Category Archives: Climate change

Turkey appeals for help to fight wildfires as heatwave continues

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Wildfires break out across much of southern Europe, with temperature reaching 45C in Greece

Turkey has launched an international appeal for help in taming fires raging across the country that have killed eight people in recent days, as what has been described as one of the worst heatwaves in decades intensifies in south-east Europe.

Following criticism of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, after it emerged that Turkey has no firefighting planes, authorities in Istanbul were promised water-dropping planes from the European Union. The country is battling deadly wildfires along its coastline for a sixth day.

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Is remote working better for the environment? Not necessarily

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Companies have a rare moment to reset working models. But climate calculations of remote v office work are complex

Stacy Kauk was finalizing Shopify’s 2019 sustainability report when the pandemic forced the company into remote work.

“I kind of stopped in my footsteps and went, ‘Uh oh, what’s going to happen if we’re closing our offices during Covid and staying remote in the long term? What does that mean for Shopify’s corporate carbon footprint?’” said Kauk, who directs the Canadian e-commerce company’s $5m annual sustainability fund.

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Aerial footage of Pescara wildfire as residents and tourists evacuated – video

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At least five people were wounded and holidaymakers evacuated after wildfires devastated a pine wood near a beach in Pescara, Italy, as one of the worst heatwaves in decades swept across south-east Europe.

About 800 people were evacuated from their homes, including a convent of nuns, after a fire broke out in the 53-hectare (131-acre) Pineta Dannunziana nature reserve, as the fires continue to be active on different fronts

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Tourists evacuated from Pescara as Italy records more than 800 wildfires

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Wildfires burn across Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey in heatwave bringing temperatures above 40C

At least five people have been wounded and holidaymakers evacuated after wildfires devastated a pine wood near a beach in Pescara, Italy, as one of the worst heatwaves in decades swept across south-east Europe.

A five-year-old girl was taken to hospital but her condition is not believed to be life-threatening, according to reports.

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Doggerland: Lost ‘Atlantis’ of the North Sea gives up its ancient secrets

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The land mass that linked Britain to continental Europe was rich in early human life until it flooded

The idea of a “lost Atlantis” under the North Sea connecting Britain by land to continental Europe had been imagined by HG Wells in the late 19th century, with evidence of human inhabitation of the forgotten world following in 1931 when the trawler Colinda dredged up a lump of peat containing a spear point.

But it is only now, after a decade of pioneering research and the extraordinary finds of an army of amateur archaeologists scouring the Dutch coastline for artefacts and fossils, that a major exhibition is able to offer a window into Doggerland, a vast expanse of territory submerged following a tsunami 8,000 years ago, cutting the British Isles off from modern Belgium, the Netherlands and southern Scandinavia.

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Baked barnacles, scorched cherries: the disastrous impact of heatwaves on plants and animals

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More than a billion sea creatures across the Pacific north-west perished in this year’s heatwave. And it’s just a taste of what’s to come

When forecasts foreshadowed the Pacific north-west’s devastating heatwave at the end of June, marine biologist Christopher Harley was alarmed and intrigued.

Then came the smell, and his feelings somberly shifted.

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In the shadow of Paradise, nearby residents make uneasy peace with fire

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Smoke, closed businesses and constant worry have changed life for those living with disaster on their doorstep

The Dixie fire was consuming vast swaths of land in the Sierra Nevada foothills, but in the nearby valley city of Chico, California, it was a typical summer day.

The temperature had already climbed past 102F and a dusting of smoke was pushing air quality to unhealthy levels. Yet at the One Mile city park on Wednesday, college students lay in the shade of oak trees, kids splashed around Sycamore Pool and cyclists raced by.

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Turkish fires sweeping through tourist areas are the hottest on record

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Thousands of holidaymakers evacuated from Aegean Sea resorts as country fights more than 50 blazes

The heat intensity of wildfires in Turkey on Thursday was four times higher than anything on record for the nation, according to satellite data passed on to the Guardian.

At least four people were killed by blazes that swept through the tourist regions of Antalya and Muğla, forcing thousands of holidaymakers to be evacuated from their hotels by a flotilla of boats.

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Three Americans create enough carbon emissions to kill one person, study finds

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The analysis draws on public health studies that conclude that for every 4,434 metric tons of CO2 produced, one person globally will die

The lifestyles of around three average Americans will create enough planet-heating emissions to kill one person, and the emissions from a single coal-fired power plant is likely to result in more than 900 deaths, according to the first analysis to calculate the mortal cost of carbon emissions.

The new research builds upon what is known as the “social cost of carbon”, a monetary figure placed upon the damage caused by each ton of carbon dioxide emissions, by assigning an expected death toll from the emissions that cause the climate crisis.

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Climate crisis: what one month of extreme weather looks like – video

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In the last month, devastating weather extremes have hit regions across the world. From flash floods in Belgium to deadly temperatures in the US, from wildfires in Siberia to landslides in India, it has been an unprecedented period of chaotic weather. Climate scientists have long predicted that human-caused climate disruption would lead to more flooding, heatwaves, droughts, storms and other forms of extreme weather, but even they have been shocked by the scale of these scenes


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New Zealand rated best place to survive global societal collapse

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Study citing ‘perilous state’ of industrial civilisation ranks temperate islands top for resilience

New Zealand, Iceland, the UK, Tasmania and Ireland are the places best suited to survive a global collapse of society, according to a study.

The researchers said human civilisation was “in a perilous state” due to the highly interconnected and energy-intensive society that had developed and the environmental damage this had caused.

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Queen secretly lobbied Scottish ministers for climate law exemption

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Monarch used secretive procedure to become only person in country not bound by a green energy rule

The Queen’s lawyers secretly lobbied Scottish ministers to change a draft law to exempt her private land from a major initiative to cut carbon emissions, documents reveal.

The exemption means the Queen, one of the largest landowners in Scotland, is the only person in the country not required to facilitate the construction of pipelines to heat buildings using renewable energy.

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‘The Queen’s bank’ Coutts joins the ranks of ethical brands

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Despite chequered history the 329-year-old private bank has secured the sought-after B Corp status

Private bank Coutts will offer carbon credits and green mortgages to its ultra-wealthy clients after becoming one of the largest UK banking brands to secure B Corp status.

Coutts, known as the Queen’s bank for having served every member of the royal family since George IV, is trying to bolster its environmental and social reputation after being dogged by a series of scandals in recent years, including sexual harassment allegations against its former star banker Harry Keogh, who was sacked in 2018. The bank was also fined by Swiss regulators in 2017 over alleged money laundering and for illegally profiting from transactions associated with the 1MDB scandal.

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Leading the charge! Can I make it from Land’s End to John o’Groats in an electric car?

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New petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the UK from 2030, and sales of electric vehicles are rising fast. But with drivers reliant on charging points how practical is the greener option? One writer finds out

Range anxiety hits hard on the A9 in the Highlands of Scotland. For the uninitiated, this is the fear that an electric vehicle (EV) won’t reach its destination before running out of power. I’m driving through some of Britain’s loveliest landscape – mountains, rivers, lochs and firths – but I hardly notice. I’m focused hard – on the road in front, but mainly on two numbers on the dashboard. One is how far it is in miles to where I’m going; the other is the range in miles remaining in the battery. Sometimes, especially on downhill stretches when what is known as “regenerative braking” means the battery is getting charged, I tell myself it’s going to be OK, I’ll make it. But going uphill the range plummets. Squeaky bum time.

Plus, I’ve read Michel Faber’s Under the Skin. I know what happens to men stranded on the A9. To range anxiety add the fear of being processed and eaten by aliens.

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Critical measures of global heating reaching tipping point, study finds

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Carbon emissions, ocean acidification, Amazon clearing all hurtling toward new records

A new study tracking the planet’s vital signs has found that many of the key indicators of the global climate crisis are getting worse and either approaching, or exceeding, key tipping points as the earth heats up.

Overall, the study found some 16 out of 31 tracked planetary vital signs, including greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat content and ice mass, set worrying new records.

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Salmon nearly boiled alive in Pacific north-west heatwave captured on video

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A conservation group recorded the video in the Columbia River on a day when water temperatures breached 70F

Salmon in the Columbia River were nearly boiled to death when water temperatures rose during the Pacific north-west’s record-shattering heatwave, according to a conservation group that has documented the disturbing sight.

In a video released on Tuesday by the non-profit organization Columbia Riverkeeper, a group of sockeye salmon swimming in a tributary of the river can be seen covered in angry red lesions and white fungus, the results of stress and exposure to extreme temperatures.

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‘What can we do?’ Chinese discuss role of climate crisis in deadly floods

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Media and citizens have begun asking if China has properly prepared for climate emergency

At about 5pm last Tuesday, as heavy rainfall continued to pound her apartment building in Zhengzhou, the climate policy researcher Zhang Jin headed out to her local supermarket. But the buns and vegetables were almost all gone, and the queue in the supermarket was “over a hundred metres’ long”, she later recalled.

Related: China floods: thousands trapped without fresh water as rain moves north

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‘Record-shattering’ heat becoming much more likely, says climate study

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More heatwaves even worse than those seen recently in north-west of America forecast in research

“Record-shattering” heatwaves, even worse than the one that recently hit north-west America, are set to become much more likely in future, according to research. The study is a stark new warning on the rapidly escalating risks the climate emergency poses to lives.

The shocking temperature extremes suffered in the Pacific north-west and in Australia 2019-2020 were “exactly what we are talking about”, said the scientists. But they said the world had yet to see anything close to the worst impacts possible, even under the global heating that had already happened.

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Plans of four G20 states are threat to global climate pledge, warn scientists

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‘Disastrous’ energy policies of China, Russia, Brazil and Australia could stoke 5C rise in temperatures if adopted by the rest of the world

A key group of leading G20 nations is committed to climate targets that would lead to disastrous global warming, scientists have warned. They say China, Russia, Brazil and Australia all have energy policies associated with 5C rises in atmospheric temperatures, a heating hike that would bring devastation to much of the planet.

The analysis, by the peer-reviewed group Paris Equity Check, raises serious worries about the prospects of key climate agreements being achieved at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in three months. The conference – rated as one of the most important climate summits ever staged – will attempt to hammer out policies to hold global heating to 1.5C by agreeing on a global policy for ending net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.

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India monsoons: at least 112 dead in Maharashtra state

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Torrential rains cause landslides as military personnel assist with rescue operations in coastal regions

At least 112 people have died in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, authorities have said, after torrential monsoon rains caused landslides and flooded low-lying areas, cutting off hundreds of villages.

Parts of India’s west coast received up to 594mm (23 inches) of rainfall over 24 hours, forcing authorities to evacuate people from vulnerable areas as they released water from dams that were threatening to overflow.

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