Environment | The Guardian
- A red-lipped batfish: is there anything creepier? | Helen Sullivan October 14, 2024We’ve all been there. We’ve all felt like a badly made-up, odd-limbed, irritable floor-dwelling messAs you contemplate the wonders of evolution, and how a creature can be born with something weird and new, and that thing can either help it get ahead or not hurt its chances, and it can then reproduce and make another […]Helen Sullivan
- Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing? October 14, 2024The sudden collapse of carbon sinks was not factored into climate models – and could rapidly accelerate global heatingIt begins each day at nightfall. As the light disappears, billions of zooplankton, crustaceans and other marine organisms rise to the ocean surface to feed on microscopic algae, returning to the depths at sunrise. The waste from […]Patrick Greenfield
- ‘It looked like something out of Star Trek – I expected it to go at warp speed’: the incredible marine life of the Azores – in pictures October 14, 2024The mid-Atlantic archipelago of nine islands, the tips of drowned volcanoes, is a remarkable place for marine mammals. The clear, deep waters provide the perfect habitat for cetaceans, and 28 species of whale and dolphin have been documented there. The Dutch scientist and photographer Jeroen Hoekendijk spent a week in September capturing the diversity of […]Philip Hoare
- Europe’s medical schools to give more training on diseases linked to climate crisis October 14, 2024New climate network will teach trainee doctors more about heatstroke, dengue and malaria and role of global warming in healthMosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and malaria will become a bigger part of the curriculum at medical schools across Europe in the face of the climate crisis.Future doctors will also have more training on how to […]Kat Lay, Global health correspondent
- Oysters are back on British menu – but will red tape stifle the shellfish boom? October 14, 2024Dispute over use of invasive species could hit production at seafood farmsYou can see them on the specials boards of new restaurants and on chalkboards propped outside bars and pubs. Foodie TikTokers are eating them by the dozen. Healthy, available for £1 and even good for the environment, oysters are experiencing a boom in popularity.But […]Charis McGowan
- ‘The job starts straight away’: Adrian Ramsay on his first 100 days as Green MP October 13, 2024Co-leader has had to prioritise the most urgent constituency cases until finally assembling his full teamWhen Adrian Ramsay confounded more than a century of Conservative hegemony in rural East Anglia to win Waveney Valley for the Greens on a wave of local enthusiasm, he might have expected to enjoy a pleasant political honeymoon.Pledging to work […]Patrick Barkham
- ‘I felt like a bird god’: why comedian Geraldine Hickey is excited for this year’s Aussie Bird Count October 13, 2024The keen birdwatcher encourages others to take 20 minutes out of their day, describing the experience as ‘meditative’In early October the comedian Geraldine Hickey went looking for tawny frogmouths, a charismatic bird with a frog-like beak and mottled feathers.“They’re a good-looking bird,” Hickey says, though it hasn’t yet appeared in her annual bird calendar, a […]Petra Stock
- Top-rated UK water firms ‘dumped 1,374 illegal spills into rivers’ October 13, 2024Exclusive: United Utilities and Severn Trent had four-star environment ranking but discharges breached permits, campaign group says• ‘Ankle deep in sewage’: English spring water village suffers supected unlawful spillsTwo of England’s biggest water firms dumped raw sewage into rivers across the country in suspected illegal breaches of their permits, despite being given the highest possible […]Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Raphael Boyd
- The big picture: Khashayar Javanmardi explores the decline of the Caspian Sea October 13, 2024The Iranian photographer reveals the dangers posed to fishermen and farmers by the polluted water in which he used to swimThe world’s largest enclosed body of water, the Caspian Sea, is surrounded by jeopardies. Declining water levels from global heating have been exacerbated by increasing levels of extraction from the Volga and the Ural, the […]Tim Adams
- The Observer view on climate change: Hurricane Milton is a portent – but it’s not too late | Observer editorial October 13, 2024We are losing in the fight against global warming, it is time to put effort into controlling what we pump into the atmosphereThe havoc unleashed by Hurricane Milton provided unambiguous evidence that we are entering a critical and alarming new phase in the planet’s climate crisis. Rising fossil fuel emissions have triggered increases in ocean […]Observer editorial
- They are relics of the Gondwana age but five years after Australia’s black summer these trees are dying a ‘long, slow death’ October 12, 2024Rainforest trees at Nightcap national park have not evolved to deal with bushfires, leaving the landscape vulnerable for years after major burnsCounting the cost of Australia’s summer of dreadGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThousands of years of accumulated leaf fall makes the ground bounce like a mattress underfoot and, high […]Graham Readfearn
- Oceanographer Dawn Wright: ‘When we reached the bottom, we saw a beer bottle’ October 12, 2024The US scientist on being the first Black woman to descend to Earth’s deepest point, ignoring career advice – and what really happened to the Titan submersibleThe American oceanographer Dawn Wright is the first Black person and only the 27th human to have been to the deepest spot on the planet. Challenger Deep, at the […]Zoë Corbyn
- Stop pushing heat pumps or face major backlash, green energy magnate tells Labour October 12, 2024Party donor Dale Vince warns that urging homeowners to switch to clean-power technology risks political storm bigger than UlezThe government risks a huge political backlash if it keeps pushing the public to install heat pumps to replace their boilers, one of Britain’s leading green entrepreneurs has warned.Dale Vince, a major Labour donor and renewable energy […]Michael Savage Policy Editor
- Week in wildlife in pictures: a diva beaver, 100 hungry raccoons and the fattest bear October 11, 2024The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...Joanna Ruck
- Labour’s carbon-capture scheme will be Starmer’s white elephant: a terrible mistake costing billions | George Monbiot October 11, 2024The supposedly green project – brainchild of the previous Tory government – will increase emissions, not reduce themThis will be Keir Starmer’s HS2: a hugely expensive scheme that will either be abandoned, scaled back or require massive extra funding to continue, after many billions have been spent. The government’s plan for carbon capture and storage […]George Monbiot
- 'I felt like I was about to die': survivors of Hurricane Milton tell their stories – video October 11, 2024Some Florida residents rode out Hurricane Milton despite evacuation orders, staying in their homes after the second major hurricane in two weeks. Milton slammed into Florida as a category 3 storm, killing at least 10 people, spawning tornadoes and leaving more than 3 million homes and businesses without powerAll our Hurricane Milton coverageA visual guide […]
- Hurricane Milton: US Coast Guard rescues man clinging to ice chest in Gulf of Mexico – video October 10, 2024The man was aboard a fishing vessel that became disabled off Madeira Beach, Florida, hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall, a Coast Guard press officer says. The man was able to radio the Coast Guard in nearby St Petersburg before contact was lostDeaths expected to rise as Florida begins to assess Hurricane Milton destruction Continue […]
- The Guardian view on Hurricane Milton and other disasters: extreme politics is worsening extreme weather | Editorial October 10, 2024Climate change deniers such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis lament the impact of such events but won’t acknowledge the underlying problemThe preparations for Hurricane Milton were on a mammoth scale, as the clean-up will be. The storm thankfully lost some of its force before it slammed into Florida, making landfall on Wednesday night as a category […]Editorial
- Collapsing wildlife populations near ‘points of no return’, report warns October 10, 2024As average population falls reach 95% in some regions, experts call for urgent action but insist ‘nature can recover’Global wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 73% in 50 years, a new scientific assessment has found, as humans continue to push ecosystems to the brink of collapse.Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the steepest […]Patrick Greenfield
- Hurricane Milton makes landfall in Florida – video October 10, 2024Milton, which fluctuated in intensity as it approached Florida, was a category 3 hurricane as it made landfall.'It will continue to move across central Florida throughout the night and into the early morning hours,' said Florida governor Ron DeSantis.Hurricane Milton Continue reading...