Damage to trees in western North Carolina from Hurricane Helene was ‘extraordinary and humbling’ but urban areas face particular problems
The city of Asheville and its surrounding areas have been left vulnerable to floods, fires and extreme heat after Hurricane Helene uprooted thousands of trees that provided shade and protection from storms.
Helene was catastrophic for the region’s trees – in part due to the heavy precursor rainstorm that pounded southern Appalachia for two days straight, drenching the soil before Helene hit, bringing yet more heavy rain and 60-100mph winds.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
03/09/2025 - 07:00
03/09/2025 - 01:24
Millions of people in northern NSW and south-east Queensland are bunkering down for dangerous conditions including flash flooding, heavy rain and intense winds after the storm now downgraded to a tropical low crossed the coast
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03/08/2025 - 19:48
South-east Queensland and northern NSW struggle to recover amid heavy downpours and flash flooding
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Swathes of south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales were on alert for heavy rain and flash flooding as almost 290,000 properties were still without power on Sunday evening due to ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
After the former cyclone made landfall just north of Brisbane as a tropical low on Saturday night, the Bureau of Meteorology predicted up to 700mm of rain could hit the region through to Monday.
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03/08/2025 - 12:00
In the Zuleta community in Ecuador, farming is about more than just sustenance: it is about cultivating a deep relationship with the land based on ancestral knowledge. In her travels in the region, Colombo-Ecuadorian photographer Yinna Higuera collaborates with rural women, who in exchange share their understanding of medicinal plants and give her leaves from their gardens. In her Traces series, which has been shortlisted for a Sony world photography award, Higuera uses chlorophyll printing to superimpose the women’s portraits on banana leaves, vegetables and herbs. “Each of these women has a unique story,” she says, “yet they all share a profound bond with the land. Through these portraits, my goal is to make their strength and wisdom visible, honouring their role as stewards of the earth.”
Traces is shortlisted in the creative category, professional competition, Sony world photography awards 2025. Exhibition at Somerset House, London, 17 April to 5 May, worldphoto.org
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03/07/2025 - 13:08
Trump pulls out of Cop28 loss and damage deal that recognises harms done by richer, polluting economies to vulnerable nations
The Trump administration has withdrawn the US from a global agreement under which the developed nations most responsible for the climate crisis pledged to partly compensate developing countries for irreversible harms caused by global heating.
The loss and damage fund was agreed at the Cop28 UN climate summit in late 2023 – a hard-won victory after years of diplomatic and grassroots advocacy by developing nations that bear the brunt of the climate crisis despite having contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions. The fund signalled a commitment by developed, polluting countries to provide financial support for some of the irreversible economic and noneconomic losses from sea level rise, desertification, drought and floods already happening.
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03/07/2025 - 13:00
Biden-era suit sought to curb emissions of the carcinogen chloroprene at Denka plant formerly owned by DuPont
The Donald Trump administration has formally agreed to drop a landmark environmental justice case in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” region, marking a blow to clean air advocates in the region and a win for the Japanese petrochemical giant at the centre of the litigation.
Legal filings made public on Friday morning reveal that Trump’s Department of Justice agreed to dismiss a long-running lawsuit against the operators of a synthetic rubber plant in Reserve, Louisiana, which is allegedly largely responsible for some of the highest cancer risk rates in the US for the surrounding majority-Black neighborhoods.
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03/07/2025 - 12:56
A new analysis reveals that nearly half of the genus Heliconia, a group of tropical plants popular for their bright, beak-shaped flowers, are threatened with extinction.
03/07/2025 - 12:56
'Forests are among the most important ecosystems in nature, constantly evolving, yet their monitoring is often delayed,' says an expert. Climate change, pests, and human activity are transforming forests faster than we can track them -- some changes become apparent only when the damage is already irreversible.
03/07/2025 - 10:17
Council of Europe says Swiss government failing to respect human rights court’s ruling on emissions
Europe live – latest updates
The Swiss government has been told it must do more to show that its national climate plans are ambitious enough to comply with a landmark legal ruling.
The Council of Europe’s committee of ministers, in a meeting this week, decided that Switzerland was not doing enough to respect a decision last year by the European court of human rights that it must do more to cut its greenhouse gas emissions and rejected the government’s plea to close the case.
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03/07/2025 - 09:00
Bob Brown Foundation’s drone footage appears to show farm workers pumping live salmon into a tub carrying dead fish and then sealing it
Tropical Cyclone Alfred LIVE: latest news and updates
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At least 1 million salmon died at Tasmanian fish farms and were dumped at landfill sites and rendering plants in February in what authorities and the industry described as an “unprecedented” mass death triggered by a bacterium outbreak.
The revelation that waste facilities in Tasmania’s south received more than 5,500 tonnes of dead salmon last month – equivalent to about 1.07 million full-grown Atlantic salmon, or 8% of total annual production in the state – followed weeks of reports of fatty chunks of fish washing up on beaches in the Huon Valley and on Bruny Island.
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