Mercury pollution — nothing to worry about if I don’t live in the rural Northeast and don’t eat tons of fish, right?

Guess again, says a new report done by the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) in conjunction with The Nature Conservancy. The report, “Hidden Risk,” details the wide spread and deep impacts of mercury pollution in terrestrial nature — particularly on animals such as songbirds and bats.

A new study in the journal Natural Hazards co-authored by Conservancy fellow Christine Shepard (left) takes a look at how people and property on the southern shores of Long Island might be affected with an increase in sea levels about as high as an English Springer Spaniel is tall. This scenario suggests 73 percent more property losses from a mid-sized hurricane — and this is a conservative estimate of what may lie ahead. Damages per property rises with the depth of water, but mapping future sea levels can help people to prepare.

Seas are already changing parts of Florida’s coast, and other low-lying regions.

Coral reefs are in big trouble worldwide — and that’s not just bad news for snorkelers. It could mean death instead of life for millions of people … maybe even you.

You will read Jonathan Franzen’s new novel in great gulps, amazed at how it keeps you breathlessly obsessed with this venal, grasping, irritating, and very typical middle-class American family.