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Climate
UK registers its hottest and sunniest spring on record
Met Office logs more than 650 hours of sunshine, 43% above seasonal average
The UK has registered its hottest and sunniest spring, prompting warnings that action is needed to tackle climate change.
Eight of the 10 warmest UK springs have occurred since the year 2000, and the three hottest have come since 2017.
Continue reading...‘We need new numbers’: Comedian David Cross cracks jokes to spread climate crisis awareness
The Emmy award winning comic teams up with renowed scientist Michael Oppenheimer for a new video campaign
David Cross is many things: a famed comic, an Emmy award winner, and a New York Times bestseller. But he is not a climate scientist.
That fact might make him the perfect person to communicate the urgency of global heating to mass audiences.
Continue reading...Key US weather monitoring offices understaffed as hurricane season starts
National Weather Service offices are reeling from job cuts and a hiring freeze imposed by Trump
More than a dozen National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices along the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico coast are understaffed as the US plunges into an expected active season for ruinous storms, data seen by the Guardian shows.
There is a lack of meteorologists in 15 of the regional weather service offices along the coastline from Texas to Florida, as well as in Puerto Rico – an area that takes the brunt of almost all hurricanes that hit the US. Several offices, including in Miami, Jacksonville, Puerto Rico and Houston, lack at least a third of all the meteorologists required to be fully staffed.
Continue reading...Which Cooking Oil Is Best for the Planet?
‘This is ground zero for Blatten’: the tiny Swiss village engulfed by a mountain
‘The memories preserved in countless books, photo albums, documentation – everything is gone,’ says village’s mayor
For weeks the weight had sat above the village, nine million tonnes of rock precariously resting on an ancient slab of ice. A chunk of Kleines Nesthorn mountain’s peak had crumbled, and its rubble hung over the silent, empty streets of Blatten, held back only by the glacier. The ice groaned beneath the pressure.
On Wednesday afternoon, in an instant, it gave way. The ice cracked, then crumbled. The entire mass descended into the valley below, obliterating the village that had been there for more than 800 years.
Continue reading...How the little-known ‘dark roof’ lobby may be making US cities hotter
As cities heat up, reflective roofs could lower energy bills and help the climate. But dark roofing manufacturers are waging a quiet campaign to block new rules
This story is co-published with Floodlight
It began with a lobbyist’s pitch.
Tennessee representative Rusty Grills says the lobbyist proposed a simple idea: repeal the state’s requirement for reflective roofs on many commercial buildings.
Continue reading...Climate Scientists Join 100-Hour Livestream to Protest Trump’s Cuts
Trump’s Proposed Budget Would Cut the Ecosystems Mission Area and Much of Its Work
Are there billions more people on earth than we thought? If so, it’s no bad thing | Jonathan Kennedy
A study suggests the global population has been undercounted – but we shouldn’t let the overpopulation alarmists win the argument
According to the UN, the world’s population stands at just over 8.2 billion. However, a recent study suggests the figure could be hundreds of millions or even billions higher. This news might sound terrifying, but it is important to remember that anxieties about overpopulation are rarely just about the numbers. They reflect power struggles over which lives matter, who is a burden or a threat and ultimately what the future should look like.
The world’s population reached 1 billion just after the turn of the 19th century. The number of people on the planet then began to grow exponentially, doubling to 2 billion by about 1925 and again to 4 billion about 50 years later. On 15 November 2022, the UN announced the birth of the eight billionth human.
Jonathan Kennedy teaches politics and global health at Queen Mary University of London, and is the author of Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History
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Continue reading...Only two European states have net zero military emissions target, data shows
Austria and Slovenia are exceptions in continent where just a third of militaries even know their carbon footprint
Revealed: Nato rearmament could increase emissions by 200m tonnes a year
Carbon footprint of Israel’s war on Gaza exceeds that of many entire countries
Just two of 30 European countries have set a date to stop their militaries from emitting planet-heating emissions, a Guardian analysis has found, raising concerns about the carbon cost of Europe’s coming rearmament wave.
Austria and Slovenia are the only countries whose defence ministries have committed to reaching net zero military emissions, according to an analysis of 30 European countries, with only about one-third having worked out the size of their carbon footprint.
Continue reading...‘Like touching climate change’: glaciers reveal records of the way the world was
Scientists drill for ice cores containing information on preindustrial pollutants, but they are in a race against time
Howling wind relentlessly shakes the white tent, pitched among mounds of snow at a height of 4,100m (13,450ft) on the Corbassière, an Alpine glacier situated on the northern slopes of Switzerland’s Grand Combin massif.
Inside are scientists from Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University and the institute of polar science at Italy’s national research council (CNR).
Continue reading...Alarmed by Trump Cuts, Scientists Are Talking Science. For 100 Hours.
A Court Debates Whether a Climate Lawsuit Threatens National Security
Energy Dept. Cancels $3.7 Billion for New Technologies to Lower Emissions
Flooding in Nigeria Flattens a Town, Killing at Least 56
Sussan Ley wants to keep the Coalition together – but caving on net zero won’t help her win back seats | Tom McIlroy
High-profile Nationals and powerful forces in business and media are pushing back against climate action, posing a test of credibility for the new Liberal leader
After another scrappy week for the faltering Coalition, Bridget McKenzie on Thursday called for the National party to stop talking about itself.
No sane observer of politics since the 3 May election could disagree, but the party’s Senate leader made the observation in an awkward setting: a Sky News interview.
Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email
Continue reading...Can you live without a car in the mountains? Yes, with planning and a few different bikes
Even in the foothills of the Italian Alps, cycling can be a practical alternative to driving, and more enjoyable, too
Living car-free in a big city is fairly common these days. Yes, it can mean some adaptation, but when so many things are on your doorstep it’s not such a big challenge. So how about car-free life in a remote Italian mountain village, with barely any public transport?
We have been living in rural Italy without a car for more than five years now. Even though we have always loved bicycles, the decision to sell our car wasn’t a particularly considered one.
Continue reading...How the US became the biggest military emitter and stopped everyone finding out
Academic Neta Crawford warns that if Donald Trump follows through on his threats of war, emissions will soar and the planet will pay the price
Carbon footprint of Israel’s war on Gaza exceeds that of many entire countries
Revealed: Nato rearmament could increase emissions by 200m tonnes a year
The climate impact of Donald Trump’s geopolitical ambitions could deepen planetary catastrophe, triggering a global military buildup that accelerates greenhouse gas emissions, a leading expert has warned.
The Pentagon – the US armed forces and Department of Defense (DoD) agencies – is the world’s largest institutional greenhouse gas emitter, accounting for at least 1% of total US emissions annually, according to analysis by Neta Crawford, co-founder of the Costs of War project at Brown University.
Continue reading...Carbon footprint of Israel’s war on Gaza exceeds that of many entire countries
Exclusive: Climate cost of war is more than than the combined 2023 emissions of Costa Rica and Estonia, study finds
How the US became the biggest military emitter and stopped everyone finding out
Revealed: Nato rearmament could increase emissions by 200m tonnes a year
The carbon footprint of the first 15 months of Israel’s war on Gaza will be greater than the annual planet-warming emissions of a hundred individual countries, exacerbating the global climate emergency on top of the huge civilian death toll, new research reveals.
A study shared exclusively with the Guardian found the long-term climate cost of destroying, clearing and rebuilding Gaza could top 31m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). This is more than the combined 2023 annual greenhouse gases emitted by Costa Rica and Estonia, yet there is no obligation for states to report military emissions to the UN climate body.
Over 99% of the almost 1.89m tCO2e estimated to have been generated between the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack and the temporary ceasefire in January 2025 is attributed to Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza.
Almost 30% of greenhouse gases generated in that period came from the US sending 50,000 tonnes of weapons and other military supplies to Israel, mostly on cargo planes and ships from stockpiles in Europe. Another 20% is attributed to Israeli aircraft reconnaissance and bombing missions, tanks and fuel from other military vehicles, as well as CO2 generated by manufacturing and exploding the bombs and artillery.
Solar had generated as much as a quarter of Gaza’s electricity, representing one of the world’s highest shares, but most panels, and the territory’s only power plant, have been damaged or destroyed. Gaza’s limited access to electricity now mostly relies on diesel-guzzling generators that emitted just over 130,000 tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or 7% of the total conflict emissions.
More than 40% of the total emissions were generated by the estimated 70,000 aid trucks Israel allowed into the Gaza Strip – which the UN has condemned as grossly insufficient to meet the basic humanitarian needs of 2.2m displaced and starving Palestinians.
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