On Top Of The World!

The attention of the world is focused, at time of writing, on 48 countries. Not necessarily those most powerful (though some are included) or the most disruptive (though one or two are there too). These are the footballing powers of the world, from Brazil to Japan. I thought it might be fun to pit them against each other in an environmental context as well.

 In 2024 (the latest available) the Yale Centre of Environmental Law and Policy prepared a report for the World Economic Policy forum in Geneva (http://epi.yale.edu/). They used a whole raft of 58 factors, from air and water pollution to polices on climate change and biodiversity to assess progress at mitigating climate change, safeguarding ecosystem vitality, and promoting environmental health - an Environmental Performance Index (EPI). Note that Curaçao doesn't get a separate EPI rating, so unfortunately they are excluded from this game.

So, cut to the chase, who won?? Well, the overall winner environmentally was Estonia, but they didn't make the FIFA finals. So, step forward…..
Germany! 3rd in the EPI rankings. Then the UK (ie. England and Scotland) at 5th, and Sweden 6th. France are top for FIFA, but 12th for the EPI.

One would expect wealthy countries to top both lists, as they can afford the necessary infrastructure, and indeed plotting one against the other does give a significant correlation, although amongst the (many!) problems with doing this are Curaçao's lack of an EPI rating, and I have given the same UK EPI rating to England and Scotland. But there is a lot of variation in the plot, most obviously with Argentina who are 3rd in the FIFA rankings, but 81st in those of the EPI. Likewise Mexico and Uruguay are 15 and 17 for FIFA, but 97 and 98 for the EPI. In contrast New Zealand is rated a reasonable 32 in the world environmentally, but 85th in football.

So who are the bad boys? Bottom of our list are Haiti (FIFA 83, EPI 150) and Iraq (FIFA 57, EPI 172). Haiti has had many severe and well documented problems, politically and even an earthquake and cholera epidemic in 2010. It has the worst infant mortality in the Americas. Add massive gang violence and it is no surprise that factors such as "protected area effectiveness" score very low. Deforestation has been huge, for agriculture but also because charcoal is the primary source of energy for Haitians, and in 2018 was the second largest agriculture related value chain in the country (FAO, 2018). 
Iraq is of course relatively wealthy, and it's security problems have hopefully ended. But it's problems in this context are mainly climate based. A naturally hot, arid, country Iraq is ranked 5th most vulnerable in the world to climate change by the United Nations.  Rainfall has decreased dramatically, leading to dust storms and loss of agricultural land. Water has become a source of tension with neighbours and fellow World Cup competitors Turkey and Iran, with accusations by Iraq of illegal damming and by Turkey and Iran blaming poor water management (Hall & Harper 2023).

So, Germany for the cup? Well, it would surprise absolutely nobody if Germany reach the final, but let's say they lose there to Haiti, who could do with some good news!

References
 
FAO (2018). Charcoal in Haiti - A National Assessment of Charcoal Production and Consumption Trends. https://www.fao.org/wood-energy-info-portal/search/detail/en/c/1306927/
 
Hall, N., Harper, C. (2023). Local to Global: Tensions Course through Iraq’s Waterways. Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/local-global-tensions-course-through-iraqs-waterways

The interaction of air pollution and Dengue fever mortality

   

A recent international paper (Khan et al, 2026) looked at Dengue fever mortality, and air pollution in the same countries at the same time. Twenty Dengue - endemic countries around the world were compared. Dengue fever case mortality rates (CFR) were derived from national data or the World Health Organization's (WHO) global dengue surveillance platform - importantly these are not cases of Dengue, but deaths from Dengue. Particulate air pollution (PM_2.5) was derived from satellite data.

 

All countries examined showed a mean annual ambient PM_2.5 exposure over the WHO air quality guideline of 5 μg/m³ (range: 7.4–77.5 μg/m³).

 

Strikingly, countries exceeding 35 μg/m³ PM_2.5 such as Bangladesh, Burkina Faso and Indonesia recorded 3-5 times higher mortality than countries below 15 μg/m³ such as Brazil, Ecuador, and Costa Rica (p < 0.001).

 

At first glance it might appear to be a coincidence of economics - poorer countries are likely to have less stringent pollution regulations, less well funded health services and less effective vector control programmes. And higher GDP per capita was indeed protective. But it was maybe more complicated than that. For example, the huge dry season pollution in Bangladesh (PM_2.5 125 μg/m³) was associated with nearly doubled Dengue mortality compared to the rainy season (50 μg/m³), despite there being fewer Dengue cases overall in the dry season. Whereas in Brazil there was minimal seasonal variability in both air quality and dengue fatality.

 

So what is going on?

 

Prolonged exposure to PM_2.5 concentrations exceeding 35 μg/m³ has been linked to many cardiovascular, respiratory, and malignant diseases (WHO 2021). Fine particles can promote systemic inflammation, and exacerbate vascular permeability, processes central to Dengue pathogenesis. The authors speculate that in the context of Dengue fever, immunomodulatory effects may exaggerate symptoms such as cytokine production, leading to more severe symptoms such as Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever. In other words, air pollution multiplies the body's response to Dengue, and that is what kills you (Lin et al., 2018; Monoson et al., 2023).

 

As the authors admit, there are some limitations to this study. For example, only Bangladesh and Brazil had complete and reliable monthly datasets for both PM₂.₅ and Dengue available for the period 2020–2024. And specific Dengue serotypes may have varied across continents. But reducing air pollution has multiple health benefits, and one of those may be your survival of Dengue fever infection.

 

References

 

Khan, S., Haider, N., Yahiro, T., Akbar, S.M.F., Khan, F., Hasan, M.N., Al Mahtab, M., Hashimoto, T., Kimitsuki, K., Tachibana, T., Watanabe, K., Nishizono, A. 2026. Ambient PM₂.₅ exposure and increased dengue case fatality: a global multi-country analysis. Environ Pollut., 394:127731. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2026.127731.

 

Lin, C.L., Tsai, C.H., Sun, Y.L. et al. 2018. Instillation of PM_2.5 induced acute lung injury in ACE2 knockout mice. Int. J. Biol. Sci., 14, 253-265.

 

Monoson, A., Schott, E., Ard, K. et al. 2023. Air pollution and respiratory infections

Toxicol. Sci., 192 , 3-14.

 

World Health Organization. 2021. WHO global air quality guidelines: Particulate matter (PM_2.5 and PM₁₀), ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide. Geneva: World Health Organization.

Your diet - from the point of view of a mosquito

 

When a mosquito bites you and takes your blood, you probably just curse it. Isn't that selfish? You should think what your blood might be doing to the poor mosquito.

 

A recent paper by a Brazilian group in Rio (Menezes et al, 2025) fed mice a high fat/ high sugar diet for 20 weeks to get, not surprisingly, obese and diabetic mice. Mosquitoes then fed on these mice, or blood from the mice spiked with Zika virus, as well as on normal controls. You might imagine that the obese mice would make a more nutritious meal, but the results were surprising. Not only did the mosquitoes fed on a "high fat" diet show reduced survival, they also showed reduced systemic Zika virus infection.

 

Whilst mosquitoes accumulated lipids, and there was some worry that lipid acclimation would lead to more mosquito fertility, that does not seem to have been the case. Instead the diet seems to have triggered midgut extracellular matrix remodelling, and oxidative damage, eventually killing the insect. Oxidative stress has also been previously shown to have antiviral effects in mosquitoes, whilst blood supplementation with insulin has been shown to trigger mosquito antiviral signalling pathways. Thus altogether, feeding on obese mice had a detrimental effect on both mosquito and virus.   

 

But it's not all bad from the mosquito's POV. Release of radiation sterilised males has been used successfully against many insect pests - they mate with wild females but produce no eggs. The problem is that irradiation tends to make them weaker, so less competitive against wild males. Rodriguez et al (2013) tested three potential radioprotectors - ethanol (5%), trimethylglycine (0.08 g/ml), and beer. Interestingly, Aedes aegypti has more than a dozen genes encoding potential alcohol dehydrogenase proteins. Male mosquitoes were offered these solutions as the sole source of hydration for 48 hours before irradiation and all three potential radioprotectors significantly increased survival over the next two weeks. The beer incidentally was organic lager beer (5% APV, Samuel Smith Old Brewery, U.K) - it is unclear why a laboratory in New Mexico was using British beer, but it does show good taste on behalf of the researchers.

 

Applying these results to the human model is difficult to assess. Certainly the health risks of obesity would be far greater than any benefits from mosquito population dynamics. And beer consumption is actually proven to make humans more attractive to mosquitoes (Lefevre et al, 2010) - as is banana consumption (Paskewitz et al 2018).

References

 

Lefèvre T, Gouagna LC, Dabiré KR, Elguero E, Fontenille D, Renaud F, Costantini C, Thomas F.  (2010). Beer consumption increases human attractiveness to malaria mosquitoes. PLoS One, 5(3), e9546. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009546.

 

Menezes A, Walter-Nuno AB, Costa-Bartuli E, Moreira D, El-Bacha T, Méndez AP, Amarante A, Kistenmacker N, Huaman P, Busch M, Pereira J, Ramos I, Atella G, Parente T, Paiva-Silva G, Miranda K, Zancan P, Sola-Penna M, Gomes FM. (2025). A diet-induced obese and diabetic host phenotype reduces mosquito ZIKV infections and remodels gut metabolism. Front Immunol.,16, 1704301. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1704301.

 

Paskewitz S, Irwin P, Konwinski N, Larson S. (2018). Impact of Consumption of Bananas on Attraction of Anopheles stephensi to Humans. Insects, 9(4), 129. doi: 10.3390/insects9040129.

 

Rodriguez SD, Brar RK, Drake LL, Drumm HE, Price DP, Hammond JI, Urquidi J, Hansen IA. (2013). The effect of the radio-protective agents ethanol, trimethylglycine, and beer on survival of X-ray-sterilized male Aedes aegypti. Parasit Vectors, 6, 211. doi: 10.1186/1756-3305-6-211.

 

 

 

Seagrass Restoration for a Healthier Planet

 Coastal erosion is accelerating worldwide due to climate change and human activity, threatening homes, habitats, and coastal communities. Seagrass meadows play a vital protective role by stabilising sediment, reducing erosion, slowing wave energy, capturing carbon, and improving water quality. With global seagrass in steep decline, large‑scale restoration efforts, such as those led by Swansea University, UK, are essential to protect coastlines and support planetary health.

                                                   Image by Dr David Buss created using OpenAI

The impact of coastal erosion

Given that nearly 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by the sea, coastal erosion (the weathering and loss of coastal land, beaches,marshes, rocks, or cliffs caused by waves and tides) has become a serious problem in many parts of the world. Coastal erosion can lead to the loss of homes, natural habitats, infrastructure, and community livelihoods, resulting in huge economic costs and, tragically, sometimes loss of life.

Having been born in an area with a long coastline and now living on an island, I am well aware of its impact. I have witnessed beaches shrink over time and coastal communities become fragmented.

Climate change and human activities play a crucial role in accelerating coastal erosion. Sea levels are rising due to warming oceans and melting ice sheets. Even small increases in temperature can reshape coastlines. Scientists are now recognising that seagrasses could play an important role in preventing erosion.

Seagrass and its impact

Seagrasses are the only flowering plants that grow in marine environments. Several species exist, many with long, narrow leaves resembling land grasses. Their underground roots spread across the seabed, forming extensive underwater meadows that provide habitat for diverse marine wildlife and, during low tide, non‑marine species such as birds. Seagrasses are among the most widespread marine ecosystems on Earth, covering around 300,000 km² of seabed across 159 countries.

Research indicates that seagrass can act as a critical natural defence against coastal erosion. Their root mats trap and anchor sediment, reducing shoreline erosion by up to 70%. Seagrass meadows also slow wave energy, effectively acting as a buffer during storms.

In addition, seagrasses capture carbon from the atmosphere, reportedly up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests, and absorb pollutants, improving water quality. Overall, they play a vital role in maintaining planetary health. In recognition of this, the United Nations has designated 1March as World Seagrass Day.

Decline of Seagrass

Despite their importance, global seagrass coverage is declining due to human activities such as rampant coastal development, pollution, climate change, dredging, and damage from boat propellers. The UK has lost approximately 90% of its seagrass meadows, with half of that loss occurring in the last 30 years. Seagrasses in the USA are also experiencing extraordinary decline, with losses of over 90% recorded in Florida’s Big Bend.

Seagrass restoration in the UK

Reversing this decline requires active conservation: protecting remaining meadows and restoring those that have been lost. One notable initiative is led by researchers at Swansea University, under Dr Richard Unsworth. They are developing methods to restore seagrass meadows at scale.

With the planting of 2‑hectare meadows, the team is undertaking one of the UK’s largest seagrass restoration projects. They are now involved in restoration efforts in North Wales, the Solent, and the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Working with research partners, they are developing scalable restoration techniques that could help reverse the decline of this endangered ecosystem on which the health of our planet depends.

 

References: 

The UK's biggest seagrass restoration project - Swansea University

Extensive and Continuing Loss of Seagrasses in Florida's Big Bend (USA) - PubMed

What do albatrosses get up to when we can't see them?

     

The behaviour of some animals is easy to study, you just watch them. But what about animals like albatrosses that spend most of their lives beyond the horizon? We know where they do it, through GPS trackers, but not what they do. Recent research by Aline da Silva Cerqueira at King's College, London, and reported on the King's Global Affairs website might shed some light on this - or rather, not light, sound.

 

Fitting audio recorders to albatrosses allows you to listen in to their lives. They are quite large birds, the two species studied, Thalassarche melanophris, Diomedea exulans, have wingspans of 2.4m and 3.7m respectively, so plenty of carrying capacity (and the devices are much, much smaller than the image above!). And when you get the recordings behaviours can be assigned by what you hear;

 

Flight by flapping sounds, or wind rushing over wings during gliding

Vocalisations such as calls produced by the tagged bird, conspecifics or even other species

Preening characterised by repetitive tapping, scratching, or rubbing noises

On-water activity including splashing, paddling, or water displacement.

 

Of course, the birds might be doing more than one thing at a time, and it takes some experience to interpret what is actually going on. Which brings a further problem, there was a lot of audio! 436 hours worth. Too much, realistically, for researchers to listen to in real time, but they don't need to - this is exactly the sort of thing computers are good at. A Convolutional Neural Network was created in Google Colab and trained using a manually labelled seabird audio dataset. It was then verified by comparison of other data with human assessment, proving accurate over 95% of the time.

 

So what are albatrosses doing? That is the next step! But combined with GPS, environmental data and tools like accelerometers which can tell if a bird is flapping or gliding (Maywar et al, 2025), albatrosses will soon give up their secrets.

 

 

References

 

da Silva Cerqueira, A. , Freeman, R., Phillips, R.A., Terence P. Dawson, T.P. (2025) Automated classification of albatross acoustic behaviour at sea: A free and open-source classifier for seabird sounds. Ecological Informatics 92 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2025.103474

 

Maywar IJ, Phillips RA, Orben RA, Conners MG, Shaffer SA, Thorne LH. (2025). Differential impacts of wind and waves on albatross flight performance in two ocean basins. Mov Ecol., 14(1),1. doi: 10.1186/s40462-025-00614-w.