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Deaths of 30,000 fish off WA coast made more likely by climate change, research finds
Analysis drawing on satellite data and 13 climate models concludes that global heating makes marine heatwaves 20 times more likely
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Marine heatwaves linked to the deaths of 30,000 fish off the Western Australia coast were up to 100 times more likely to occur because of climate change, new research has found.
Waters off WA have been affected by prolonged marine heatwaves since September.
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Continue reading...E.P.A. Demotes Career Employees Overseeing Science, Enforcement and More
How Trump’s Trade War Could Affect Climate Change
Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist
Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree
The pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, according to renowned climate scientist Prof James Hansen, who said the international 2C target is “dead”.
A new analysis by Hansen and colleagues concludes that both the impact of recent cuts in sun-blocking shipping pollution, which has raised temperatures, and the sensitivity of the climate to increasing fossil fuels emissions are greater than thought.
Continue reading...Rightwing MEPs threaten huge funding freeze for environmental NGOs
Freeze to EU’s LIFE programme funding would deprive 30 NGOs of up to 70% of annual incomes
Several environmental NGOs could be effectively shut down in Europe, if a defunding push by rightwing MEPs is successful, campaigners say.
At the same time that centre and far right MEPs are revving up strategies to defang, deregulate or decapitate the European Green Deal, an EU plan to cut emissions to net zero by 2050, a proposed funding freeze in the European Parliament would weaken green groups.
Continue reading...Temperatures at north pole 20C above average and beyond ice melting point
Scientists say unusually mild temperatures linked to low-pressure system over Iceland directing strong flow of warm air towards north pole
Temperatures at the north pole soared more than 20C above average on Sunday, crossing the threshold for ice to melt.
Temperatures north of Svalbard in Norway had already risen to 18C hotter than the 1991–2020 average on Saturday, according to models from weather agencies in Europe and the US, with actual temperatures close to ice’s melting point of 0C. By Sunday, the temperature anomaly had risen to more than 20C.
Continue reading...Scientists brace ‘for the worst’ as Trump purges climate mentions from websites
Trump administration pulling references online ‘won’t make crisis’ stop impacting Americans’ lives, say experts
Donald Trump’s administration has started to remove or downgrade mentions of the climate crisis across the US government, with the websites of several major departments pulling down references to anything related to the climate crisis. Climate scientists said they were braced “for the worst”.
A major climate portal on the Department of Defense’s website has been scrapped, as has the main climate change section on the site of the Department of State. A climate change page on the White House’s website no longer exists, nor does climate content provided by the US agriculture department, including information that provides vulnerability assessments for wildfires.
Continue reading...E.P.A. Demotes Career Employees Overseeing Science, Enforcement and More
Chris Wright Is Confirmed as Secretary of Energy
US Senate confirms fracking CEO Chris Wright to be Trump’s energy secretary
Liberty Energy executive, who has called climate change activists alarmist, confirmed in vote of 59-38
The US Senate on Monday confirmed Chris Wright, a fracking executive, to be Donald Trump’s energy secretary.
The vote was 59-38.
Continue reading...Over 1,000 EPA Workers on Climate Change and More Could Be Fired ‘Immediately’
Australian nature: if our laws don’t radically change, environmental degradation will continue | Adam Morton
This country has a long history of taking its unique wildlife and landscapes for granted – but what has happened in this term of parliament is remarkable
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There is something significant missing from most of the political and media discussion about the Australian government’s promised, and now abandoned, nature protection laws: the environment. Logically, it should be a focus of the debate. In practice, it barely gets a look-in.
This would be an extraordinary state of affairs were it not so familiar. Australia has a long history of taking its unique wildlife and landscapes for granted, stretching back to European colonisation. But what has happened in this term of parliament is a pretty remarkable extension of that.
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Continue reading...The New Evidence Climate Change Will Upend American Homeownership
Trump has brought much-needed attention to a site of great tragedy: the Gulf of Mexico | Greg Grandin
Environmental disasters have plagued the water body for decades. Now the region is thrust in the global spotlight
The enormous semi-enclosed bay, its waters flanked by the Florida and Yucatán peninsulas and partially blockaded by Cuba, has been called the Golfo de México for centuries, a name that first appeared on a world map in 1550. And for centuries the name bothered no one.
Thomas Jefferson used the name without shame, even as he, Donald Trump-like, imagined dominating nearby nations. If the US could take Cuba, Jefferson wrote in 1823, it would control the “Gulf of Mexico and the countries and isthmus bordering on it”. Country music stars, no less than founding fathers, liked the romance of the place. Tracy Lawrence dreams of a Gulf of Mexico filled with whiskey. Johnny Cash wanted to dump his blues down in the Gulf.
Continue reading...Greenland ice sheet cracking more rapidly than ever, study shows
Crevasses increasing in size and depth in response to climate breakdown, Durham University researchers find
The Greenland ice sheet – the second largest body of ice in the world – is cracking more rapidly than ever before as a response to climate breakdown, a study has found.
Researchers used 8,000 three-dimensional surface maps from high-resolution commercial satellite imagery to assess the evolution of cracks in the surface of the ice sheet between 2016 and 2021.
Continue reading...This firefighter survived the worst of black summer. His new exhibition hurls you right in
CJ Taylor was pushing back a fire front when a wind change almost killed him. A new exhibition aims to recreate a flashover – and disturb the public into action
The roar of an advancing bushfire, for those who have heard it, is often described as being as loud as an aircraft or an approaching freight train. “But my recollection was the opposite,” says volunteer firefighter and visual artist CJ Taylor, of the moment a fire burned over him. “Everything went quiet.”
It was November 2019, and Taylor and a group of fellow South Australian Country Fire Service volunteers had been deployed to north-eastern New South Wales, near the Guy Fawkes River national park. They were trying to push back a fire front but a sudden wind change meant it was gaining ground too quickly.
Continue reading...Environmental groups in UK ‘still very white – especially at the top’
Greenpeace co-director responds to report finding fewer than one in 20 working in sector identifies as non-white
Environmental organisations “are still very white, especially at the top”, the co-director of Greenpeace has said as research showed little to no improvement in the ethnic diversity of their workforces.
Areeba Hamid’s comments came as the third annual racial action on the climate emergency (Race) report into diversity among environmental charities found fewer than one in 20 of those working in the sector identified as people of colour or as other racial or ethnic minority groups.
Continue reading...Residents capture footage of severe floods in north Queensland – video
Authorities say there is 'more significant rain to come' in north Queensland, amid warnings to residents not to return to flooded homes. Dams and river catchments from Mackay to Cairns remain swollen from a week of heavy rain, which has dumped more than 1.2 metres at some locations. More than 400 people – mostly in Townsville, Ingham and Cardwell – are in evacuation shelters after being advised on Sunday to flee
North Queensland floods: hundreds evacuated, dozens rescued as 1.2m of rain dumped in some areas
Queensland floods: authorities ready for ‘likelihood of more flooding’ – video
Heatwave warning as ‘intensely hot’ weather continues in south-eastern Australia
What’s behind the deadly, record-breaking floods in north Queensland? | Steve Turton for the Conversation
Some tropical lows are stalling, dumping huge volumes of rain – and climate change is playing a role
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Record-breaking floods across north Queensland have turned deadly, with one woman drowning while being rescued on Sunday. And the flood waters were still rising, with rain set to continue.
With reports of up to one metre of rainfall in parts of north-east Queensland, the heaviest rain has fallen between Lucinda to Townsville in northern Queensland as the Bureau of Meteorology warns the big wet will continue for days.
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This article originally appeared in the Conversation. Steve Turton is an adjunct professor of environmental geography at CQUniversity Australia
Continue reading...Fire chiefs warn UK is not prepared for climate crisis impacts
Exclusive: National Fire Chiefs Council says firefighters’ ability to respond is at risk as it calls for preventive action
The UK is not prepared for the impact of climate breakdown, fire chiefs have said, as they called on the government to take urgent action to protect communities.
The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) said the ability of fire services to tackle weather-related emergencies was at risk, despite them often being the primary frontline response to major weather events including flooding, fires caused by heatwaves, and storm-related emergencies, all of which are becoming more common.
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