Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.
The Trump Administration has terminated the positions of every member of an independent board meant to govern the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The National Science Board directs and approves large funding decisions for NSF’s approximately $9 billion basic science research budget. It is meant to function ind
Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.
The Trump Administration has terminated the positions of every member of an independent board meant to govern the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The National Science Board directs and approves large funding decisions for NSF’s approximately $9 billion basic science research budget. It is meant to function independently from the federal administration to keep science funding insulated from political pressure and budget cycles.
“I have watched the systematic dismantling of the scientific advisory infrastructure of this government with growing alarm, and the National Science Board is simply the latest casualty.”
In a 24 April notice from the Presidential Personnel Office, all the scientists serving on the board were informed their positions had been eliminated. The emails dismissing board members provided no reason for the termination.
“I am deeply disappointed, though I cannot say I am entirely surprised,” Willie E. May, one of the terminated board members and vice president of research and economic development at Morgan State University in Maryland, told The New York Times.
“I have watched the systematic dismantling of the scientific advisory infrastructure of this government with growing alarm, and the National Science Board is simply the latest casualty,” he said.
Ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) called the terminations “the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation.”
“Without a functional National Science Board in the near term, the agency is left without the guidance and oversight of independent experts, and the public is left without information on how NSF is carrying out its mission,” Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a blog post about the terminations.
These updates are made possible through information from the scientific community. Do you have a story about how changes in law or policy are affecting scientists or research? Send us a tip at eos@agu.org.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (or PFAS) have been widely used in thousands of common nonstick, waterproof, or stain-resistant products since the 1950s. These “forever chemicals” do not break down easily: PFAS make their way into the air, soil, and water, as well as into human and animal bloodstreams and to some of Earth’s most pristine environments. They have been detected even in Antarctica, despite its reputation as a relatively untouched landscape far from the types of products—fast-fo
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (or PFAS) have been widely used in thousands of common nonstick, waterproof, or stain-resistant products since the 1950s. These “forever chemicals” do not break down easily: PFAS make their way into the air, soil, and water, as well as into human and animal bloodstreams and to some of Earth’s most pristine environments. They have been detected even in Antarctica, despite its reputation as a relatively untouched landscape far from the types of products—fast-food wrappers, firefighting foam, nonstick cookware—that contain PFAS.
“We know PFAS are very persistent, so that helps. By looking at the patterns of the PFAS contamination in [Antarctic snow] samples, it gives us clues as to how they’re transported.”
Research into how PFAS arrive in Antarctica is limited, and most tends to focus on the continent’s coasts, rather than its interior. A new study published in Science Advances aimed to fill some of these gaps by examining PFAS accumulation across a 1,200-kilometer stretch of Antarctica, from the snow pits of Zhongshan Station in East Antarctica to the 4,093-meter peak of Dome A. By examining layers of snow collected from the coast to the interior, researchers sought to better track and understand how PFAS levels vary by location and how these forever chemicals have been able to travel long distances through the upper atmosphere to be deposited in remote regions.
“For substances to get there, they have to be able to transport long distances,” said Ian Cousins, a chemist at Stockholm University and one of the study’s authors. “We know PFAS are very persistent, so that helps. By looking at the patterns of the PFAS contamination in the samples, it gives us clues as to how they’re transported.”
PFAS Arrive by Air and by Sea
Along the 1,200-kilometer route, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences collected 39 snow samples at 30-kilometer intervals, scraping the first few centimeters of snow from the surface to analyze for traces of PFAS.
Zhongshan Station sits near Prydz Bay, and there, researchers collected snow from a 1-meter-deep pit, with samples taken every 5 centimeters. At Dome A, the summit of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, samples were collected at 10-centimeter intervals from another snow pit; this one was 3 meters deep, providing information about the past several decades of PFAS use.
“It’s quite interesting that we see the historical production record of PFAS in this pit on the top of this mountain in Antarctica,” said Cousins.
PFAS pollution arrives in Antarctica in two ways: via upper atmospheric transport and sea spray. Some PFAS are formed in the atmosphere when volatile precursor chemicals like fluorotelomer alcohols used in textile and paper products break down through reactions with sunlight and oxidants into more stable compounds. The resulting PFAS are later deposited into the snow and ice through precipitation.
Storm winds near the coast create sea spray. “When you have waves, it makes bubbles in the ocean. When the bubbles burst, these sea spray aerosols can be super enriched with PFAS. This has been shown to be a very important transport route,” Cousins said.
To distinguish between sources, researchers measured sodium in the snow to trace the ocean’s salty influence. Sodium levels decreased farther inland, reflecting the fading influence of sea spray toward the interior of the continent. But surprisingly, PFAS concentrations actually increased moving from the coast into the interior.
“That was kind of a bit counterintuitive to me,” explained Cousins, who said he expected PFAS levels to be highest near the coast. “You see the opposite, actually.”
The inland increase is likely explained by higher snowfall totals in the coastal regions, which lead to PFAS concentrations becoming diluted. Inland, where snowfall is lower, even small amounts of PFAS can result in relatively higher concentrations within snow samples.
Additional factors shape PFAS distribution. PFAS levels are higher at the onset of precipitation events when they are rapidly removed from the air. Temperature inversions, too, can trap chemicals. In coastal areas, PFAS are more influenced by sea spray in the winter, whereas stronger sunlight drives the degradation of atmospheric precursors into PFAS in the summer months.
PFAS Presence at Both Poles
This new study also offers implications for the way that PFAS circulate globally. Though industrial activity in the Northern Hemisphere contributes most heavily to PFAS emissions, large-scale atmospheric circulation allows these compounds to reach polar regions. Rapid transport in the upper troposphere may act as an efficient pathway to shuttle PFAS across both hemispheres before they are deposited in the cold, remote regions at both ends of Earth.
“This completes the global picture with agreeing measurements at both poles, solidifying our understanding of the global distribution and drivers of PFAS contamination.”
Even though PFAS levels are higher in the Arctic, both polar regions show similar trends in PFAS concentrations since the 1990s. “It really matches decades of the same records that have been reported from the Arctic,” said Cora Young, an atmospheric chemist at York University, who was not involved in the new study.
“This completes the global picture with agreeing measurements at both poles, solidifying our understanding of the global distribution and drivers of PFAS contamination. The role of CFC [chlorofluorocarbon] replacements, changes in regulation, all of these things are important in the Northern Hemisphere and also the Southern Hemisphere,” said Young.
M.A. in Climate and Society student Erin Frank shoots film around New York City. She says her camera and climate coursework have more in common than she expected.
M.A. in Climate and Society student Erin Frank shoots film around New York City. She says her camera and climate coursework have more in common than she expected.
If you took one long-haul flight each year for the past decade, the world would eventually pay about $25,000 for it. You won’t see this charge on your credit card, but the cost shows up somewhere—maybe as a hotter field with less rice, a stronger hurricane, or a factory forced to close on days that are too hot to work. This estimate comes from a Nature study published in March 2026 by researchers at Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. They created a new way to link damage from s
If you took one long-haul flight each year for the past decade, the world would eventually pay about $25,000 for it. You won’t see this charge on your credit card, but the cost shows up somewhere—maybe as a hotter field with less rice, a stronger hurricane, or a factory forced to close on days that are too hot to work. This estimate comes from a Nature study published in March 2026 by researchers at Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. They created a new way to link damage from specific emissions to certain places and years.
That $25,000 figure is based on the social cost of carbon, a dollar estimate of the harm caused by releasing one ton of carbon dioxide into the air. While it might seem abstract, it is one of the most important numbers in American policy. It helps decide if a fuel-economy rule is worth it and influences permits for pipelines and power plants. Over the last four presidential administrations, this number has been raised, lowered, removed, and brought back. What we think a ton of carbon costs today affects how much the country is willing to do about climate change in the future.
What Is the Social Cost of Carbon?
Think of the cost of carbon like a garbage bill, the metaphor the authors of the Nature study use. When you put trash on the curb, someone has to pick it up, haul it away, and store it somewhere. You pay for that service. Carbon dioxide works the same way, except no one sends an invoice—it’s more like using a credit card, the bill for which your children or great-grandchildren will eventually pay.
Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for centuries, quietly heating the planet, damaging crops, intensifying storms, and wearing down economies. Somebody, somewhere, eventually pays. The social cost of carbon is an attempt to figure out how much.
The number comes from combining climate science with economics. Researchers model how one extra ton of CO₂ affects global temperatures over the next century or two, then estimate how those temperature changes damage human health, farm yields, labor productivity, property, and economic growth. They add up the losses and express them in today’s dollars.
Two technical choices drive almost every disagreement about the final number:
Global versus domestic damages. Should the United States count the damage that occurs in India, Brazil, or Bangladesh from American emissions? Carbon mixes in the atmosphere — a ton released in Ohio warms the planet the same as a ton released in Mumbai — so the economic case for global accounting is strong. The political case for domestic-only accounting is that the US government works for Americans.
The discount rate. This is the trickiest piece. Economists “discount” future damages to express them in present-day dollars. A higher discount rate makes future harm look cheap today; a lower one makes it look expensive. Using a 7% discount rate, $1 trillion in climate damage in 2100 is worth only about $4 billion today. Using 3%, the same damage is worth about $86 billion. Same science, same damage, twenty times the present value.
That second choice, how much weight to give your grandchildren’s losses compared to your own savings, is where climate economics becomes a moral question.
That decision created a legal obligation. If federal agencies wanted to write rules that survived court review, they had to put a price on carbon. They just did not yet have one they could agree on.
2009–2016: The Obama Administration Sets the Framework
In 2009, President Obama convened an Interagency Working Group of federal economists and scientists. In 2010, the group published its first official estimate of the social cost of carbon: $21 per ton of CO₂.
In the following years, as climate models were updated, the estimate rose, reaching about $50 per ton (2020 dollars) by the end of the Obama years. This value was based on a 3% discount rate and global damages.
That framework, which involved interagency process and peer-reviewed models with global scope, was used in more than 65 federal rules and 81 subrules between 2008 and 2016. It shaped appliance efficiency standards, power plant emission limits, fuel-economy requirements, and rules governing methane leaks from oil and gas infrastructure. A higher social cost of carbon justified stricter rules. A lower one did not.
2017–2020: The First Trump Administration Rewrites the Math
That lower number was, as Resources for the Future explained, “too low to make climate policies economically justifiable.” Rules that had provided a cost-benefit analysis supporting strict emissions rules under Obama suddenly no longer did so. The Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of Obama’s climate policy, was repealed partly on the grounds that the climate benefits recalculated with the lower number no longer exceeded the costs. According to Scientific American, the change in the social cost of carbon was “determinative” in at least half a dozen petroleum-sector rollbacks during the first Trump term. Simply, it gave emitters an easy out.
2021–2024: Biden Restores, Then Raises, The Price Sharply
Biden reinstated the working group and set an interim value of about $51 per ton, adjusted for inflation. Legal challenges from some states were dismissed.
In November 2023, EPA set a new central estimate for the social cost of carbon: $190 per ton for 2020 emissions, rising to $230 by 2030 and $308 by 2050. This increase drew on updated climate science, new economic models, a lower discount rate of 2%, and two decades of scientific progress clarifying warming’s impact on economic growth, climate-driven mortality, and previously understated risks.
Other governments took note. Canada adopted the updated EPA number in 2023. Germany adapted the underlying model for its own analyses in 2024.
2025: The Second Trump Administration Tries to Erase It
On his first day back in office, January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” which disbanded the Interagency Working Group, withdrew its estimates, and directed EPA to consider eliminating the social cost of carbon from federal permitting and regulatory decisions entirely. The order called the metric “marked by logical deficiencies, a poor basis in empirical science, politicization, and the absence of a foundation in legislation.”
In March 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency would “overhaul” the social cost of carbon. In May 2025, a follow-up executive memorandum directed federal agencies to stop factoring climate-related economic damage into their regulations and permitting decisions, except where statute requires it.
Where agencies are still legally obligated to put a number on it, the administration has settled on an interim estimate of as little as $1 per ton of CO₂, a return to the first Trump administration’s methodology, with domestic-only damages and higher discount rates. The companion social cost of methane dropped from $1,470 per ton to $58. In July 2025, the White House guidance went further, instructing agencies that any required analysis should be limited to “the minimum consideration required to meet a statutory requirement” and, where possible, should not be monetized at all. The practical effect: $1 per ton on paper, $0 in most decisions.
The cycle is now in its third full reversal since 2008. Each time the number changes, so does the federal government’s willingness to regulate emissions.
What the New Research Adds
The new study in Nature does something the federal estimates have never done well: it separates past damage from future damage, and it assigns both to specific emitters. Their framework treats every ton of CO₂ as an asset that pays out negative returns; it’s a garbage bill that keeps accruing interest. Using that framework, they found three things that reshape the conversation.
A ton of CO₂ emitted in 1990 has already caused about $180 in global damages by 2020. That same ton will cause an additional $1,840 in damages between now and 2100 — 10 times more. Using the authors’ conservative assumptions, which use a 2% discount rate with damages capped at 2100, the social cost of carbon for a ton emitted today is approximately $1,013. That is more than five times the Biden EPA’s $190 estimate, and higher estimates are possible under longer time horizons or lower discount rates.
Settling the bill for climate damage that has already happened would only cover a small fraction of the damage still to come from the same emissions. Past payments do not clear past debts.
Individuals and Corporations Run Up the Carbon Bill
The study also puts numbers on the kinds of choices that fill everyday life.
One extra long-haul flight per year for a decade produces roughly $25,000 in future discounted damages by 2100.
Switching from a meat-heavy to a vegetarian diet for a decade avoids about $6,000 in future damages.
Installing and using a heat pump for a decade results in an additional $6,000 in avoided damage.
Cutting driving by 10%, another $6,000 less future cost.
At the corporate scale, the numbers are staggering. Emissions from Saudi Aramco’s fossil fuel production between 1988 and 2015 are estimated to cause $64 trillion in cumulative discounted damages through 2100. ExxonMobil’s comparable share: $29 trillion. These are bigger than the annual GDP of most countries.
Today’s Cost, Tomorrow’s Reality
The social cost of carbon can feel like a number on a page in a regulatory document. It is not. It is a bridge between the world you are living in now and the world you will inherit.
When the federal government uses a low social cost of carbon, or no number at all, it writes rules that allow more emissions. More emissions mean a hotter atmosphere, which means stronger storms, longer fire seasons, lower crop yields, higher air conditioning bills, and more days when outdoor work becomes dangerous. Those consequences do not arrive as a lump sum in 2100.
They arrive gradually, starting now, and compounding in the form of flood and wildfire damage, biodiversity loss, and even defense spending to prevent immigration. The Nature researchers emphasize that their estimates are almost certainly too low because GDP damage functions do not capture losses of biodiversity, loss of cultural homelands, harm to mental health, or many slow-moving impacts such as sea level rise.
When the federal government uses a high social cost of carbon, it writes rules that prevent emissions. Those rules have costs today, sometimes real ones, paid by workers in fossil fuel industries, by consumers adjusting to new standards, by companies retooling their operations. The social cost of carbon does not eliminate those costs. It weighs them against costs that will otherwise fall on other people, in other places, at other times. That weighing is a choice about who counts.
The history traced here is, in that sense, a history of that choice, and none of those decisions are final. Courts have repeatedly ruled that federal agencies cannot treat the value of carbon-emissions reductions as zero. The 2008 ruling that gave rise to this framework is still on the books. Whatever the current administration does, the legal obligation to account for climate damages in cost-benefit analysis remains, and the science underpinning the newer, higher estimates continues to strengthen.
An average big-budget movie creates about 3,370 metric tons of CO₂, according to the Sustainable Production Alliance’s 2021 report. That’s like driving over 700 gas-powered cars for a year, or about 33 metric tons of CO₂ for each day of filming. A single TV season can have the same impact as 108 cars. With thousands of productions happening every year in North America, Hollywood’s environmental impact is hard to overlook. Zena Harris, founder and president of Green Spark Group, has spent more t
An average big-budget movie creates about 3,370 metric tons of CO₂, according to the Sustainable Production Alliance’s 2021 report. That’s like driving over 700 gas-powered cars for a year, or about 33 metric tons of CO₂ for each day of filming. A single TV season can have the same impact as 108 cars. With thousands of productions happening every year in North America, Hollywood’s environmental impact is hard to overlook. Zena Harris, founder and president of Green Spark Group, has spent more than ten years helping the industry turn sustainability goals into practical steps that productions can track. On this episode of Sustainability In Your Ear, she shares how to build sustainable practices into film and TV projects from the very start, instead of adding them at the end when most waste has already been created. Zena started Green Spark Group in 2014 after earning a master’s in sustainability and environmental management at Harvard. She pitched Vancouver’s major studios on a simple idea: sustainability can save money. Her first big project, the X-Files reboot, managed to divert 81% of its waste across 40 filming locations. Since then, her certified B Corp consultancy has worked with Disney, NBCUniversal, Amazon, and other major studios, and she founded the Sustainable Production Forum, which is now in its tenth year.
Zena Harris, founder and president of Green Spark Group, is our guest on Sustainability In Your Ear.
This conversation comes at an important time. Soon, California’s climate disclosure laws will require studios to report emissions from every vendor in their production supply chain, both before and after filming. Zena points out that while studios are getting ready, most of their suppliers—like small companies that rent generators, handle waste, or provide lumber on tight schedules—are not prepared. The Sustainable Entertainment Alliance has released Scope 3 guidance for productions, and updated Scope 1 and 2 guidance came out in August 2025, but there is still no single tool that everyone uses. The real challenge over the next two years will be closing the gap between what studios must report and what their suppliers can provide. Zena also makes a bigger point about culture. After 12 years in the industry, she sees sustainability experts facing the same obstacles again and again because the way content is made hasn’t changed. The day-to-day work is important, but the bigger opportunity is in climate storytelling. Only about 13% of recent top-rated films mention climate change at all. Tracking the carbon footprint of a TV season is important, but what really matters is how a billion viewers see what’s normal on screen. That’s the influence Hollywood hasn’t fully used yet.
To follow Zena’s work, visit greensparkgroup.com. You can also learn more about the conference she started at sustainableproductionforum.com, or listen to her podcast, The Tie-In, which she co-hosts with Mark Rabin.
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability In Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable, carbon-neutral society, and I’m your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation today.
We’re going to talk about film and television, because every film and TV production starts the same way: with a creative vision, a budget, a shooting schedule, and a huge amount of stuff. Generators burn diesel all day and night at shooting locations. Trucks idle as they wait to move between locations. Sets are built from raw materials only to end up in the landfill when filming ends. Craft services rely on single-use items for literally everything that’s placed on the table for the production team.
Now multiply that by the thousands of productions happening in North America each year, and the scale of the problem becomes clear. The average feature film emits 3,370 metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is like driving more than 700 gas-powered cars for a full year. And a single season of a TV show can match the emissions of 108 cars — and that’s not even counting the supply chain, everything that comes onto a set and everything that leaves. Hollywood has promised to be more sustainable many times, and our guest today has spent the last 10 years figuring out what it really takes to make these promises come to life in practice.
Zena Harris is the founder and president of Green Spark Group, a certified B Corp sustainability consultancy that she launched in 2014 with a mission to change the environmental impact of entertainment. She holds a master’s degree from Harvard in sustainability and environmental management, and she came to this work not as an environmentalist, but as a systems thinker — someone who spent her early career in engineering and HR identifying where organizations were leaking efficiency and money. But when she moved to Vancouver and discovered that nobody was focused on sustainability in what had become one of North America’s largest film production hubs, she saw a gap and filled it.
For more than a decade, she’s worked with major studios — including Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon — helping them embed sustainable practices in video production projects, and she’s developed measurable goals and built cross-industry collaborations that make lasting change possible.
She also founded the Sustainable Production Forum, which is now in its 10th year and has become the industry’s premier gathering place for turning sustainability talk into coordinated action.
We’ll talk with Zena about what it looks like when a production plans for sustainability from the very beginning, instead of adding it on at the end of the process like we usually do with all of our waste. And she’ll explain her idea of radical collaboration and why making real progress in Hollywood requires everyone — that includes unions, guilds, city governments, power companies, and those top-talent stars — to work together. We’ll also discuss how she uses the circular economy on set, the accountability gap that remains even as California’s new climate disclosure laws start to roll out, and whether the same systems-thinking approach can help business outside the film world.
To find out more about Zena’s work and Green Spark Group, visit greensparkgroup.com — that’s all one word, no space, no dash. Hollywood has the power to change how people think about sustainability, but can it also change how it works behind the scenes? Zena Harris is tackling both challenges at the same time. Let’s see what she’s discovered, right after this brief commercial break.
Mitch Ratcliffe 3:49
Welcome to the show, Zena. How you doing today?
Zena Harris 3:50
Hi. Thanks for having me. I’m doing great. The sun is shining in Tacoma, Washington, and I’m happy to be talking with you.
Mitch Ratcliffe 3:59
Well, I’m so happy to hear that you live in Tacoma. I lived there for almost 50 years. It’s a beautiful place, and I’m glad you’ve inherited it. I really like it. But you started your sustainability career in Vancouver, and you had no entertainment experience, and your first project was helping The X-Files reboot series divert material at 40 shooting locations — and you reduced their waste by 81%. What gave you the confidence to, you know, just call and say, ‘Hey, can I make you more sustainable?’
Zena Harris 4:31
It was a little more than that. You know, there was a lead-up to it. I had studied the film and TV industry in graduate school — I did my master’s thesis on it — so I had a little bit of a background. And the reason I studied it in grad school: I was in a sustainability master’s program, and I wanted to figure out how to shift culture. The first thing I thought of was, okay, people watch TV, we all love movies — that’s where I should start digging in to see what they’re doing. And they weren’t doing a ton. They were doing a little bit, but not too much.
So I talked to all the studio reps and found out what was going on and created a whole framework, like you do in graduate school, and wrote it all up. And then I pitched it to every studio. I sent out a white paper, essentially, to all the studios, and I was like, ‘Hey, let’s talk about this.’ Flew to LA, met with people in person. And I’m like, ‘I’m in Vancouver. I know it’s a major film hub. Put me to work.’ And one person did. She said, ‘Hey, you know, The X-Files is coming. It’s a big show. We have room in the budget to make this great. Let’s see what we can do.’ And that’s what really got me going.
One of the first people I met in the industry was Kelsey Evans. She is the owner of Keep It Green Recycling, which is a local vendor in Vancouver. Now, I had studied the film and TV industry, I know management practices and sustainability and the science, and she knew — like, really knew — the industry. So we worked together on that production, and we still work together today. She’s a friend of mine. She’s fantastic.
We got a lot of stuff done on that show, and that was my introduction into the film industry in practical terms. Vancouver, because it’s a major film hub, has — let’s just say — 20 shows filming at any given time. Sometimes it’s a lot more. But I knew that the work I was doing on that one show could scale. We needed to do it on all the shows. We needed to engage the industry. We needed to train people. So I started Green Spark Group as a vehicle to do this in the industry more broadly.
I think my past experience — prior to even going to grad school — in HR for a multinational company, and I was also an executive director at an international nonprofit where we had working groups and people from all over the world coming together to solve problems and create programs, all that gave me confidence to step into the film industry, look around, learn from others, apply my skills, and build this momentum locally. The company, locally, ended up — now we work across North America and even in other countries. So it’s been a journey.
Mitch Ratcliffe 7:52
Well, you point out that they said, ‘We’ve got room in the budget to make this great,’ but that isn’t always the case. So what’s the pitch to a new client?
Zena Harris 8:00
Yeah, yeah. Well, those are the magic words: ‘We can save you money.’ That is it. That’s it. I mean, look, this has been a movement over the last, let’s say, 12 years — that’s how long I’ve been working in this space. And it’s rare for folks to say, ‘Yeah, we can figure this out in the budget.’ Sometimes it happens, but most people want to know how they can save money. So if you can show them very clearly that they can save money, that pushes the door open. And then you can talk about lots of other things too.
Mitch Ratcliffe 8:43
So tell us about The Amazing Spider-Man 2. You saved them a lot of money. How’d you do it, and how much did you save them?
Zena Harris 8:48
I did not work on that. A colleague of mine, Emellie O’Brien, worked on that. That was actually one of the first productions publicized for saving a lot of money. I think they saved something like — well, I have the number here — $400,000. The cool thing about what happened with that, and also what happened with The X-Files and some others shortly thereafter, is that the studio recorded behind the scenes. They interviewed crew members to talk about what they had done. Then they published some of the stats in a case study and a video.
People in our industry love watching videos, right? So we did a behind-the-scenes for The X-Files, which caught lightning in a bottle — really created a whole movement in Vancouver. We showed that little five-minute behind-the-scenes video to everyone, and they saw their peers in that video because they were crew members speaking about what they had done. Things like that really sparked action in people and this excitement that, ‘Wow, things I have seen and kind of felt uncomfortable with — like waste, nobody likes seeing waste — people saw solutions in those videos. People saw themselves, saw their peers, and that inspired action, awareness, intrigue — like all the stuff you would want to create a movement. I can’t say enough about those early videos. They really helped kind of put us on a trajectory for more awareness and more action.
Mitch Ratcliffe 10:42
A set is kind of like a microcosm of a city. A lot of stuff comes together and then disperses again. We actually did some consulting a few years ago with Hollywood about recycling the material on site — they use the PCs for the first time and then send them to recycling. It’s amazing how wasteful it could be. Tell us about what happens on a set. What’s the input, and what’s the output?
Zena Harris 11:10
Yeah, you are right. It is definitely akin to a city. I mean, if you think about it, for a large film or TV series, there can be 20 different departments working together to make that project happen. Each of those departments brings in some kind of material, some kind of input. The production office will have lots of office supplies, equipment, office equipment, furniture for the office — that kind of thing. Those things are coming in, and then you use them, and then they go out.
Then you can think of production design and construction. These two departments work really closely together, and they’re the ones creating and then building the sets in the sound stage. You can think about all the materials that might be associated with that. Construction is a big input department, where we’re bringing in lots of wood — and other types of material. It’s not just wood, but essentially we’re building a village inside a sound stage to shoot. And it’s all the wood and any other material that goes into that: wallpaper, paint, all sorts of props, set dressing that will go into that space.
So all that’s coming in, and then we use it for a short period of time, and then we have to do something with it. A lot of times, set walls are kind of standard — they can be reused. These are things that, if we recognize the patterns here, we’re using these things all the time. We’re breaking them down, and then we do something with them. A lot of times the breakdown is fast. You don’t have a ton of opportunity to really think. But if we know that there’s a pattern associated — prep, production, and wrap every single show — we know that we can disrupt that pattern. We can plan for it.
This is where thinking ahead and planning like, ‘Hey, we can reuse these walls. Got a lot of doors here — we’re going to reuse these doors. We’re going to send them to a place that will hold them temporarily, like a reuse center, and then those can be redistributed back into the industry.’ Some productions will store this stuff on their own if they have reshoots they think they might have, or another series they might come along. So all of these are options.
The default historically has been — because this is a dynamic industry, because timelines are short, people need to get out of their stage space — to use it, break it down, put it in the dumpster, get that thing out of here, and move on. So we’re saying there’s another way to do it, and just that alone saves the production a lot of money, because those big dumpsters at the end of it all are expensive to haul away. If we can reduce even a few of those, that is a cost savings, and then that material can be diverted and reused. So everything coming in — food, big material like construction material that people think a lot about, anything coming in — has an opportunity to be diverted, redistributed on the back end. And then that action saves money.
Mitch Ratcliffe 14:59
Well, you describe what’s needed as radical collaboration. I’m wondering if you can explain what that means, because Hollywood’s going through a lot of changes right now, and it sounds like sustainability may be the keystone of some new talent or new careers during the production process. So what are the hardest stakeholders in that radical collaboration to get to move from where they are today?
Zena Harris 15:22
Yeah. I think, like I said, I’ve been doing this for a really long time, and one of the things that I’ve picked up over the years is that people in the industry have been conditioned to point fingers. There are different stakeholders in the industry. Crew will point to the union or the studio, for example, and say, ‘You know, those folks need to do something so that I can integrate sustainable practices.’ The unions will point to crew or studios. The studios will point to production or unions. And so at the end of the day, that doesn’t get us anywhere. We’re kind of swirling in this finger-pointing. And nobody really knows what to do. They’re waiting for something. So progress is slow when you do that.
In order to move the needle, I think one of the things we need to do is actually work together in ways that might seem unconventional or radical. I keep reminding myself of the saying, ‘What got us here won’t take us forward.’ So we have to get over ourselves and do something differently. We know that there’s no single organization that’s going to solve all the problems or change the existing system. We need a different approach, a different narrative around all of this — not just kind of deferring to another stakeholder.
This is what I call radical collaboration, because it’s different. Collaboration between crew and unions and studios and creatives and suppliers and industry organizations — in ways that have been different than we’ve tried before, that really haven’t worked so well, or not to the degree we wanted them to work. So instead of reinventing the wheel on that, we need a whole different tack. I think that in order to see success, we need positive reinforcement for people. We need to actually say, ‘Yes, this worked,’ and in increments too — not just the big things. When people see that positive reinforcement, they actually lean in. They actually have more confidence in what they’re doing. And then this increases momentum. That’s kind of my view of radical collaboration and what I think is needed to keep the ball rolling.
Mitch Ratcliffe 18:07
Well, you’re making a really interesting point, which is that people don’t dislike change. They may be a little afraid of it, but they want to see that the extra effort involved in making the change actually is paying off. As the orchestrator of the sustainability activities on set, how do you communicate that to them so that the Teamsters and the members of the Screen Actors Guild all say, ‘Oh, I’m in’?
Zena Harris 18:37
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it’s interesting. You mentioned a couple of different positions there — Teamsters and actors and these sorts of things. Everybody is coming to the production with a different perspective, a different viewpoint, kind of a different mandate within their department. Like, their job is to do this. So everybody sees sustainability in a slightly different way.
One of the things we really strive to do — and I would say this is kind of a standard practice, but what we’re trying to do as a team at Green Spark Group — is go beyond surface-level conversations. Not just say, ‘Here are a few things you could do,’ but really try to have a deeper conversation with people in each of these departments and ask them what they see, what they need to be successful in doing any one of the things that they might want to do differently, and really help them get there. If they’re afraid to talk to someone, well, we’ll help them do that. We will have their back. We will go with them and be a backstop for anything they may not know or feel confident talking about. If it is finding a vendor and they don’t have time to look around, we’ll help them do that.
You know, people say, ‘Meet you where you are.’ But it’s really going beyond surface-level conversations. It’s really tapping into people’s wants, needs, level of confidence, and helping them grow that and helping them shine in their role — whatever it is. I think that sort of human-centric approach is really helpful, and what really moves the needle, or actually builds trust. Because at the end of the day, we can go in there and talk about all sorts of gear. There’s a lot of gear out there. There’s a lot of batteries out there that are going to save emissions. But I have seen multiple times where batteries have been rented, they sit in the gear truck, and people are afraid to use them. Why is that? Let’s talk about that. Let’s really unpack it, and let’s find a safe space to do it. Maybe it’s that lightweight one over there, and we want to just test it out. Totally cool. Let’s make that happen. What’s it going to take to get there?
Mitch Ratcliffe 21:24
This very meta moment — talking about telling stories to storytellers to get them to change their behavior — is a great place to take a quick commercial break. Folks, we’re going to be right back to continue this really interesting conversation.
Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. Let’s get back to my conversation with Zena Harris, founder and president of the Hollywood sustainability consultancy — although Vancouver, too — Green Spark Group. Zena, your mission is to change the climate of entertainment, and that has a double meaning that clearly was deliberate. But I’m wondering, in the current environment and thinking about the stories we tell about why we do things, with all the whiplashing political winds of the last couple of years, how has that changed your message and your perception of what Hollywood’s trying to accomplish?
Zena Harris 22:16
Yeah, I mean, I’ve said this a few times. We have a lot of momentum. Right now, in 2026, there are more organizations, there are more people thinking about sustainability, there are more tools out there for people to use. There’s a lot of momentum in the industry. So for us at Green Spark Group, we are on a mission to change the climate of entertainment, and it’s incremental, year over year, year over year — and so we’re still working on it. It’s very relevant for us today.
We have had a hand in changing a lot in the entertainment industry over the last 12 years. We started programs, we’ve created strategic plans for industry organizations and training in the C-suite, and started the industry’s first conference. We’re uplifting people and trying to give a platform to people to collaborate and share their ideas. But there’s a lot of opportunity out there. There are still a lot of people who are new to sustainability, and they need someone to help them make sense of it all. It’s taking all this wonderful information that’s been created by various organizations — and we’ve contributed as well — and distilling it and helping them make sense of it all, make decisions that are in line with their values, and implement the things that they want to implement. Save the money that they can save, that they know they can, when they start doing the math.
Mitch Ratcliffe 24:11
Is the money the key thing right now? Is it the sustainable savings, or is it still a commitment to the climate, in the context of, again, all the backlash against the idea of environmentalism?
Zena Harris 24:24
Yeah, I mean, the idea of environmentalism, I think, is kind of in the broader ethos. I think when you get down to talking to people one on one, they want solutions to things — waste they’ve seen, or emissions they’ve encountered on production, or food waste, or whatever it is. Whether they call themselves an environmentalist or they just are a caring and concerned person, everybody wants a positive working experience. And they don’t want that tension internally between, ‘I’m doing this great, creative, wonderful thing in my job, and then I look over here and some negative thing is happening environmentally or whatever.’ People want a holistic, positive work experience. So I think that’s core at the end of the day — to tap into that, and, like I said, just go beyond surface-level conversations and really help people figure that out.
Mitch Ratcliffe 25:35
Let me ask about the other side of that equation, about changing the climate of entertainment. Hollywood has enormous cultural reach, but we did a little research and found that only about 10%, 13% was the number we came up with, of recent top-rated films even acknowledge the idea of climate change on screen. Do you hear creatives on the content side talking about climate? Do they ask you? Do they say, ‘You know, this is interesting, I’d like to learn more, and I might tell a story about it someday’?
Zena Harris 26:05
Yeah. I mean, this idea that the industry reach is certainly enormous — the cultural influence of the industry, wherever you’re interacting with it, whether you love a character on screen, whether you follow an actor in real life and kind of just like what they do, whether you follow — like, I’m an operations kind of person, I like looking at how things work and trying to improve that. But this idea of climate storytelling, a lot of people are thinking about it right now. It’s a huge lever. You will hear that batted around a lot. A lot of industry organizations are doing research on it and trying to get into writers’ rooms and in film schools.
There’s a lot of momentum in that space. We have been engaged a few times in that effort, and it’s proven beneficial. So I would say that 13% — there’s a lot of momentum around this subject, and I can see that number increasing over time. People want stories that reflect the current reality they’re feeling in real life. There are a lot of people working in environmental jobs, or in some shape or form, and I think those kinds of professions will be reflected on screen a lot more in the future. So, yeah, I think there’s a lot of momentum in that space.
Mitch Ratcliffe 27:52
I can see a film about a ranger saving a family from a fire.
Zena Harris 27:57
You can think it, they can do it.
Mitch Ratcliffe 28:00
Let’s turn back to the operational question, as you pointed out you focus on that. One of the common problems that production has, along with every other business, is trying to fully measure what’s going on. Like we were talking about, this set is this midpoint in a very complex supply chain where stuff has flowed in, now it needs to go somewhere in order to either be reused or appropriately recycled, but we can’t fully measure all that. What’s still in the invisible category of information? In the same sense that Scope 3 emissions are hard for a typical corporation to measure, is there a comparable issue with production sustainability?
Zena Harris 28:36
Oh yeah, 100%. Look, there are always more things to measure. As an industry, we have focused a lot on carbon emissions from things like utilities, fuel, air travel, and accommodations. We have a really good handle on that. But those are, like, four categories, right? And, as you said earlier, materials are coming onto production — food, wood, office supplies, you name it, it comes onto production. So those are the things we don’t have a solid handle on. There’s embedded carbon and all that stuff.
There are also lots of industry tools, industry carbon calculators out there — some measure more than others.
Mitch Ratcliffe (interjects)
Are any of them any good?
Zena Harris (continues)
Yeah, yeah, they’re good. But some have more inputs than others. Some will only measure those four categories that I mentioned. For years, for example, everybody in the industry wants to know the waste diversion rate, right? But nobody focuses on the carbon emissions associated with that material. We just get a diversion rate, and we call it good. So you have to choose: if you want to know all of that, you have to choose a tool that will allow you to input more of that information. And we don’t have a standard tool yet in the industry that everybody uses, so we can compare apples to apples.
We have guidance in the industry, and that’s really helpful. The Sustainable Entertainment Alliance, which is an industry consortium, has put out guidance on Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3. Their Scope 3 guidance is the most recent, and with new information, new methodology, a lot of people don’t really know what to do with that, and maybe aren’t sure which tool to use to capture some of that stuff. So there’s a lot of uncertainty even around the guidance that’s out there. That’s where you can seek out professionals to help you understand all that stuff.
Mitch Ratcliffe 31:11
One of the characteristics of the change we’re undergoing right now is the recognition of externalities. And in Hollywood production generally — I have some friends who are in the industry — it seems to me that they focused almost entirely on who was in front of the camera and who was behind the camera, and only now are starting to recognize that they’re part of this deeper supply chain. And now California’s new climate disclosure laws are going to require studios to report indirect, upstream and downstream emissions from every vendor by this year. How’s that going to change? And is the industry actually getting the traction on trying to respond to that requirement?
Zena Harris 31:47
The studios are very aware of this. They’ve been preparing for this. The suppliers upstream, downstream are not as [prepared].
Mitch Ratcliffe 31:58
So how are they not prepared? What do we need to do?
Zena Harris 32:00
Well, they haven’t been tracking.
Mitch Ratcliffe 32:10
So they’re the typical company.
Zena Harris 32:13
They are a typical company. These are small companies servicing these projects, these productions. And we’ve been so focused in the industry on pre-production and production — that piece of the content creation process. So if you think of a book that has 10 chapters, we’ve been essentially focusing on one chapter. So you’ve got all of the other ones, and all of the service companies and suppliers and all of that that still incorporates the book, and all of those are contributing in some way.
Now we’ve been collecting data from waste haulers. We’ve been collecting data from people who supply equipment, and even those folks are still trying to get organized with their data. So you can imagine, like every other company, they all have their own operations. So that’s one thing. You can incorporate sustainability into your own company operations, and then you can provide data associated with the product or service that you are providing. And that’s going to matter. Those things roll up into this production reporting, and that production reporting rolls up into the larger studio, who’s going to have to incorporate that into their corporate reporting.
Mitch Ratcliffe 33:54
So do you see this regulation as catalyzing the potential for sustainability at scale in entertainment production?
Zena Harris 34:05
Yeah. I mean, I think it provides people a solid talking point to go up and shake the tree a little bit and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to have to be doing this.’ Look, they’re not going to have all the information they need, probably, in year one. So they’re going to take what they do have, and they’re going to estimate probably across their slate. And then they’re going to work really hard to make that better, more accurate in the coming years. So if you’re not asked in year one as a supplier for certain information, you might be in year two and three. It would be wise, I think, to kind of get your house in order and be able to start reporting on these things, even if you’re never asked. It’s good for you as a company, because you start to understand where your waste is, where your emissions lie, and then you can start making changes accordingly. And yes, that stuff saves money. So it’s good for everyone to be thinking about this, whether you’re asked by a studio or not.
Mitch Ratcliffe 35:16
Well, that’s really the key — that it’s also rewarding to make that kind of additional positive impact, as well as save some money and make more profit in the long run. I mean, that’s what’s rewarding about progress in general.
Zena Harris 35:30
Totally, totally. It’s a ripple effect, right? And then we just get better as an industry, and then an industry that contributes to broader society.
Mitch Ratcliffe 35:40
So after 10 years, how far has the industry come toward the vision that you had when you started Green Spark Group?
Zena Harris 35:50
Oh, gosh. Well, there’s a lot that has happened over these years. Like I said, more people are aware, more people are engaged. But I think that we are swirling within the existing system. Sustainability practitioners that started working on production like I did years ago — we just entered this existing content creation system. And what I’m noticing now is that we’re swirling within the same system. We’re all running up against similar challenges around the world with regard to implementing sustainable practices. So we’re coming up against consistent hurdles, barriers within this system.
For me, that’s an opportunity to look a little bit bigger and say, ‘Okay, well, if we keep running into the same barriers, what if the system shifted? What if the entire system shifted? What are the incentives involved in the system to keep it the way it is?’ And there’s a lot — that’s a whole separate podcast — but all to say, this is where we need to be thinking: how we shift the system, how we have that radical collaboration, how we shift the needle on what suppliers are doing and reporting, and these sorts of things. And that’s what’s going to take us to the next level. We’re going to get over the hump.
Mitch Ratcliffe 37:34
So, given that, imagine that you are Zena, goddess of sustainability, and can put your finger on one thing and change it. What would it be, in order to drive much more rapid transition to a more sustainable production environment?
Zena Harris 37:51
I mean, I think it all comes down to the people — the people in the system that are either allowing or not allowing, either making excuses or open to possibility. It all comes down to that. There are some core elements associated with people, behavior change, these sorts of things. I think mindset is core, absolutely core. I think courage — even to talk about this stuff within your small team or your department, or even in a larger conversation — is pretty critical, to voice some things you’re noticing, or what ideas you have for doing things differently. I think that collective confidence — once you do that, people get on board. They come together. Confidence is critical as well. If you don’t have it, you’re not going to take the next step, right? So there are fundamental human elements that need to be developed, to be encouraged, to be demonstrated. And I think that is going to shift the needle.
Mitch Ratcliffe 39:08
It’s a storytelling challenge in a lot of ways. There’s some carrot, there’s some stick, there’s a lot of nuance to that tale that we need to really make embedded into everybody’s approach to thinking about the work. Zena, thanks so much for your time today. How can folks follow both Green Spark Group and the work you’ve done with the Sustainable Production Forum?
Zena Harris 39:28
Sure. You’re always welcome to check out our website, greensparkgroup.com. We post insights there monthly and have a lot of great information for folks. Also on social media at @greensparkgroup — pick a platform, we’re probably on it. And then the Sustainable Production Forum is online as well, sustainableproductionforum.com, and from there you can get to all of their content, videos, anything you want to know is there too.
And I’ll also just give a quick plug for my podcast that I co-host with my longtime friend Mark Rabin. It’s called The Tie-In, and so folks can also check out stories from crew members, from people doing amazing work behind the scenes. We talk to them all there.
Mitch Ratcliffe 40:21
Zena, thanks so much. It’s been a fascinating conversation. Really enjoyed it.
Zena Harris
Thank you.
Mitch Ratcliffe 40:31
Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. You’ve been listening to my conversation with Zena Harris, founder and president of Green Spark Group, the certified B Corp sustainability consultancy she launched in 2014 to change the climate of entertainment. You can find Zena and her team’s work at greensparkgroup.com — that’s all one word, no space, no dash. And check out their conference, the Sustainable Production Forum, now in its 10th year, at sustainableproductionforum.com, also all one word, no space, no dash.
I think the headline from Zena’s work is a pitch, not a principle: ‘We can save you money.’ That’s how she opens a conversation with a studio, and it’s why The Amazing Spider-Man 2 became an early case study, based on the work of a colleague of hers at Green Spark who helped that production save roughly $400,000 through sustainable practices. The implications of these savings are clear when you stand next to the dumpster at the end of a chute and watch a village’s worth of lumber, furniture, wallpaper, and props get hauled away to a landfill because the stage needs to be empty by Monday.
The sustainability opportunity in film and TV isn’t a values problem — the industry’s values are already stated on the record. It’s an operational capacity problem, and Zena’s work is translating aspiration into line items a production accountant can track. And that’s to the benefit of the environment, even if it’s not visible on the bottom line.
California’s new climate disclosure laws are about to change the equation, too. Beginning this year, studios will have to report upstream and downstream emissions from every vendor in their production supply chain. That’s the chapter of the book, as Zena put it, that the industry has never actually opened. The studios knew that this is coming, and they’ve been preparing for it. Their suppliers — the small companies servicing productions on short timelines — mostly haven’t. That gap is the real story over the next 24 months in the entertainment sustainability business.
Zena’s advice to suppliers is the same advice my recent guest Steve Wilhite, who leads Schneider Electric’s power management division, offered corporate energy buyers just a few weeks ago: get your house in order now, because even if you’re not asked for data today, you will be in two or three years. The companies that can report cleanly will win work, while those that can’t will become a balance sheet burden to the studios.
A digital nervous system is arriving now in Hollywood, and every waste hauler, every generator rental company, every lumber supplier is becoming a data-producing node in a network that didn’t exist just one or two production cycles ago. California’s environmental policy is forcing that network into being, and once it exists, it will not unbuild itself, because people are going to see the benefits. They’re going to see the savings that we’ve been talking about throughout this conversation.
And after 12 years in the business, I think Zena’s comment near the end of our conversation — that sustainability practitioners in entertainment are ‘swirling within the existing system’ — is important to note. The hurdles they hit on one production look identical to the hurdles they hit on the next, because the content creation system itself hasn’t changed. That’s the green living myth problem I discussed recently with author Michael Maniates, but with a Hollywood accent: individual actors are doing the right thing inside a structure that continues to produce the same outputs by default. And that can easily become disenchanting. On-set greening is necessary and it’s real, but the industry’s deepest cultural lever is the one that we discussed in passing.
Only about 13% of recent top-rated films even acknowledge climate change on screen. The carbon accounting for a single TV season matters, but the cultural accounting — for what a billion viewers see, what they feel is normal, and what film and television characters drive and eat and care about — that’s the lever that this industry hasn’t yet pulled. Production sustainability builds the operational muscle and the credibility, but climate storytelling is where that credibility will be built at scale, because it will spread these ideas, changing not only Hollywood’s practices, but the practices of an entire world. One without the other leaves the most influential narrative engine on the planet running on the old script, and it’s time for a change.
So stay tuned. We’re going to keep talking with people rewriting what’s possible on set and on screen. And could you take a moment to help spread the word about the sustainable future we can build together? You are the amplifier that can spread more ideas to create less waste. So please take a look at any of the more than 550 episodes of Sustainability In Your Ear in our archives. Writing a review on your favorite podcast platform will help your neighbors find us. So please tell your friends, family, and co-workers they can find Sustainability In Your Ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or whatever purveyor of podcast goodness they prefer.
Thank you, folks, for your support. I’m Mitch Ratcliffe. This is Sustainability In Your Ear, and we will be back with another innovator interview soon. In the meantime, take care of yourself, take care of one another, and let’s all take care of this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day.
At first glance, it looks like a lifeless, eons-old rock. So much so that people will stand on it unaware of the life beneath the weight of their feet. The coral ecosystem is teeming with life, among the most diverse ecosystems in the world!
It’s the network of the oceans, much like mycelium is the network of forests. Twenty-five percent of the ocean’s fish depend on coral reefs for food, shelter, and nurseries for their young.
It’s easy to quickly pass by corals, dismissing them as respo
At first glance, it looks like a lifeless, eons-old rock. So much so that people will stand on it unaware of the life beneath the weight of their feet. The coral ecosystem is teeming with life, among the most diverse ecosystems in the world!
It’s the network of the oceans, much like mycelium is the network of forests. Twenty-five percent of the ocean’s fish depend on coral reefs for food, shelter, and nurseries for their young.
It’s easy to quickly pass by corals, dismissing them as responseless vegetation, a garden that fish, rays, and marine mammals cruise through. But the “plants” are animals! It’s all alive.
Isn’t the star coral beautiful!? All of these worms will tuck into a hole and disappear when predators (and snorkelers) get too close.
Now that I know, I slowly move over the coral, looking closely. I always find something beautiful, fascinating, and new to me.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
Hard Corals
Hard coral is composed of calcium carbonate (the rock-like stuff) that forms the framework for thousands of polyp colonies. These polyps are animals with a body and a mouth that feed on plankton and tiny fish. It is these colonies of polyps that form coral.
The healthy coral we see is a result of symbiosis with algae, a relationship that benefits both organisms. The algae live within the polyps and are what give coral its color. Algae produce carbohydrates that the polyps use for food. The coral provides a protected environment for the algae and aids in its photosynthesis.
Soft Corals
Soft corals rely on a flexible, protein-based mesoglea (jelly-like core) reinforced by sclerites, tiny, spiky calcium structures for support. Look at all those tiny polyps on the purple stalks of the sea plume!!
Sea Sponges
Another marine invertebrate that you might not associate with the animal kingdom is the sea sponge. They are filter feeders, structured with canals, chambers, and cavities that enable water to move through the sponge for feeding, gas exchange (“breathing”), and excretion. Sponge larvae are flagellated and can swim; however, adults are non-motile and remain attached to a single spot.
There are flat sponges and tube sponges. They are all so unique in structure, color, pattern, and texture. There are over 5000 known species of sponges inhabiting all of the world’s oceans.
Other Atypical Reef Animals
Some of my other favorite animals in coral reef ecosystems are anemones and sea urchins. Anemones are predatory invertebrate marine animals related to corals and jellyfish. Their mouths are surrounded by stinging tentacles that enable them to prey upon small animals such as fish, crabs, shrimp, and jellyfish. They can be found in deep seas and the intertidal zone, too, where they contract and fold their tentacles into their bodies to avoid drying out until the water returns.
There are 950 species of sea urchins, who like anemones, live from intertidal zones to deep seas. Urchins crawl along on tube feet, feeding on algae and sponges. They come in a variety of colors, long-spined and short-spined, pencil-thick and needle-thin. These dramatic creatures are usually found tucked away within a reef, making them difficult to photograph.
Next time you have the opportunity to see a reef, either below water, from a dock, or tidepooling, stop and stare. You will be amazed!
Pitted sponge, red rope sponge, star coral, mustard coral, feather duster worm, brown encrusting sponge, reef urchin, algae, and a couple of fish.Sea Fan with sponges, algae, and a couple of feather duster worms poking out the bottom.
If you’re interested in purchasing or licensing any images you see here, please email me at SNewenham at exploringnaturephotos.com, and I’ll make it happen.
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The climb from Guango Lodge into the fog‑shrouded páramo unfolded as a dramatic journey through wind, altitude, and high‑Andean specialists—culminating in rare encounters, fleeting moments of luck, and a gradual descent back into the familiar embrace of the cloudforest. This blog series chronicles Jim Gain's experiences with a birding tour in Ecuador in October 2025
The climb from Guango Lodge into the fog‑shrouded páramo unfolded as a dramatic journey through wind, altitude, and high‑Andean specialists—culminating in rare encounters, fleeting moments of luck, and a gradual descent back into the familiar embrace of the cloudforest. This blog series chronicles Jim Gain's experiences with a birding tour in Ecuador in October 2025
A critical ocean current that regulates Antarctica’s climate may have formed only once continents separated and winds aligned with new ocean passageways, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Today, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current transports more than 100 times as much water as all of Earth’s rivers combined and, critically, insulates the Antarctic Ice Sheet from heat at lower latitudes. A clear picture of
Today, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current transports more than 100 times as much water as all of Earth’s rivers combined and, critically, insulates the Antarctic Ice Sheet from heat at lower latitudes. A clear picture of the origins of this current can help scientists further understand the relationships between contemporary ocean dynamics, the global climate, and ice formation in Antarctica.
“It’s very interesting to learn more about this current, how it developed, and what role it played in the climate change that was happening at that time,” said Hanna Knahl, a paleoclimatologist and doctoral student at the Alfred-Wegener-Institut in Germany and lead author of the new study.
The Birth of a Current
About 34 million years ago, Earth was undergoing a climatic shift, now known as the Eocene-Oligocene transition, during which atmospheric carbon dioxide decreased and the planet cooled.
Earth’s tectonic plates in the Southern Ocean moved away from each other, opening and deepening bodies of water such as the Tasmanian Gateway and the Drake Passage, which separate Antarctica, Australia, and South America.
For years, scientists hypothesized that the alignment of these newly formed waterways, along with westerly winds, could have channeled ocean water and spurred the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
“The exact position of the westerly winds and their relative position to the [ocean] gateways have to click together.”
To test that hypothesis, Knahl and her colleagues simulated conditions of the early Oligocene Southern Ocean with a coupled model that included ocean dynamics, atmosphere and wind patterns, temperatures, ice sheet growth, and precipitation. The research team compared these simulations to data from actual Antarctic sediment cores and scans of the ocean floor.
Results confirmed that westerly winds were necessary for the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to form.
“The exact position of the westerly winds and their relative position to the [ocean] gateways have to click together,” Knahl said.
Joanne Whittaker, a marine geophysicist at the University of Tasmania who was not involved in the new study, was a coauthor of a 2015 study that proposed westerly wind alignment played a role in the formation of the current. Knahl’s study presents a more sophisticated model of the early Oligocene Southern Ocean and is a great next step in the investigation of the current’s origins, Whittaker said.
“They did a really nice job of taking a range of different people’s work and linking it all together,” she said.
Oligocene Understandings
“If you can have a model that works in the past, it’s going to give you confidence that it’s going to work for the future, as well.”
Scientists often use Earth’s past behavior to better understand how Earth systems may behave in the present or future. “If you can have a model that works in the past,” Whittaker explained, “it’s going to give you confidence that it’s going to work for the future, as well.”
The Eocene-Oligocene transition is a key to understanding the relationship between atmospheric carbon, ocean dynamics, and the glaciation of Antarctica, Whittaker said. Knowing how the current’s behavior affected carbon uptake millions of years ago helps scientists model how the present current’s behavior might also affect atmospheric carbon.
In addition to carbon uptake, the new research hints at how changes in westerly winds may influence the advance and retreat of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Some modeling and proxy data indicate the westerly winds that spurred the Antarctic Circumpolar Current’s formation 34 million years ago have shifted in the past century and may continue to shift in the future. Understanding the role these winds initially played in the current’s development may shed light on the current’s present ability to guard the Antarctic Ice Sheet from warmer air masses.
There are still Oligocene patterns that require more research to sort out, though. For example, modeling in the new study showed interesting asymmetries in the timing of the development of different parts of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, Knahl said. Scientists know from proxy data and modeling that similar asymmetry exists in the history of the Antarctic Ice Sheet; the ice sheet in East Antarctica began to form about 7 million years before the ice sheet began to form in West Antarctica.
“It could be interesting to see if there’s a connection between the asymmetries that we see here,” Knahl said. “Are they linked, or were they more or less independent?”
Citation: van Deelen, G. (2026), Widening channels and westerly winds together formed Earth’s strongest current, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260126. Published on 24 April 2026.
Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: Space Weather
TianQin is a geocentric space-borne gravitational wave detector, which is proposed to detect the gravitational wave by measuring tiny displacements using inter-satellite laser interferometry. However, the space surrounding the orbit and laser links of TianQin is not a vacuum—but filled with plasma, which can bend the laser links and induce pointing accuracy noise in the gravitational wave de
TianQin is a geocentric space-borne gravitational wave detector, which is proposed to detect the gravitational wave by measuring tiny displacements using inter-satellite laser interferometry. However, the space surrounding the orbit and laser links of TianQin is not a vacuum—but filled with plasma, which can bend the laser links and induce pointing accuracy noise in the gravitational wave detection.
Based on a global magnetohydrodynamic model, Zhou et al. [2026] use a ray-tracing method to obtain the laser deflection caused by laser propagation through plasma, and to evaluate the pointing accuracy noise. The result shows that the laser deflection effect caused by large-scale space plasma distribution under quiet to moderate space weather conditions does not represent a fundamental risk to the TianQin mission. However, during severe space weather events, the laser propagation effect could become a considerable noise in the gravitational wave detection.
This work establishes a connection between space weather and gravitational wave detection. Furthermore, this work raises awareness of the impact of space weather on other high-precision electromagnetic wave measurements in space.
Citation: Zhou, S. W, Su, W., Zhou, S. Y., Li, C. F., & Zhang, J. X. (2026). The pointing error due to laser propagation in space plasma for TianQin gravitational wave detection. Space Weather, 24, e2025SW004784. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025SW004784
The average American discards roughly 82 pounds of clothing and textiles each year — and most of it lands in a landfill. According to the EPA, more than 17 million tons of textiles were generated as municipal solid waste in 2018, a figure the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirmed was more than 50% higher than in 2000 due largely to the rise of fast fashion. And the recycling rate for clothing and footwear? Just 13%.
Denim is one of the most salvageable things in that waste stream. Beca
The average American discards roughly 82 pounds of clothing and textiles each year — and most of it lands in a landfill. According to the EPA, more than 17 million tons of textiles were generated as municipal solid waste in 2018, a figure the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirmed was more than 50% higher than in 2000 due largely to the rise of fast fashion. And the recycling rate for clothing and footwear? Just 13%.
Denim is one of the most salvageable things in that waste stream. Because authentic jeans are made mostly from cotton, a natural, biodegradable fiber, they can be recycled into building insulation, pet bed inserts, and thermal packaging, or given a second life through resale and creative reuse.
Here are five ways to put your worn-out jeans to work, and have some fun doing it.
1. Your unwanted denim can be turned into insulation.
Cotton Incorporated’s Blue Jeans Go Green program has been recycling denim into insulation since 2006. Since then, the program has collected more than 5 million pieces of denim and diverted over 2,290 tons of textile waste from landfills. That recycled fiber gets processed into UltraTouch™ Denim Insulation by Bonded Logic — used in homes, thermal packaging, and pet bedding — with some insulation donated each year to building projects in communities in need.
The program accepts any denim item (jeans, jackets, skirts, shirts) that’s at least 90% cotton, in any condition. Drop off locations include Anthropologie, which has committed to diverting 10 tons through the program, and a rotating list of retail partners you can find on the Blue Jeans Go Green recycle page.
You can also mail denim directly to the program at Cotton’s Blue Jeans Go Green™ Program c/o Phoenix Fibers – CIMI, 400 East Ray Road, Chandler, AZ 85225 (a free prepaid label program ended in August 2025, so you’ll need to cover shipping).
Madewell’s denim trade-up program is one of the most practical ways to close the loop on old jeans, regardless of the brand. Drop any pair of jeans of any cut, color, or condition at a Madewell store and receive $20 off a full-priced pair of Madewell jeans. The program is year-round with no limit on how many pairs you bring in.
The program has collected more than 2.3 million preloved pieces. Gently worn jeans are resold through Madewell Forever, the brand’s resale platform with ThredUp; jeans beyond repair are recycled into housing insulation and sustainable packaging via the Blue Jeans Go Green partnership.
You can also mail in denim with a free Clean Out Kit or shipping label if you don’t have a Madewell nearby.
2. Turn your denim into a pair of shorts.
This is probably the easiest way to repurpose a pair of jeans. Even if you don’t sew, you can make long jeans into shorts. Get a pair of sharp scissors, figure out where you want to cut, and then enjoy your new shorts. Remember the old saying, “measure twice, and cut once.” If you’re a sewer (or good with a glue gun), check out this tutorial by Craft & Creativity for some adorable additions to cutoffs.
3. Upcycle your denim into a reusable bag.
One of my favorite ways to upcycle denim is by making reusable bags. You can use the bags as an adorable way to package a gift, as a purse, and as a reusable grocery carrier, just to name a few. I also found this creative phone charging bag. This is another project that could be done simply with a glue gun or, if you don’t have one, some craft glue.
4. Upcycle your denim into some sweet friendship bracelets.
One of my girls’ favorite projects is to upcycle material, including denim, into friendship bracelets. They are able to use their creativity and make each bracelet a special work of art. First, gather supplies like fun buttons, embroidery floss, and any other embellishments you may have on hand. Then cut the denim into strips.
Next is where the fun really begins. Let your kids use their imaginations to dream up some adorable ways to decorate their friendship bracelets. They could even begin by sketching out their ideas so you know how to help them make their vision a reality.
Your kiddos can wear their bracelets proudly and give them as gifts.
5. Make a craft supply holder with your unwanted jeans and some cans from the recycling bin.
This is a great idea for anyone who wants to organize their craft supplies in one spot. You could make it a kid-friendly craft supply holder by including washable markers, colored pencils, safety scissors and glue sticks. Add a handle and this could be a great way to bring craft supplies on the road with you. I found this example at 8Trends.com.
Denim scraps also work well as ties for garden plants, drawer liners, coasters (backed with felt), small coin pouches, and journal covers. Because denim frays attractively rather than looking ragged, even imperfect cuts tend to look intentional. There’s also a growing community of textile artists on Pinterest’s denim upcycle boards with ideas organized by skill level and material quantity.
Your old jeans are too valuable to throw away. If they’re still wearable, donate them to a local thrift store or trade them in at Madewell. If they’re worn out, recycle them through Blue Jeans Go Green — or cut them into something new. Use Earth911’s Recycling Search to find textile recycling drop-off spots near you.
Editor’s Note: Originally published by Wendy Gabriel on February 6, 2017, this article was updated in April 2026. Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock.com.
Earth911 inspirations. Print them, post them, share your desire to help people think of the planet first, every day.
Today’s quote is from primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall: “The greatest danger to our future is apathy.”
This poster was originally published on May 17, 2019.
The post Earth911 Inspiration: The Greatest Danger to Our Future Is Apathy appeared first on Earth911.
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