Climate

Is that good? What does that even mean?

• Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published
• Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints

Continue reading...

Consumption of world’s wealthiest people also making it increasingly difficult to limit global heating to 1.5C

The high carbon emissions of the world’s richest 1% are worsening hunger, poverty and excess deaths, a report has found.

Owing to luxury yachts, private jets and investments in polluting industries, the consumption of the world’s wealthiest people is also making it increasingly difficult to limit global heating to 1.5C.

Continue reading...

Pledge signed by scientists from nine countries reflects concerns that offsets generated from forest-related projects may not have reduced emissions

Carbon offsets used by corporations around the world to lower their reportable greenhouse gas emissions are “ineffectual” and “hindering the energy transition”, according to more than 60 leading climate change scientists.

A pledge signed by scientists from nine countries, including the UK, US and Australia, said the “only path that can prevent further escalation of climate impacts” was “real zero” and not “net zero”.

Continue reading...

Legions of young people are getting organised, skilling up, raising their voices and placing their bodies in the path of those who profit from our addiction

Not long before the Nazis murdered him, the Lutheran pastor and resister Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that “the ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children”.

That moral challenge is timeless. But with the climate emergency upon us, it has an unsettling new edge, and with that in mind, I’ve been preoccupied lately by the underappreciated power of solidarity.

Continue reading...

Here’s the story of Squilla, a rare North Atlantic right whale mother, and her firstborn. To help their species continue, they’d have to navigate an increasingly dangerous ocean.

Museum and gallery shows in Seattle, New York, England and beyond are engaging visitors’ hearts and minds through all of their senses.

Climate Change Committee advised Ed Miliband to cut level by 81% but activists want bigger promises

Climate campaigners have urged ministers to make steeper cuts in the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions after the government’s statutory adviser on the climate gave its verdict on new targets.

The Climate Change Committee, which advises the government, has written to Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, to advise cuts of 81% in the UK’s emissions, compared with 1990 levels, by 2035, if emissions from aviation and shipping are excluded.

Continue reading...

Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, a total blackout in Cuba, tributes to Liam Payne and the US election: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Continue reading...

The body’s cooling defenses fail at lower “wet bulb” temperatures than scientists had estimated.

Lack of time, difficulties with scientific rigour, an uninterested public … television meteorologists open up about why they’re so quiet about the reasons for extreme conditions

Why do TV and radio forecasts rarely contextualise extreme weather events in terms of the climate crisis? After all, the latest data suggests Britain is getting hotter, wetter and stormier. The number of “very hot days” of 30C or more, according to the Met Office’s latest climate report, has trebled over the last few decades. Last year was the second warmest on record since 1884, with only 2022 warmer.

“If you believe, as I do, that climate change is the most fundamental challenge facing humanity,” says Sunil Amrith, history professor at Yale’s School of Environment, and author of the forthcoming book The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Past 500 Years, “any contribution to making its causes and effects more widely known will have a role to play”.

Continue reading...

Families cope as experts say learning disruptions caused by hurricane can set children back for years

When Elizabeth Steere’s two sons were little, the family watched The Wizard of Oz and its famous tornado scene that whips Dorothy through the air.

Steere, who lives in Asheville, North Carolina, assured her kids, now 11 and 13, not to worry. “I remember saying, very glibly, ‘That’s not something you guys have to worry about,’” Steele recalled.

Continue reading...

Kevin Jordan and two other claimants argued the country’s climate adaptation plans were insufficient and unlawful

An East Anglian man who lost his home to coastal erosion has lost his high court challenge against the government’s climate adaptation plans.

Kevin Jordan was one of three claimants who argued the government’s plans for adapting to the existing and predicted impacts of climate change, known as the National Adaptation Programme 3 (NAP3), were insufficient and unlawful.

Continue reading...

A third of state residents use private wells, and about four out of 10 wells tested after Hurricane Helene weren’t safe, highlighting the risks of extreme weather for millions of Americans.

Environmentalists and one of the world’s biggest oil companies support Washington State’s cap on carbon. But voters are deciding whether to repeal the law amid concerns about energy costs.

Museums, galleries and other art institutions are looking for measures to reduce their environmental footprints.

Researchers criticised and gaslighted after sharing fears with Guardian say acknowledging feelings is critical to their work

Climate scientists who were mocked and gaslighted after speaking up about their fears for the future have said acknowledging strong emotions is vital to their work.

The researchers said these feelings should not be suppressed in an attempt to reach supposed objectivity. Seeing climate experts’ fears and opinions about the climate crisis as irrelevant suggests science is separate from society and ultimately weakens it, they said.

Continue reading...

Subtle temperature difference between ‘ocean skin’ and water beneath found to drive more CO2 absorption

A sliver of cool surface water less than 2mm deep helps oceans absorb carbon dioxide, a British-led team of scientists has established after months of voyages across the Atlantic painstakingly measuring gas and temperature levels.

The subtle difference in temperature between the “ocean skin” and the layer of water beneath it creates an interface that leads to more CO2 being taken in, the scientists observed.

Continue reading...

The Siberian republic of Sakha in the Russian far east is one the coldest inhabited regions in the world. The photojournalist Natalya Saprunova spent almost two months documenting the daily lives of the people in the community of Oymyakon

Oymyakon in north-east Siberia is the coldest permanently inhabited place in the world. The village is located at the “Pole of Cold” on the left bank of the Indigirka River in Sakha, a republic in Russia’s far east, and is connected to other rural localities such as Khara-Tumul and Bereg-Yurdya, Tomtor, Yuchyugey and Aeroport, which gets its name from the local airport. The area sits on the Oymyakon plateau and has about 2,000 inhabitants.

A man rides a snowmobile through Oymyakon.

Continue reading...

With electric car demand soaring, peak oil may be near – and not a moment too soon for the climate

Oil states and companies such as BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are intent on exploiting new oilfields despite the clear evidence that the world is rapidly cruising through its carbon budget.

However, investors should perhaps note that the International Energy Agency (IEA) is forecasting that peak oil is at hand. In other words, supply will soon outstrip demand, making investment in new oilfields unlikely to be profitable.

Continue reading...

Climate change, civil conflict and growing resistance to insecticides and treatments are all contributing to an alarming spread of cases.