Elon Musk, one of the brightest minds of his generation, is saying it, so it must be true
Women, eh? They’re simply not to be trusted. Eve ate that apple; Pandora opened that horrible little box; and now women are to blame for the devastating wildfires in California. I know that sounds like a ridiculous thing to say, but it’s what Elon Musk, one of the brightest minds of his generation – and one of the most powerful people on Earth – is saying, so it must be true.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
01/11/2025 - 09:00
01/11/2025 - 08:43
We fell in love with the power and speed that fossil fuels brought us. But the price being paid in California, and around the world, has become too high
Zero per cent contained. In layperson’s terms, that means “out of control and burning at will”. It’s a common designation for a wildfire – in the wild. But when a fire like this enters an urban area such as Los Angeles County, the most highly populated metropolitan area in the US, it becomes an exploding bomb, and this one has been detonating since last Tuesday.
By now, the energy release from this wind-driven, drought-fuelled firestorm turned urban conflagration is into the megatons, and the nuclear-scale destruction is there for all to see: block after block and neighbourhood after neighbourhood levelled – roughly 12,000 structures destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, 55 sq miles of city and mountain burnt, nearly 200,000 residents evacuated – so far. There is more to come.
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01/11/2025 - 06:36
Common Wealth thinktank warns that communities and taxpayer may have to pick up pieces when production ends
North Sea oil and gas must be brought under greater public control to avoid a cliff-edge collapse of the industry and secure a sustainable future for workers and communities, according to a report.
Under the current private ownership model the inevitable end of North Sea oil and gas production – whether through government action or the lack of viable oilfields – will lead to private companies abruptly abandoning the basin, leaving frontline communities and the state to deal with the social and economic consequences, the authors predict.
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01/11/2025 - 06:00
Every barrel of oil, every cubic meter of gas, and every ton of coal burned brings us closer to environmental catastrophe
Apocalyptic flames and smoke are raging through southern California in the worst fire in Los Angeles county’s history. At least seven people have died. Thousands of structures have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes. The private forecaster AccuWeather estimates initial damage and economic loss at more than $50bn and has the potential to be the costliest wildfire disaster in American history. The impacts of the disruption and loss faced by community members is incalculable.
While some media outlets are discussing the link between the LA fires and climate crisis, the president-elect Donald Trump and rightwing media are using this devastating event to foster misinformation including denying the role of climate crisis.
Tzeporah Berman is a Canadian environmental activist, campaigner and writer
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01/10/2025 - 15:26
Firefighters battle on as people across Los Angeles struggle to find a way forward on Friday
California wildfires – live
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01/10/2025 - 13:21
Noaa says last year was the warmest since records began in 1850 and Nasa concurs: ‘The long-term trends are very clear’
It was the hottest year ever recorded for the world’s lands and oceans in 2024, US government scientists have confirmed, providing yet another measure of how the climate crisis is pushing humanity into temperatures we have previously never experienced.
Last year was the hottest in global temperature records stretching back to 1850, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa announced, with the worldwide average 1.46C (2.6F) warmer than the era prior to humans burning huge volumes of planet-heating fossil fuels.
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01/10/2025 - 13:06
Events in California reveal how political obstruction is deepening a climate crisis that needs urgent action to prevent it becoming an irreversible disaster
The wildfires ravaging Los Angeles have killed at least 10 people, displaced 180,000 and scorched about 40 square miles – an inferno driven by fierce winds and severe drought in what should be California’s wet season. It is a sobering reminder that the climate crisis is driving wildfires to become more frequent, intense and destructive – leaving ruined lives, homes and livelihoods in their wake. The US president Joe Biden responded by mobilising federal aid. By contrast the president-elect, Donald Trump, a convicted felon who was criminally sentenced on Friday, used the disaster to spread disinformation and stoke political division.
The climate crisis knows no national borders. Deadly floods in Spain, Hawaii’s fires and east Africa’s devastating drought show nowhere is safe from its effects. Countries must work toward the global common interest and beyond their narrow national interests. The scale of the climate emergency is such that there is a case to view all crises through a green lens. Instead Mr Trump’s denialism works to foment distrust about the science. He’s not just aiming to delay the onset of truth. He wants to demolish it. It’s a familiar playbook: the fossil fuel industry knows the reality of the climate emergency but chooses profit over responsibility, effectively deceiving the public while the planet burns.
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01/10/2025 - 13:00
New Zealand garden takes first prize in global competition designed to promote water conservation
A sun-scorched patch of lawn near Christchurch, in New Zealand, has been crowned the ugliest lawn in the world.
Now in its second year, the World’s Ugliest Lawn competition rewards lawn owners for not watering their parched yellow grass and patchy flowerbeds.
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01/10/2025 - 11:17
Claims that power plants are gaming the system to charge huge sums to switch on in the UK’s cold weather
No 10 insists UK has sufficient energy supply
A rise in electricity costs this week has raised fears that officials operating Great Britain’s power market could be held to “ransom” by owners of gas power plants during cold, windless days in order to keep the lights on. Here, we look why costs have increased sharply, the trading rules for plants and the implications for Labour’s clean power ambitions.
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01/10/2025 - 10:56
Environmentalists condemn unauthorised releases as ‘reckless’ and ‘highly irresponsible’
For a brief moment this week, lynx have been roaming the Scottish Highlands once again. But this was not the way conservationists had hoped to end their 1,000-year absence.
On Wednesday, Police Scotland received reports of two lynx in a forest in the Cairngorms national park, sparking a frantic search. That episode ended in less than a day. Both animals were quickly captured by experts from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) and taken to quarantine facilities at Highland wildlife park.
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