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Warning of life-threatening flooding as storm hits Cuba; path of destruction ripped across Jamaica
As Cuba prepares for the storm to make landfall any minute, officials in Jamaica are preparing to assess the damage on Wednesday.
A video shared by the Jamaican Constabulary Force shows officers surveying extensive destruction in Black River, close to where Hurricane Melissa made landfall on Tuesday as a Category 5 storm.
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Biggest analysis of its kind finds millions are dying each year because of failure to tackle climate crisis
Rising global heat is now killing one person a minute around the world, a major report on the health impact of the climate crisis has revealed.
It says the world’s addiction to fossil fuels also causes toxic air pollution, wildfires and the spread of diseases such as dengue fever, and millions each year are dying owing to the failure to tackle global heating.
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In Finland, kindergartens are exposing children to more mud, wild plants and moss - and finding changes to their health that show how crucial biodiversity is to wellbeing
Aurora Nikula, 5, is having a normal day at her nursery. She is making a cake out of sand and mud, adding in make-believe carrots, potatoes and meat. “It’s overcooked,” she says as she splashes water in, then adds another dollop of sand. “More sugar, it tastes better,” she says. A handful of mud goes in, and the dish evolves into a chocolate cake.
Aki Sinkkonen, a principal scientist with the Natural Resources Institute Finland, is watching. He’s also very interested in Aurora’s cake, but for different reasons. “Perfect,” he says, admiring the way she is mixing soil, sand and leaves and then putting it on her face. “She’s really getting her hands in it.”
Aki Sinkkonen (left) and Marja Roslund from the Natural Resources Institute Finland in the Humpula garden
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Patrick Greenfield hikes up the Virunga mountains in east Africa to trace the remarkable comeback of the mountain gorilla
Along the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC lies the Virunga national park – the home of mountain gorillas. Back in 1970s there were only a few hundred of these gorillas left. Yet today the community is thriving with more than 1,000.
Patrick Greenfield,the Guardian’s biodiversity reporter, headed up into the Virunga mountains, guided by wildlife vets, to find out how they achieved this rare and extraordinary conservation success. He tells Annie Kelly how the gorillas have been protected in such a volatile area.
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Afon Mawddach, Gwynedd: My riverside walk is met with bitter winds, frantic showers and bursts of sunshine. The change in the colours is remarkable
The steep, rocky outcrop on the southern side of the path is running with a sheet of water from the recent heavy rains, entraining fallen leaves and swirling around colonies of moss and grass held by fissures in the stone. From the north, the first truly cold wind of the autumn comes tearing across the open marshland, carving complex patterns in the surface of the water and scything into the tattered, fading bands of foliage at the water’s edge. It is close to high tide and the Afon Mawddach, further engorged by the intense precipitation over the hills further inland, is within a few feet of the top of the bank.
In this exposed spot, both people and wildlife seem to have mostly taken shelter. In midstream, a small, solitary diving bird repeatedly dips out of sight to emerge some distance away. Eventually it bobs up closer to me, and I tentatively identify it as a dabchick – our smallest grebe. Far across the water, beyond a wooded promontory, four – then six – geese form a small raft of uneasy companionship, turning this way and that in an apparent search for sheltered water. Overhead, a terse mewing call mixes with the sound of the moving trees, as a buzzard beats methodically across the margins of the wood.
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Exclusive: ‘Devastating consequences’ now inevitable but emissions cuts still vital, says António Guterres in sole interview before Cop30
Humanity has failed to limit global heating to 1.5C and must change course immediately, the secretary general of the UN has warned.
In his only interview before next month’s Cop30 climate summit, António Guterres acknowledged it is now “inevitable” that humanity will overshoot the target in the Paris climate agreement, with “devastating consequences” for the world.
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Exclusive: Firms say added costs would mean they are unable to install enough turbines to meet green energy goals
Offshore windfarm companies may be exempted from new UK nature rules in an attempt to keep down the cost of renewable energy, the Guardian has learned.
The energy firms have said they would be unable to build the vast number of turbines required to meet the government’s green electricity goals if they have to meet new rules for nationally significant infrastructure projects (Nsips).
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Both are cyclones, or circular storms, but they form in distinct places and vary in terms of scale and impact
Cyclones are circular storms. Those that form in the Atlantic are called hurricanes while those in the Pacific are typhoons. They are essentially similar, but the difference between the areas where they form makes them different in scale and impact.
Typhoons tend to be larger because of the vast size of the Pacific. The two have similar wind speeds but are reported differently. Hurricanes are rated on the Saffir Simpson scale, with a five indicating sustained winds of more than 157 mph (253 km/h). There is no equivalent international scale for Pacific cyclones, but various scales exist with categories such as “typhoon” for wind speeds of 74-114 mph and “super typhoon” for those with winds above 115 mph.
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As rising tides eat away at the Saint-Pierre and Miquelon archipelago off Canada, plans to move the historic village to higher ground have divided residents
Franck Detcheverry, Miquelon’s 41-year-old mayor, trudges up a grassy hill. “The view isn’t too bad, huh?” he jokes. The ocean sparkles 40 metres below the empty mound. The sound of a man playing the bagpipes, as if serenading the sea, floats up from the shoreline. This hill will be the location of his new home and those of all his fellow villagers.
In the distance, about half a mile away, you can see the outline of the 400 or so buildings in the village of Miquelon. It sits only 2 metres above sea level on the archipelago of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. Situated off the Canadian coast to the south of Newfoundland, it is an “overseas collectivity” of France, and the country’s last foothold in North America.
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US groups aim to represent country at UN climate summit even as Trump administration declines to send a delegation
Despite historic environmental rollbacks under a president who pulled the US from a key international climate treaty – and recently called global warming “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” – US civil society groups say they are gearing up to push for bold international climate action at a major UN conference next month.
“This is a really important moment to illustrate that Trump does not represent the entirety, or even anywhere near a majority, of us,” said Collin Rees, US program manager at the environmental non-profit Oil Change International, who will attend the annual UN climate conference, known as Cop30.
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pub. W.W.Norton & Co. Inc., New York, London, 1999 (paperback edition)
