Experts say climate policies contained within rightwing manifesto would wreck US climate targets and cost jobs
The impact of Donald Trump enacting the climate policies of the rightwing Project 2025 would result in billions of tonnes of extra carbon pollution, wrecking the US’s climate targets, as well as wiping out clean energy investments and more than a million jobs, a new analysis finds.
Should Trump retake the White House and pass the energy and environmental policies in the controversial Project 2025 document, the US’s planet-heating emissions will “significantly increase” by 2.7bn tonnes above the current trajectory by 2030, an amount comparable to the entire annual emissions of India, according to the report.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/14/2024 - 07:00
08/14/2024 - 06:00
As the climate crisis causes the Pacific to rise, the archipelago’s water is increasingly unsafe to drink
Church pastor Damien Hophand, who lives on the island of Malekula in Vanuatu with his wife and two children, has seen a change to the community’s water supply recently – and it’s not a welcome one. “The wells are salty,” says Hophand. “It’s not suitable for drinking.”
While many on the archipelago of 83 islands of Vanuatu get all their water from pipes, some, such as Hophand, have to supplement this with water from a well or pump. As the climate crisis forces sea levels to rise and cyclone winds thrash along the bays, seawater is seeping into the groundwater sources of low-lying islands, contaminating the supply and threatening the health of communities.
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08/14/2024 - 05:01
Exclusive: In 2024, 15 national temperature records have been set as weather extremes grow more frequent, climate historian says
How does today’s extreme heat compare with Earth’s past climate?
‘You feel like you’re suffocating’: Florida outdoor workers are collapsing in the heat without water and shade
A record 15 national heat records have been broken since the start of this year, an influential climate historian has told the Guardian, as weather extremes grow more frequent and climate breakdown intensifies.
An additional 130 monthly national temperature records have also been broken, along with tens of thousands of local highs registered at monitoring stations from the Arctic to the South Pacific, according to Maximiliano Herrera, who keeps an archive of extreme events.
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08/14/2024 - 04:41
Influx of highly pathogenic strain a case of ‘not if, but when’ and could devastate native wildlife, experts say
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The Australian government is ramping up preparations for a highly pathogenic and contagious strain of bird flu potentially reaching Australia via its Antarctic territory and Macquarie Island, warning it could devastate wildlife and be passed to people.
Government agencies led by the Australian Antarctic Division at a planning exercise in Hobart on Wednesday were told an influx of the virulent H5N1 Avian flu strain that has killed millions of seabirds, wild birds and poultry overseas was a case of “not if, but when”.
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08/14/2024 - 02:23
In gorges already infested with the pest amphibians, rangers have managed to cut the freshwater crocodile mortality rate by 95%
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Tricking freshwater crocodiles in Western Australia into believing toxic cane toads cause food poisoning could stop the crocs dying during future infestations of the pest, a new study which produced dramatic cuts in fatalities has found.
The practice, known as taste aversion training, involves removing the poisonous parts from hundreds of dead cane toads and injecting them with a nausea-inducing chemical – in this case, lithium chloride, a strong salt.
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08/14/2024 - 01:00
Kits emerge for after-dark dips in Northumberland, London, Kent and the Cairngorms after reintroduction drive
A beaver baby boom is under way across Britain this summer in places where the species had been extinct for centuries.
From Ealing in London to the Cairngorms in Scotland, and from Canterbury in Kent to the Wallington Estate in Northumberland, new kits have emerged from their lodges for an after-dark dip in the water.
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08/14/2024 - 00:00
Sources say government has dismissed some of the more ambitious ideas for fixing sewage crisis
Anti-sewage campaigners have warned of “extreme anger” if the Labour government does not radically reform the water regulator.
Sources at the Environment Agency (EA) and in the Labour party have told the Guardian that while Labour had spent time considering reforms of the EA and Ofwat in order to fix the sewage crisis, some stricter options that had been proposed were now off the table.
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08/13/2024 - 22:55
Public told to stay away from 12-mile stretch of canals and towpaths after spillage of toxic chemical
A major incident was declared on Wednesday after authorities said a spill of sodium cyanide into a West Midlands canal posed a serious health risk to the public.
Members of the public are being advised to avoid a 12-mile stretch of canals and towpaths centred in Walsall after the toxic spillage, understood to have happened on Monday.
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08/13/2024 - 18:01
Unicef analysis also finds children in eight countries spend more than half the year in temperatures above 35C
Almost half a billion children are growing up in parts of the world where there are at least twice the number of extremely hot days every year compared with six decades ago, analysis by Unicef has found.
The analysis by the UN’s children’s agency examined for the first time data on changes in children’s exposure to extreme heat over the past 60 years.
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08/13/2024 - 18:00
Charity Commission says tweets about environmental protections were inappropriate in ‘tone and nature’
The RSPB has been criticised by the English charities watchdog over social media posts in which it accused named government ministers of being “liars” for watering down environmental protections.
The Charity Commission said the tweets a year ago were “inappropriate” in “tone and nature”, they had not been signed off at the correct level and the RSPB could have done more to prevent them going out.
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