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How Shetland data is helping to gauge El Niño’s effect on thunderstorms
Historical records may prove link between climate fluctuation in Pacific and atmospheric electric field over 5,000 miles away
Does El Niño influence thunderstorm activity? The most recent El Niño – a climate fluctuation that generates warmer waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean every few years – has finally come to an end, but it is estimated to have been the fourth most powerful on record, exacerbating the climate crisis and bringing about record-breaking global temperatures, plus extreme weather including heatwaves, drought, excessive rain and flooding.
We know that El Niño events have a huge effect on oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns, but do they also alter the electrical charge in the atmosphere? To find out, scientists at the University of Reading, Berkshire, are turning to measurements of atmospheric electricity gathered every hour at a weather station in Lerwick, on Shetland, Scotland, between 1925 and 1984. The data already suggests that the strength of the atmospheric electric field in Lerwick is altered by El Niño, even though they are more than 5,000 miles (8,000km) apart, through changes in thunderstorms.
Continue reading...Investors awarded billions of dollars for losses related to climate laws, analysis finds
Fossil fuel firms are biggest beneficiaries of investor-state dispute settlement courts which have awarded $114bn of public money
More than $100bn of public money has been awarded to private investors in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) courts, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet.
The controversial arbitration system which allows corporations to sue governments for compensation over decisions they argue affect their profits is largely carried out behind closed doors, with some judgments kept secret. But, according to a global ISDS tracker which launches today, $114bn has so far been paid out of the public purse to investors – about as much as rich nations provided in climate aid in 2022.
A $15bn compensation suit by TC Energy against the US government for cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline which would have carried 830,000 barrels of highly polluting tar sands oil to the US coast every day. The permit was withdrawn by Joe Biden on his first day in office after a long campaign by Indigenous Americans, farmers and climate activists. The pipeline had been championed by ex-president Donald Trump and became a touchstone culture war issue.
Ruby River Capital’s claim for “no less than $20bn” after the Quebec government cancelled a natural gas liquefaction plant on the St Lawrence River. An environmental impact assessment had found that the plant would increase greenhouse gas emissions, hurt Indigenous Canadian communities and destroy biodiversity. RRC’s claim was the largest ever under the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).
The most lucrative ISDS claim currently being heard is Zeph Investment’s $200bn case against Australia over a huge planned mine in Western Australia which, Zeph Investment claims, the Australian government had “effectively destroyed”, in breach of the Asean free trade agreement.
Avima Iron Ore is seeking $27bn from the Republic of the Congo, after it revoked iron ore mining licenses for three Australian-owned firms, handing them instead to a small Chinese investment group. The sum is almost twice as much as the country’s GDP last year.
Continue reading...The things that you’re liable to read in the IPCC bible ain’t necessarily so, Chris Uhlmann says. It’s a bold claim | Temperature Check
The contributor to Sky News accuses climate change ‘zealots’ of not having read the research. But his own reading is less than comprehensive
You know you’re in for a bit of grandiose lecturing on climate change when conservative commentators start making comparisons to religion and throwing around quotes from the 20th-century science philosopher Karl Popper.
Now I’ve got nothing against Popper, but you need to be on pretty solid ground to declare, as the Sky News contributor Chris Uhlmann did last weekend, that the idea global warming is causing more extreme weather is “an article of faith” rather than something we can just test and observe.
Continue reading...Phoenix turns to ice-filled body bags to treat heatstroke as US south-west bakes
Technique known as cold-water immersion adopted by Phoenix hospitals after county saw 645 heat-related deaths last year
The season’s first heatwave is already baking the south-west with triple-digit temperatures as firefighters in Phoenix – America’s hottest big city – employ new tactics in hopes of saving more lives in a county that saw 645 heat-related deaths last year.
Starting this season, the Phoenix fire department is immersing heatstroke victims in ice on the way to area hospitals. The medical technique, known as cold-water immersion, is familiar to marathon runners and military service members and has also recently been adopted by Phoenix hospitals as a go-to protocol, according to fire captain John Prato.
Continue reading...Fossil fuel firms are 'godfathers of climate chaos', says UN chief – video
The secretary general of the UN said fossil fuel companies should be banned from advertising in every country, akin to the restrictions on big tobacco. António Guterres delivered fresh scientific warnings of global heating in a major speech in New York. He called on news and tech media to stop enabling 'planetary destruction' by taking fossil fuel firms' advertising money, while warning that the world faces 'climate crunch time' in its faltering attempts to stem the crisis
Continue reading...‘Hanging by a Thread’: U.N. Chief Warns of Missing a Key Climate Target
How Electric Car Batteries Might Aid the Grid (and Win Over Drivers)
Alameda Ends Cloud-Brightening Test, Overruling Staff Decision
‘Godfathers of climate chaos’: UN chief urges global fossil-fuel advertising ban
António Guterres warns of ‘climate crunch time’ and announces dire new scientific warnings of global heating
Fossil-fuel companies are the “godfathers of climate chaos” and should be banned in every country from advertising akin to restrictions on big tobacco, the secretary general of the United Nations has said while delivering dire new scientific warnings of global heating.
In a major speech in New York on Wednesday, António Guterres called on news and tech media to stop enabling “planetary destruction” by taking fossil-fuel advertising money while warning the world faces “climate crunch time” in its faltering attempts to stem the crisis.
Continue reading...The hidden story behind India’s remarkable election results: lethal heat | Amitava Kumar
The electorate has resurrected a viable opposition in parliament against a chastened BJP. But neither side is ready to face the immensity of the climate crisis
The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), led by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has won more seats than the opposition alliance, and yet its victory tastes of defeat. Why?
In the days leading to the election, the BJP’s main slogan had been Abki baar, 400 Paar, a call to voters to send more than 400 of its candidates to the 543-member parliament. This slogan, voiced by Modi at his campaign rallies, set a high bar for the party. Most exit polls had predicted a massive victory for the BJP – and now the results, with that party having won only 240 seats, suggest that the electorate has sent a chastening message to the ruling party and trimmed its hubris.
Continue reading...Nearly half of journalists covering climate crisis globally received threats for their work
Groundbreaking new research also reports that 11% of surveyed have faced physical violence in their reporting
Almost four out of every 10 journalists covering the climate crisis and environment issues have been threatened as a result of their work, with 11% subjected to physical violence, according to groundbreaking new research.
A global survey of more than 740 reporters and editors from 102 countries found that 39% of those threatened “sometimes” or “frequently” were targeted by people engaged in illegal activities such as logging and mining. Some 30%, meanwhile, were threatened with legal action – reflecting a growing trend towards corporations and governments deploying the judicial system to muzzle free speech.
This article was amended on 5 June 2024 to clarify that 39% of those threatened “sometimes” or “frequently” were targeted by people engaged in illegal activities. A previous version incorrectly said 49%.
Continue reading...E.P.A. Moves to Limit Toxic Chemical Used in Hundreds of Products
The end of the great northern forests? The tiny tree-killing beetle wreaking havoc on our ancient giants
Forests across Europe, the US and Canada have been hard hit by drought, fires and bark beetles. Now scientists fear the northern hemisphere’s greatest carbon sink is nearing a tipping point
The giant sequoia is so enormous that it was once believed to be indestructible. High in California’s southern Sierra Nevada mountains, the oldest trees – known as monarchs – have stood for more than 2,000 years.
Today, however, in Sequoia national park, huge trunks lie sprawled on the forest floor, like blue whale carcasses stranded on a beach. Many of these trees were felled by a combination of drought and fire. But among the factors responsible for the rising toll is a tiny new suspect: the bark beetle.
Continue reading...When Hydropower Runs Dry
Oceans face ‘triple threat’ of extreme heat, oxygen loss and acidification
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.
Continue reading...As global heating cuts Australia’s snowfall ski season may go downhill, report warns
‘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.
Continue reading...The Day After Tomorrow at 20: a strangely prescient ecological warning
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.
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