Published

1 year ago

December 24, 2024

Alice Rush

With the climate crisis leading to more frequent and severe droughts, many wildlife species in the lower 48 United States will suffer from year-long droughts almost five times as frequently in the coming decades as they did historically, according to a new study.

Droughts lasting three years could become nearly seven times as frequent, a press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service said.

Lack of moisture affects how animals compete with each other for resources, contributes to habitat loss and leads to heat stress and dehydration.

“The degree of increased drought exposure for each species in our analysis strongly depends on future greenhouse gas concentrations,” said lead author of the study Dr. Merijn van den Bosch, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University, in the press release. “But even under a lower-concentration scenario, virtually all vertebrates face increased year-long and multi-year droughts in the second half of this century. The implications will depend on the species and the length of the drought.”

The research team found that, from 2050 to 2080, year-long droughts would be nearly five times as frequent as they had been from 1950 to 2005.

Observed change (%) in annual (12-month) and prolonged (36-month) droughts between 1952–1983 and 1991–2021, across Level 3 Ecoregions in the contiguous U.S. Communications Earth & Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-024-01880-z

“Drought, abnormal soil moisture deficits due to low precipitation and excess evapotranspiration, is a major environmental stressor with multifaceted effects on wildlife communities and habitat, including the modification of microbial soil composition, forest die-offs, the proliferation of invasive species, and the destabilization of species interactions through changes in competition and trophic dynamics. Extreme drought, defined as the 1% most severe drought conditions that occurred between 1950 and 2000, is expected to annually affect 30% more land area by the end of the 21st century,” the authors of the study wrote.

One example of an animal having to adapt to a changing climatic landscape is the giant kangaroo rat, an endangered species native to California’s dry habitats. Though giant kangaroo rats have adapted to the occasional short drought, populations can plummet following multi-year droughts. This compounds existing threats, including the loss of almost all their historic habitat.

A giant kangaroo rat, rescued and safely released by a permit holder during a PG&E pipeline excavation project. Increased drought adds to conservation concerns for this endangered species. Ryan Donnelly

The study demonstrated that, in much of the giant kangaroo rat’s remaining range, longer droughts could soon occur much more often.

“That does not bode well for this already-endangered species,” Van den Bosch said.

The populations of many game species not currently at risk will also face droughts lasting one and three years in their ranges more frequently. This includes ungulates like elk, as well as waterfowl, including certain duck species. The shift could have implications for game and wildlife management.

“Drought affects wildlife directly, through physiological impacts that affect survival and fecundity, but also indirectly through the alteration of habitat, resources, and interspecific interactions. Additionally, drought effects on wildlife populations depend on drought duration and intensity. Minimizing biodiversity loss induced by climate change requires not only mitigating climatic change itself but also large-scale assessments of species’ vulnerability to climate change effects such as extreme weather events, to prioritize conservation actions,” the authors wrote in the study.

In order to gain information about places where habitat restoration or adaptive water management could benefit the greatest number of wildlife species, the researchers set out to identify areas that had high levels of biodiversity and were predicted to have large increases in drought.

To predict future scenarios, the team used modeling techniques to come up with six projections of moisture conditions and temperature. They then compared the frequency of predicted and observed drought exposure with range maps of 339 mammals, 349 birds, 253 reptile species and 280 amphibians to create regional summaries.

Average predicted change (%) in annual droughts under (a) RCP 4.5 and (b) RCP 8.5 and prolonged droughts under (c) RCP 4.5 and (d) RCP 8.5 between 1951–2005 and 2050–2080, along with area-weighted terrestrial vertebrate species richness, for the contiguous U.S. Numbers below the x-axis color legend indicate four breaks of percent change in drought between the historical period and average future scenario, species richness is categorized into four equal quantiles along the y-axis legend.

The researchers discovered that, after adjusting for land area, the highest number of overall individual species and the greatest number of species threatened by drought, as well as the highest projected change in drought exposure, were all in the southwestern U.S.

A female elk drinks water from a spring at West Thumb Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park.
Anastassiya Bornstein / iStock / Getty Images Plus

“Some of the areas expected to see the greatest increase in drought, such as the southwestern U.S., are already quite dry,” said senior author Dr. Zack Steel, a Rocky Mountain Research Station research ecologist, in the press release. “Many species living in these regions are adapted to periodic droughts, but the concern is that if they are already near the limit of what they can tolerate, the large increase in drought we’re expecting can have grave consequences for these ecosystems and the wildlife that depend on them.”

The study, “Climate change scenarios forecast increased drought exposure for terrestrial vertebrates in the contiguous United States,” was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

*A flock of flamingos near a small stream. Serhii Bezrukyi / iStock / Getty Images Plus*

The post Increasing Drought Frequency Brings Threats to U.S. Wildlife, Research Finds appeared first on EcoWatch.

https://www.ecowatch.com/drought-frequency-wildlife-impact-us.html

Green Living

Earth911 Inspiration: Be True to the Earth — Edward Abbey

Published

3 days ago

May 22, 2026

Alice Rush

This week’s quote is from American novelist and pioneering environmentalist Edward Abbey: “I am not an atheist but an earthiest. Be true to the earth.”

Earth911 inspirations. Post them, share your desire to help people think of the planet first, every day. Click the poster to get a larger image.

This poster was originally published on January 31, 2020.

The post Earth911 Inspiration: Be True to the Earth — Edward Abbey appeared first on Earth911.

https://earth911.com/inspire/earth911-inspiration-be-true-to-the-earth-edward-abbey/

Green Living

10 Books to Counter Consumerism

Published

5 days ago

May 20, 2026

Alice Rush

We are constantly bombarded by messages that tell us we need more stuff to be happy. The average American household contains around 300,000 items. The average home size has roughly tripled since the 1950s, and we still rent self-storage units by the millions to hold the overflow.

If you are rethinking your relationship to consumer culture – whether by choice or necessity – we’ve rounded up a list of books to make breaking up with consumerism and easier to understand which of our purchases are really necessary.

(Amazon links are provided for convenience. Your local library and independent bookstore are excellent first stops.)

Empire of Things

by Frank Trentmann

Trentmann’s sweeping 2016 history follows material culture from late Ming China and Renaissance Italy through to today’s global supply chains. He shows that consumerism is not a recent American export but a centuries-long international phenomenon, one that has reshaped households, cities, and the planet.

Empire of Things is dense but never preachy, and it gives readers the long view needed to understand what we are actually pushing back against.

No Logo – 10th Anniversary Edition

by Naomi Klein

No Logo was a movement manifesto when it appeared in 1999, and its dissection of branding, sweatshop labor, and corporate cultural takeover reads as prescient now that nearly every screen on earth is an ad surface. To take the next step, pair this read with Klein’s more recent argument about capitalism and ecological collapse, How To Change Everything.

The Conscious Closet

by Elizabeth L. Cline

Cline first exposed the human and environmental costs of fast fashion in Overdressed (2012). The Conscious Closet is the practical follow-up: how to clean out, repair, swap, and rebuild a wardrobe without funding the industry that produces an estimated 92 million tons of textile waste each year. It is the most actionable book on this list for anyone with a closet.

The Myths of Happiness

by Sonja Lyubomirsky

Psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky brings the receipts. In The Myths of Happiness, she walks through decades of research showing that material milestones — the raise, the upgrade, the bigger house — produce short bursts of satisfaction that fade quickly. What actually sustains wellbeing is rarely for sale. A clarifying read for anyone tempted to outshop their way to contentment.

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

by Jenny Odell

Waste is coming for our minds, too. Odell argues that our scarcest resource is attention — and that the platforms we use have turned it into the raw material of a trillion-dollar industry. How to Do Nothing is not a digital-detox manual; it is a case for reclaiming attention as a political act, with consequences for everything from bird-watching to civic life. More relevant in 2026 than when it was published in 2019.

Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

by Jason Hickel

Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel makes the case that endless GDP growth is incompatible with a livable planet, and that “green growth” is mostly a marketing exercise. Less Is More (2020) traces 500 years of capitalism and lays out what a degrowth economy could actually look like — one organized around human and ecological flourishing rather than perpetual expansion. The book has helped move degrowth from the margins of academia into the mainstream of the climate debate.

The Day the World Stops Shopping

by J.B. MacKinnon

Journalist J.B. MacKinnon designed The Day the World Stops Shopping (2021) as a thought experiment — what would happen if global consumption dropped by 25%? — and then watched the pandemic run a version of the experiment in real time. He travels from Namibian hunter-gatherer communities to American big-box retail, talking to economists, ecologists, and CEOs. The result is one of the most readable accounts of why we shop, why we cannot easily stop, and what we would gain if we did.

Consumed: The Need for Collective Change

by Aja Barber

Writer and consultant Aja Barber connects fashion, colonialism, and climate in Consumed (2021), a debut that has become a touchstone for the ethical fashion conversation. Where Cline writes as a practitioner, Barber writes as a systems critic, tracing the textile trade’s roots in slavery and racial inequality and asking readers to confront why we fill emotional gaps with purchases. Pointed, generous, and built to be read in two sittings.

Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future

by Oliver Franklin-Wallis

If consumerism is the input, waste is the output we work hardest not to see. Award-winning journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis follows that output across continents in Wasteland (2023) — from New Delhi’s landfills and Ghana’s secondhand clothing markets to nuclear storage sites and the corporate origins of curbside recycling. Named a Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker, The Guardian, and Kirkus, it is essential reading for anyone who has ever wondered where “away” actually goes.

Fixation: How to Have Stuff Without Breaking the Planet

by Sandra Goldmark

Sandra Goldmark runs a pop-up repair shop in New York and serves as director of sustainability at Barnard College. Fixation (2020) is her plainspoken case for getting things fixed instead of replaced, and for building a circular economy where good design, reuse, and repair are the default. Her five-rule formula — borrowed in spirit from Michael Pollan — is the most quotable advice on this list: “Have good stuff. Not too much. Mostly reclaimed. Care for it. Pass it on.”

What You Can Do

Reading is a start, not a finish. A few next steps:

Start at the library. Most of these titles are available through WorldCat or your local branch. Borrowing keeps a book in circulation and out of a landfill.
Audit one category of stuff before adding to it. Pick clothes, kitchenware, or electronics. Inventory what you already own before the next purchase. Most of us own more than we remember.
Find a repair option in your community. Take the time to locate repair, reuse, and donation outlets near you before tossing anything broken.
Support right-to-repair policy. Several U.S. states have passed right-to-repair laws since 2023; the rest are weighing them. Individual purchasing choices matter more when manufacturers are required to make repair possible.
Read one of these books and talk about it. Anti-consumption is harder alone. Book clubs, mutual-aid groups, and faith communities have all become surprising hubs for this work.

Editor’s Note: Originally authored by Gemma Alexander on June 18, 2020, this article was updated in May 2026.

The post 10 Books to Counter Consumerism appeared first on Earth911.

https://earth911.com/inspire/10-books-to-counter-consumerism/

Green Living

Best of Sustainability In Your Ear: EarthX CEO Peter Simek on Cultivating Bipartisan Climate Strategies

Published

5 days ago

May 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Subscribe to receive transcripts by email. Read along with this episode.

For 15 years, the Dallas-based climate conference the EarthX conference has created space where fossil fuel executives and environmental activists, Republican appropriations chairs and Democratic climate hawks, find common ground. The organization targets three core stakeholders: the corporate world, policymakers, and investors seeking startups where environmental solutions are baked into the bottom line. Peter Simek, EarthX’s CEO, explains how reframing climate action around shared values—stewardship, economic opportunity, and love of the land—unlocks support that crisis messaging alone cannot reach.

The doom story doesn’t sell, Simek explained. “We’re not motivated as a species by doomsday language. It puts people in fight-or-flight mode.” He points out how climate became an identity issue, tangled up in culture-war debates over hamburgers and gas-powered trucks, when the real conversation should center on clean air, clean water, and protecting the places we love. “The EPA and the Clean Air and Clean Water Act were passed during the Nixon administration,” he notes. “There are ways to message this that appeals across lines.”

Peter Simek, CEO of EarthX, is our guest on *Sustainability In Your Ear*.

Simek bets heavily on bottom-up action as EarthX works to build bridges. States, cities, and private capital often move faster than federal mandates, he argues, and they’re harder to reverse with a single executive order. Texas leads the nation in renewable energy deployment because wind and solar make bottom-line sense. “Even as there’s a policy turn against it, there’s still the driving reality that solar and wind are viable energy sources,” he says. A new event in 2026, the EarthX Institute, will focus on two policy priorities: nuclear energy, where bipartisan consensus is growing, and urban biodiversity.

Whether conversations at forums like EarthX translate into policy velocity that matches the pace of climate impacts remains to be seen. Simek says he stays focused on tracking downstream results, specifically the investments funded, the coalitions built, and the policies incubated from the local level up. “It’s about finding those ways in which there’s common sense, common ground, common values,” he says. “Elements to talking about nature and the environment that no one can really disagree with.”

Learn more about EarthX and its upcoming April 2026 conference at earthx.org.