sense of agency and inspire others in their local communities to take action too.
Wendy Wilson, headteacher St Anne’s School in Alderney on the Channel Islands, found that Schools Across the Ocean meant that her students were not just learning about climate change. She said they were also “becoming active, global citizens who are climate literate, empowered and full of hope.”
In the United States, farmers have access to federally subsidized crop insurance — a backstop that affords them some peace of mind in the face of extreme weather. When droughts, floods, or other natural disasters ruin a season’s harvest, farmers can rely on insurance policies that will pay out a certain percentage of the expected market value of the food, saving them from financial ruin.
But that insurance program could become strained as global warming worsens, bringing more uncertainty to the agricultural sector.
Scientists at the European Geosciences Union conference last week said there is growing scientific evidence that global warming is driving a big increase in dangerous clear-air turbulence, which is invisible from the cockpit and can surprise pilots and damage aircraft.
Along some busy flight routes, turbulence is projected to “double or treble or quadruple over the next few decades,” said Paul Williams, a professor of atmospheric science and head of the weather research division at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. “What we find … is that the jet stream regions in both the Northern and the Southern hemispheres are affected.”
In a review in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Stephen Long, a professor of crop sciences and of plant biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, describes research efforts to “future-proof” the crops that are essential to feeding a hungry world in a changing climate. Long, who has spent decades studying the process of photosynthesis and finding ways to improve it, provides an overview of key scientific findings that offer a ray of hope.
Higher temperatures, more frequent and longer droughts, catastrophic rainfall events and rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels all influence the growth, development and reproductive viability of crop plants, he writes. While some plants and regions may benefit from some aspects of climate change, without prolonged and costly intervention, many more will suffer potentially catastrophic declines.
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