In an exclusive extract from Friederike Otto's new book, she says climate disasters result from inequality as well as fossil fuelMy research as a climate scientist is in attribution science. Together with my team, I analyse extreme weather events and answer the questions of whether, and to what extent, human-induced climate change has altered their frequency, intensity and duration.When I first began my research, most scientists claimed that these questions couldn't be answered. There were technical reasons for this: for a long time, researchers had no weather models capable of mapping all climate-related processes in sufficient detail. But there were other reasons that had less to do with the research itself. Continue reading...

Thousands go to hospital with respiratory problems after massive dust cloud blows in from Saudi ArabiaIraq was hit by its most severe sandstorm of 2025 this week, turning skies from blue to an orange haze. Visibility dropped to less than half a mile, causing travel disruptions, with two major airports halting flights, and streets in Basra, the largest city in southern Iraq, deserted. Respiratory problems sent thousands to hospital. The storm also affected Kuwait, where wind gusts exceeded 50mph, and visibility in some areas was diminished to zero.This massive dust cloud originated in Saudi Arabia before being blown into Iraq. While dust storms are common in Iraq, the climate crisis is expected to intensify them across the region in the future, fuelled by desertification in Saudi Arabia and Syria. Continue reading...

Online exhibition collects soundscapes from nature reserves and sites such as Machu Picchu and Taj MahalThe sounds of wind turbines, rare whales and the Amazonian dawn chorus are among the noises being preserved as part of an exhibition of soundscapes found in world heritage sites.The Sonic Heritage project is a collection of 270 sounds from 68 countries, including from famous Unesco-designated sites such as Machu Picchu and the Taj Mahal, as well as natural landscapes such as the monarch butterfly sanctuary in El Rosario, Mexico and the Colombian Amazon. Continue reading...

Environmentalists warn new proposal from US wildlife agencies could lead to habitat destruction and extinctionThe Trump administration is planning to narrow protections for endangered species, in a move that environmentalists say would accelerate extinction by opening up critical habitats for development, logging, mining and other uses.The proposal is the latest deregulatory effort by Donald Trump, who has made it a priority to dismantle endangered species protections as part of a broader quest to boost energy extraction and industrial access, even in the US's most sensitive and vulnerable natural areas. Continue reading...

Toby Carvery owner apologises over tree's felling as football club faces questions about whether it knew of decisionAn ancient London oak controversially felled earlier this month was assessed to be a fine specimen" last year by tree experts working for Tottenham Hotspur as part of the football club's plans to redevelop parkland next to the site.Mitchells & Butlers Retail (MBR), which owns the Toby Carvery in Whitewebbs Park, Enfield, apologised on Thursday for the upset" caused by the felling of the tree. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Henry Dimbleby joins farmers in voicing fears of lower standards and a poor deal for British food producersBritain's rural communities could be destroyed", the former government food tsar has said, if ministers sign a US trade deal that undercuts British farming standards.Ministers are working on a new trade deal with the US, after previous post-Brexit attempts stalled. Unpopular agreements signed at the time with Australia and New Zealand featured tariff-free access to beef and lamb and were accused of undercutting UK farmers, who are governed by higher welfare standards than their counterparts. Australia, in a trade deal signed by Liz Truss in late 2021 that came into effect in 2023, was given bespoke sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards aimed to not be more trade-restrictive than necessary to protect human life and health". Continue reading...

Liberals in the US make up about 15% of the prepping scene and their numbers are growing. Their fears differ from their better-known rightwing counterparts - as do their methodsOne afternoon in February, hoping to survive the apocalypse or at least avoid finding myself among its earliest victims, I logged on to an online course entitled Ruggedize Your Life: The Basics.Some of my classmates had activated their cameras. I scrolled through the little windows, noting the alarmed faces, downcast in cold laptop light. There were dozens of us on the call, including a geophysicist, an actor, a retired financial adviser and a civil engineer. We all looked worried, and rightly so. The issue formerly known as climate change was now a polycrisis called climate collapse. H1N1 was busily jumping from birds to cows to people. And with each passing day, as Donald Trump went about gleefully dismantling state capacity, the promise of a competent government response to the next hurricane, wildfire, flood, pandemic, drought, mudslide, heatwave, financial meltdown, hailstorm or other calamity receded further from view. Continue reading...

Lawsuit focuses on day-one executive order claiming to unleash American energy' by boosting oil industryConservationists on Wednesday sued the Trump administration over its attempts to boost the oil industry by rolling back green policies.Filed by the environmental non-profit Center for Biological Diversity, the litigation focuses on Trump's day-one unleashing American energy" executive order. In an effort to boost already booming US energy production, the emergency declaration directed federal agencies to identify all policies and regulations that unduly" burden fuel producers and create action plans" to weaken or remove them. Continue reading...

Salmon is often marketed as the sustainable, healthy and eco-friendly protein choice. But what you may not realise is that most of the salmon you buy is farmed, especially if you live in the UK, because Scottish salmon producers are no longer required to tell you.Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out why it is important for consumers to know where their salmon comes from, and examines the gap between the marketing of farmed salmon and the reality for our health, the environmental and animal welfare

From the rock sea-spurrey, which appears to grow out of solid rock, to the slender centaury that lives on a landslip, these plants exist where they do for good reasonI first encountered coastal wildflowers when I was 11. I was visiting my grandmother's friend in Devon and a lady said: Here, dear," and dug up a clump of Warren crocuses - a rare plant that, at the time, was only thought to grow in the seaside resort of Dawlish Warren. She gave them to me to grow in my garden at home. But of course they didn't grow away from the sea.That was when I realised there was something special about coastal wildflowers. They fascinate me because, as well as being beautiful flowers, they often grow in tough locations. Take the rock sea-spurrey: a delicate little plant that appears to grow out of solid rock, such as a crevice in a cliff base. It can put up with being splashed with sea spray and baked by the summer sun. And yet it seems to thrive in that difficult, harsh environment. Continue reading...

Up and down the country, volunteers are coming together to plant more of these nature-rich reservesThe 30-metre ridge runs across the moor near Yar Tor on Dartmoor, one of several faint lines that crisscross the land like aeroplane contrails. Although the open moorland looks wild, we are standing on some of the UK's oldest farmland. These ridges, called reaves, are the ghosts of farming's most wildlife-rich legacy: hedges.These reaves sadly have no function today other than to delight us. Or some of us," says ecologist Rob Wolton. But Dartmoor's reaves are the skeletons upon which more recent hedges were built: hundreds of thousands of miles of them. After Ireland, the UK is believed to be the most hedge-dense country in the world, and Wolton says the majority of them are more than 280 years old. Recent laser scanning shows England has enough hedges to wrap around the world almost 10 times. They are, by far, the country's biggest nature reserve, which is why community groups, farmers and charities are rallying together to plant hedges of the future that will offer the same support to wildlife as the ancient hedges of the past. Continue reading...

No breach, self-regulatory Australian Press Council rules; plus BBC embarks on big bureau expansion

When asked if he accepts we are already seeing the impacts of climate change, the opposition leader responded 'there's an impact', but said the real question is what Australia can do about it. Pressed further, Dutton said 'I don't know' and 'I'm not a scientist' when asked if he was willing to say 'this is climate change happening right now'

Residents of California city's high-risk areas will be required to remove plants within 5ft of homes under fire safety rulesThe city of Berkeley has a new message for residents of its most fire-prone neighborhoods: it's time to cut back your gardens.People living in the most high-fire-risk areas of the California city will be required to remove plants and other flammable materials close to their homes as part of strict new wildfire safety rules the city moved to adopt this week. Continue reading...

The colossal squid, the heaviest invertebrate in the world, has been filmed alive in the wild for the first time since it was identified a century ago. The individual - captured on film near the South Sandwich Islands in the south Atlantic Ocean -is a baby, at just 11.8in (30cm) in length

A young Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the heaviest invertebrate on earth, was filmed in the Atlantic OceanThe colossal squid, the heaviest invertebrate in the world, has been filmed alive in the wild for the first time since it was identified a century ago.Growing up to 23ft (seven metres) long and weighing up to half a tonne, the squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, is the heaviest invertebrate on the planet. The individual captured on film near the South Sandwich Islands, in the south Atlantic Ocean, is a baby, at just 11.8in (30cm) in length. Continue reading...

Enfield council disputes restaurant chain's claim 500-year-old tree in Whitewebbs Park was mostly dead'Toby Carvery has been threatened with legal action by a council over the felling of an ancient oak in a park in north London.The restaurant chain is facing national outrage after its decision to fell the up to 500-year-old tree without warning on 3 April. Continue reading...

Conservation groups call for immediate action to protect wildlife as two-year wait for Labor's promised creation of park continues

Country may be home to as many as 13,000 bears, the highest total by far in Europe outside RussiaRomania may be home to as many as 13,000 brown bears, almost twice as many as previously thought, the country's forestry research institute has said, as officials promised new laws to allow communities to deal with crisis bear situations".The institute's study of 25 counties in the Carpathian mountains was the first to use DNA samples from material such as faeces and hair. Previous estimates based on prints and sightings put the bear population at fewer than 8,000. Continue reading...

Researchers say urgent action needed to inform people about risks of heatwave temperatures and adapt homesThe number of UK homes overheating in summer quadrupled to 80% over the past decade, according to a study, with experts calling the situation a crisis.Heat already kills thousands of people each year in the UK and the toll will rise as the climate crisis intensifies. Urgent action is needed both to inform people on how to cope with high temperatures and to adapt homes, which are largely designed to keep heat in during the winter, the researchers said. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Ancient oaks as precious as stately homes' could receive stronger legal safeguards under new proposalsAncient and culturally important trees in England could be given legal protections under plans set out in a UK government-commissioned report.Sentencing guidelines would be changed so those who destroy important trees would face tougher criminal penalties. Additionally, a database of such trees would be drawn up and they could be given automatic protections, with the current system of tree preservation orders strengthened to accommodate this.In 2020, the 300-year-old Hunningham Oak near Leamington was felled to make way for infrastructure projects.In 2021, the Happy Man tree in Hackney, which the previous year had won the Woodland Trust's tree of the year contest, was felled to make way for housing development.In 2022, a 600-year-old oak was felled in Bretton, Peterborough, which reportedly caused structural damage to nearby property.In 2023, 16 ancient lime trees on The Walks in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, were felled to make way for a dual carriageway. Continue reading...

Cuts to disaster agency and deregulation of fossil fuels, plus rise of water-guzzling datacentres, highlighted in new reportThe Trump administration's sweeping cuts to the federal climate disaster agency - and the full-throttle deregulation of fossil fuels and water-guzzling datacentres - could prove catastrophic for America's endangered rivers, threatening the food, water and livelihoods of millions of people, according to a new report.American Rivers' annual most-endangered rivers list lays bare a myriad of human-made threats including floods, drought and other extreme weather events driven by the climate crisis, as well as industrial pollution and poor river management - all of which Trump's regulatory rollbacks will almost inevitably make worse. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Power outages in major cities would help build opposition to climate policies, Colin Boyce tells podcast

Juliette Pavy's photographs of eco expeditions bring an element of lyrical storytelling to the global impact of invisible pollutants, from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Continue reading...

In one Nepali village, the resident rhinos are a conservation success story and attract thousands of visitors, but attacks on humans are on the riseI can't talk now, I'm in hospital," Ram Kumar Aryal says when he picks up the phone. Someone has been attacked by one of the rhinos." Every few months, Aryal - who is one of the architects of Nepal's celebrated rhino conservation programme - ends up in one of the hospitals around Chitwan national park to respond to a rhino attack. This time, three women had been injured earlier that afternoon by a female rhino outside Laukhani village in the park's buffer zone.The hospital had bandaged up their fractured legs and ribs and treated the bites on their hips and knees. Normally rhinos are vegetarian, but they use their incisors for attacks," says Aryal. Those incisors can grow to three inches long. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Absence of world's biggest clean energy producer will be welcomed by US pushing oil and gas exportsChina is to snub a major UK summit on energy security next week, the Guardian has learned, amid a growing row over the country's involvement in UK infrastructure projects.The US will send a senior White House official to the 60-country summit, to be co-hosted with the International Energy Agency. Leading oil and gas companies are also invited, along with big technology businesses, and petrostates including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Continue reading...

Coalition's proposal overestimates the reliability of Australia's ageing coal generators, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis says

Syngenta has been besieged by lawsuits from people claiming its product caused the neurological conditionBesieged by thousands of lawsuits alleging that its paraquat weedkiller causes Parkinson's disease, its manufacturer, Syngenta, has entered into an agreement aimed at settling large swaths of those claims.A court filing on Monday confirmed that a letter of agreement between the parties had been signed. In a court hearing on Tuesday, one of the lead plaintiff lawyers, Khaldoun Baghdadi, said the terms of the settlement should be completed within 30 days. Continue reading...

Whitewebbs Park oak cut down by contractors working for firm that runs nearby restaurantThe sudden felling of one of the oldest and largest oak trees in London has been carried out by the company that owns a nearby Toby Carvery, as campaigners renewed calls for better protection for such nationally significant trees.The oak in Whitewebbs Park, Enfield, was up to 500 years old, with a trunk that was more than six metres in circumference. It was listed on the Woodland Trust inventory of ancient trees, but was not the subject of a tree preservation order. Continue reading...

Boyce tells Climate and Energy Realists Queensland that opposition to renewables is growing and fellow MPs should adopt a do nothing strategy'

Researchers looked at more than 25,000 everyday items available at supermarkets like Aldi, Coles, Woolworths, Harris Farm and IGA

The White House has pulled federal webpages tracking climate and environmental justice dataGreen groups have sued the Trump administration over the removal of government webpages containing federal climate and environmental justice data that they described as tantamount to theft".In the first weeks of its second term, the Trump administration pulled federal websites tracking shifts in the climate, pollution and extreme weather impacts on low-income communities, and identifying pieces of infrastructure that are extremely vulnerable to climate disasters. Continue reading...

With extreme weather and Trump's looming trade war, US farmers are reeling and resigned to needing more cash helpFarmers across the United States say they could face financial ruin - unless there is a huge taxpayer-funded bailout to compensate for losses generated by Donald Trump's sweeping cuts and chaotic tariffs.Small- and medium-sized farms were already struggling amid worsening climate shocks and volatile commodities markets, on top of being squeezed by large corporations that dominate the supply chain. Continue reading...

As part of Trump's administrations efficiency' drive, staff running decades-old program for energy assistance laid offRobert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is facing new demands to release almost $400m allocated by Congress to help low-income US families keep the air conditioning on this summer.The funds are under threat after the staff running a decades-old program were fired - as part of the Trump administration's so-called efficiency" drive. Continue reading...

Bear Grylls-inspired vessel helps wardens on Coquet Island care for UK's only breeding colony of roseate ternsIt looks like something James Bond might drive - or, more accurately, Bear Grylls. But rather than enabling secret missions or carrying millionaires, this innovative amphibious boat is helping RSPB wardens look after Britain's only breeding colony of roseate terns.The endangered birds nest on Coquet Island off the Northumberland coast each spring but seasonal wardens who manage the tiny island struggle to get on and off it because there is no safe mooring point or harbour at low tide. This means boats can only take people and kit to the island at high tide - often at inconvenient times of day or night - making life for the wardens, who live in the island's lighthouse, a little complicated. Continue reading...

Dmitry Kalmykov is a Ukrainian scientist who has dedicated his life to investigating environmental disasters, first at Chornobyl and now in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan - formerly the Soviet Union's primary nuclear weapons testing site. He teaches schoolchildren about how bombs were tested, and how - more than 30 years after the site was decommissioned - the surrounding community is only beginning to comprehend radiation's lasting deadly effects. Against the backdrop of war in Ukraine and the long shadow of a nuclear conflict across the region, Dmitry debates Kazakhstan's nuclear future with its next generation Continue reading...

The country's average temperature has risen by 0.48C a decade from 2000. Last August, photographer Susan Schulman visited Baghdad and Amarah, to capture the impact of extreme weather on everyday lives Continue reading...

Britain's traditional retailers were in decline for years. Then the pandemic changed how we buy food and boosted the fishing industryThe seafood chef and restaurateur Mitch Tonks recalls the moment things for him changed dramatically. It was March 2020, the start of Covid, when a local fishing boat skipper called him in a panic. Nick was having a tough time; nobody was buying his catch, so I emailed our customer network," he says.Tonks asked people to bring cash and containers. The next morning, Nick landed his boat at Brixham, the south Devon port that is England's largest fish market by value of catch sold. About 150 people turned up to buy his fish. Many asked why can't we just buy fish straight off boats like this normally?'" Continue reading...

European State of the Climate report lays bare' impact of fossil fuels on continent during its hottest 12 months on recordThe home-wrecking storms and floods that swept Europe last year affected 413,000 people, a report has found, as fossil fuel pollution forced the continent to suffer through its hottest year on record.Dramatic scenes of cars piled up on inundated streets and bridges being ripped away by raging torrents were seen around the continent in 2024, with high" floods on 30% of the European river network and 12% crossing the severe" flood threshold, according to the European State of the Climate report. Continue reading...

Hotter seas supercharge storms and destroy critical ecosystems such as kelp forests and coral reefsThe climate crisis has tripled the length of ocean heatwaves, a study has found, supercharging deadly storms and destroying critical ecosystems such as kelp forests and coral reefs.Half of the marine heatwaves since 2000 would not have happened without global heating, which is caused by burning fossil fuels. The heatwaves have not only become more frequent but also more intense: 1C warmer on average, but much hotter in some places, the scientists said. Continue reading...

Unite leader says partial deal on pay protection for a few' was overwhelmingly rejected in vote, as rubbish piles upBin workers have overwhelmingly" rejected a deal that would have ended the all-out strike in Birmingham that has caused bin bags to pile up in the streets and an influx of rats in the city.Negotiations between the council and Unite, which is representing the striking workers, have stalled for months, and refuse workers have been on indefinite strike since 11 March. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Brad Battin says he had a conversation with the federal opposition leader about the language' he would use about plans to build a nuclear reactor in eastern Victoria

Australian Conservation Foundation says opposition has failed every single test' while Labor passes with 54% and Greens achieve 98%

Often dismissed as summertime sniffles, the condition that affects a quarter of UK adults can lead to serious and life-limiting health problemsRead more: Pollen peril: how heat, thunder and smog are creating deadly hay fever seasonsSometimes the season starts as early as mid-April; other times it's slower to get going. But for Lisa Ventura, June is consistently the cruellest month. I might get lulled into a false sense of security: Oh, it's the end of May, it hasn't started yet'," she says in a heavy tone. Then, as if on cue, it's June the first - and bang."Ventura suffers from debilitating" hay fever. For about three months from early May, she cannot be outside for more than a few minutes before she starts sniffing and sneezing. When it's really bad, my eyes look like I've gone 10 rounds with a boxer - they are that swollen," says Ventura. Continue reading...

During an election campaign, the last thing you want is to catch a cold from someone - so that's on me,' environment minister says

The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop themThe movement for corporate city states cannot believe its good luck. For years, it has been pushing the extreme notion that wealthy, tax-averse people should up and start their own high-tech fiefdoms, whether new countries on artificial islands in international waters (seasteading") or pro-business freedom cities" such as Prospera, a glorified gated community combined with a wild west med spa on a Honduran island.Yet despite backing from the heavy-hitter venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, their extreme libertarian dreams kept bogging down: it turns out most self-respecting rich people don't actually want to live on floating oil rigs, even if it means lower taxes, and while Prospera might be nice for a holiday and some body upgrades", its extra-national status is currently being challenged in court. Continue reading...

Early reports have led experts to believe there could be a surge in the deadly invader, threatening native speciesThey have bright yellow legs, are about 25mm (almost 1in) long, and a single colony, if left unchecked, can butcher" 90,000 pollinating insects in just one season.Since the first UK sighting in 2016 of Vespa velutina - the Asian or yellow-legged hornet - beekeepers and scientists have waged a vigorous campaign to minimise the damage this invasive species can do to Britain's biodiversity and bee colonies. Continue reading...

Avadale's one police officer says damage is heartbreaking but locals are resilient - They'll get it done'

Spokesperson acknowledges supply of flyers, T-shirts and corflutes to dozens of community groups' seeking to defeat party's candidates

It's not as sensational as recreating long-dead species, but conserving modern-day fauna is far more pressingThe parable of the Mars mission: we'd rather spend trillions sending ourselves to a yet unlivable planet than look after the one we have. And swiftly on its heels, the parable of the dire wolf. We'd rather resurrect a 12,500-year-old species from the dead than save our existing wild animals. Of course we would. Recycling is boring; doing the very thing 90s science fiction movies warned us not to do is fun.We are not quite on the verge of bringing back ancient species. But last week the PR campaign for doing so began in earnest. Colossal Biosciences - a company known for trying to revive the dodo, the mammoth and the thylacine - has unveiled three large adorable white puppies, claiming it has created the world's first successfully de-extincted animal": the dire wolf, made famous by Game of Thrones. It invited author George RR Martin to look; he duly burst into tears. Continue reading...