Lesley Hughes was one of the first scientists to warn that global heating could lead to species extinctions. Now one of Australia's most influential climate science advocates, Hughes speaks with Guardian Australia about the importance of hope in the face of a crisis.This video is part of Weight of the World: a climate scientist's burden. The series features three pioneering Australian climate change scientists - Graeme Pearman, Lesley Hughes and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. The series tells the story of how the three scientists made their discoveries, how they came under attack for their science and the personal toll it has taken on them. And importantly, how they stay hopeful.Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube

Saving the industry means saddling consumers with ever more debt. The fumes of 2007 are in the airDuring lockdown in 2020, the local council in my neighbourhood of Levenshulme - a suburb of red-brick terraces in Manchester - proposed a low-traffic neighbourhood scheme. The plan generated substantial backlash among a segment of the community, leading to all kinds of rows and questionable behaviour on Facebook and elsewhere.A central claim of the objectors was that people such as me who generally supported the measures were middle-class hippies intent on disrupting ordinary, working-class people who needed their cars in their day-to-day lives. At times, it seemed to touch on conspiracy theory. Supporters were cast as canny gentrifiers", who saw the planters being proposed to block traffic flow as an opportunity to increase the value of their properties. Continue reading...

Zookeepers delighted after calf born during daylight, allowing for moment to be captured on filmA zoo is celebrating the birth of an eastern black rhino, one of the world's rarest mammals, with the moment captured on film.Chester zoo said Zuri the rhino and her female calf had been inseparable since the arrival. Continue reading...

Staff at Chester zoo filmed the moment an endangered rhino gave birth to a female calf. The eastern black rhino was born on 12 November, unusually in daylight hours. The zoo said the species is listed as critically endangered, with fewer than 600 of the rhinos remaining in the wild across Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda Continue reading...

North Carolina residents push back against environmental agency bringing 4m lbs of forever chemical' waste to regionThe federal US government has paused the importation of millions of pounds of toxic PFAS forever chemical" waste from the Netherlands following intense backlash from residents near a North Carolina facility that would receive the substances.Local media last month revealed the Environmental Protection Agency had quietly approved a permit for chemical manufacturer Chemours to import about 4m lbs of waste over the next year, sparking fears of further pollution in a region already thoroughly contaminated by the company's operations. Continue reading...

Group of 16 organisations says reduced funding means rewilding and conservation targets likely to be missedScotland will fail to meet its ambitious rewilding and conservation targets unless it reverses deep cuts in funding for the environment, leading charities have said.Nature and conservation funding in Scotland has been cut by tens of millions of pounds over the last decade, with ministers diverting the money to other policy areas, according to a group of 16 influential environment charities.Nearly 60% of Scotland's legally protected sites of special scientific interest - the most precious in the country - have not been assessed in more than a decade, with only 65% in favourable condition.Only half of the sites which make up Scotland's Atlantic rainforest" are in favourable condition.Scottish government funding for nature fell from 0.55% of its total budget to 0.25% between 2010/11 and 2022/23.Sepa's budget cuts have made it heavily reliant on so-called cost recovery" fees it charges to inspect private companies but those fees have not kept pace with inflation, falling by 14% in real terms. Continue reading...

Ecologist Stephen Williams says tropics at a real risk of losing the very things it was made a world heritage area to protect'

Advertising Standards Authority says Hilux poster and video condone driving that disregards impact on nature'The UK advertising watchdog has banned two Toyota adverts for condoning driving that disregards its environmental impact in a landmark ruling, stating that the SUV ads had been created without a sense of responsibility to society".It is the first time the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has blocked an SUV advert on the grounds of breaching social responsibility in an environmental context. Continue reading...

A 67-mile long line was closed last Thursday after after an estimated 1m gallons of crude oil was releasedThe US Coast Guard said on Tuesday it is still seeking the source of a leak from a pipeline linked to a Houston-based firm, off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico which it estimated has released more than 1m gallons of crude oil.The 67-mile long undersea pipeline was closed by Main Pass Oil Gathering Co (MPOG) last Thursday after crude oil was spotted around 19 miles offshore of the Mississippi River Delta, near Plaquemines Parish, south-east of New Orleans. Continue reading...

Zoo says it is caring for the 25th and 26th kittens to end up rescued there, and calls for more wildlife crossingsThe two sisters are tiny - only five and a half pounds, and about two months old. They have giant eyes and mottled patches on their fur. Found in a backyard five days after their mother was hit on Highway 280 in northern California, the mountain lions headed to a new home at the Oakland zoo last week.The sisters, now named Willow and Maple, were hungry and tired after not eating for five days. The cubs were visibly dehydrated, and underweight, and were checked for parasites and viruses by veterinarians, zoo officials said. Continue reading...

The expensive appliances claim to eliminate kitchen food waste by turning it to instant compost. But experts are skepticalMichelle Cehn, founder of the popular Instagram account @vegan, built her reputation around her love for the planet - but food waste was something that she struggled with. I've been wanting to compost, but I've always been really overwhelmed by an outdoor compost pile," she said in a voiceover of a recent post that showed her picking fresh vegetables from the vine. And so this year I started composting indoors with the Lomi electric composter." In the short video, Cehn went on to explain how she simply dropped food scraps into the small electric bin on her countertop, pressed the button, and was left with nutrient-rich plant food" a few hours later that she could use in her garden.Lomi, the device Cehn was hyping, is just one of a new cohort of gadgets claiming they can eliminate kitchen food waste that are starting to gain traction, alongside brands like Mill, FoodCycler and Airthereal. Often marketed as electric composters", these appliances, which look a little like trash cans, dry and grind food waste into a mixture that some manufacturers claim can be used as a fertilizer and soil amendment, much like compost. Continue reading...

Northvolt says new lithium-free sodium-ion battery is cheaper, more sustainable and doesn't rely on scarce raw materialsEurope's energy and electric vehicle industries could reduce their dependency on scarce raw materials from China after the launch of a breakthrough" sodium-ion battery, according to its Swedish developer.Northvolt, Europe's only large homegrown electric battery maker, has said it has made a lower cost, more sustainable battery designed to store electricity which does not use lithium, nickel, graphite and cobalt. Continue reading...

The Guardian led the way in taking the climate crisis seriously and is still, arguably, the only outlet that truly recognizes the urgency of this moment

The winners and finalists of this year's contest celebrate the blue planet but they also draw attention to the many environmental challenges to marine life and ecosystems - from a warming climate to human development and tourism. The winning images are on show until May 2024 at the Australian National Maritime Museum Continue reading...

Survey also found wide support for a fuel efficiency standard, believing it would save them money

Internal emails show pressure from industry lobbyists and politicians led Trump-era agency to change position on aldicarbThe US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering approving a pesticide for use on Florida oranges and grapefruits despite the fact that agency scientists have repeatedly found the chemical does not meet safety standards designed to protect children's health, internal agency records show.EPA emails indicate how for years, agency scientists have wanted to deny new uses of aldicarb, but appear to have not done so because of persistent pressure from chemical industry lobbyists, politicians and political appointees.This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group Continue reading...

At annual yacht show, only a handful of customers said they were troubled by vessels' disproportionate carbon footprintThe largest of the yachts in Monaco's harbour were worth more than the annual GDP of some small island states. But few of the customers touring their decks seemed to care that buying the former would help drown the latter. I don't think about this yet," said Elena Papernaya, an artist who had set her eyes on a mid-sized yacht, when asked if she worried about the damage it would do to the climate.Kasper Hojgaard, a regional manager for an industrial company who charters yachts for a few weeks each year, said he did not consider climate change at all" when doing so. His friend Lasse Jensen, a pension fund manager, nodded in agreement. We are beginning to look a bit more into it, but it's not playing a role." Continue reading...

Toxic foam has been shown floating over the Yamuna River in Delhi amid India's annual battle with air pollution. In the winter months, wind speeds drop and cooling air traps pollutants from vehicles, industry and farmers burning agricultural waste. The foam on the river comes from untreated waste, according to a former adviser to the government. Delhi, home to about 33 million people, is regularly ranked the most polluted city in the world

Jets belonging to entertainers, CEOs, oligarchs and billionaires produce equivalent to emissions of almost 40,000 BritonsPrivate jets belonging to 200 celebrities, CEOs, oligarchs and billionaires have spent a combined total of 11 years in the air since the start of 2022.The carbon footprint of all those flights - a jaw-dropping 44,739 journeys - would be the equivalent of the total emissions of almost 40,000 Britons. Continue reading...

Amid the heat and humidity, energy bills in New Orleans are surging - but the options for low-income residents are severely limitedDarlene Jones spends most of her time holed up in the bedroom to minimize the amount of electricity she uses to cool and light her home in downtown New Orleans.Air seeps out from the doors and windows of the 1890 one-bedroom shotgun house - and through the bashed-up floorboards and ceiling that Jones cannot afford to repair. She has wrapped foam around the leaky air-conditioning pipes, and taped handwritten signs on the front door above the metal letterbox that read Please close the slot". Continue reading...

The implications of policy are felt very differently depending on how well-off you are. It's time for politicians to recognise thisMany of Rishi Sunak's political decisions are baffling, but one that's easy to understand is his recent rowing back from the UK's climate commitments: he, like many creatures of Westminster, thinks working-class people don't care much for climate action. This is a lazy stereotype and, predictably, did nothing for his poll numbers.The simple truth is this: when it comes to the climate crisis, working-class people are often the first to spot the changes occurring because even slight fluctuations can make or break family finances. That doesn't mean this is the first subject working-class people raise when a canvasser knocks at the door or a pollster asks, but it is there in the background when deciding who to trust with our futures.Roger Harding is the founding director of Round our Way Continue reading...

Chris Bowen also says climate disaster fund will need to be bankrolled by broader-than-expected range of countries in speech ahead of Cop28

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Jealous Mpofu wins Tusk's ranger of the year award for his work with a maligned and misunderstood speciesWhen Jealous Mpofu was a boy, he overheard his father's bosses talking negatively about painted dogs, wild African canines with distinct marble coats that are among the world's most endangered species.They said they didn't kill an animal, they grabbed the flesh. They said they were rough animals," Mpofu said. Continue reading...

Nature Talks presents the results of the nature photographer of the year 2023 competition. Jacquie Matechuk, from Canada, is the winner in the contest, an initiative from the organisation also responsible for the annual Nature Talks photo festival in the Netherlands Continue reading...

Landmark finding in judicial review over management of Costa Beck river could force overhaul of government's plansThe government and environment agency failed in their duty to restore and protect waterways from pollution, the high court has ruled in a significant case that could force an overhaul of the government's plans.Fish Legal and Pickering Fishery Association took the government to judicial review over its river basin management plan for the Costa Beck river in the Humber district, which had a reputation as one of the best fly fishing spots in the UK until a few years ago. Continue reading...

Sentences risk silencing public concerns about the environment, climate change rapporteur Ian Fry saysLong sentences handed to two Just Stop Oil protesters for scaling the M25 bridge over the Thames are a potential breach of international law and risk silencing public concerns about the environment, a UN expert has said.In a strongly worded intervention, Ian Fry, the UN's rapporteur for climate change and human rights, said he was particularly concerned" about the sentences, which were significantly more severe than previous sentences imposed for this type of offending in the past". Continue reading...

Icelandic singer condemns terrible suffering' of salmon farming with proceeds from her new single with Rosalia going to activistsThe Icelandic singer Bjork has condemned industrial salmon farming in open pens as extraordinarily cruel", as she announced her debut song with the Catalan singer Rosalia, which will be available on Tuesday 21 November.The pair will donate the proceeds of the single, a love song based on a recently recovered recording Bjork made two decades ago, to activists opposing the controversial industry in Iceland. Continue reading...

Data shows baby boomers have highest emissions and London has lower footprint than rest of UK The great carbon divide: charting a climate chasmRestaurants, pets and foreign holidays are among the reasons why the UK's most well-off people rack up carbon footprints far greater than those on low incomes, according to data shared with the Guardian.The biggest carbon divide is in aviation, with the richest 10% in the UK - the 6.7 million people paid more than 59,000 a year - causing more than six times more climate-heating emissions from flights than the poorest 10%. Spending on electrical items, homeware and furniture also contributes to the outsize impact of the wealthy, who splash out four times more on these goods. Continue reading...

Carbon emissions of richest 10% is up to 40 times bigger than poorest, and ignoring divide may make ending climate crisis impossible, experts say

The Dine helped dig the raw materials to build the US's nuclear arsenal, but were never told of the dangerAllen Tsosie was just 14 when he went to work in the uranium mines in the Lukachukai mountains near Cove, Arizona.Tsosie was one of thousands of Navajos who took jobs in the mines, starting in the 1940s. They worked without masks or ventilation to disperse the lethal radon gas, and they were never told the rocks they were handling - leetso in the Dine language, or yellow dirt - were deadly. Continue reading...

In the 1970s, Graeme Pearman measured rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, briefing three prime ministers on what that meant for the planet. After decades leading Australia's climate research, Pearman, now 82, speaks of the frustration that the science didn't lead to meaningful change. Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTubeThis video is part of Weight of the World: a climate scientist's burden. The series features three pioneering Australian climate change scientists - Graeme Pearman, Lesley Hughes and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. The series tells the story of how the three scientists made their discoveries, how they came under attack for their science and the personal toll it has taken on them. And importantly, how they stay hopeful.

Some of the 250-year-old beeches made famous by Game of Thrones to be removed over risk to public safetySix trees from the Northern Ireland road known as the Dark Hedges are to be cut down because branches risk falling on Game of Thrones tourists and other visitors.Contractors sealed off Bregagh Road in Armoy, County Antrim on Monday to prepare the felling of at least six ancient beeches deemed a risk to public safety. Continue reading...

A life-changing revelation by my estranged mother when I was 26 led me on a quest for family, heritage and selfHaving spent most of my life in Minnesota, I never could have imagined that I'd feel most like myself fishing in the Pacific waters off the south-east Alaska coast. Continue reading...

With the rivers that feed it drying up, less rainfall and a hotter climate, the world's largest inland body of water is in peril. With five countries sharing it, can the political will to save this unique habitat be found?

Urgent and unswerving attention' required to deal with rising temperatures and extreme weatherThe National Trust has called on the UK government to introduce legislation that recognises the importance of adapting buildings, coastlines and countryside to make sure they can cope with the effects of the climate emergency.It is arguing a new Climate Resilience Act" should set targets on preparing for the risk posed by rising temperatures and extreme weather, saying urgent and unswerving attention" on the issue is needed. Continue reading...

Renowned for clean-energy tech, the billionaire seems to be at one now with super-emitters and far-right global climate deniersElon Musk was once lauded as a sort of green Tony Stark - the genius inventor who leads a double life as superhero Iron Man - for single-handedly tackling the climate crisis one Tesla at a time, helping to forge a clean energy future and pushing for new taxes to drive down fossil fuel use.But the climate credentials of the world's richest person have become clouded by his embrace of rightwing politicians, some of whom dismiss global heating, as well as by his management of X, formerly known as Twitter, during which many climate scientists have fled the platform amid a proliferation of misinformation about the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Research shows impact from lifestyles and investments of likes of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Elon Musk

Man resembling Brazilian ex-president seemingly spotted on a jetski about 15 metres from distressed mammalFederal police are investigating Brazil's former president, Jair Bolsonaro, for yet another suspected misdeed: harassing" a humpback whale while taking a public holiday spin on his jetski.Bolsonaro's anti-environmental policies earned him the nickname Captain Chainsaw" during a four-year administration characterised by soaring destruction of the Amazon. But the far-right ex-president's latest suspected environmental offence reportedly occurred in the waters off Brazil's south-eastern coastline near the town of Sao Sebastiao. Continue reading...

It felt like 58.5C in Rio on Tuesday - and the soaring, indeed dangerous, temperatures are hitting the poorest hardestThe start of summer in the southern hemisphere is still a month away, but Brazil has already experienced its eighth heatwave of the year so far, as temperatures soar to dangerously high levels.Large swathes of the country were put under red alert this week by Inmet, the national meteorological institute, which warned of risks to health and even life" as temperatures stayed at least five degrees Celsius above average for more than five days. Continue reading...

My hope is that the viewer will pause, slow down and take notice. Pay attention to the small, magical things that are happening within each one of the images on these pages and find your own place within them. There we can meet in silence - be still, and watch with wonder.' - Palani Mohan, palanimohan.com.The book Watch with Wonder is published by Hong Kong University Press and the images are on display at the Blue Lotus gallery in Hong Kong until 10 December Continue reading...

Earlier this year, the Norwegian artist and photographer Tine Poppe stumbled across a Ted Talk about the environmental impact of the cut flowers industry. In her series Gilded Lilies she sets these flowers against scenery around the world. The backdrops create an illusion of the flowers having been documented in their natural habitat,' she says, but the viewer will notice that something is off at a second glance.' The flowers in the portraits are genetically engineered examples of their species, grown in industrial scale greenhouses and transported on long-haul flights. I hope to convey a sense of our planet's mortality,' she says.

Once only accessible to the well-off, solar power is making inroads to low-income households thanks to federal and state programsJoseph Wang and his wife have figured out a way to stay warm and efficient during northern California's winter nights: layering.We bundle up during the day, and at night. We use two blankets," said Wang, 87, in Mandarin, explaining how he and his wife, Meng Rou Lan, 84, dealt with trying to save money on their electricity bill last winter. When he and his wife were hit with a $130 electricity bill, they decided to use their heater sparingly. But soon, due to a publicly funded statewide solar program in California, their bill may go down as much as $40 a month. Continue reading...

Tony Juniper believes new homes and protection for green spaces and wildlife should not be seen as oppositesBuilding on the green belt should be part of the UK's answer to the housing crisis, provided more effort is also put into improving the quality of urban green space, England's nature chief says.New housing and better protection for green spaces, wildlife and nature should not be seen as opposites, according to Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England. The oppositional mindset" that sees the two as binary choices" does not reflect reality, and is hindering local communities from finding ways to provide enough homes for people, while restoring the UK's dwindling species. Continue reading...

Republican board member condemns photos in some textbooks for being unfairly critical of oil and gas industryTexas's Republican-controlled education board voted Friday not to include several climate textbooks in the state science curriculum.The 15-member board rejected seven out of 12 for eighth-graders. The approved textbooks are published by Savvas Learning Company, McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Accelerate Learning and Summit K-12. Continue reading...

Efforts to grow seaweed are springing up in the Philippines and beyond, and they're in line for Elon Musk's $1m Milestone prize. However, the Climate Foundation's plans for the ocean have troubled some scientistsA white metal platform on the surface of the Pacific Ocean faces another, smaller one some distance away. Sam Donohue stands on the big platform, Gorio Pepito on the small one. They press buttons, and a high-pitched whirring sets in.Pepito and Donohue release the buttons. The whirring stops. They communicate by walkie-talkie. Everything's OK. A crab walks across the big platform: that's their pet, Donohue says. They press the buttons again. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Steve Barclay accepted 3,000 donation from Michael Hintze, a key funder of Global Warming Policy FoundationThe new environment secretary, Steve Barclay, received a donation from a major funder of a climate sceptic thinktank just weeks before taking up his role, the Guardian can reveal.Barclay accepted 3,000 from Michael Hintze on 20 October, and is being asked by campaigners to reveal whether he has been lobbied on climate issues by those who seek to deny the extent of climate breakdown. Continue reading...

Charges said to be needed to prevent UK companies being undercut by overseas manufacturersThe prospect of higher taxes is not usually viewed with joy by British businesses, or Conservative MPs - but when it comes to carbon, that is precisely what many are asking for.A growing number of manufacturers, Tory MPs and experts are calling for charges to be levied on the carbon emissions associated with imports. They believe the levy is needed to create a level playing field that would enable UK companies to invest in cutting their greenhouse gas emissions, without finding themselves undercut by lower-cost but higher-carbon imports from overseas. Continue reading...

Estimate in new EPA analysis is probably dramatic' undercount because forever chemical' waste is unregulated in USUS industry disposed of at least 60m pounds of PFAS forever chemical" waste over the last five years, and did so with processes that probably pollute the environment around disposal sites, a new analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data finds.The 60m pounds estimate is likely to be a dramatic" undercount because PFAS waste is unregulated in the US and companies are not required to record its disposal, the paper's author, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), wrote. Continue reading...

Fire Weather, which looks at the blazes that ravaged Canada's prairies in 2016, is a book that forces you to ask some questions of yourself', judges saidCanadian-American writer John Vaillant has won this year's 50,000 Baillie Gifford prize for his book Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World, which judges said was both exceptional" and terrifying".Vaillant's book tells the story of the wildfires that struck Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada in 2016, while taking in the connected histories of the oil industry and climate science. It is the first book on the topic of the climate emergency to win the prize, the UK's most prestigious honour for non-fiction, since it started in 1999. Continue reading...