The other day I wrote an article about scientific catastrophising. In How to Survive the Next 100 Years: Lessons from Nature I’ve also delved into how news algorithms amplifyAmplification (of nutrients and energy). Animals consume plants and other animals and in doing so, reintroduce important energy-containing nutrients back into the environment, at even higher concentrations and in patches. Amplification of energy is driven by migration and happens at every scale, from insects moving daily in and out of your vegetable patch, to African wildebeest herds and the seasonal More catastrophe; are often chronically out of data; and that consuming a more balanced diet of information is much better for us. It’s a simple fact that animals behave in surprising ways. What we digest online is mostly there to grab our attention and AI logic amplifies what the internet has already chosen as fact. But this is built around fear and is far from correct. We’re not being exposed to the reality we deserve to hear.
Here’s a great example. I recently searched Google for ‘NSW scientist find animals moving to hotter locations’ and the top article is titled ‘Hotter temperatures could spark global species displacement’. This is from a 2023 paper in Nature from the Australian National University. The problem with that paper is that it used known distributions of species. It doesn’t account for the inherent adaptability of animals.
What I was really searching for was a very recent paper, Osmolovsky et al (2025), from the University of New South Wales [1], which establishes that more than a third of species are doing the opposite of what scientists thought. This shouldn’t come as any surprise at all. Animals are inherently adaptable.
A third of animals are moving into hotter climes
The aforementioned paper identifies that current forecasts are based on temperature alone and that this single variable isn’t enough. Instead, they correctly surmise that all kinds of interactions can make previously unsuitable habitatsWhat is habitat for animals and people? Habitat, hence the word "habitable" describes the natural surroundings in which any animal (or human) lives, that houses basic needs, such as food and shelter. Vegetation, for example, is habitat for animals. On its own, habitat is not necessarily stable or sustainable, which is why it differs from an ecosystem. Habitat in disrepair More viable parts of a species’ range. The authors state:
Interactions frequently switch to positive interactions with increased environmental stress … [and] … climate change may contribute to the rewiring of ecological networks, such as changes in the hierarchy of competitive strength among species with different species becoming competitively dominant under certain environmental conditions
Such interactions are so complex we can’t possibly understand the entire system. Here’s just a fraction of the interactions between species in a small area, represented as a network diagram:
While this should already be obvious to anyone who observes or studies ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More, it’s not the predominant belief. Most conservationists believe animals are locked into the current way they behave. That staggering perception bias has led to most scientific investigation forecasting outright catastrophe. Like AI logic, such beliefs become entrenched. Beliefs are built on the same beliefs until they become folklore.
The first thing we have to accept is that we know little to nothing about how ecosystems work. We also can’t predict the future. Humanity’s life support has always been entirely held together by wildlife and it’s by the miracle of nature that we even exist. Despite our own efforts, half the world’s species are actually bouncing back.
Emperor Penguins and the Antarctic
For anyone who is suffering ecoanxiety, this recent evidence ought to provide a strong counterpoint to the type of rhetoric that recently appeared regarding Emperor Penguins I wrote about recently.
On that note, I since read the paper on Emperor Penguin population that underpinned the misleading opinions given by scientists to the ABC. While the results show an ‘average’ of 22% decline, the statistics also say −44.6 to +8.34%. Here is the graph showing the error bars. It’s important to represent the full set of evidence before jumping to an immediately catastrophic conclusion.
In other words, it’s within 95% likelihood that the population could go up a bit. Numbers also reflect spring attendance at the colony and that is an index of adult population. Numbers of animals have never been a good way to predict ecological function.
To do the calculation, they used satellite imagery to assume, quite accurately, the number of breeding birds present per pixel. But seabird colonies have another trick up their sleeve. Non-breeding recruitment is a huge factor in population dynamics. That is to say, for every adult breeding, there are other birds drifting around surviving, waiting for a chance to step in. Those animals are ‘on the spectrum’ in terms of their behaviour and abilities. That enables seabirds to have some inbuilt redundancy so when there are shifts in prey or conditions, other birds can come in and perform differently.
Saving animals and save our mental health
We still have to admit that Emperor Penguins appear to be in trouble. Yet there is more than a glimmer of optimism if you really understand their ecology and connectivity to other species. This is what Osmolovsky et al. (2025) was pointing out. What they didn’t say, was that it’s animals that create habitable ecosystems for people. For humans to survive and animals to be adaptable means relying on a wide mixture of associated species (like in the network diagram above). Penguins may not survive on their own but they might become resilient enough if they are connected to enough other creatures.
This way whole systems can reform around new climates quite quickly (3-5 years in many cases). It’s the same for humans as we depend on the same ecosystems. We must surround ourselves with abundant and diverse animal life in order to survive.
An equally surprising reason to be optimistic
With the general trend to acclimitisation rather than stagnation of animal populations we can be genuinely optimistic. We now know that maybe a third to half of all animals on Earth are currently increasing in number by adapting wonderfully. Perhaps that number would be even higher if we re-enabled biodiversityWhat is the definition of biodiversity? When we ask, what is the definition of biodiversity? It depends on what we want to do with it. The term is widely and commonly misused, leading to significant misinterpretation of the importance of how animals function on Earth and why they matter a great deal, to human survival. Here I will try to More processes, especially in the places we live. Nevertheless, even under the immense pressure we have applied to nature, there is real evidence we have underestimated the power of animals to recover and restore our needs.
So while we must err on the side of caution for all species that appear to be declining, it’s also important to understand the inherent flexibility of wildlife and that they can behave in surprising ways too.
To read more, please buy a copy of How to Survive the Next 100 Years: Lessons from Nature. Available on Amazon and from all good bookstores, or buy a signed copy from me (Australia only).
“The perfect antidote to doom scrolling and feeling helpless in the face of seemingly unstoppable global events.”
– Dr Jen Bowden, Curtin University
“Required reading for that person whose life’s work or passion involves the environment, in any way. For them, it could be a game-changer.”
– Emma Young, WA Today, Book Fiend
- Inna Osmolovsky et al, Counterintuitive Range Shifts May Be Explained by Climate Induced Changes in Biotic Interactions, Global Change Biology (2025). DOI: 10.1111/gcb.70332
