Climate

The Oklahoman brought a snowball to the Senate floor in 2015 to prove humans couldn’t change the climate

Republican former senator James Inhofe, a climate denier who once brought a snowball to the chamber floor in a stunt attempting to disprove global warming, died on Tuesday at the age of 89.

Inhofe resigned as senator for Oklahoma in January 2023, suffering long-term effects of Covid-19. Elected in 1994, his time as the state’s longest-serving senator was notable for his ultra-conservative positions on numerous issues, including calling the climate emergency “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”.

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Climate change and widely varied state regulations could mean you’re paying too much or far too little to insure your home.

From climate crisis being a crime story to presenting basic weather news in the context of climate change, here are some lessons from journalists

Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope of Covering Climate Now (CCNow) hail the winners of their organization’s annual global climate journalism awards, and here describe some lessons they have taken from the more than 1,250 entries.

Mark Hertsgaard is executive director and co-founder of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration committed to more and better coverage of the climate story, and the Nation magazine’s environment correspondent

Kyle Pope is executive director of strategic initiatives and co-founder of Covering Climate Now, and a former editor and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review

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Key Largo tree cactus no longer growing naturally in US thanks to salt water inundation and soil depletion

Scientists in Florida have recorded what they say is the first local extinction of a species caused by sea-level rise.

The climate emergency has killed off the Key Largo tree cactus growing naturally in the US through salt water inundation and soil depletion from hurricanes, according to researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History, and Miami’s Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.

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Warning after intensification of storm aided by unusually hot ocean waters in much of Beryl’s path

Hurricane Beryl, which slammed into Texas on Monday after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean, was supercharged by “absolutely crazy” ocean temperatures that are likely to fuel further violent storms in the coming months, scientists have warned.

Beryl left more than 2m people without power after making landfall near Houston as a category one storm, after having rampaged through the Caribbean as a category 5 hurricane, with wind speeds reaching 165mph, killing 11 people.

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In tiny Wymore, Neb., a sleek new battery-powered school bus became a Rorschach test for the future.

Report says member states poured $1.34tn into their militaries last year – an increase of $126bn from 2022

As leaders from member countries gather to mark the 75th anniversary of Nato in Washington DC, researchers are warning that their military budgets are eroding the climate, producing an estimated 233m metric tonnes of greenhouse gas, more planet-heating pollution than some entire countries.

“Our research shows that military spending increases greenhouse gas emissions, diverts critical finance from climate action, and consolidates an arms trade that fuels instability during climate breakdown,” says a new report from three international research and advocacy groups, the UK’s Transnational Institute and Tipping Point North South, and the Netherlands’ Stop Wapenhandel.

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Blackened trees, dead animals and scorched earth – early wildfires have already devastated Brazil’s Pantanal and local people worry they may lose the battle to save them

Perched atop blackened trees, howler monkeys survey the ashes around them. A flock of rheas treads, disoriented, in search of water. The skeletons of alligators lie lifeless and charred.

The Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland and one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, is on fire. Huge stretches of land resemble the aftermath of a battle, with thick green shrubbery now a carpet of white ash, and chunks of debris falling from the sky.

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After thousands of sequoias were destroyed by extreme wildfires, tribes are conducting cultural burns.

It’s a hot topic for scientists all over the world

• See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here

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Climate change is driving rates higher, but not always in areas with the greatest risk.

Insurance prices are surging unevenly across the country. How does your county compare?

Man, 53, and woman, 74, killed by fallen trees and third person drowns amid howling winds and torrential rain

Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall in south-east Texas on Monday with howling winds and torrential rains, causing the deaths of at least three people, closing oil ports, and knocking out power to more than 2.5 million homes and businesses.

Before making landfall in Texas, the storm had already carved a path through the Caribbean as a category 5 hurricane, where it killed 11 people. It continued on to Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula as a category 2, temporarily dropped in intensity to a tropical storm but again strengthened to a hurricane over the weekend.

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More than 146 million Americans under extreme heat alerts as dangerous weather fuels outbreak of new wildfires

A fierce heatwave has shattered temperature records across the US west and has been tied to at least four deaths in Oregon, with more heat on the way as dangerous weather fueled the outbreak of new wildfires.

Oregon faced triple-digit temperatures and saw several records toppled over the weekend, including in Salem, where on Sunday it hit 103F (39.4C), topping the 99F (37.2C) mark set in 1960. Authorities in Multnomah county – home to Portland, where temperatures broke daily records over the weekend – said they were investigating four suspected deaths tied to the heatwave.

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Temperature records have been shattered from California and Nevada to North Carolina in the last few days, and relief is still days away, forecasters say.

July has brought a record-breaking hurricane, early-season wildfires and triple-digit temperatures. Judson Jones, a meteorologist and reporter, cleared up the connections between the events.

More than 100 million years ago, scientists say, warming seas and reduced oxygen may have sent some sharks higher into the water column, where they evolved to be fierce and hungry.

Climate change and contaminated water have combined to create an epidemic of kidney disease.

The clean-energy revolution is going to fail if Congress doesn’t cut red tape.

Laura Davy, who travelled from Tasmania to take part in a protest at a coal terminal, will appeal prison sentence

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A 21-year-old woman who secured herself to a piece of machinery during a climate protest at a Newcastle coal terminal has been sentenced to three months in prison.

The climate protest, which is now in its 14th day and has involved daily actions, was organised by Blockade Australia to call for a change to the economic and political system to achieve meaningful climate action.

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