The Guardian Climate Change

Third of world’s ocean surface particularly vulnerable to threats driven by burning fossil fuel and deforestation, new research finds

The world’s oceans are facing a “triple threat” of extreme heating, a loss of oxygen and acidification, with extreme conditions becoming far more intense in recent decades and placing enormous stress upon the planet’s panoply of marine life, new research has found.

About a fifth of the world’s ocean surface is particularly vulnerable to the three threats hitting at once, spurred by human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, the study found. In the top 300 meters of affected ocean, these compound events now last three times longer and are six times more intense than they were in the early 1960s, the research states.

‘The webcams do not lie,’ says Annalisa Koeman, whose family has been operating a mountain lodge for decades

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Bookings have been slow ahead of the ski season at the mountain lodge in Thredbo that Annalisa Koeman’s parents built in the 1960s and have run ever since.

Last ski season started with some good snow falls “but it went downhill from there. It was a disastrous end. The ski lifts closed two weeks early,” says Koeman, managing supervisor at Kasees Apartments and Mountain Lodge.

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The disaster flick is riddled with inaccuracies, cliches and gusts of machismo. But with its global climate catastrophe, it feels more relevant than ever

In the winter of 2013, a breakdown in the polar vortex allowed freezing cold air to escape southwards towards the North American continent. As ice storms, tornadoes and blizzards swept across the US, Donald Trump tweeted. “I’m in Los Angeles and it’s freezing,” he wrote. “Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!”

It was all a little too reminiscent of Roland Emmerich’s disaster flick The Day After Tomorrow – which opens with US leaders dismissing scientific concerns about the loss of a huge chunk of the Antarctic ice shelf. The researchers are soon vindicated: within days, the melting ice sets off a chain of freak weather events, culminating in a global superstorm that plunges the entire northern hemisphere into a new ice age.

Band announces their carbon footprint after two years of touring is 59% lower than what was generated on their previous tour, thanks to some creative solutions

Coldplay has announced that they have reduced their touring carbon footprint by 59% compared with their previous world tour – via some creative methods that include kinetic dancefloors that allow dancing fans to generate electricity, recyclable LED wristbands and the band travelling by train.

On Monday the British band announced that they were “happy to report that direct CO2e emissions from the first two years of this tour are 59% less than our previous stadium tour (2016-17), on a show-by-show comparison”.

Emissions trading was supposed to save the planet. But fraudsters quickly learned how to rip the system off, making themselves spectacularly rich. Then some of the major players started turning on each other

• A longer version of this piece first appeared in The Atavist

A good scammer sees opportunity everywhere, including in their own downfall. In 2006, the police showed up at Gustav Daphne’s house in Beverly Hills. They had come once before, when a neighbour complained about his trash. Daphne happened to be swimming in his pool at the time, and because he is French, he came to the front door in a tiny little bathing suit. The police were appalled; they gave him a reprimand about storing his garbage more tidily and scurried away.

This time was different. The cops came straight into the house. There were a dozen of them, wearing bulletproof vests. They took him outside in handcuffs and put him in a car. Maybe he was paranoid, having built a multimillion-dollar empire on fraud and deceit, nurturing connections with international criminal rings, but at first he thought he was being kidnapped. When he saw the jail, he was relieved.

As a heatwave sweeps the country increasing demand for power, a new report says a more resilient network could also contribute $300m to the economy

A study by the UN children’s agency has found that developing resilient energy systems to keep the power on in health facilities in Pakistan could prevent more than 175,000 deaths in the country by 2030.

The study comes as Pakistan is experiencing a blistering heatwave that has overstretched an already poor healthcare system. Last week, temperatures in various parts of the country reached highs of 49C (120F), causing a huge demand for power.

For a long time, western science and Indigenous knowledge have been seen as distinct ways of learning about the world. But as we plunge the planet deeper into environmental crises, it is becoming clear that it is time to pay attention to both. Bridging that gap has been the driving force behind the career of the botanist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer. She tells Madeleine Finlay what we can learn from the most ancient plants on Earth, why we need to cultivate gratitude for the natural world and what western science can learn from Indigenous knowledge

Laurence Tubiana, one of experts behind 2015 agreement, calls for taxes or charges on consumption

Rich individuals in all countries must pay more to tackle the climate crisis, whether through taxes or charges on consumption, one of the architects of the Paris agreement has said.

There is a growing consensus on the need for some kind of global wealth tax, with Brazil, which will host the Cop climate summit next year, an enthusiastic supporter.

A bad forecast for the fruit harvest in Brazil could have knock-on effects on the price of Aussie breakfast beverages and beyond

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Oranges – and all the things we can make from them – are big business. But the industry is facing a severe crisis.

About 50m tonnes of oranges are grown each year, 34% of them in Brazil. Brazil is also the world’s biggest exporter of orange juice by far, producing about 70% of global supply.

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Scientists say calamities on same scale as disaster that has killed 169 will become more common if emissions not cut

The unusually intense, prolonged and extensive flooding that has devastated southern Brazil was made at least twice as likely by human burning of fossil fuels and trees, a study has shown.

The record disaster has led to 169 deaths, ruined homes and wrecked harvests, and was worsened by deforestation, investment cuts and human incompetence.

US families ‘could be having to sacrifice other aspects of their lives in order to just maintain power’, researcher says

Many people in the US can expect to see an 8% rise in their utility costs this summer, according to a new report. Soaring electricity bills put low-income households at risk from extreme heat, the report noted.

Last year was the Earth’s hottest one on record. In the US alone, about 11,000 people are estimated to have died of heat exposure.

Season’s high temperatures come despite wettest spring since 1986 and the sixth wettest on record

The UK had its warmest May and spring on record, despite the wet, dull conditions for many parts of the country, provisional Met Office figures show.

The average temperature in May was 13.1C (55.6F), beating the previous record in 2008 by a full 1C, making it the warmest May in records dating back to 1884.

• Read more from My DIY climate hack, a new series on everyday people’s creative solutions to the climate crisis

Neil Wiesblott, 69, swapped bustling Los Angeles for a quiet island off the coast of Seattle more than 30 years ago and never looked back. Among Vashon Island’s many charming features, perhaps its most beloved is a vast “tool library” that lends out more than a thousand items to residents for DIY projects and home improvements – from saws to ladders to power washers.

Established nearly a decade ago, the library is believed to be the largest rural tool library in the US. These libraries have been around since the 1940s but have taken on new relevance in an age of mass production and hyper-consumption. With an estimated 80 such libraries across the country, the Vashon tool library where Neil volunteers is part of a growing movement that’s helping people live more sustainably while fostering a sense of community.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse calls audacious request ‘definition of corruption’ amid investigation into Mar-a-Lago meeting in April

Donald Trump’s brazen pitch to 20 fossil-fuel heads for $1bn to aid his presidential campaign in return for promises of lucrative tax and regulatory favors is the “definition of corruption”, a top Democrat investigating the issue has said.

“It certainly meets the definition of corruption as the founding fathers would have used the term,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said in an interview about Trump’s audacious $1bn request for big checks to top fossil-fuel executives that took place in April at his Mar-a-Lago club.

Campaigners have written to broadcasters expressing concern that climate is not a more prominent discussion topic

The climate crisis must be discussed as a key priority in the TV debates between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, say green groups.

A number of NGOs have written to the TV networks expected to host the live debates, the first of which is on Tuesday at 9pm on ITV.

Exclusive: level at highest in more than 30 years, say campaigners, who want ‘rapid and effective’ relief scheme

Debt payments by the 50 countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis have doubled since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and now stand at their highest level in more than three decades, campaigners have warned.

The Debt Justice charity said countries at the highest risk of being affected by global heating were paying 15.5% of government revenues to external creditors – up from less than 8% before Covid-19 and 4% at their lowest recent point in 2010.

Writer tells Hay festival about his new book, Blossomise, and his hopes to inspire people to preserve the natural world

Poets can help fight climate breakdown by making us “spellbound, full of wonder and beguiled” by nature, the poet laureate has said.

Simon Armitage, who pledged to dedicate his writing and thinking to environmental issues when he was appointed poet laureate in 2019, has written a new book of poems called Blossomise, which he hopes will remind readers of the beauty of nature.

In a new Quarterly Essay, Joëlle Gergis says that while Rome wasn’t built in a day, the Albanese government’s lack of action on climate change does not reflect the urgency of the crisis

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Although the 2022 federal election ushered in a new era of progressive politics in Australia, as Labor’s first term in power has progressed many people are now wondering if the political deadlock on our nation’s climate policy has really been broken.

Although some good ground has been made, the federal government’s actions still don’t reflect the urgency of the planetary-scale crisis we are in. Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising and enormous fossil fuel projects continue to be approved to meet domestic and international demand.

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Program developed by the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology allows farmers to better understand the risks of the climate crisis, study found

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In 30 years, Vicki Mayne’s Queensland beef property will receive 30 more days of heatwaves a year.

“That pushes us to 163 days of the year,” she said.

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With elections affecting half the world’s population this year, campaigners offer their views on the chances of real change

This year elections are taking place across the globe, covering almost half of the world’s population. It is also likely to be, yet again, the hottest year recorded as the climate crisis intensifies. The Guardian asked young climate activists around the world what they want from the elections and whether politics is working in the fight to halt global heating.