Category Archives: Climate crisis

After Hurricane Beryl’s destruction, climate scientists fear for what’s next

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Experts say devastating hurricane so early in season is ‘big wake-up call’ – and predict even more powerful storms

The poignancy was unmistakable: prognosticators at Colorado State University amended their already miserable seasonal tropical cyclone forecast on Monday precisely as Hurricane Beryl was filling Houston’s streets with floodwater and knocking out power to more than 2m homes and businesses.

“A likely harbinger of a hyperactive season” was how CSU researchers characterized Beryl, which set numerous records on the way to its Texas landfall, including the earliest category 5 hurricane, strongest ever June storm, and most powerful to strike the southern Windward Islands.

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Solitary wooden house on Union Island escapes fury of Hurricane Beryl

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Remarkable survival of structure triggers debate in religious St Vincent and the Grenadines about how it is still standing

On the island of Union in St Vincent and the Grenadines, where the category 4 Hurricane Beryl caused “Armageddon-like” destruction, demolishing more than 90% of the buildings, there is a solitary wooden house standing defiantly among the wreckage.

A picture of the quaint yellow building with a mauve roof, bafflingly out of place among an array of debris and roofless structures, has been shared more than 500 times on Facebook. In a deeply religious country where more than 80% of the population are Christians, it has triggered a debate about whether its survival is a miraculous message from God.

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How Sydney’s endless rain is ruining football seasons and breaking young hearts

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As Saturday after Saturday gets wiped out by bad weather, clubs are drowning in a sea of unplayed fixtures

The first thing Jamie Amendolia’s boys ask him when he picks them up from school every afternoon is the same: “Is training on? Is the game on? Has it been called off? Are we playing?”

Both of his sons, Sebastian, 10, and Alexander, eight, play football at Enfield FC in Sydney’s inner west. They’re footy fanatics. Except both have had their season thrown into chaos by the wet weather that has hit and bogged down Sydney’s weekends for months.

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Las Vegas sets record for number of days over 115F amid its ‘most extreme heatwave in history’

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City hits all-time high of 120F as officials set up emergency cooling centers at community centers across south Nevada

Las Vegas set a new record on Wednesday as it marked a fifth consecutive day over 115F (46C), amid a lingering hot spell that will continue scorching much of the US into the weekend.

The blazing hot temperatures climbed to 115F shortly after 1pm at Harry Reid international airport, breaking the old mark of four consecutive days above 115F set in July 2005.

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New Zealand’s sea temperatures hit record highs, outstripping global averages

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Experts say the new figures dispel the notion that the country is protected from extreme temperatures and raise fears for local marine life

New Zealand’s sea temperatures have hit record highs, outstripping global averages threefold in one region, and prompting alarm over the health of the country’s marine life and ecosystems.

New data from Stats NZ shows since 1982, oceanic sea-surface temperatures have increased on average between 0.16 – 0.26C a decade, and between 0.19–0.34C a decade, in coastal waters.

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Climate expert Chris Stark appointed to lead UK clean energy taskforce

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‘Mission control centre’ to work with energy companies and regulators towards goal of clean and cheaper power by 2030

Labour has appointed one of the country’s foremost climate experts to lead a “mission control centre” on clean energy.

Chris Stark, the former head of the UK’s climate watchdog, will head a Covid vaccine-style taskforce aimed at delivering clean and cheaper power by 2030.

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James Inhofe, former Republican senator who called climate change a ‘hoax’, dies aged 89

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The Oklahoman brought a snowball to the Senate floor in 2015 to prove humans couldn’t change the climate

Republican former senator James Inhofe, a climate denier who once brought a snowball to the chamber floor in a stunt attempting to disprove global warming, died on Tuesday at the age of 89.

Inhofe resigned as senator for Oklahoma in January 2023, suffering long-term effects of Covid-19. Elected in 1994, his time as the state’s longest-serving senator was notable for his ultra-conservative positions on numerous issues, including calling the climate emergency “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”.

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Three dead and millions without power as Tropical Storm Beryl hits Texas

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Man, 53, and woman, 74, killed by fallen trees and third person drowns amid howling winds and torrential rain

Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall in south-east Texas on Monday with howling winds and torrential rains, causing the deaths of at least three people, closing oil ports, and knocking out power to more than 2.5 million homes and businesses.

Before making landfall in Texas, the storm had already carved a path through the Caribbean as a category 5 hurricane, where it killed 11 people. It continued on to Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula as a category 2, temporarily dropped in intensity to a tropical storm but again strengthened to a hurricane over the weekend.

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US heatwave tied to four Oregon deaths as temperature records are shattered

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More than 146 million Americans under extreme heat alerts as dangerous weather fuels outbreak of new wildfires

A fierce heatwave has shattered temperature records across the US west and has been tied to at least four deaths in Oregon, with more heat on the way as dangerous weather fueled the outbreak of new wildfires.

Oregon faced triple-digit temperatures and saw several records toppled over the weekend, including in Salem, where on Sunday it hit 103F (39.4C), topping the 99F (37.2C) mark set in 1960. Authorities in Multnomah county – home to Portland, where temperatures broke daily records over the weekend – said they were investigating four suspected deaths tied to the heatwave.

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Ecuador court rules pollution violates rights of a river running through capital

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Ruling, based on constitutional rights for natural features like Quito’s Machángara River, appealed by government

A ruling described by activists as “historic,” a court in Ecuador has ruled that pollution has violated the rights of a river that runs through the country’s capital, Quito.

The city government appealed the ruling, which is based on an article of Ecuador’s constitution that recognizes the rights of natural features like the Machángara River.

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‘Potentially historic’ heatwave threatens more than 130m across US

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Temperatures could crest 100F (38C) in many regions after breaking records and sparking dozens of wildfires

A long-running heatwave that has already broken records, sparked dozens of wildfires and left about 130 million people under a high temperature threat is about to intensify enough that the National Weather Service has deemed it “potentially historic”.

The NWS on Saturday reported some type of extreme heat or advisory for nearly 133 million people across the nation – mostly in western states where the triple-digit heat, with temperatures 15 to 30 degrees fahrenheit higher than average, is expected to last into next week.

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Greens to push Labour to ‘be braver’ on climate, sewage and cost of living

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Party co-leader and new MP Carla Denyer says election shows voters ‘have had enough of incremental change’

The Green party will push the incoming Labour government to “be braver” on key issues, from the climate crisis and sewage in rivers to housing and tax, according to Carla Denyer, the party’s co-leader and one of its four new MPs.

The party quadrupled its number of MPs, beating Labour in Bristol Central and Brighton Pavilion and the Conservatives in Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire.

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Hurricane Beryl barrels through Cayman Islands after battering Jamaica

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Category 3 storm with wind speeds of up to 120mph continues to wreak ‘utter devastation’ in Caribbean

Hurricane Beryl is barrelling through the Cayman Islands after causing death and destruction in Jamaica.

The British overseas territory is bearing the brunt of the hurricane, which has been causing “utter devastation” in the Caribbean since Monday, when it almost destroyed parts of Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

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The summer of green music festivals – podcast

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It’s festival season! But are festivals any good for the environment? This week Chanté chats to Lewis Jamieson of Music Declares Emergency and the Grammy-nominated House DJ Jayda G about how festivals can become more sustainable and why the music industry can be an important voice in the fight for climate justice.

Jayda G’s documentary Blue Carbon can be watched here

Archive – BBC, TikTok (billsvids), CNN, Blue Carbon (WaterBear), Instagram (liamcmusic_), BBC 5Live,

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‘Please send help’: Caribbean reels from Hurricane Beryl devastation

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Homes flattened, apocalyptic scenes and at least four dead as St Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada try to recover

This should have been a week of celebration in the Caribbean country of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). The annual Vincy Mas carnival, which attracts thousands of tourists, had advertised a packed schedule of costume parades, soca competitions, and beauty pageants.

Instead, the Vincentian population is reeling from what the country’s prime minister has described as the “utter devastation” wrought by Hurricane Beryl, which ravaged the multi-island country and its eastern Caribbean neighbour Grenada.

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Biden attacks Republican climate deniers as he unveils extreme-heat rules

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President hails proposal to protect millions of Americans from extreme heat – the top weather-related US killer

President Biden on Tuesday trumpeted new rules from his administration that aim to protect Americans from extreme heat.

“Extreme heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States,” he said at the Washington DC Emergency Operations Center. “More people die from extreme heat than floods, hurricanes and tornadoes combined.”

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Brutal California heatwave to coincide with Fourth of July wildfire risks

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Sweltering conditions and power shutoffs may overlap with errant fireworks or badly tended campfires

A brutal and long-lasting heatwave is threatening to wreak havoc across the US west this week, as sweltering conditions, power shutoffs and a severe uptick in wildfire risks coincide with Fourth of July celebrations.

Nearly 90 million people were under heat alerts from the National Weather Service on Tuesday morning, as swaths of the south-central and western US were scorched. As pressure builds over the west through the week, the dangerous weather event is expected to stretch for days with little reprieve.

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Hurricane Beryl: Caribbean leader calls out rich countries for climate failures as ‘horrendous’ storm makes landfall

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Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines calls Cop ‘largely a talk shop’ and beseeches west to honor commitments

The prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) has decried a lack of political will in western Europe and the US to tackle global climate crisis as Hurricane Beryl has made landfall as an “extremely dangerous” category 4 storm.

Speaking from his residence in SVG on Monday, Ralph Gonsalves described the unfolding catastrophe as the “monster” storm ripped off rooftops, including that of the 204-year-old St George’s Anglican cathedral in the country’s capital, Kingstown.

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Labour will take global lead on climate action, Ed Miliband vows

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Exclusive: shadow energy security secretary promises to fill ‘vacuum’ left by Rishi Sunak’s U-turn on net zero

Labour will promise to take the lead on global efforts to tackle the climate crisis, filling a “vacuum of leadership” on the world stage and proving Rishi Sunak’s U-turn on net zero has been a “historic mistake”, Ed Miliband has said.

The shadow energy security and net zero secretary said the UK needed to change course and was “off track”.

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‘It’s not beautiful, but you can still eat it’: climate crisis leads to more wonky vegetables in Netherlands

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Crowdfunding scheme salvages ‘imperfect’ fruit and veg following the country’s wettest autumn, winter and spring on record

When 31-year-old Dutch farmer Bastiaan Blok dug up his latest crop, the weather had taken a disastrous toll. His onions – 117,000 kilos of them – were the size of shallots.

“We had a very wet spring and a dry, warm summer, so the plants made very small roots,” said Blok, who farms 90 hectares in Swifterbant, in the reclaimed province of Flevoland. “Half of them were less than 40mm and normally at this size they aren’t even processed. We would have probably sold them for very little for biomass, or maybe to Poland for onion oil. It’s either far too wet and cold, or far too warm and dry, and there’s no normal growing period in between.”

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