{"id":2197,"date":"2026-04-08T12:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T12:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rjbarrett.redirectme.net\/?p=2197"},"modified":"2026-04-08T12:57:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T12:57:00","slug":"earths-smells-are-disappearing-because-of-climate-change-and-its-a-vast-cultural-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rjbarrett.redirectme.net\/?p=2197","title":{"rendered":"Earth’s Smells Are Disappearing Because of Climate Change, and It’s a Vast Cultural Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A triple threat of pollution, extinction and warming temperatures is altering the way the planet smells. Scientists are only beginning to understand the stakes for humans<\/h2>\n
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Serena Jampel<\/p>\n

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More than 95 percent of the world\u2019s bergamot oil production is concentrated in Southern Italy\u2019s Calabria region. But harsh conditions driven by climate change threaten that supply.
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Take a whiff of the air\u2014chances are you\u2019re smelling something this very moment. The human nose can detect more than one trillion scents. If this article were scratch-and-sniff, I\u2019d be able to conjure the smell of old-growth forest and the ocean at daybreak, desert creosote after a rainfall or maybe even the aroma of a rosebush growing on an urban balcony.<\/p>\n

But as a matter of medium, I can\u2019t bring those scents to life on the page\u2014and that\u2019s a pity, as scientists say many odors are disappearing from the Earth. A triple threat of pollution, biodiversity loss and warming temperatures is changing the way the planet smells. Like endangered species, some scents might soon become extinct, and scientists are only beginning to understand the stakes for humans.<\/p>\n

The loss of certain odors may cause irreparable damage to an important element of intangible human heritage. \u201cThinking about smell more holistically, thinking about the objects, the places, the stories and the people associated with certain smells, helps us articulate our history as human beings,\u201d says Cecilia Bembibre, a scent preservation researcher at Odeuropa and at University College London. Without these scents, she adds, \u201cwe lose information, we lose meaning, we lose stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Blinded by vision\u2019<\/h2>\n

Smells are all around us, inseparable from the air we breathe and the spaces we inhabit. What we know as a scent is a collection of natural or artificial airborne chemicals released from objects as they vaporize in heat or slowly decay.<\/p>\n

Humans smell by inhaling these chemical components through our noses. Mucus dissolves the molecules and binds them to olfactory receptors on hair-like strands inside the nasal cavity. The receptors send neurological signals that our brain interprets as smell. In this way, \u201cThe olfactory system is the only part of the brain that actually is in direct contact with the outside world,\u201d says Lucia Jacobs, a psychologist specializing in smell at the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n

Smell is deeply connected to memory because of how closely situated odor signals are to the amygdala, which processes emotion, and the hippocampus, linked to memory. Odor-based memories can be nearly instantaneous, conjuring past experiences before the conscious mind registers the scent. Familiar smells can evoke a powerful nostalgia that enhances self-esteem, social connectedness and the feeling that one\u2019s life has deeper meaning. Research has shown that exposure to evocative scents even has beneficial physiological effects.<\/p>\n

But despite its prevalence in our lives, smell is often overlooked and undervalued. \u201cWe\u2019re embedded in these invisible olfactory environments that we tend, at least in the Western world, to not think about very much,\u201d says Gregory Bratman, a researcher in the Environment and Well-Being Lab at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n

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Did you know? How do you describe a smell?<\/p>\n

Research suggests that humans can describe smells well, but some languages make it harder to do so. In a 2014 study, English speakers struggled to name odors, while Indigenous Jahai speakers on the Malay Peninsula could name odors as easily as colors.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In an increasingly audio\/visual world\u2014made even more so by our reliance on screens and disconnection from the outdoors\u2014smell may not often be top of mind. A 2022 study found that over a quarter of college students surveyed would rather give up their sense of smell than their phone. So, as climate change and biodiversity loss threaten natural scents, thereby threatening both health and heritage, many people may not even notice. \u201cHumans are blinded by vision,\u201d says Jacobs.<\/p>\n

Climate change is altering smell<\/h2>\n

Whether or not we pay attention to the world\u2019s \u201cscentscape,\u201d heat and pollution are causing it to shift. As temperatures rise, man-made substances release more scent molecules, and biodiversity loss due to climate change threatens the plants that scent the environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you go to a forest, you have a given environment and temperature. If that temperature goes a little bit high, you change the profile of the chemical components in the air,\u201d since temperature can affect the amount of smell-carrying gas particles released from substances, explains Idelfonso Nogueira, a chemical engineer who leads the SCENTinel Project to preserve olfactory landscapes. \u201cAnd therefore, you change the perception of how the forest smells.\u201d<\/p>\n

That effect extends beyond forests. Snow\u2014already threatened by a warming climate\u2014absorbs different chemicals from the atmosphere as temperatures rise, which alters its cold-clean scent. Warmer conditions can intensify odors, leading the snow to grow more pungent and potentially accumulate more pollutants.<\/p>\n

Human-designed structures like asphalt roads and homes can off-gas more volatile organic compounds like formaldehyde and benzene in the heat. \u201cIf the temperature is higher and the molecules move faster, you\u2019re more likely to smell things from materials,\u201d says Jieling Xiao, a researcher in architecture and sensory environments at Birmingham City University in England. Cooking fumes from restaurants and rotting trash contribute disruptive smells that can affect wildlife, she adds.<\/p>\n

Climate change is also hastening the loss of biodiversity, threatening to erase certain smells entirely. When plants disappear, their scents become more difficult to produce. Sandalwood, vanilla, bergamot, lavender and hundreds of thousands of other plants are threatened by changing environments.<\/p>\n

Frankincense, the spicy-smelling tree resin featured in religious ceremonies for millennia, is also disappearing from the wild. Forest fragmentation, overharvesting and climate change all pose a threat to the Boswellia<\/em> trees that produce the resin. The ancient plants demonstrate how some scents are linked to cultural heritage\u2014frankincense is mentioned in the Bible as a gift to the baby Jesus. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a smell, it\u2019s 3,000 years of history that we lose,\u201d says Bembibre of Odeuropa.<\/p>\n

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Perfumed water, flowers and brooms prepared for a ritual including a ceremonial washing of steps at the Church of Our Lord of Bonfim in Bahia, Brazil.<\/p>\n

Luana Queiroz, Bruno Rodrigues \/ SCENTINEL Project<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Likewise, Nogueira\u2019s team at SCENTinel studied Yoruba scent traditions among practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions. His team found that smell is particularly important in rituals like Lavagem do Bonfim<\/em>, a washing ceremony involving perfumed flowers and water. This ritual and others took root in Brazil as enslaved people and their descendants carried on ancestral African traditions despite severe oppression. \u201cThe element that survived this very sad history was specifically smell,\u201d Nogueira says, \u201cand now these smells are endangered by climate change because [communities] are not going to have access to the ingredients to produce that last remnant of cultural expression.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2022 study reported that Indigenous communities in Peru noticed a change in the smell of the Amazon River due to industrial pollution and illegal resource extraction. Over generations, communities became desensitized to increasingly putrid river stenches, a sign of broader ecosystem degradation. At the same time, in some Amazonian belief systems, declining water quality and its unpleasant odors will lead to the dispersal of the river\u2019s spiritual entities. The damage to the scentscape could result in harm to both health and spiritual practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though we have other assets endangered by climate change, like food access, there is also an element of cultural identity, cultural survival, history,\u201d Nogueira says. \u201cIf we don\u2019t look at it, we lose all the richness behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Go out and smell woods\u2019<\/h2>\n
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Research suggests that spending time among natural smells, inhaling compounds from forests, can have benefits for the body and mind.<\/p>\n

Patrick Pleul \/ picture alliance via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scientists are only beginning to understand how the loss of smell affects human well-being. Research suggests that anthropogenic activity that damages or destroys natural scent environments is a detriment to human health and happiness. On top of that, it could reduce a person\u2019s capacity to smell at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncreased pollution, increased ozone, et cetera, actually is causing damage to the peripheral olfactory system and our ability to smell,\u201d says Rachel Herz, a cognitive neuroscientist with a focus on smell. Studies show that people living in highly polluted areas have a reduced ability to discern smells, and the least well-off urban areas tend to have the worst air pollution. Who gets to smell what and to what effect, Herz explains, is another manifestation of urban inequity.<\/p>\n

A world without smells would be a more depressing place\u2014literally. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, loss of smell\u2014also known as anosmia\u2014has been growing in prominence. In a survey of 322 people who lost their sense of smell and\/or taste from Covid, 56 percent reported a decline in overall quality of life and 43 percent reported depression linked to that sensory loss.<\/p>\n

Conversely, the benefits of smell\u2014particularly natural smells\u2014are broad-reaching. A recent pilot study found a promising link between sniffing the aromas of nature and improved well-being. The Japanese traditional practice of Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, has long demonstrated an understanding of the physical and medicinal benefits of spending time among natural smells. Substances called phytoncides, released from trees and inhaled by humans through the nose, may decrease stress, boost immune function and enhance relaxation.<\/p>\n

Scientists working on olfaction and well-being note that common \u201cwellness\u201d trends often miss the potential health benefits of smell. \u201cIf you read blogs, life hacking, a lot of people are talking about walking in nature, touching grass. What we\u2019re saying is, don\u2019t just touch it, smell it,\u201d says Jacobs. \u201cGo out and smell woods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the individual, Nogueira\u2019s work with SCENTinel has demonstrated that connecting with ancestral and traditional smells is an important way of sustaining community and forming collective identity. Scent has also been linked to family cohesion and belonging.<\/p>\n

Save our smells<\/h2>\n
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A researcher extracts the smell of an old book at the Heritage Science Lab at University College London.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Hmaghoub<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some of climate change\u2019s effects on smells are likely irrevocable. And because scientific research is trailing behind the rate of change, \u201cWe don\u2019t know what we\u2019re losing,\u201d Jacobs says. She and some of her collaborators have been discussing hosting a \u201cfestival of lost odors\u201d to bring together artists, scientists and Indigenous communities to raise a stink about the importance of smells.<\/p>\n

Beyond academia, the connection between climate change and smells is not going unnoticed. O Botic\u00e1rio, a Brazilian perfume brand, released a line of perfumes that capture the scents of endangered ecosystems. Called Extinto, the collection includes re-engineered olfactory renderings of the now-polluted Guanabara Bay of Rio de Janeiro, plastic-laden mangrove forests in India and critically threatened Malagasy vanilla. Not for commercial sale, the perfumes were designed as a warning, representing the scents of natural places before they were polluted by human activity.<\/p>\n

When scents are lost or inaccessible, Bembibre\u2019s team at UCL works with perfumers and chemists to reconstruct them\u2014recently, they reproduced the smell of potpourri from the 1750s. There is historical value to the preservation of smells. \u201cWe are immersed in this smelly environment, and we are losing them,\u201d she says. \u201cThe way we interact with [smells] says a lot about our way of life and who we are and how we live.\u201d<\/p>\n

With its connection to memory and emotion, smell might be able to viscerally convey the urgency of addressing climate change, experts say. At SCENTinel, Nogueira and his colleagues are engineering artificial intelligence models that can chemically re-create the smells of the past and generate the projected scentscape of the future. The models predict the molecular makeup of certain environments, creating \u201crecipes\u201d for smells that can then be created in the lab. Nogueira hopes that sharing these efforts will induce emotional connections that raise awareness about the world\u2019s diminishing smells, bring about policy changes and \u201cdrive our society toward a constructive future instead of destructive future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we could represent, for example, a Nordic forest smell or the Arctic smell now or in the past, people could perceive the difference in how climate change affects the smellscape in that specific area. I think that can be very impactful,\u201d he says. While images of the ongoing climate crisis can be effective, Nogueira explains, \u201csmell is playing with our emotions more directly.\u201d<\/p>\n

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