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Climate
Intense Sandstorm in Iraq Grounds Flights and Fills Emergency Rooms
‘Shock to the system’: farmers hit by Trump’s tariffs and cuts say they need another bailout
With extreme weather and Trump’s looming trade war, US farmers are reeling and resigned to needing another bailout
Farmers across the United States say they could face financial ruin – unless there is a huge taxpayer funded bail out to compensate for losses generated by Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts and chaotic tariffs.
Small- and medium-sized farms were already struggling amid worsening climate shocks and volatile commodities markets, on top of being squeezed by large corporations that dominate the supply chain.
Continue reading...RFK Jr urged to release nearly $400m allocated to help families combat heat
As part of Trump’s administrations ‘efficiency’ drive, staff running decades old program for energy assistance laid off
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), is facing new demands to release almost $400m allocated by Congress to help low-income US families keep the air conditioning on this summer.
The funds are under threat after the staff running a decades old program were fired – as part of the Trump administration’s so-called ‘efficiency’ drive.
Continue reading...¿Cuánto durará intacto el ‘fin del mundo’?
Book Review: ‘What’s Left,’ by Malcolm Harris
A Danish Museum Examines Our Fascination With the Ocean
In Argentina, a Boom in Antarctic Cruises Is Straining the ‘End of the World’
Deadly floods and storms affected more than 400,000 people in Europe in 2024
European State of the Climate report ‘lays bare’ impact of fossil fuels on continent during its hottest 12 months on record
The home-wrecking storms and floods that swept Europe last year affected 413,000 people, a report has found, as fossil fuel pollution forced the continent to suffer through its hottest year on record.
Dramatic scenes of cars piled up on inundated streets and bridges being ripped away by raging torrents were seen around the continent in 2024, with “high” floods on 30% of the European river network and 12% crossing the “severe” flood threshold, according to the European State of the Climate report.
Continue reading...Climate crisis has tripled length of deadly ocean heatwaves, study finds
Hotter seas supercharge storms and destroy critical ecosystems such as kelp forests and coral reefs
The climate crisis has tripled the length of ocean heatwaves, a study has found, supercharging deadly storms and destroying critical ecosystems such as kelp forests and coral reefs.
Half of the marine heatwaves since 2000 would not have happened without global heating, which is caused by burning fossil fuels. The heatwaves have not only become more frequent but also more intense: 1C warmer on average, but much hotter in some places, the scientists said.
Continue reading...To Fight Federal Job Cuts, Energy Experts and States Try a New Argument
Trump Wants to Reverse Coal’s Long Decline. It Won’t be Easy.
Poof! There Goes America’s Competitive Advantage in a Warming World
The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them
The movement for corporate city states cannot believe its good luck. For years, it has been pushing the extreme notion that wealthy, tax-averse people should up and start their own high-tech fiefdoms, whether new countries on artificial islands in international waters (“seasteading”) or pro-business “freedom cities” such as Próspera, a glorified gated community combined with a wild west med spa on a Honduran island.
Yet despite backing from the heavy-hitter venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, their extreme libertarian dreams kept bogging down: it turns out most self-respecting rich people don’t actually want to live on floating oil rigs, even if it means lower taxes, and while Próspera might be nice for a holiday and some body “upgrades”, its extra-national status is currently being challenged in court.
Continue reading...What I’ve learned after 40 years as the Observer’s science editor
Almost as amazing as the knowledge we have gained in the past four decades is the fact that some people continue to deny the damage we are doing to our world
Earlier this year I received an email from a reader asking background questions about an article I had written more than four decades ago. Given the time gap, my recollection was hazy. To be honest, it was almost non-existent. So I was intrigued – and then astonished when I read the feature.
I had written about the British glaciologist John Mercer, author of a 1978 Nature paper in which he warned that continuing increases in fossil fuel consumption would cause amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide to soar. Global temperatures could rise by 2C by the mid-21st century, causing major ice loss at the poles and threatening a 5-metre rise in sea levels, he warned.
Continue reading...Bees Are Under Threat from Climate Change, the Trade War and Doge
Prepping for War With Russia on the Ice and Snow
Seeing Australia’s beloved gumtrees dying makes my insides knot. If they can’t survive, how can we? | Jess Harwood
Even the hardy eucalypts are finding their limits as we experience more frequent bushfires, heatwaves and droughts
- Explore the series – Last chance: the extinction crisis being ignored this election
- Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email
Last week I went to Adelaide to see a man about a tree. The man was Dr Dean Nicolle and the tree was actually 10,000 eucalypt trees and mallees, of over 800 species, which Dean has been planting on a block of land south of Adelaide since 1993.
Dean’s passion for eucalypts is incredible. It makes me realise that so much conservation happens purely because someone is just absolutely captivated by something. And thank goodness Dean is, because his love for the eucalypt made the Currency Creek Arboretum, which is designed to bring together all of Australia’s eucalypt species in one place for research.
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