Riot police use teargas to disperse demonstrators at site of A-69 near Puylaurens in southern France
Police and masked activists clashed at a protest over a motorway project in southern France on Saturday, leaving five people hurt, local officials said.
Thousands of demonstrators ignored a ban on the gathering to turn out for the protest at the site of the A-69 motorway between Castres and Toulouse in the south-west.
Continue reading...Mt Buller had the country’s only ski-on chairlift operating on season’s opening day on Saturday – but snow is forecast for the week ahead
It was a grassy start to Australia’s ski season, with one resort trying to remain upbeat “although we may not have snow on the ground” and a few pockets of human-made alternatives to play on elsewhere.
Mt Buller, in Victoria, was blessed with the only ski-on chairlift in the entire country on the opening day of the winter season on Saturday.
Continue reading...Opposition leader reportedly told News Corp he would oppose the legislated 2030 emissions target – a 43% cut compared with 2005 levels – at the next election
Peter Dutton has been accused of planning to break Australia’s commitment to the landmark Paris climate agreement after he said he would reject the country’s 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target.
The opposition leader reportedly told the Weekend Australian that he would oppose the legislated 2030 emissions target – a 43% cut compared with 2005 levels – at the next election but remain committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
Continue reading...Patrice Miller was found dead in her home in what authorities confirm is first known attack of its kind
A 71-year-old woman was mauled to death by a black bear in a Sierra Nevada community in 2023 in what is believed to be California’s first fatal black bear attack, the state department of fish and wildlife confirmed this week.
Patrice Miller was found dead in her Downieville home in November by a Sierra county sheriff’s deputy who was called to the residence to check on the senior after she had not been seen for several days, KCRA3 reported.
Continue reading...Up to 90% ‘lost in the blink of an eye’, say scientists studying Cyclone Ilsa’s effect on birds on Western Australian island
Increased tropical cyclones due to global heating could lead to dramatic declines in seabird populations, according to a new study.
Scientists found that after Cyclone Ilsa – a category-5 tropical cyclone – hit Bedout Island in Western Australia in April 2023, several seabird populations experienced a collapse of 80-90% due to the storm at the internationally important breeding site.
Continue reading...Equipment being trialled in Scotland extracts warmth from nearby water sources to provide homes with heating
Scientists in Edinburgh have developed a home heating system that draws its energy from the world’s most abundant resource: water.
The equipment can use sea water, rivers, ponds and even mine water to heat radiators and water for baths and showers, using the same technology as in air source heat pumps.
Continue reading...Party has put state-owned power company at centre of its plans for decarbonisation, security and energy bills
Labour is to put a government-owned power company at the heart of the UK’s energy system for the first time since the privatisation of the industry in 1990, in one of Keir Starmer’s boldest pledges so far.
Great British Energy, with £8bn of investment, forms the centrepiece of Labour’s promise to decarbonise the electricity supply by 2030. This would stop well short of any form of renationalisation: GB Energy would be a state-owned investment vehicle and company working alongside and often in partnership with the existing private sector suppliers. The plan is for it to be largely invisible to households, not offering electricity directly to consumers but financing and helping to build low-carbon infrastructure, from windfarms to – potentially – nuclear reactors.
Continue reading...Technique known as cold-water immersion adopted by Phoenix hospitals after county saw 645 heat-related deaths last year
The season’s first heatwave is already baking the south-west with triple-digit temperatures as firefighters in Phoenix – America’s hottest big city – employ new tactics in hopes of saving more lives in a county that saw 645 heat-related deaths last year.
Starting this season, the Phoenix fire department is immersing heatstroke victims in ice on the way to area hospitals. The medical technique, known as cold-water immersion, is familiar to marathon runners and military service members and has also recently been adopted by Phoenix hospitals as a go-to protocol, according to fire captain John Prato.
Continue reading...Mammal was likely swimming between Queensland islands when it ‘just got unlucky and got snapped’ – spikes and all – in apparent world-first
The last thing a group of scientists busy tagging marine animals along the coast of north Queensland expected to see was a shark regurgitate a fully intact echidna – but that is exactly what happened.
In what is believed to be a world-first, researchers from James Cook University, including former PhD student Dr Nicolas Lubitz, were tagging marine wildlife off the coast of Orpheus Island between Townsville and Lucinda in May 2022.
Continue reading...António Guterres warns of ‘climate crunch time’ and announces dire new scientific warnings of global heating
Fossil-fuel companies are the “godfathers of climate chaos” and should be banned in every country from advertising akin to restrictions on big tobacco, the secretary general of the United Nations has said while delivering dire new scientific warnings of global heating.
In a major speech in New York on Wednesday, António Guterres called on news and tech media to stop enabling “planetary destruction” by taking fossil-fuel advertising money while warning the world faces “climate crunch time” in its faltering attempts to stem the crisis.
Continue reading...The venomous spiders native to east Asia look frightening, but are reportedly shy creatures
The US north-east is bracing for yet another pest invasion – this time, giant venomous spiders – as scientists warn that the gag-inducing arachnids are set to advance this summer.
The joro spider, an invasive species from east Asia, will be making a larger appearance in New York, New Jersey and other eastern US states as the summer season heats up.
Continue reading...‘The webcams do not lie,’ says Annalisa Koeman, whose family has been operating a mountain lodge for decades
Bookings have been slow ahead of the ski season at the mountain lodge in Thredbo that Annalisa Koeman’s parents built in the 1960s and have run ever since.
Last ski season started with some good snow falls “but it went downhill from there. It was a disastrous end. The ski lifts closed two weeks early,” says Koeman, managing supervisor at Kasees Apartments and Mountain Lodge.
Continue reading...Governors say president has ‘done nothing but attack American energy’ and urge end to US fossil-fuel rules and regulations
Republican governors gathered in the fossil-fuel rich state of Louisiana on Monday to rail against the Biden administration’s climate agenda and lay out plans to “unleash American energy”, alarming community advocates and climate experts.
“President Biden has done nothing but attack American energy,” said the Louisiana governor Jeff Landry, who led the Wednesday press conference.
Continue reading...Scientists say calamities on same scale as disaster that has killed 169 will become more common if emissions not cut
The unusually intense, prolonged and extensive flooding that has devastated southern Brazil was made at least twice as likely by human burning of fossil fuels and trees, a study has shown.
The record disaster has led to 169 deaths, ruined homes and wrecked harvests, and was worsened by deforestation, investment cuts and human incompetence.
Continue reading...Heavy rain that trapped people in their homes and reportedly caused a train derailment is forecast to continue
A volunteer firefighter died during a rescue operation during heavy rain and flooding in the south of Germany, local police said on Sunday.
Four emergency workers were attempting to reach people trapped by the flood waters near Pfaffenhofen in the region of Bavaria when their boat capsized.
Continue reading...Woman from Riposte Alimentaire arrested after sticking poster on impressionist painter’s Coquelicots
A climate activist has been arrested for sticking an adhesive poster on a Monet painting at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to draw attention to global heating, a police source said.
The action by the woman, a member of Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) – a group of environmental activists and defenders of sustainable food production – was seen in a video posted on X, placing a blood-red poster over Coquelicots (Poppies) by the French impressionist painter Claude Monet.
Continue reading...On first day of predicted intense Atlantic hurricane season, Nature Conservancy urges action and warns against misinformation
Misinformation spread by climate deniers such as Florida’s extremist Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, increases the “vulnerability” of communities in the path of severe weather events, scientists are warning.
The message comes on Saturday, the first day of what experts fear could be one of the most intense and dangerous Atlantic hurricane seasons on record, threatening a summer of natural disasters across the US.
Continue reading...Meteorologists found 52.9C reading to be false, though new record does appear to have been set
A record temperature registered this week for the Indian capital of 52.9C (127.22F) was too high by 3C, the Indian government has said.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had investigated Wednesday’s reading by the weather station at Mungeshpur, a densely packed corner of New Delhi, “and found a 3C sensor error”, the earth sciences minister, Kiren Rijiju, said.
Continue reading...EPA says proposal to keep Hunter Valley Operations mines going to 2050 would release almost 30m tonnes of CO2
The New South Wales environment watchdog says a plan to extend the life of a Hunter Valley coal-mining complex to 2050 is the “largest coal-mining proposal ever put forward” in the state.
Plans by Yancoal and Glencore to keep its joint-venture Hunter Valley Operations (HVO) mines in the Upper Hunter region going would see almost 30m tonnes of CO2 released, the EPA said in Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Continue reading...Temperatures of more than 45C have left population of 29 million exhausted – but the poorest suffer most
As the water tanker drove into a crowded Delhi neighbourhood, a ruckus erupted. Dozens of residents ran frantically behind it, brandishing buckets, bottles and hoses, and jumped on top of it to get even a drip of what was stored inside. Temperatures that day had soared to 49C (120F), the hottest day on record – and in many places across India’s vast capital, home to more than 29 million people, water had run out.
Every morning, Tripti, a social health worker who lives in the impoverished enclave of Vivekanand Camp, is among those who has to stand under the blazing sun with buckets and pots, waiting desperately for the water tanker to arrive.
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