Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!
You are here
Feed aggregator
‘A ruthless agenda’: charting 100 days of Trump’s onslaught on the environment
Guardian reporters map out how Trump is eviscerating efforts to protect the natural world – from ‘drill, baby, drill’ to mass firings
Donald Trump has never been mistaken for an environmentalist, having long called the climate crisis a “giant hoax” and repeatedly lauding the supposed virtues of fossil fuels.
But the US president’s onslaught upon the natural world in this administration’s first 100 days has surprised even those who closely charted his first term, in which he rolled back environmental rules and tore the US from the Paris climate agreement.
Taken more than 140 actions to roll back environmental rules and push for greater use of fossil fuels.
Set about rewriting regulations that limit pollution from cars, trucks and power plants.
Officially reconsidering whether greenhouse gases actually cause harm to public health.
Legally targeted states that have their own laws on tackling the climate crisis.
Speeded up environmental reviews of drilling projects, from years to just a few weeks.
Winding back water efficiency standards for showers and toilets and halting a phase-out of plastic straws
Continue reading...Arctic plant study reveals an ‘early warning sign’ of climate change upheaval
A warming tundra has seen unexpected shifts, raising the alarm about fragile ecosystems and those who rely on them
Scientists studying Arctic plants say the ecosystems that host life in some of the most inhospitable reaches of the planet are changing in unexpected ways in an “early warning sign” for a region upended by climate change.
In four decades, 54 researchers tracked more than 2,000 plant communities across 45 sites from the Canadian high Arctic to Alaska and Scandinavia. They discovered dramatic shifts in temperatures and growing seasons produced no clear winners or losers. Some regions witnessed large increases in shrubs and grasses and declines in flowering plants – which struggle to grow under the shade created by taller plants.
Continue reading...Dying satellites can drive climate change and ozone depletion, study finds
Aluminium emissions from satellites as they fall to Earth and burn up is becoming more significant as their numbers soar
Right now there are more than 9,000 satellites circumnavigating overhead, keeping track of weather, facilitating communications, aiding navigation and monitoring the Earth. By 2040, there could be more than 60,000. A new study shows that the emissions from expired satellites, as they fall to Earth and burn up, will be significant in future years, with implications for ozone hole recovery and climate.
Satellites need to be replaced after about five years. Most old satellites are disposed of by reducing their altitude and letting them burn up as they fall, releasing pollution into Earth’s atmosphere such as aerosolised aluminium. To understand the impact of these growing emissions from expired satellites, researchers simulated the effects associated with an annual release of 10,000 tonnes of aluminium oxide by 2040 (the amount estimated to be released from disposal of 3,000 satellites a year, assuming a fleet of 60,000 satellites).
Continue reading...House Votes to Repeal California’s Clean Truck Policies
Trump’s Climate Claims: Fact-Checking the ‘President Who Follows Science’
Man Accused of Hacking Climate Groups Can Be Sent to U.S., Judge Says
Climate Change Urgency Has Declined. The Green Transition Hasn’t.
Downing Street forces Tony Blair to row back from net zero strategy criticism
Labour politicians warn former PM had boosted Tory and Reform climate sceptics on the eve of local elections
Tony Blair has been forced by Downing Street to row back from his criticism of the government’s net zero strategy after furious Labour politicians warned he had given a boost to Tory and Reform sceptics on the eve of the local elections.
Climate experts also accused the former prime minister of granting political cover to fossil fuel interests and weakening momentum behind the UK’s legally binding target to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on Labour and net zero politics: lean in and ignore bad advice | Editorial
Sir Tony Blair’s ill-conceived contribution to the climate debate was a political gift to Nigel Farage. But public support for the green transition remains strong
The Climate Change Committee’s latest report on the UK’s response to unprecedented environmental challenges makes for grim reading. Recalling the extreme weather swings of the last few years – which delivered both the wettest 18 months on record and the largest number of wildfires – the report’s authors deplore the current inadequacy of provision to protect the nation against risks which are now a lethal reality. The threat represented by flooding, said the chair of the committee’s adaptation group, Lady Brown, “is not tomorrow’s problem. It’s today’s problem. And if we don’t do something about it, it will become tomorrow’s disaster.”
An assessment so scathing, from such a source, deserved to be at the centre of political discussion ahead of Thursday’s local elections. Instead, Wednesday’s front pages were dominated by a considerably less useful contribution to the climate debate. In a foreword to a report from his eponymous Tony Blair Institute (TBI), Sir Tony Blair suggested that governments should dial down efforts to limit the use of fossil fuels in the short term, or risk alienating voters allegedly put off by the “irrationality” and cost of green policies. Politicians’ focus, he insisted, should shift to investing speculatively in technologies for the future such as carbon capture and storage.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...One Nation candidate whose preferences may help Coalition has railed against climate science and Covid ‘little Hitlers’
Exclusive: Stuart Bonds could hand the Nationals the seat of Hunter thanks to a preference deal and ‘last minute’ change to how-to-vote cards
- Election 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaign
- Polls tracker; Election guide; Interactive seat explorer
- Party policies; Micro parties explained; Full election coverage
- Listen to the latest episode of our new narrative podcast series: Gina
- Get our afternoon election email, free app or daily news podcast
A One Nation candidate who could hand the Nationals the seat of Hunter, thanks to a handshake preference deal, has called public health officials “little Hitlers” and promoted a conspiracy theory alleging the government has used the climate crisis to control every aspect of people’s lives.
Stuart Bonds told a livestreamed forum with rightwing activists last week that the federal government should not do anything to address climate change. He also claimed “a crime” was committed against Australians during the Covid pandemic, alleging they were used “as an experiment to sell pharmaceutical projects”.
Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter
Continue reading...It’s the anti net-zero, anti-woke Tony Blair – how was this man ever considered a progressive? | Zoe Williams
The former PM has form when it comes to pushing corporate interests and meeting populists halfway
When Tony Blair came out this week to say current net zero policies were “doomed to fail”, there was something familiar in his arguments: phasing out fossil fuels wouldn’t work because people perceived it as expensive, arduous and not their problem. Stop banging on about renewables; won’t someone think of the things we don’t know how to do, like carbon capture and such wizardry as is still locked in tech bros’ imaginations? Basically, net zero had lost the room, according to the former prime minister. And if anyone knows where the room is, and how to get it back, it must be him.
The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) issued a statement on Wednesday saying that, in fact, it believes the government’s net zero policy is “the right one”. But this is a familiar trajectory for the former prime minister. He said something similar about “woke”, which sadly lost the room in 2022. “Plant Labour’s feet clearly near the centre of gravity of the British people,” Blair advised Starmer. “[They] want fair treatment for all and an end to prejudice, but distrust and dislike the ‘cancel culture’, ‘woke’ mentality.” What exactly does “woke” mean, if not an end to prejudice? Just how effective is cancel culture if Blair himself could work as a lobbyist for a Saudi oil firm in 2016, advise the government of Kazakhstan after it brutally suppressed public protests in 2011, and yet still walk among us as the voice of the progressive left? Memo to my fellow cancellers: we are bad at this.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...UK politics live: Starmer refuses to commit to vote for MPs on any US trade deal
PM also clashes with Kemi Badenoch over grooming gangs at Wednesday’s PMQ session
PMQs is starting soon.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Continue reading...Climate experts and politicians round on Tony Blair for ‘wrong message’
Former Labour PM accused of ‘handing talking points’ to Tories and Reform after saying net zero strategy faltering
Climate experts and politicians have criticised Tony Blair for claiming that any strategy that relied on rapidly phasing out fossil fuels was “doomed to fail”.
The former prime minister’s comments, published in a report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), prompted an internal row in Labour, with some accusing him of playing into the hands of a narrative used by rightwing parties to delay climate action.
Continue reading...N.Y.C. Panel Eyes Ways to Ease Housing Crisis and Improve Voter Turnout
India and Pakistan already sweltering in ‘new normal’ heatwave conditions
Temperatures south Asians dread each year arrive early as experts talk of ever shorter transition to summer-like heat
The summer conditions south Asian countries dread each year have arrived alarmingly early, and it’s only April. Much of India and Pakistan is already sweltering in heatwave conditions, in what scientists say is fast becoming the “new normal”.
Temperatures in the region typically climb through May, peaking in June before the monsoon brings relief. But this year, the heat has come early. “As far as Asia and the Indian subcontinent are concerned, there was a quick transition from a short window of spring conditions to summer-like heat,” said GP Sharma, the meteorology president of Skymet, India’s leading private forecaster.
Continue reading...Labour not protecting people, economy and homes from climate crisis, watchdog says
Plans to protect UK from extreme weather are inadequate, Climate Change Committee says in scathing assessment
Labour is putting people, the economy and the environment in increasing peril by failing to act on the effects of the climate crisis, the UK’s climate watchdog has said.
Flooding, droughts and heatwaves are all increasing in severity due to climate breakdown, but current plans to protect people, land and infrastructure against extreme weather have been judged inadequate in a scathing assessment of the UK’s preparedness.
Continue reading...UK records hottest day of year so far as mercury hits 24.9C
Forecasters say temperature could soar to 30C later this week, the earliest date the high would have been reached
The UK experienced its hottest day of the year so far on Tuesday and temperatures could reach 30C at the earliest point on record later this week, forecasters said.
The highest temperature recorded on Tuesday was 24.9C in Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, according to the Met Office.
The previous hottest day this year was 24.5C recorded in St James’s Park, London, on Monday.
The Met Office, which warned last month that the climate crisis is pushing temperature extremes to new levels, said temperatures could hit 27C or 28C on Wednesday in southern England and the Midlands.
In a further sign of the changing climate, Wales could also set a new record for its highest April temperature – currently 26.2C.
Meteorologist Craig Snell said the most likely places to see the warmest weather on Wednesday were “in a line from London over towards the West Country and into the Midlands”.
Snell told the PA news agency: “The central southern parts of the UK are probably going to be where the highest temperatures will be tomorrow.”
He said Thursday would be “the peak of the heat”, adding: “We are likely to see 28C or 29C, and again it’s going to be a corridor from the west of London over towards Bristol which will probably be the most likely places to see the highest temperatures.”
The meteorologist said the high temperatures on Thursday would result in one of the “warmest starts to May on record”.
Met Office chief meteorologist Paul Gundersen said April temperatures in the mid-20s were “not particularly unusual” but added: “It is more unusual to see temperatures reach the high 20s, and if we see 30C this week, it will be the earliest point in the year in which we have achieved that threshold.”
Temperatures are forecast to drop across much of the UK on Friday as the high pressure starts to pull away.
The highest recorded April temperature was in 1949, when Camden Square, London, recorded 29.4C.
The London fire brigade (LFB) has urged caution around open-water swimming after last month saw a 32% increase in water-related incidents compared with the same period last year.
Craig Carter, the LFB’s assistant commissioner for prevention and protection, said: “Even when the sun is shining, water temperatures can be dangerously cold. Cold water shock can affect anyone, no matter how fit or experienced they are.
“It can lead to water inhalation and, in the worst cases, drowning. Be particularly careful near the water’s edge – it’s easy to slip and fall unexpectedly. And think twice before jumping into open water.”
Research this month found that the number of UK homes overheating in summer quadrupled to 80% over the past decade.
The study also found that the use of air conditioning soared sevenfold to 21% of homes between 2011 and 2022. The researchers warned that continuation of this trend could put strain on the national electricity grid, increase carbon emissions and fuel social disadvantage among families unable to afford air conditioning.
The research was prompted by extreme heatwaves in 2022, when temperatures in the UK rose above 40C for the first time. The past two years have been the hottest on record globally, driven by the burning of fossil fuels.
More than 10,000 people have died as a result of summer heatwaves from 2020 to 2024, data from the UK Health Security Agency shows.
The huge rise in overheated homes and air conditioner use was “a shocking result”, said Dr Mehri Khosravi at the University of East London, who led the study. She added: “Over the heatwaves experienced in 2022 we had nearly 4,500 dead, but this excess mortality is hidden.”
How Trump May Unintentionally Cut Carbon Emissions
UN climate talks will be ‘uphill battle’ amid Trump rollbacks, says Cop30 chair
Tariffs and environmental cuts will make meeting challenging, says summit president André Corrêa do Lago
Crucial United Nations climate talks this year will be a “slightly uphill battle” due to economic turmoil and Donald Trump’s removal of the US from the effort to tackle global heating, the chair of the upcoming summit has admitted.
Governments from around the world will gather in Belem, Brazil, in November for the Cop30 meeting, where they will be expected to announce new plans to deal with the climate crisis and slash greenhouse gas emissions. Very few countries have done so yet, however, and the world remains well off track to remain within agreed temperature limits designed to avert the worst consequences of climate breakdown.
Continue reading...