Birdwatching has recently surged in popularity across the world, especially among younger generations. In fact, research has shown that it’s Gen Z’s second fastest growing hobby. 

Many have turned to the pastime as a way to reconnect with nature and reduce stress levels, and it has other potential health benefits as well: some studies demonstrate its potential to help slow age-related cognitive decline by acting as a brain exercise. 

Moreover, the little equipment or experience needed makes the hobby accessible to everyone — all you really need is the presence of birds. Unfortunately, their populations are declining due to a variety of issues, including habitat and environment degradation, climate change, and, more directly, plastic pollution. 

Why is Plastic Pollution Such a Big Problem? 

Birdwatching and birds themselves are not the only victims of plastic pollution. Outside of being beloved to birders, birds play an important role in many  environmental and ecological processes. 

For one, birds are significant contributors to the health of plant populations. They pollinate, fertilize, and disperse seeds across continents, which promotes plant reproduction and supports the growth of the forest and foliage that serves as habitats for other species. 

The ecological importance of birds also extends to health issues. For example, research has shown that when vulture populations decline, humans are increasingly exposed to disease-causing bacteria and pathogens. This trend occurs due to the increase in the presence of animal carcasses, which vultures would normally remove from environments. Bacteria from these carcasses can enter water systems and turn into a serious threat to human health. 

Humans also rely directly on certain species of birds for certain tasks. For example, foragers in multiple regions in Africa have relied on the Greater Honeyguide to lead them to honey, while various types of birds can provide pest-control on farms by eating common nuisance insects, like coffee borer beetles. 

So when we lose our birds, we’re not just losing their aesthetic or emotional value — we’re also losing all of the extensive good they do for us and our environment. 

The Importance of the Past

Bird populations have been threatened by human-caused events throughout history, some of which have been devastating. Oil spills are one example, killing thousands of birds with each incident. The 1969 Santa Barbara spill, for example, led to the deaths of an estimated 3,600 birds. 

Another particularly infamous case was the chemical DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) which was commonly used as a pesticide and led to a decline of bird-of-prey populations, resulting in imbalance in affected food chains due to a lack of predators. 

But while threats to birds and their habitats exist, these events have also inspired real, feasible progress towards conservation. After the 1969 oil spill, there were extensive clean-up operations and a new-found attention to ecological issues that included the eventual creation of Earth Day. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring highlighted the dangers of DDT and became one of the most influential texts in the environmental movement as well as a catalyst for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency,

 In today’s environment, one of the biggest threats to birds is the increase of plastic pollution. Our next step should be following environmentalists  who came before us and putting together the next solution.

The Problem With Plastic

There are a number of reasons that plastic poses a large threat to birds, including entanglement, exposure to chemicals and, most especially, ingestion. In 2015, it was estimated that nearly 90% of seabirds consume plastic. By 2050, that number is projected to increase to 99%, which is virtually every seabird on the planet. 

Birds eat plastic both directly and indirectly by eating prey that has already consumed it. Plastic consumption can cause serious ailments, leading to lack of proper nutrient consumption and gastrointestinal obstruction/organ damage. Plastics can also find their way into nests and cause severe damage. Chicks are prone to entanglement, which can prove fatal due to strangulation and the infections they cause. These issues have been observed worldwide and occur in both aquatic and terrestrial birds. 

PULLQUOTE: “Given that birds in particular mistake plastic for prey, macroplastics or MPs have been found in the gastrointestinal tracts, feces, and even in feathers and other tissues or organs of several hundred avian species from freshwater, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems.” – Limin Wang et al. 

Plastics, which can take up to and over a thousand years to degrade, end up permanent fixtures of bird habitats, making exposure dangerously common. They’re also extremely widespread, with an estimated 12 billion tons of plastic waste expected to be found in the environment by 2050. 

These numbers are intimidating, but we should note that even the tiniest efforts add up over time. The easiest way to begin helping the birds we love can be as simple as saying no to a plastic bag. 

What can you do to help?

One way to start is by learning more about the effects and origins of single-use and disposable plastics. Knowing where they come from is the first step to identifying what you can do to cut down on them. Plastic water bottles, packaging, and plastic bags are especially prominent pollutants, but they’re also not too difficult to cut out of your life. 

Reusable bottles, kitchenware, and bags are great ways to reduce plastics while keeping the everyday items you need. As for the plastics already in the environment, getting involved in local clean-up efforts can help clear affected areas and boost community engagement. If there aren’t any around you, consider starting one! Every movement, no matter how small, makes a difference. 

Birdwatching is just one of the many aspects of our lives that rely on the presence of these fascinating, loveable creatures. If they’ve helped you alleviate the stress from work, find friends, or even just given you some small amount of joy, consider paying it back — it could mean saving their lives.

Check out our End Plastics campaign for more information and ways to take action, like calculating your plastic footprint or signing the Global Plastics Treaty petition. 

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Do you crave early afternoon hikes on a dirt path that curves through a thick, green forest with thousands of trees to entertain you for miles? 

Or do you find the “great” outdoors to be not so much that?

If that’s the case, it’s ok! Not everyone feels a connection to nature. But if you’ll indulge us for a moment, we’d like to tell you why spending even a little bit of time in nature can be good and how you can make it feel more, well, natural. Read on to learn how being in the natural world can improve your physical, emotional, and intellectual health.

Is Nature “Natural” to Everyone?

In 1984, a biologist named Edward O. Wilson built upon the work of psychoanalyst Eric Fromm and proposed the biophilia hypothesis.

In other words, everyone should feel a desire to be around varying forms of living nature such as plants and wildlife. But his hypothesis may be incorrect; researchers still dispute its validity. In particular, many researchers disagree with its claim that mankind’s attraction to nature is a universal trait.

Instead, researchers suggest that humans’ attraction to nature presents itself in the human population on a bell-curve distribution, meaning most people fall somewhere in the middle with a moderate appeal to nature, while a few carry an extreme love or hate for it. 

Your childhood experiences also influence the strength of your connection to nature. As a child, the conversations and activities relating to nature sparked or suppressed by your parents or guardians have the greatest influence on your relationship with nature. Other important figures in your life such as friends and teachers can also impact your connection, but those you live with have the strongest effect.

Additionally, contact with nature as a child matters, too. Contact with nature refers to visiting natural spaces like the wilderness or a park and interacting with nature like gardening. This factor influences your connection to nature significantly more than your childhood living environment, which includes elements like the amount of vegetation around your home or light visible outside at night.

More specifically, interactive contact with nature leads to a deeper connection than simply visiting natural spaces. Observing events in nature and nurturing plants are the two most influential childhood nature activities, highlighting the importance of meaning and emotion.

Nature Nurtures Us

Even if you fall on the part of the bell curve that does not enjoy nature or your childhood experiences did not foster an affinity for nature, it is still in your self-interest to care about it as an adult.

Physical Benefits

Nature has physical benefits. Forest bathing — an English term for the traditional Japanese practice of “shinrin-yoku” — is when you enjoy a forest through your senses: the smell of wildflowers, the sight of sunlight filtering through the tree canopy, the sound of the wind rustling branches, the tickle of a leaf brushing against your arm as it cascades down from above. Scientific studies have explored how this activity enhances your physical health by lowering your blood pressure. 

And even something as simple as breathing in the forest air can strengthen your immune system. Plants and trees release an airborne chemical called phytoncides to increase their protection from disease. When humans inhale phytoncides, they trigger an increase in the production of a type of white blood cell that works to rid the body of cells that have been damaged by viruses or tumors. 

Intellectual Benefits

Nature provides intellectual benefits, too. Two similar studies found that walking in different environments can impact your brain’s attention and memory capabilities. Students that walked in a nature-filled botanical garden experienced improved attention scores after their walk, while those that walked in an urban, pavement-filled area saw less improvement.

According to the attention restoration theory, our fast-paced and digital society requires a lot of energy and therefore drains our brain. Nature also captivates our attention, but it does so in a less demanding way than modern life. As a result, spending time in nature allows the brain to rest and reset to its full potential.

Emotional Benefits

Finally, nature is full of emotional benefits. Forest bathing can improve your mental health by reducing and preventing painful emotions such as psychological stress, anxiety, and depression. Forest bathing can lower cortisol levels, a hormone in the human body that increases when you are stressed. Additionally, a study found that forest bathing increased serotonin levels in middle-aged men, and low levels of this neurotransmitter are linked to depression and anxiety.

And spending time outside in nature can boost your mood. Whether you choose to go for a peaceful wooded hike in a forest or meander through a scenic park, spending time in nature can make you feel more positive and happy. It can also improve your sense of self-worth, such as enhancing your body image. 

Nature is full of unique creations, and observing them can instill a feeling of being a part of something bigger than just you. By doing so, you allow nature to turn on a calming nervous system response and unravel the tension brought on from our busy, technology-filled world.

Settle For Making Nature Feel Normal

Nature may never feel completely “natural” to you, but that doesn’t mean you should avoid it and forgo nature’s gifts to your health! Over time, you can make spending time in nature feel normal by incorporating nature-related activities into your daily life.

EARTHDAY.ORG can help you do this. We’ve compiled 50 ways you can engage with nature routinely. The list includes actions that directly immerse you in nature like forest bathing and ones that indirectly immerse you in nature like educating yourself and others on how to help nature flourish. 

You can also normalize nature in your life by signing up for our email list so that articles like this are sent straight to your inbox. And you can explore our social media at X, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube to stay up to date on environmental news and information. Want to make a bigger impact? Donate to EARTHDAY.ORG and help fund our work year-round.

Taking these first steps will place you on a path towards incorporating nature into your daily life and becoming a healthier, more attentive, and happier person.

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Bees, butterflies, and moths are typically beloved images of what we commonly know to be pollinators. However, the insects we often look at with distaste — those like mosquitoes, wasps, and flies — are actually also important pollinators in their own right. 

Bees and the like are incredibly critical to ecosystems, providing plants and crops we rely on with the pollen they need to reproduce. However, it’s also important to shed light on the other creatures that affect our environments, ones we often try to get rid of because of their reputation. 

They do a lot more than incessantly annoy us by supporting plant reproduction through plant pollination worldwide. In honor of national Pollinator Week, here are some less appreciated pollinators and the surprising benefits they have for ecosystems around the world. 

Over-Hated Garden Dwellers 

Flies are famously disliked in households worldwide.They’re often considered a nuisance, not doing much other than buzzing around where you don’t want them to. Surprisingly, despite how we see them, it’s actually been determined that flies are the second-most important pollinators, right after bees. 

The fact is flies are necessary for the health of plant populations across the world, including crops — According to a research article published by biology researchers from the University of Exeter, they visit around 72% of global food crops, cross-pollinating between plants and ensuring reproductive success.

Flies are incredibly diverse, species and habitat wise. Hoverflies are a specific family of flies, made up of over 6,000 different species, as detailed by a 2024 University of Georgia field report. They can be found on and across various continents. These flies play a valuable role in pollination and pest control, as they frequently visit flowering plants and naturally prey on destructive pests like aphids. 

A 2019 study observed hoverfly migration in and out of England and continental Europe, reporting billions of hoverflies seasonally migrating. The massive numbers of flies leads to significant pollination across land-masses, and this redistribution of pollen supports the reproduction of plants, including popular crops like sweet peppers, strawberries and onions. 

Certain types of flies can also be major players in the creation of beloved foods like chocolate. Tiny flies known as midges are the sole pollinator of cacao trees, making them critical to the chocolate industry. Cacao flowers, which have small, intricate openings, can only be entered by midges due to their miniscule size. 

Even with midges, due to the complex nature of the plant and its reproduction process, only 10-20% of the flowers actually get pollinated. Without midges pollinating cocoa flowers, the plants would be unable to produce the seedpods used to make chocolate.

 In short: no flies, no chocolate. 

A Common Menace 

People tend to live in terror of wasps. To some, even the sight of a nest’s stalk being built is a sign to call the exterminator. Of course, this isn’t unfounded, considering that wasps are notorious for being aggressive. What’s lesser known about them, however, is their tropical family members’ prominence as specialist pollinators, that focus on pollinating a narrow variety of plant species. 

Many of these plants are important in their own right: Figs are a well-known and well-loved fruit, of which there are almost nine hundred different species. They’re more than just fruits, though. Figs actually act as a keystone species, due to the significant number of animals and insects that depend on them for sustenance year-round. A 2018 study even documented that certain species of figs can help support declining bird populations, by providing them with a reliable source of food. 

Fig wasps are a small, often overlooked species of wasp. The two native to the United States are unnoticed to the point that they have no common name, only a scientific one: Pegoscapus. Figs and Fig wasps have a mutualistic relationship, meaning that both species generally benefit from their exchanges, though a first glance might say otherwise.

When a fig’s flowers (which are actually inside the fruit) are ready to reproduce, they attract female wasps, who crawl into the fruit through a small opening— it’s so small that while entering, the wasp will lose its wings. As the wasp crawls around to lay its eggs, it spreads the pollen it collected from the previous fig it was in. The flowers can then reproduce while the wasp, done with its job, dies within the fig.

While it sounds like a morbid exchange, it allows the wasp’s eggs to grow in a safe environment where they can hatch before continuing the cycle. This relationship maintains both populations and indirectly supports other species who rely on figs. 

Not all wasp pollination requires the death of the insect, however. Other species of wasps promote pollination the same way many other pollinators, including flies, do — they feed on nectar to support their energy levels, landing on flowers and collecting pollen in the process. As they travel from plant to plant, the collected pollen is transferred between flowers, fertilizing their seeds. This is commonly known as “incidental pollination”, a process butterflies and moths also take part in. 

The World’s Most Hated Insect 

It’s a well-known fact that mosquitoes are widely hated, and not without good reason. One particular species of mosquito, Aedes aegypti, might well be one of the most dangerous insects in the world, as a past carrier of yellow fever and the Zika virus. 

However, like any other creature, there’s a large diversity of species within the mosquito family, and some can actually be beneficial to both humans and the environment. There are around 3,500 species of mosquitoes documented worldwide, and only about 3% of those species are able to transmit diseases. 

Take, for example, the elephant mosquito, or Toxorhychites rutilius, which is found across a broad range of the southeastern United States. Rather than feeding on our blood, these giant, colorful creatures prefer plant nectar, pollen, and even the larva of other mosquitoes, and as they buzz from meal to meal, they pollinate flowers along the way, collecting and transferring pollen between the plants that host the substances they feed on. 

Another type of mosquito, Aedes Communis, commonly known as a snow pool mosquito, is a critical pollinator of blunt-leaf orchids. Found across the North of the United States, Alaska, and Canada, this mosquito does feed on blood to sustain the development of its eggs, but it also commonly feeds on nectar.

 As it feeds, it collects pollen from one flower and transfers it to the stigma of another, effectively pollinating the orchids and allowing them to reproduce. Blunt-leaf orchids are also important to ecosystems — they often indicate the presence of the many protected species they grow in tandem with. 

Now, it’s important to note that the details about mosquito pollination are still being studied, and there’s not much concrete information about what their pollination patterns, preferences, and effectiveness are just yet. That being said, researchers have drawn tentative conclusions about mosquitoes being potential nocturnal pollinators, due to their observations of significant mosquito presence around flowers at nighttime, rather than during the day.

 Professor Helen J. Young conducted a study that blocked flowers from pollination during daylight and evening hours, and found that the flowers that only received nocturnal pollinators (which operate similar to mosquitoes) produced twice as many seeds.

So, while we’re still learning about mosquito pollination, it’s safe to say that they do have a purpose other than just spreading disease and generally annoying people. 

The Surprising Reality

Not all of the insects we know as “pests” are deserving of that title. Flies, wasps, and mosquitoes are just a fraction of the thousands of non-bee pollinators that exist and are essential to plants around the world. An estimated 35% of global food crops and 75% of the world’s flowering plants rely on pollinators to be able to reproduce and continue population growth. 

While some insects are certainly a threat to gardens and human health, there are many that are wrongly implicated, ones our environments would be substantially different without. We don’t have to forgive all of them, but maybe we can learn to appreciate the ones that deserve it. 

Additionally, the unfortunate truth is that pollinators of all kinds are being threatened by issues such as climate change, pesticide use, habitat loss, and disease. That’s not a fact you have to just accept, though. There’s plenty each of us can do to support our local pollinators, and a great way to start is by getting involved with National Pollinator Week. Be sure to also check out additional resources like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and our own bee conservation tool-kit. 

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Humans rely on bees probably the most out of all insects in the world, but not just for honey or pollination. No, they’re actually also working away in labs and even giving us parts of their very home to help humans out. 

So if all you know about bees is that they flit from flower to flower, think again. Here are some of the fascinating ways bees have helped humans even more than just making all the flowers and food bloom across the world.

The Humble Honeybee and Medicine

The sweet taste of honey is almost certainly the first thing you think of when you think of bees. But honey isn’t just food. Medical grade honey, taken from honeybees, has been developed to help treat burn wounds. It has antibacterial properties that prevent infection, and its use has proven to be effective against a type of bacteria that are resistant to up to 13 types of antibiotics. On top of that, even honey used in large amounts didn’t make the bacteria more likely to become resistant to its antibacterial properties. 

Though research is ongoing to fully understand medical grade honey’s capabilities for treating wounds, researchers are also exploring other ways bees can help us, including with their venom 

It might sound counterintuitive. Isn’t venom-anything bad for you? Well, apparently not.

In 2020 researchers found that honeybee and bumblebee venom killed cancer cells in triple-negative breast cancer, an invasive, fast-spreading, and hard-to-treat cancer. And it killed the cancer cells without harming healthy cells. 

Dr. Ciara Duffy, who headed the study, also tested a small component of honeybee venom called melittin that can be produced synthetically and found it had many of the same anti-cancer effects.

Synthetically-produced melittin means we can protect the honeybee population. It also means scientists can make it more effective as a cancer cell-killing agent by adding new components to better recognize and target cancer cells. Duffy’s team has also started testing melittin on ovarian cancer cells, which has also proven effective.

None of Your Beeswax! …Well Maybe Just a Little

It’s common knowledge that bees pollinate plants, which lets those plants produce food for us to eat. But, how much do they actually help us?

Oh, just about 30% of the world’s dietary supply. Which means every three meals a day a human eats, an entire meal can be attributed to the hard work of bees.

While other insects and animals do contribute to pollination as well, bees as a species are pulling the most weight. But it’s not just the domesticated bees living in stacks of bee boxes on the sides of fields doing this work. Studies have shown that having wild bees and honeybees interact increases the pollination efficiency of honey bees, specifically in a sunflower field. The best way to ensure that interaction is having natural habitat nearby farms so wild bees can live nearby, while still pollinating crops.

But beyond helping our food grow, and making honey from it, bees also create beeswax. It’s the substance the bees use to actually make their hives and the cells that they store honey and larvae in. For bees it serves as the building block of their home, but it also has several properties that make it useful for cosmetic purposes. 

Products like lipstick and cream use beeswax as a stiffener, which keeps the product adhered to the face better. But it also has antiseptic properties that protect the skin. It creates a thin film on the surface of skin and protects it from bacteria. This makes beeswax a good natural ingredient in cosmetic products. 

Bee Brainpower

Worker honeybees live for 15 to 38 days in the summer, and they have a lot of flowers to visit and paths to memorize in that barely two month lifespan. A bee’s brain is smaller than one cubic millimeter—a sesame seed is two to four millimeters—so researchers at Virginia Tech wanted to analyze how bees were able to keep so much knowledge in that tiny brain of theirs.

Professors Read Montague and Brian Smith put bees in a laboratory and tested how different scents, which would be flowers in the real world, sent specific signals in the bees brain as they tried to learn about a new environment. Some of the brain chemicals bees have are the same in humans, and can lead to new discoveries about how brain chemicals play into learning or brain disorders.

They’re continuing to study how chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, tyramine, and octopamine release in a bee’s brain to help them learn and possibly apply those findings to better understand how human brains learn as well. 

Busy, Busy Bees

Bees do a lot for us, even if we don’t always see it. The yellow-striped flyers have contributed to the ecosystem for generations, happily buzzing away while people collect their honey and beeswax, and now are studying every part of them to further medicine and research. But not everything about honeybees is always peachy.

Though they’re not endangered, honeybee populations have been on the decline. Exact numbers are hard to pin down, considering there are wild hives out there we don’t know about, but 2025 started with 2.63 million colonies in the U.S. and ended with an estimated loss of 50% of hives. Fortunately, they seem to be recovering this year, but it’s important to do all we can to support honeybee populations. 

One way to help bees is to make our system of agriculture more sustainable. Habitat loss contributes to wild bees population decline, so the less new farmland we have to make from their habitats, the more they can thrive both in human-kept hives and the wild. Learn how you can support sustainable practices like regenerative agriculture and keep habitats safe from further development.

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When opening your phone to check the news or scroll on your favorite social media platform, the doomscrolling spiral is excitedly awaiting its opportunity to burst on the scene. Five minutes of scrolling time turns into 20 and before you know it you’re still in bed and it’s been an hour. The ability to have millions of articles, opinions and apps at our fingertips has taken over our world in a powerful way. 

While these moments are frequently experienced, they can be avoided. Staying informed on what’s happening in our world doesn’t mean falling down the seemingly endless pit of bad news. In fact, breaking the cycle of constant scrolling can provide nourishment to your prefrontal cortex, which has been taken over by the fear processing amygdala, and chemically allow your brain to reset.  

Doomscrolling – a term that came to light in 2020 amidst the COVID pandemic – refers to constant reading of specifically negative news from an online platform. While your mind may jump to solely news outlets as providers of doomscrolling, the group is bigger than that. More recently, apps like Instagram and TikTok have become a source of news for many, especially young people, as well.

Our brains are wired to focus on danger, heavily increasing the stress that we experience on any given internet scroll. After an extended period of time reading articles, this stress can and often does follow us into our lived reality. While this is natural, it doesn’t have to be as constant as it is and escaping into nature is the perfect remedy. 

So the next time you read a bit of news, pair it with putting the phone down and reconnecting with nature and yourself (accessibility to rugged forests or wide beaches not required). Here are some ways to escape the potential of doomscrolling.

Plant Your Newest Passion: A Windowsill Garden Awaits

Getting your hands dirty is one of the most gratifying and easiest ways to connect with nature that can be accomplished from the comfort of your own home. No gardening experience, fancy tools or vast backyard needed to accomplish this goal. A windowsill garden is a phenomenal way to reset your mind and replenish your pantry. Empty jam, pasta sauce or fruit glass jars you haven’t gotten around to cleaning or disposing of? Coincidentally the remedy for both doomscrolling and your jars is one and the same. 

Head down to your local nursery, hardware store or even online and procure: pebbles/decorative rocks, potting mix and starter herbs of your choice. You’re ready to begin. Following online instructions to bring a mini herb garden to life has just created your newest hobby to ring in the spring. 

By physically being away from your phone, doomscrolling will be kept to a minimum here while also reminding you of your power to create something beautiful that helps the ecosystem that lives in your neighborhood (while saving you some money on your next herb or produce purchases). You’re not just helping the neighborhood ecosystem, you’re also helping your internal ecosystem. Gardening – windowsill or other – has shown to reduce stress, increase focus and regain serotonin by being exposed to a natural mood booster, mycobacterium, that lives in soils. 

Books and Libraries are a Brilliant Alternative

If your green thumb is still dormant and 2026 is not your year for it to blossom, not to worry – your doomscrolling can still be solved. In the era of digital media that we live in, it has become habit to do practically everything online, including reading. In doing this, it’s easy to find yourself in the news app when you mean to open your online book app. 

A simple solution to this problem is to hit the books, the physical ones! Research has shown there are several physical and psychological benefits of reading paper books. These range from making the tales come to life in the reader’s head when physically flipping the page to increasing the amount of empathy in one’s heart by reading different experiences. This mental creativity and empathy can reach far beyond what one thinks their mind is capable of and gets us thinking about more than just the information we are fed.

After seeing how affordable and quick it is to access a book online, it could be easy to be dissuaded into producing a physical book. Enter, libraries. Public libraries, of which there are 410,000 internationally, are a blueprint of being an eco-friendly citizen by offering reusable pieces of learning to gain more knowledge and perspective of the world. They share books within the library networks while sharing books in the community, creating a web of learners. They also create an environment of change through workshops and talks that welcome all backgrounds and perspectives. So, consider stopping by your local library (it’s free!), check out a book or check out the vibe in general. You’re bound to learn something.

Take a Hike with a Twist: Absorb the Sounds Around

Often, a hike or walk around the neighborhood is something that is accompanied by a phone, either to track steps or take photos. However, taking a walk without the phone not only removes distractions and the potential for wandering into doomscrolling territory but it also lets you listen to the world around you. 

A walk with minimal disturbance from the outside world provides an opportunity to appreciate nature once again. Listening to the coo of a bird, the croak of a frog, a trill of an insect or the rustling of leaves reminds us of the beauty of the natural world and can reignite the desire to save and nurture the natural world around us. These phoneless, sound conscious walks can also highlight the importance of taking a step back and slowing down. 

Studies have proven that getting outside to take a daily walk, for example, can regulate sleep cycles and improve the quality of at night, as well as reducing risk of depression and anxiety. An excellent mode of combating doomscrolling then can be a 20 minute walk. After reading an anxiety-inducing article, instead of finding the next terrifying thing to look at, take a reset walk outside to lower stress levels and ground yourself. 

Documentaries Over Doomscrolling

Okay, you’ve tried the other methods and they just aren’t calling you like the screens are. An understandable pull. Instead of the phone screen time however, an opportunity to learn and grow awaits in the form of documentaries. 

Countless stories happen everyday from all corners of the world that are never covered. Though documentaries have the power to capture these untold stories and reveal more along the way.

The genre of documentaries hosts a wide range of topics, all of which are waiting to teach you something and get your brain thinking about the world in a new way. Nature documentaries have especially jumped on the scene, with emphases on the natural world, the built environment and/or the animals that reside within them both. The online information can and should still be absorbed, but in documentary form you’ll be uncovering things you may not even think to look up. 

The End of Doomscrolling Doesn’t Mean Staying Uninformed

Even while understanding the impacts of doomscrolling and introducing some ideas to stop it before it starts, an underlying truth still remains: news of all sorts is important and needs to be read.  However, it doesn’t have to be all-consuming or addictive. 
Putting your phone down to take a break and reconnect with the communities around you is directly keeping you informed and fostering growth.

Pillar two of EARTHDAY.ORG’s 2026 Earth Day theme emphasizes the importance of shared interests and interconnected outcomes. This year holds plenty of opportunity to connect your community through shared environmental goals and interests. Host an event in your area and register it through the EARTHDAY map, or join one in a city near you!

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Plants and flowers have been used as a form of expression for as long as humans have been able to articulate themselves. Be it in poems, paintings, or gifts, there’s a general understanding that these living things mean something. But some of their symbolism goes much deeper than simple ‘love’ or ‘well wishes.’

Sometimes a flower actually came from a bitter-sweet Greek myth, or has been used in religious imagery for generations. Maybe a saint used a plant no bigger than a thumb to teach a country about a religion. Regardless of the biology of the plant, people will still find meaning behind the greenery that fills so much of the plant. The list of meaningful flora is long, but here are five notable ones that are steeped in myth and symbolism.

The Buddha’s Favorite Flora: A Lotus Flower

The Lotus Flower is an aquatic flower that is a common motif in religious art, particularly in symbolism of Hinduism and Buddhism. As with most symbols, the lotus flower is associated with multiple traits, some of the most prominent being purity, awakening and transformation. It’s often used in visual depictions of the Buddha, be it paint or thankgkas, which are traditional Tibetan scroll paintings that depict spiritual teachings. One of these scroll paintings that is still preserved was titled the Lotus Lama.

Unlike most thankgkas that are painted on scrolls, the Lotus Lama artist instead stitched small pieces of fabric together to depict the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Tsongkhapa in meditation. Two lotus flowers hover over his shoulders as part of the symbolic scenery. 

But the lotus flower isn’t just a key religious symbol, it’s also woven into Buddhist stories itself. The Buddhist enlightened figure Padmasambhava’s name means “Lotus-Born” as he is said to have been born from a lotus flower already fully enlightened, the highest form of realization in Buddhism.

There’s plenty of small ways the Buddha is connected to the lotus flower as well, he’s often depicted sitting in a lotus position for meditation, and some sculptures have him actually sitting on a lotus throne. This flower’s depiction has been intertwined with the Buddha’s for centuries that it’s no wonder it’s taken on similar meanings of transformation.

The Clovers and their Religious Friend, a Saint

Everyone knows two things about a four-leaf clover; it’s lucky, and it’s Irish. Technically called a shamrock—a family of plants that still doesn’t have its own scientific notation—the four-leaf variety is a 1 in 10,000 rarity most likely caused by a recessive gene trait in the plant. That rarity is primarily responsible for causing it to become associated with luck.

But the three-leafed version has its own symbolism in Irish myth. Historian Marion R. Casey said the three-leaf clover was associated with a legend that St. Patrick himself used the plant to teach Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The three leaves represented the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

As the patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick’s use of the plant spurred it into the country’s identity. Now, the shamrock is widely recognized as a national symbol of Ireland. It’s been used in iconography for the country and even in decorations on gifts to foreign dignitaries. So despite the famous nature of the elusive, lucky four-leaf clover, the standard shamrock holds a similarly symbolic status for its country.

Lucky Bamboo and you Guessed it, Luck!

Despite its name this tall, leafy plant isn’t actually a species of bamboo at all. Native to Western Africa, the dracaena sanderiana has been adopted into the Chinese decorating philosophy of feng shui, which aims to create harmony in living spaces. The more harmony, the more luck.

People who practice feng shui believe lucky bamboo is one of the plants that enhances luck—go figure. To optimize the plant’s use in space, it should be put in the east or southeast most direction of the room. Feng shui also puts lots of emphasis on incorporating the elements of wood, fire, water, earth, and metal. A lucky bamboo plant can have all five. Wood is the bamboo itself, stones or pebbles in the container are the earth, water is what lucky bamboo grows in, the pot can be metal, and a red ribbon can be tied around the stalks to signify fire.

But the symbolism doesn’t end there, the number of stalks in a lucky bamboo plant can also hold special meaning when gifting the plant. Two stalks doubles your luck and represents love, while three stalks represent wealth, happiness, and long life. Five stalks brings luck in finance and business, while ten stalks means you wish the receiver gets everything they want. A large, 21 stalk plant is the highest amount of well wishes you could possibly give. 

Regardless of the specific type of luck, gifting any number of stalks is a sign of well wishes. Just be sure to avoid the four stalk bamboo, which is often associated with bad luck or death.

Narcissus Flower; Prettier than the Mythical Man it’s Named After

This plant’s name comes from Greek myth, and like most Grecian mythology there are countless versions of the same story recounting events differently. But across many of its retellings, specific beats remain the same to form the collective myth of Echo and Narcissus:

A nymph named Echo slights the goddess Hera, who curses Echo to only ever repeat the words of others for the rest of her life. Meanwhile, a boy named Narcissus is born and the blind seer Tiresias prophecies that Narcissus will live a long life so long as he did not know himself.

Narcissus grows into a beautiful man with many admirers, but turns all of them down. Echo eventually happens upon Narcissus in the woods and instantly falls in love with him, but as she’s only able to repeat his words back to him Narcissus rejects her. Echo flees. Some myths include the greek goddess of retribution, Nemesis, intervening in this part, but others also have Narcissus happen upon a demise all on his own.

While out on a stroll Narcissus comes across a still pool of water, and reaching down to drink from it he catches his reflection. He falls in love with it. Unable to break away from his own reflection to eat or sleep, Narcissus withers away by the pool and dies. From the spot next to his reflection, a narcissus flower blooms.

In modern day, the narcissus flower is actually a genus of flowers, its most well-known variety being the daffodil. Despite a rather somber Greek myth explaining its existence, the actual flower itself is definitely pretty, though not fall-in-love-with-it pretty.

Mistletoe

The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe has its roots in Norse mythology. The god Odin had a son named Baldur who was prophesied to die, and in an attempt to save her son, Baldur’s mother and the goddess of love, Frigg, gathered all the plants and animals and made them swear an oath that they would never harm Baldur.

All of them agreed, but Frigg had forgotten to ask the lowly mistletoe plant. Aware of this, the trickster god Loki fashioned an arrow of mistletoe and used it to kill Baldur. Luckily the gods were able to resurrect Baldur, and a now delighted Frigg declared mistletoe a symbol of love and vowed to kiss everyone who passed below it. An interesting turn of events after said plant just killed a man, but either way mistletoe has now become an inescapable part of the Christmas season.

The tradition of kissing under the mistletoes evolved over the years. For a while it was bad luck if one of the people under it refused to kiss. Another version said after each kiss a berry should be plucked from the mistletoe, and once the berries were all gone the kissing should stop. Not a bad reputation for a plant that’s technically a parasitic species.

They Matter Even Without a Myth 

If history and myth have proven anything it’s that even the simplest things like flowers and plants can be given epic origin stories, elevated to a place of religious status, or imbued with subtextual meaning for entire cultures. But while the origins of these plants’ meaning may be intangible, the plants themselves are very much real.

Extinction is a very real problem for plants as much as it is for animals. We want to keep lotus flowers and mistletoe and all the other wacky-origin story plants we have, both so we can keep telling those stories, and because preserving nature is vital.

Over 60 seed plant species went extinct between 1900 and 2018, and that dwindling biodiversity impacts an entire ecosystem of other plants and animals. One way to keep ecosystems going is to make them resilient by reinforcing the biodiversity already existing there.

Consider donating to our Canopy Tree Project, which aims to plant 60 million more trees around the world by 2030. Through dedication to preserving the plants already here, we give them more of a chance to both thrive, and create meaning for all of us.

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Giant pandas are one of the most recognizable animals in the world, but many of the most interesting things about them are far less well known. Behind the black-and-white fur is an animal with unusual genetics, strange reproductive biology, an ancient evolutionary history, and a body far stronger than its gentle image suggests. Here are 9 surprising facts about giant pandas.  

1. There are two kinds of giant pandas: the Sichuan giant panda and the Qinling giant panda of Shaanxi.

Scientists generally recognize two subspecies of giant panda: the more common Sichuan giant panda and the Qinling giant panda, which lives in the Qinling Mountains of Shaanxi. Qinling pandas are known for their somewhat browner chest and belly fur, as well as differences in skull and tooth shape.  The two panda groups have distinct genetic traits, and because the Qinling panda preserves an older genetic lineage, they are not casually crossbred.

2. Giant pandas are all nearsighted.

Their poor vision may be linked to the fact that they have long lived in dim, obstacle-filled bamboo forests, where sharp eyesight is less necessary and visual function may have gradually weakened. Exact estimates of panda nearsightedness differ, but pandas appear to see best at close range and can distinguish details especially well within about half a meter.

At the same time, pandas have highly developed senses of smell and hearing, which help compensate for their weak eyesight when finding food, detecting danger, and communicating with other pandas.

3. Panda babies are like tiny premature-looking human newborns.

A newborn giant panda cub is astonishingly small. At birth, it usually weighs only about 90 to 130 grams (roughly 3 to 5 ounces), and measures around 15 to 18 centimeters long, about the size of a stick of butter. Cubs are born pink, nearly hairless, blind, and extremely fragile. They are also very loud. Their constant crying is not just noise, it helps the mother keep track of them and avoid accidentally crushing them.

4. Giant pandas can seem to “pause” pregnancy, and females have only a very short breeding window.

This idea comes from a real biological phenomenon called delayed implantation. After fertilization, the embryo may not immediately implant in the uterus, which makes panda pregnancy hard to detect and easy to misunderstand. Female giant pandas also have only one brief fertile period each year, and that window usually lasts just 24 to 72 hours. So while people joke that pandas have babies depending on their mood, the truth is that panda reproduction is biologically complicated and tightly timed.  

5. Pandas are far stronger and more dangerous than they look.

Giant pandas may look cuddly, but they are still large bears with powerful jaws, teeth, claws, and forelimbs. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service notes that pandas have very powerful jaws and teeth for crushing bamboo, and anatomical research also suggests that giant pandas are well adapted for tree climbing.  One widely cited study of 151 carnivores ranked the giant panda fifth overall in bite force, behind only (polar bears > tigers > brown bears >lions). Studies commonly place a giant panda’s bite at around 1,300 newtons at the canines and about 1,800 newtons at the carnassial teeth. That is roughly equal to having the weight of a 130- to 180-kilogram object concentrated at one biting point

6. The panda lineage is ancient.

Giant pandas are not a recent species in evolutionary terms. Fossil and genetic evidence shows that the panda lineage goes back millions of years, making it one of the oldest surviving branches of the bear family. In China, the earliest likely references to giant pandas date back to ancient works such as the Shijing and Shangshu, placing them in the written record for over 2,500 years. They are not just modern conservation icons, they are survivors of an ancient lineage.  

7. Pandas descended from meat-eating ancestors but gradually became bamboo specialists.

Giant pandas belong to the order Carnivora, and their ancestors were meat-eating animals. Over time, however, pandas shifted toward a diet that is now about 99 percent bamboo. Research has also found that pandas lost normal function in a taste receptor associated with savory, meat-related flavors, which may help explain why meat became less appealing. Even so, their digestive system is still more like that of a carnivore than that of a true herbivore, which is one reason they must spend so much of the day eating.  

8. Giant pandas are solitary animals and need a lot of territory.

Adult pandas usually live alone and have strong territorial tendencies. Instead of constant social interaction, they communicate mainly through scent marking. According to San Diego Zoo, a panda’s home range can span several square kilometers, depending on food availability and habitat quality, depending on food availability and habitat quality. That means a single adult may need an area as large as hundreds or even thousands of soccer fields. This is one reason habitat fragmentation is such a major threat to pandas because pandas do not just need bamboo, they need enough connected forest to live and move safely.  

9. Most giant pandas really are “Cancers” or “Leos.”

Most panda cubs are born in July and August. That is because the breeding season usually takes place in spring, when females enter their short annual fertile period. As a result, panda birthdays cluster in late summer, with only a small number born outside that pattern. 

In recent years, giant pandas have moved from Endangered to Vulnerable. In China, years of habitat protection, forest restoration, and conservation work have helped panda populations recover, while also supporting the many other species that share their home.

To help restore and protect habitats around the world, support EARTHDAY.ORG’s Canopy Tree Project. Because in the end, animals cannot ask for help, but we can choose to act for them.

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The oil stank like nothing Puff had ever smelled before. Black goop coated his body, slipping beneath his feathers and soiling his white down belly. The pale-yellow whiskers crowning his head drooped under the oil. He could not move his wings. He could not even open his beak.

A trio of humans hovered over his head. Puff trembled, but could not stop their gloved hands from picking him up from the oil-slicked beach and setting him in a small red duffle bag. Just hours before, he’d been diving with the other Tufted Puffins, lining his beak with smelt and bobbing freely on the open ocean when all of a sudden, utter darkness ate up his blue-green sea. Oil and gas had boiled up to the surface after an oil rig had torn open the seabed. At least that’s what the strange buzzing contraption next to the humans went on and on about.

“January 31st, 1969. This just in. Thousands of seabirds washed ashore Santa Barbara’s white-sand beaches. Residents reported a strong stench three days prior, likely in connection with Platform A’s recent oil spill. Eye-witnesses say the birds are soaked in oil, still alive but ill and unable to move. Death tolls remain unknown. Authorities recommend taking live birds to the Santa Barbara Zoo for care.”

The radio fizzled out before continuing:

“With their pristine beaches smothered in goop, Santa Barbara locals are left wondering why. Who will be held responsible? How will the world react? Union Oil has declined to comment.”

Puff’s rescuers lay his quivering body in the back of their rust red sedan, pressed between a western grebe and a restless common loon. Snatches of the human’s conversation drifted to him from the front seats.

“Awful situation, it is, just awful. Like a giant spilled a heaping cauldron of ink all across the beach. Oh, and the sea! Ann, the sea looked like it was boiling.”

“They say some 3,500 seabirds and marine mammals have already died, from little guys like our puffin in the trunk to sea lions and dolphins. The oil drowns the birds, you know. Swipes that water-proofing right off their feathers.”

“But we can’t lose hope, Jack. They say Nixon might be out to survey the scene. And if a disaster like this catches the president’s attention, maybe our hopes for a cleaner, healthier environment can become reality.”

Puff cocked his head. A healthier environment? Would that mean cleaner waters too? Maybe even more smelt and little squid to feed on?

Later, at the Santa Barbara Zoo, a team of kind humans scrubbed Puff down and nursed him back to health. The volunteers said almost 9,000 oil-weighted birds like him had died in the spill. They also whispered about a certain environmentally-minded Senator Nelson of Wisconsin who’d traveled to survey the damage to Santa Barbara’s famed beaches. The humans believed Nelson might signal a changing attitude in their leaders. They dreamed of a world where beaches were clear, the water pristine, and the air as sweet as honey.

For months after his recovery, fear kept Puff pinned to the Santa Barbara Zoo. He was terrified of discovering the same black goop monster haunting the shores of his beloved ocean. But when he heard tell of Nelson’s visit and of the humans rallying for his and other seabirds’ cause, he felt he had to see the action himself. So, Puff, with his stubby little wings, embarked on a grand tour across the United States.

Soaring up from California and over the Rockies, Puff dropped by the University of Colorado, Boulder. He found students and faculty alike pausing their day-to-day activities to fight for the Earth—for Puff’s Earth. Green flags dotted campus and students organized teach-ins, symposiums, rap sessions, speeches, and films. Puff could hardly believe his eyes.

Across the Great Plains and over Lake Michigan, Puff stopped in Ann Arbor where students and faculty at the University of Michigan rallied under the banner “Give Earth A Chance.” Like the Coloradans, the Michiganders meant business. As pioneers of the teach-in format, Michigan’s organizers’ attracted over 50,000 attendees across 125 seminars, panels, rallies, and other events, paying special attention to ecological issues in the Great Lakes and the impact of war on the environment.

The buzz about the environment flew faster than Puff could keep up with. The humans came to call the movement Earth Day, and apparently, events spanned the entire nation. Puff even heard that activists down in Miami staged a parody Orange Bowl parade called the “Dead Orange Parade,” featuring the Statue of Liberty decked out in a gas mask.

All the commotion struck a chord in Puff’s heart. Returning to Santa Barbara later that year, he learned that volunteers from the University of California Santa Barbara had recovered 1,800 barrels of skimmed oil from his home seas. Puff swelled with pride. The future of Puff’s home seemed bright—humans and their fellow animals might still save their Mother Earth.

Like Puff, it’s important to keep our hopes and passions alive even when our world turns upside down. Whether it be fossil fuel companies polluting our seas or world leaders ignoring scientists’ pleas for swift climate action, know that you can’t and aren’t expected to control the whole world. Take a breath, recenter, and like Puff, get out there and find those little ways you can make a difference for our planet.

Join Climate Education and follow in the footsteps of the activists who grabbed the world’s attention with teach-ins after the Santa Barbara oil spill. Small changes can and will make a difference.

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Positive News You Can Use is EARTHDAY.ORG’s monthly feature showcasing inspiring environmental progress from around the world. February’s edition delves into recent solutions addressing deforestation and forest regrowth with new technology, forever chemical removal that can be applied on a large scale, evidence of solar’s success, and a recent record-breaking rate of species discovery.

Learn, hope, and share this news with your friends.

No Longer Forever: New Technology Breaks Down PFAS

Rice University researchers found an environmentally friendly way to break down PFAS, commonly known as “forever chemicals,” which can take up to 1,000 years to break down. 

Since the 1940s, PFAS have been used in many everyday products, such as clothing, carpets, and cookware, for their heat and water-resistant properties.  As a result, these chemicals accumulate in food, water, animals, people, and the environment. Over 200 million people likely receive water with measurable PFAS concentrations. Exposure is linked to causing pervasive health issues, including some cancers and reproductive disorders. 

Current removal methods, like incineration, fail to eliminate all the chemicals. However, testing this new invention in river, tap, and wastewater yielded positive results, suggesting it could be used in municipal water treatment systems.

The technology uses layered double hydroxide (LDH), a material composed of copper and aluminum. The eco-friendly aspect stems from its reuse and cleanup: early testing showed that LDH can be reused in at least six cycles of PFAS capture, destruction, and renewal. With the adoption of this technology and other innovative solutions, we are one step closer to removing hazardous chemicals impacting human and environmental health.

Species Discovery Rate Hits Record-breaking 16,000 Yearly

Scientists discover over 16,000 new species every year, with the most recent comprehensive data from 2015 to 2020 showcasing a higher rate than any period ever recorded, researchers at the University of Arizona found.

Certain groups are more diverse than previously thought. Long-term projections suggest there could be up to 73,000 more fish species and 32,000 more amphibian species than previously thought. There may also be over half a million plant species in total. 

Many scientists have declared we are in a mass extinction event, the sixth of the last 500 million years, but the first directly caused by human activity. Being able to use and redirect human influence for positive efforts through effective biological conservation efforts relies on documenting, identifying, and discovering species.

Brazilian AI System Stops Deforestation Before it Happens

The growing integration of artificial intelligence into environmental initiatives continues with Brazilian nonprofit Imazon, a scientific institution fighting for Amazon rainforest survival. The AI deforestation prediction model uses colored dots to indicate risk levels in Amazon patches. Notably,71% of the 15,000 square kilometers identified as high-risk forest areas were saved: Imazon’s map has helped inform 4,400 environmental legal cases and uncovered99% of illegal deforestation since its 2021 launch.

The Amazon is home to over 10% of the planet’s biodiversity and 40 million people. Deforestation has impacted the Amazon’s overall forest loss of 17%, and with current deforestation rates, 27% of the forest will be without trees. 

Predictive and large-scale modeling projects like these provide efficient methods to identifytopographic data in real time and combat deforestation. Models can therefore be used to inform environmental policy and direct government reforestation efforts involving high-risk and vulnerable forest patches. Imazon partners with local state prosecutors to push for deforestation prevention over punishment.

Solar Just Met 61% of America’s 2025 Electricity Needs, and Costs 96% Less Than it Did 40 Years Ago 

Solar, wind, and batteries continue to grow in the US, with solar named as the fastest-growing source of America’s electricity in 2025. Solar power generation met 61% of America’s electricity demand growth last year, the entire rise in daytime electricity demand, and with batteries, also met most of the rise in evening electricity demand. 

Fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas are finite resources, meaning that at some point they will be depleted. For instance, global coal reserves are estimated to run out in 133 years with our current use rates. Renewable energy technology allows a promise for energy generation far beyond this deadline. Solar energy sustains human populations using the Sun as an unlimited power source, all while contributing far fewer harmful greenhouse gases that accelerate the climate crisis. 

Solar energy costs have reduced 96% over the past four decades, and are projected to keep reducing from scaled-up production, manufacturing advancements, and technological improvements.

Nitrogen Fertilizer Doubles Forest Regrowth Speed

Researchers at the University of Leeds found that when forest soils contain enough nitrogen, tropical forests can regrow twice as fast after deforestation. Plants depend on nitrogen to form chlorophyll, allowing sunlight and nutrient absorption for growth. 

Forests help capture carbon through carbon sequestration. This helps slow climate change by taking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Reforestation efforts are gaining more traction in Brazil with the announcement of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which can protect and revitalize tropical forests worldwide.

Even as global reforestation rates slowed in 2025, the current rate yields 10.9 million hectares of forest lost every year. Findings on how to direct regrowth efforts and exploring natural solutions help inspire different methods for governments, organizations, and individuals to regrow our forests. 

These discoveries serve as a reminder that people are doing their part to save the planet, and you can too. We have the power to innovate, using science to understand our natural world and technological advances to protect it. Mark Earth Day 2026 with Our Power, Our Planet, on April 22nd and every day to continue, promoting scientific progress that helps protect our world.

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Every year on October 18, Alaska Day commemorates the 1867 transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States — but Alaska’s significance has evolved far beyond that moment in history. Today, it serves as a living laboratory for climate science, a place where melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, and changing ecosystems offer a glimpse into the Earth’s future. 

Across its vast landscape — spanning 663,300 square miles — Alaska compresses global environmental challenges into one dramatic microcosm. Its mountains, tundra, and coastlines reveal how warming transforms not just local communities, but the entire planet. Scientists from around the world travel there to study these transformations, and their findings are reshaping what we know about climate change.

Here are some of the lessons the world is learning from Alaska, the frontline of a changing planet. 

Glaciers are the Planet’s Thermometers

Alaska’s glaciers are among the fastest-melting in the world, losing about 66.7 billion tonnes of ice each year as of 2021. If all of Alaska’s glacier ice were to melt, the resulting meltwater would contribute approximately 46.4 mm to global sea-level rise. Glaciers around the world are vanishing faster than scientists can study them with 40% – 90% projected to disappear by the end of the century if current warming trends continue. 

Glaciers act as natural climate records with each layer of compacted snow containing trapped air bubbles that can reveal what Earth’s atmosphere was like in the past. Ice cores, cylindrical samples of ice drilled from ice sheets or glaciers, act much like tree rings because they provide records of past environmental conditions. When scientists drill ice cores, they can track carbon dioxide levels, volcanic activity, and temperature shifts over thousands of years. 

In August 2025, the rapid melting of Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier led to the formation of a meltwater lake known locally as Suicide Basin, near Juneau. This ice-dammed basin periodically overflows as meltwater builds up and forces its way beneath the thinning glacier, which is losing roughly 100-150 feet of ice each year. When the pressure becomes too great, the basin drains suddenly, triggering destructive floods downstream. Because the sides of the lake are fragile, this sudden release can sweep up large amounts of sediment, posing a threat to buildings and infrastructure.

Sea ice and glaciers help keep the Earth cool by reflecting sunlight back into space, reducing the amount of heat absorbed by the planet. Without this reflective surface, the exposed water absorbs more heat, warming further and causing more ice to melt — a self-reinforcing cycle. The retreat of glaciers and the flooding of Alaska’s Mendenhall River serve as stark warnings of the global consequences of climate change. As these massive ice formations shrink, they accelerate sea-level rise, threaten the livelihoods and safety of coastal communities, and disrupt ocean circulation patterns that regulate the planet’s climate.

Thawing Permafrost = Unlocks Carbon

An estimated 85% of Alaska’s land is covered by permafrost — frozen ground that stores about twice as much carbon as is currently present in Earth’s entire atmosphere

When permafrost thaws, it releases carbon dioxide and methane, two potent greenhouse gases that intensify global warming. Researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks stated that the current thaw rates are accelerating. In just a few decades, previously solid ground has subsided into “thermokarst” landscapes that are uneven, soggy terrain where forests tilt and collapse.

This thawing sets up a self-reinforcing feedback loop: warming causes permafrost to melt, which releases massive stores of greenhouse gases (CO₂ and methane). Those emissions further warm the climate, accelerating permafrost degradation in a cycle known as the permafrost carbon–climate feedback. Given the vast carbon reservoirs locked in Arctic soils, many scientists warn this is one of Earth’s potential tipping points and Alaska’s rapidly changing landscapes provide a clear warning of how close we may be to crossing it.

Adapt or Die

Melting permafrost and the significant loss of reflective snow and ice, which leads to less sunlight being reflected and more heat being absorbed, a phenomenon also known as Arctic Amplification, is driving massive change in the region on many levels.

Alaska’s ecosystems and its people are adapting faster than almost anywhere else in the world. As the Arctic warms 3.5 times the global average, climate change is disrupting animal populations, and entire food webs are reorganizing. 

For instance, salmon are now  moving into rivers that were previously too cold to support them, altering local ecosystems. Yet even as their range expands, overall salmon populations are declining, which is disrupting Indigenous fishing patterns that have been practiced for centuries. The same warming that shifts salmon habits is also thawing permafrost, destabilizing infrastructure — from homes to pipelines — and forcing towns like Newtok to relocate.

Another example is the changing migration patterns of bowhead whales. As sea ice recedes, these whales are delaying their migrations. Once reliant on the Bering Sea’s winter feeding grounds, many now remain in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas year-round, adapting their diets as the shifting ice affects the availability of krill and zooplankton. What’s happening in Alaska offers a glimpse of the environmental, economic, and social transformations that other regions may face in the coming decades.

Alaska’s Lessons  

Alaska is no longer just America’s last frontier but the world’s first warning system. Its glaciers, permafrost, and ecosystems are teaching us that climate change isn’t a distant threat but a present reality. The data collected in Alaska informs climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and guides global policy decisions.

As scientists often say: what happens in Alaska doesn’t stay in Alaska. The state’s landscapes, rich in both beauty and evidence, reveal the story of a planet in transition and reminds us that the choices we make now will determine how that story ends.

Our precious living laboratory is under threat now more than ever. Ironically new fossil fuel drilling projects are planned across Alaska — already one of the most climate-vulnerable regions on Earth. These developments risk accelerating environmental damage further in a place that offers critical insights into our planet’s future. 

Sign our Renewable Energy petition to demand that world leaders move decisively away from fossil fuels and toward a just, sustainable energy future.

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