Climate

Friends of the Earth says older people and young children are most at risk in heat-vulnerable neighbourhoods

Inadequate climate protections mean at least 6 million lives are at risk from extreme heat in England, an analysis has found.

A report by the campaign group Friends of the Earth found older people and young children were the most high-risk groups for heatwaves, with 1.7 million under-5s and 4.3 million people over 65 living in the most heat-vulnerable neighbourhoods in England.

Continue reading...

Ford, General Motors and other automakers are slowing investments in electric vehicles and doubling down on more profitable gasoline cars and trucks.

She played a crucial role in fixing the ozone hole, and has thoughts on climate change.

La mayor población de cocodrilos siameses nacida este siglo representa dos décadas de esfuerzos de conservación de comunidades locales, organizaciones no gubernamentales y gobierno por una especie al borde de la extinción.

Analysts are seeing promising signs from the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Disaster movies make for thrilling blockbusters. But the reality of a changing climate is slow-motion tragedy, broken bureaucracy and lingering tedium.

Si Donald Trump vuelve a la Casa Blanca, probablemente enfrentaría menos obstáculos legales y burocráticos para rehacer drásticamente la Agencia de Protección Ambiental.

Marathon Petroleum predecessor warned of potential for ‘social and economic calamities’ in decades-old publication

The corporate predecessor to America’s largest refiner of oil, Marathon Petroleum, explained in a company periodical nearly 50 years ago that global temperature rise potentially linked to “industrial expansion” could one day cause “widespread starvation and other social and economic calamities”.

This decades-old description of climate breakdown is from a 1977 issue of the magazine Marathon World and is attributed in the article by an unnamed author to several experts including a scientist working for a top US agency.

Continue reading...

It’s July! It should be all about picnics and ice-creams, not plastic rain ponchos. I have officially lost my joie de vivre

That’s it, I’m calling it: this is the worst summer ever. Despite the fact we are currently seeing a fleeting glimpse of sun, the weather has been notably dismal. The Met Office says it could be the coldest summer of the past 24 years. Last week, it started raining inside our bedroom as well as outside, and, after days and days of cold and wet weather, that felt like the final straw. This is my Sad girl summer. Having never before suffered from seasonal affective disorder, I have officially lost my joie de vivre. And I know I’m not alone. Moaning about the weather may be an Olympic sport for the British, but this feels different. During social interactions people seem too listless and despondent to even have a proper whinge. They just shake their heads, sadly, while staring at their shoes. This can’t go on. Can it?

Well, apparently it can, with some predictions saying we will be enduring this autumnal chill until, well, actual autumn. The thought of entering winter without having fully charged up on sunshine fills me with a looming sense of horror. Having grown up in the mountains of north Wales, I have an abnormally high tolerance for rain. I’m basically a bog witch comprised of 60% water and 40% lichen. I can spend days indoors and not get cabin fever. Saying that, wet Welsh weather is partly why I moved south. My dad, who is visiting at the moment, treats London as if it’s the Costa del Sol. Look at everyone eating outdoors, like Spaniards! But though the sun may be shining as I write this, we know the drill by now: it peeks out for just long enough to remind us that it exists, before retreating behind another heavy, grey cloud fecund with rain. Emergency-poncho-clad tourists haunt the streets like plasticky ghosts.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author

Continue reading...

A Westchester County suburb updated its law about tree removals from yards, upsetting tree advocates, who want stricter rules, and residents who don’t want to be told what to do.

Scientists say government’s approach to emissions cutting is ‘high risk’ and reliant on ‘immature technologies’

New Zealand’s ambitious plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050 is at risk of being derailed, as the government backslides on climate policies, new figures show.

In 2019, the Labour government passed landmark climate legislation, committing the nation to reducing its carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 and meeting its commitments under the Paris climate accords. It requires future governments to detail how New Zealand will meet its greenhouse gas targets on the way to a carbon-neutral future.

Continue reading...

A report by a government body that oversees efforts to reduce greenhouse gases will help underpin the Labour Party’s plans to accelerate renewable energy and other measures.

The largest population of the endangered Siamese crocodiles this century hatched in Cambodia, a big moment for the conservation of a wild species once on the brink of extinction.

Fourteen attorneys general petition federal emergency officials as millions in US under excessive heat advisories

Fourteen state attorneys general are urging the federal government to declare extreme heat and wildfire smoke major disasters. The petition comes as millions of people in the south and north-east face excessive heat advisories, and large swaths of the western US and Canada battle ongoing wildfires.

“The likelihood of high-severity extreme heat and wildfire smoke events is increasing due in part to climate change,” wrote the Arizona attorney general, Kris Mayes, in a letter submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday. “We urge Fema to update its regulations to prepare for this hotter, smokier future.”

Continue reading...

Air temperature is just one measure of how heat affects cities and people. See how high surface temperatures, which bring additional risks, can get.

Landlords have to keep tenants warm in the winter, but can leave them sweating in the summer. A city councilman wants to change that.

Democrats need their own Project 2025 — fast

The dated U.S. rail infrastructure is struggling to stay operational as climate change accelerates and intense heat waves, downpours and high winds become more frequent.

Labour government recognises ‘urgency of climate challenge’ but presents measures as way to also cut cost of living

• UK politics live – latest news updates

Planning changes, investment in infrastructure, a new national green energy company, a crackdown on water companies and more public transport – although Keir Starmer did not dwell on the green aspects of his legislative programme the environment was front and centre in nine bills that will have far-reaching effects.

In the words read by the king (though written by ministers), the new Labour government “recognises the urgency of the global climate challenge and the new job opportunities that can come from leading the development of the technologies of the future”. But importantly, these measures were presented as ways to reduce the cost of living, a key focus of Labour’s environmental commitments in the run-up to the general election.

Continue reading...

Regulators approve Meatly pet product, cultivated chicken made from growing cells

Lab-grown pet food is to hit UK shelves as Britain becomes the first country in Europe to approve cultivated meat.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have approved the product from the company Meatly.

Continue reading...