Quick Take — The invasion of poisonous pufferfish in Greece

A fish capable of snapping soft drink cans in half is destroying nets and livelihoods.

For Greek small-scale fishermen, the invasion of pufferfish represents yet another blow to a sector already under severe strain from rising costs, depleted fish stocks, warming seas and decades of overfishing.

“The pufferfish is responsible for 80 per cent of the damage to the sea”… “The sea is dead and dying,” say the fishermen.

Below: the bite mark of a pufferfish, shown in the second image taken from Wikipedia.

The Invasion of Alien Species and Other ‘Stories’ from the Sea

The alien does not come from some distant planet, but simply from the other side of the world. From Japan, for example, or from Egypt, the Atlantic, or sometimes from nearby Greece. And in Italian waters — where everything is already in place and the conditions are ideally warm — more often than not it decides to stay for good: the problem is the impact it could have, especially in the long term, on both biodiversity and our lives

Quick Take — France: drought causes a ‘plunge’ in crop production: ‘even with irrigation, the young plants did not survive’

Cauliflower, peas and salad crops are suffering from a lack of water and successive heatwaves. The sector is describing the situation as a ‘disaster’, particularly across the whole of western France, whilst the ability to sow crops for subsequent seasons is also being hampered.

Vegetables are not the only crops affected: the maize harvest is also expected to fall sharply (by 30 per cent), whilst poultry farms were hit hard by high mortality rates during the heatwave at the end of June…  milk production, one of the sectors hardest hit by climate change this year, according to the Minister for Agriculture…

Below: a scorched maize cob in Albiate

Quick Take — Here’s how high temperatures threaten olive trees, as well as the quality and quantity of the oil

… The fruit yield decreases and there is a shortage of oil

The first effect of excessive heat is evident in the fruit. When temperatures consistently exceed 25°C during the oil-accumulation phase – that is, between 60 and 120 days after flowering – the consequences are plain for all to see. The dry weight of the fruit decreases, the growth phase is shortened and the daily growth rate falls. In practice, the fruits ripen earlier but are smaller and lighter…

The heat also alters the ratio of pulp to stone, a ‘dilution’ effect that further reduces the oil concentration. In practice, the plant invests more energy in wood growth than in the accumulation of fatty substances, and this results in fruit with less oil and of lower quality.

The quality of the oil depends primarily on its fatty acid profile, and this is where the heat really takes its toll. Oleic acid, which should account for between 55 and 83 per cent of the oil to be considered high-quality extra virgin, decreases by 0.7 per cent for every additional degree of temperature. At the same time, palmitic and linoleic acids increase; in some hot regions of the world, these levels even exceed the limits set by the International Olive Council.

But the biggest surprise comes from studies on daily temperature trends. It is not so much the midday heat that makes the difference, but the minimum night-time temperature and the daily temperature range. This means that warm nights are particularly harmful, perhaps because they affect enzymatic processes that take place in the dark…

Quick Take — Heatwaves: sales at risk

In France, sales of barbecue products have fallen – by 30 per cent – with even minced meat (viande hachée) down by 10 per cent, alongside chocolate, sugar, stock, tea, sausages, fresh pizzas, coffee and spreads.

Uniqlo – a Japanese clothing group with a presence in various countries around the world – has stated that it has had to close some of its shops due to the extreme heat.

It would be interesting to have reports and data for our country.

Quick Take — Water and the PNRR

€4.38 billion has been earmarked for water and land protection, and for the management of water resources. This framework covers the many aspects of the system that remain critical: infrastructure, reducing network leaks, and investment in the agricultural irrigation system to safeguard crops through the Reservoir Plan.

This Plan was proposed by Coldiretti toconserve water and combat hydrogeological instability in the face of climate change, which over the last ten years has caused €14 billion worth of damage to agricultural production and infrastructure . Rinnovabili.it

Five years on, absolutely nothing more is known about this Plan.

Drafted on 3 July 2021, updated on 23 June 2026

Quick Take — US: inflation at 4.2%

Consumer prices rose by 4.2% in May compared with a year earlier, the US Department of Labour said on Wednesday, accelerating from 3.8% the previous month.

The figures highlighted by Andrea Montanino in the *Corriere della Sera* on 8 June 2026 arenoteworthy: the price of a gallon of petrol (= 4 litres) in the US rose from $2.91 (in February) to $4.43 in June, and the price of beef, partly due to climate change, has risen by 15% over the past year.

Today’s Wall Street Journal adds to this the AI boom, which will create a bottleneck for many supplies (for example: in IT, many components and equipment are no longer available except with long waiting lists and sky-high prices).

Then there is plastic, which is everywhere: from nappies to household and beauty products.

Drafted on 10 June, updated on 15 June 2026

Quick Take — Andrea Illy: the disappearance of 50 per cent coffee lands is an increasingly concrete prospect

“Experts already said ten years ago that 50 per cent of the world’s coffee-growing land would be gone, due to climate change, and today this prospect is increasingly real.

Andrea Illy, president of illycaffè, thus recalled a prediction made over a decade ago during an interview in Rome at the headquarters of the Foreign Press Association in Italy, conducted by Bernard Bedarida in front of an audience of correspondents from international newspapers.

For Illy, the climate issue is no longer a distant scenario, but a factor that directly affects the future availability of coffee.

Quick Take — The Court of Auditors investigates funds allocated to the Mattei Plan

The Court of Auditors is investigating the Italian Climate Fund, the EUR 4.4 billion vehicle to be used for climate change projects in countries with emerging economies..

According to IrpiMedia‘s reconstruction, the Court is investigating the government’s decision to shift a large part of the Fund’s resources (70%, i.e. around 3 billion) to the Mattei Plan, the initiative that according to the government will change relations between Italy and Africa, transforming the continent from a beneficiary of humanitarian aid to a new trading partner…

Among the projects that have benefited from the new criteria approved in March 2024 is one by Eni in Kenya that aims to create a supply chain for the production of biofuels..

In its reply to the Court of Auditors, the Presidency of the Council has in fact included an annex showing that the eligibility criteria for Fund interventions have been modified..

Below : a post by Coldiretti on the participation of Bonifiche Ferraresi in the Mattei Plan