Environment news

• Why a Southern California Refinery Explosion Could Kill Thousands

  17-02-2017 20:58 via feedproxy.google.com
  One morning in February 2015, I felt a rumble. Was it an earthquake? No. It was an explosion at the ExxonMobil oil refinery a few miles away. The refinery is located in the middle of a residential area of Torrance, Calif.
  
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• ‘A slap in the face’: small farmers say Trump is turning his back on them

  11-07-2026 16:00
  
  The president wooed farmers in his campaign, but now the USDA is yanking funding, citing ‘DEI’ and wasteful spendingIt’s just an eighth of an acre, but for Lawrencia Rogers, the plot where she grows broccolini, lettuce and beans on land once tilled by poorhouse residents in eastern Iowa is the closest she has come to living her dream.Iowa is one of the most agriculturally productive states in the country, but getting into farming is not easy, particularly for people like Rogers
  
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• ‘Every time the rain falls, the fear comes back’: life in Lagos under the constant threat of floods

  11-07-2026 13:00
  As Nigeria braces for another season of devastating rains, people affected describe the mental toll of repeatedly rebuilding their livesMurky water first tore down a perimeter fence, then bubbled into the yard before spilling into every room. Within minutes, electronics, kitchen appliances, furniture, documents and academic certificates lay submerged.With the water rising rapidly, Daniel Ebiesua evacuated his home in the Shogunle area of Lagos, with his wife, their two-week-old baby, four-year-o
  
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• ‘Like a sauna’: London tube travellers swelter in temperatures higher than legal limit for cattle

  11-07-2026 10:45
  
  The tube cannot easily be adapted to cope with heatwaves, making conditions almost unbearableAs the escalator descends below ground at King’s Cross St Pancras station in London, the shift from what was already a hot station entrance to the furnace-like subterranean depths is perceptible.On the tube it’s worse: a man leans back in his seat, eyes closed, sweltering; people hold electric fans an inch away from their faces. London commuters are known for their stoicism and the heat appea
  
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• A swarm of stink bugs and a river of rats: why India’s flowering bamboo causes a crisis for humans

  11-07-2026 10:00
  Every few decades mass blooming in Mizoram’s forests causes a rodent boom – and devastation to crops. The cycle is well-known, so why aren’t farmers and authorities better prepared?In the hills of Mizoram state in north-east India, the first thing that farmers notice are the swarms of stink bugs, known locally as thangnang. It can mean only one thing: the rats are coming. And with them, famine.As dawn breaks in Mamit district, Maunsanga, a 62-year-old farmer, walks across his p
  
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• The 13 biggest myths about heatwaves – and how to bust them

  11-07-2026 09:00
  With some still unable to accept humanity’s role in climate chaos, we tackle common misconceptions and deceptionsSome people – and media organisations – still have difficulty connecting the heatwaves currently gripping much of the world and human-caused climate chaos. Others are in outright denial. So how to address their evasions, distractions and lies?The Guardian has trawled through climate sceptics’ claims and put their doubts to one of the UK’s top climate scie
  
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• Days of salted codfish and cabbage leaves are over: how climate crisis is shaping Tour de France’s future

  11-07-2026 09:00
  Heatwaves have long been part of the Tour but temperatures now are pushing the riders to limit of human enduranceThe Tour de France and the heat of the midday sun are old bedfellows, going back long before an era when the biggest catastrophe of the Tour’s opening week was a major fault in the Visma team bus’s air conditioning. Flip back 50 years to my favourite Tour read, the late Geoffrey Nicholson’s The Great Bike Race, and we find the doyen of cycling writers discussing a To
  
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• ‘Children were calling for their mummies’: UK pupils struggle in 40C-plus classrooms

  11-07-2026 08:00
  Teachers call for schools to be urgently adapted for hot weather amid reports of nausea, fainting and heatstrokeThe extreme heat that has hit the UK twice in the past few weeks has left teachers struggling to cope as temperatures in some classrooms climb above 40C, with pupils and staff suffering from heatstroke, nausea and headaches.Teachers say they have been desperately trying to keep children safe, with some covering younger pupils in wet paper towels as they lie on the floor, while older st
  
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• Country diary: Harvest time has arrived – and it’s three weeks earlier than 20 years ago | Colin Chappell

  11-07-2026 06:30
  Brigg, Lincolnshire: It’ll take six weeks to cut it all, starting with barley and likely ending with beans. Thank goodness the combine has air-conditioningThe crops have managed to survive winter flooding (almost) and two heatwaves, but another hot spell of weather is on the way as we embark on the enormous task of harvesting our crops.Winter barley for seed is usually first, followed by oilseed rape (OSR), then probably wheat. Beans are nearly always last to be cut, often in September, bu
  
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• Death trap: what to do about the everyday items catching and killing Australian wildlife

  11-07-2026 02:00
  Thousands of native animals get caught in back yard fruit nets, fences and fishing line every year. Here’s what you can do to helpChange by degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprintGot a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at [email protected] of native animals get snared in fruit tree netting, fencing and fishing gear every year in Australia – events that fr
  
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• Fast-spreading wildfire kills at least 12 in southern Spain

  10-07-2026 19:06
  Twenty-three people missing and four Britons thought to be among those who died trying to flee Almería blaze‘I had an incredible escape’: British woman tells of close encounter with wildfireAt least 12 people have been killed and 23 are unaccounted for after one of Spain’s deadliest wildfires broke out in the south-eastern province of Almería as the country endures its second heatwave of the summer.The regional government of Andalucía said the victims, four
  
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• ‘I had an incredible escape’: British woman tells of close encounter with Spanish wildfire

  10-07-2026 16:25
  Jeanne Henny, 74, put her friend, a wheelchair and two dogs into the car and drove away, only to meet fire surging on to the roadThe speed, scale and ferocity of the wildfire in and around the Bédar municipality of Almería took everyone by surprise.Jeanne Henny, an English woman who has had a house in the tiny hamlet of Los Pinos for 33 years, initially took Thursday afternoon’s yellow skies as proof that a calima wind from the Sahara was showering desert dust on the area. Th
  
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• Pacific gray whales facing ‘catastrophic’ die-off as climate crisis hits food supply

  10-07-2026 15:00
  Trump administration urged to relist a species in ‘very, very serious trouble’under Endangered Species ActClimate change is driving a gray whale “catastrophic mortality event” in the Pacific Ocean as melting sea ice depletes food sources and the animals starve, environmental groups warn.Meanwhile, a range of other issues, like ship strikes, oil spills, microplastic pollution, algal blooms and Russian harvesting are also probably contributing to the die-off that has nearly
  
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• We know how to mourn other humans – but what about ecological grief?

  10-07-2026 13:00
  In Iceland, people commemorated its first glacier formally declared lost to climate change. Western culture needs more of these ritualsI remember interviewing a North Atlantic right whale expert years ago. He was a practical, science-minded man. But as we discussed a female whale that had lost her calf, he became visibly emotional. She had lost the previous one, too, struck by a ship. He seemed almost embarrassed by the depth of his feeling.I wasn’t surprised. I found his grief honorable.
  
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• Shovels for feet and blotting paper skin: the ‘little fat froggy’ facing a fight for survival

  10-07-2026 11:00
  The desert rain frog, native to a narrow coastal strip of south-west Africa, has been classified as vulnerable on the IUCN red list, as its habitat is threatened by miningThe desert rain frog is one of the most unusual amphibians on the planet. With a rotund body and stumpy legs that dig rather than jump, it has evolved to survive not in wetlands or rainforests, but in the unforgiving dunes of the southern African desert.This week the species was declared to be threatened with extinction by the
  
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• Swift nest reportedly thrown in skip during house renovations in South Tyneside

  10-07-2026 10:00
  Conservationists fear more nests may have been destroyed during work on Jarrow houses by council-appointed contractorSwift chicks are feared to have been thrown into a skip during house renovations in South Tyneside, despite rules that should stop the destruction of nests.The Northern Swifts Group (NSG) was alerted to the destruction of at least one nest on Tuesday, in a street in Jarrow where houses were being renovated by South Tyneside council. Continue reading...
  
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• Week in wildlife: a froggy lunch, a surf-loving penguin and an ambitious treehopper

  10-07-2026 09:00
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• We say thanks to all our selfless spineless pals | First Dog on the Moon

  10-07-2026 08:28
  While I have no influence on the Guardian committee, I know who this year’s winner of the Invertebrate of the Year competition should beNominate your Invertebrate of the Year now! You have until midnight on Monday 13 July to submit your responseSign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are publishedGet all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...
  
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• ‘I just want to know if it has caused my cancer’: life in the shadow of Lancashire Pfas factory

  10-07-2026 08:00
  
  People in Thornton-Cleveleys want answers on the impact of widespread contamination around the chemical plant“Everything I wanted was finally coming to fruition. A house, a change of job and getting married,” says Liz Hurst, looking out to sea on a hot evening in Blackpool.“But then all of a sudden, everything was put on hold.” Fifteen years ago, Hurst was diagnosed with kidney cancer aged 32. Continue reading...
  
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• Pollutionwatch: How harmful ozone builds up near ground in heatwaves

  10-07-2026 07:00
  Concentrations of gas were continuously raised in Europe during June hot spell, with potentially deadly effectsWidespread air pollution was a feature of June’s record-breaking heat across western Europe and is likely to increase again as the UK experiences its third heatwave of the summer.UK weather warnings for extreme heat from 22 June were followed by a rare high air pollution alert from the London mayor. Continue reading...
  
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• Heatwave across western Europe – in pictures

  10-07-2026 07:00
  Western Europe has been scorched by its hottest June on record, scientists have said, as the UK enters its third heatwave of the year and wildfires ravage France and SpainWestern Europe records hottest-ever June as heatwaves intensify Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: I thought I was poking a hedgehog’s nest. I was wrong | Claire Stares

  10-07-2026 06:30
  Langstone, Hampshire: Tree bumblebees are generally placid, but they’re not keen on someone prodding their home with the end of a bamboo caneLast summer, one by one, all our visiting hedgehogs fell victim to the road. For the first time in years, the hedgehog house beneath a purple-leaved elder in a secluded corner of the garden sat empty over winter.Then a few weeks ago I found fresh faeces on the patio, glistening with fragments of undigested insect exoskeleton – a sure sign that&n
  
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• Why does hot weather put me in such a bad mood?

  09-07-2026 18:00
  Not everyone experiences heat the same way, and studies show aggression, violence and road rage increase on hotter daysRecently, my husband and I embarked on what should have been a pleasant spring errand: a stroll to the local farmer’s market. But a passing heatwave had made it unseasonably hot outside. I cut him off on the sidewalk and he snapped at me, so I snapped at him for snapping at me. We spent the rest of the excursion in sweaty, stony silence. When we were almost home, he said,
  
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• The fight against AI data centers is important – but it’s just a starting point | Bruce Schneier and Nathan E Sanders

  09-07-2026 17:00
  AI companies want to capture the value created by entire industries. That concentration of wealth and power is society’s greatest riskOpposition to AI datacenters has emerged as a primary theme in US politics, one that – surprisingly – doesn’t fall along party lines. We applaud people coming together for constructive debate on any issue, and agree that communities need to evaluate whether any economic benefits these datacenters bring is worth their costs. Still, we worry
  
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• The brown huntsman timed as the fastest spider at a top speed of 3.59 m/s – video

  09-07-2026 17:00
  Brown huntsman spiders were filmed to measure their speed. The 2021 research has been included in new analysis of the speeds of more than 250 spider species by scientists in the UK and Germany, which concludes the brown huntsman, Heteropoda jugulans, has a top speed of 3.59 m/s, making it the fastest of all spiders measured. The study includes research supervised by Dr Christofer Clemente, an evolutionary biomechanist at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland Continue reading...
  
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• Experimental bathtub: the remote lake island trying wave power to boost energy security

  09-07-2026 15:00
  Researchers on Beaver Island, in Lake Michigan, are trying to find a more reliable form of power using local resourcesBeaver Island sits in the middle of the northernmost end of Lake Michigan, about 70 miles from the maritime border with Canada. The forested island, just a little bigger than San Francisco in size, is a popular summer destination for tourists and home to about 600 permanent residents. Getting there requires a boat or plane ride.Getting electricity to the island is not as easy. Po
  
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• Species’ ingenious survival strategies no match for human destruction, red list reveals

  09-07-2026 14:20
  Newly endangered animals include desert frogs and snails in extreme ocean depths, both threatened by miningLife has colonised every corner of the planet by evolving ingenious survival strategies but these are increasingly being overwhelmed by destructive human activities, this year’s red list of endangered species has revealed.Many snails, limpets and clams have adapted to life at crushing depths in the oceans on hydrothermal vents where water temperatures can reach 450C (842F). But an ass
  
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• Great Britain’s grid operator issues fresh warning over power supplies in heatwave

  09-07-2026 09:48
  Neso asks for extra supplies from electricity generators to cope with added demand on Thursday nightGreat Britain’s energy system operator has warned that “extreme temperatures” could hit power supplies on Thursday night, as the UK entered its third heatwave of the year.The National Energy System Operator (Neso) issued a notice overnight asking for extra supplies from power generators to cope with the added demand from households turning on fans and air conditioners to cope wit
  
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• Great Britain’s grid operator issues another warning over power supplies in heatwave

  09-07-2026 09:48
  Neso asks for extra supplies from electricity generators to cope with added demand on Thursday nightGreat Britain’s energy system operator has warned that “extreme temperatures” could hit power supplies on Thursday night, as the UK entered its third heatwave of the year.The National Energy System Operator (Neso) issued a notice overnight asking for extra supplies from power generators to cope with the added demand from households turning on fans and air conditioners to cope wit
  
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• Low-e windows keep homes cool … but may set neighbours’ property on fire

  09-07-2026 07:00
  
  Low-emissivity windows also keep houses warm in winter, but use on bowed glass can have magnifying-glass effectLow-emissivity or low-E window glass is a useful green technology for keeping buildings warm in winter and cool in summer … but a rare side-effect can set the neighbours’ property on fire.The glass is coated with a thin layer of metal or metal oxide which lets visible light through but acts like a mirror in the infrared. Heat from the interior is reflected back in, retainin
  
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