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Analysis pinpoints areas most vulnerable to hotter, drier weather causing ground to shrink and drag foundations down
Millions of homes are at risk from climate-related subsidence, according to an analysis by the British Geological Survey (BGS).
As hotter, drier summers driven by global heating become more frequent, the ground under houses can shrink and drag down a property’s foundations. The most vulnerable areas include London, Essex, Kent and a tranche of land from Oxford up to the Wash on England’s east coast, according to scientists, who say mitigation measures will be needed.
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Temperatures above 15C ‘very strange’ say scientists, as snow melts and rain falls on glaciers in usually frozen region
Temperatures in the Antarctic climbed above 15C this month, shattering the previous winter heat record for the usually frozen region and raising concerns about the speed of climate breakdown.
The new winter peak temperature was logged by the Argentinian Esperanza base on the Trinity peninsula on 6 June amid a protracted heatwave, when the maximum daily temperature exceeded zero degrees for three consecutive weeks.
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Critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan population falls after heavy rain and landslides, fuelled by climate crisis, in North Sumatra
Extreme rainfall and landslides fuelled by the climate crisis killed 7% of the remaining population of the world’s rarest great ape, a study has found, prompting fears for the species’ survival.
The research suggests 58 out of the remaining 800 critically endangeredTapanuli orangutans (Pongo tapanuliensis) were killed after more than 1,000mm (39in) of rain fell over four days in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province in November 2025. This equates to 11% of the local population and 7% of the entire species.
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Wolstonbury Hill, West Sussex: The fly orchid looks like no fly I’ve ever seen – its target insect is a wasp. And if you see one being pollinated, you’re one up on Charles Darwin
Many British orchids are named for their animal or humanoid appearance. List some and you have all the characters for a nursery-rhyme tale of transformation and trickery: lady, frog, man, fly and spider. Today’s protagonist is the fly orchid (Ophrys insectifera), a subtle conjuror of alternate realities and a plant I’m fortunate to encounter yearly on my local South Downs hill. Favouring the dappled interface of chalk grassland and woods, it flowers here from mid-May. It’s hard to spot amid the bugle, wild marjoram, agrimony and dock, but once I have my eye in, I find upwards of 20 plants.
While they look like no fly I’ve ever seen, the tiny blooms do have an uncannily insectile appearance. This is mostly down to a special petal, the labellum, which is minutely modified for luring in pollinators. Up close, I can see how its edges are curved back just so, a sleight of folding which gives the illusion of volume. An iridescent blue patch at its centre suggests the sheen of folded wings.
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Conservationists say cherished creatures such as whales, dolphins and seabirds are being killed in large numbers by fishing tackle
Thousands of Britain’s most charismatic and protected marine wildlife, including whales, porpoises, dolphins, seals and seabirds are being killed as “collateral damage” by fishing vessels every year, according to the first-ever analysis of bycatch data.
The analysis, by the Wildlife and Countryside Link, a coalition of voluntary conservation groups, reveals the devastating toll bycatch, the accidental capture and killing of non-target species by fishing vessels, is having on marine species.
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Enfield council in north London took legal action against restaurant chain after outrage over damage to tree
The UK restaurant chain Toby Carvery has settled a legal dispute over taking a chainsaw to an ancient oak tree without permission, by agreeing to pay to restore a lost orchard.
The unauthorised partial felling of the 500-year-old oak next to a Toby Carvery car park in Whitewebbs Park, Enfield, north London, in April last year, prompted widespread public outrage and questions in parliament.
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Crops and flowers rely on them for survival, but wild bees are declining – and crucial nutrients will go missing from our diets as a result
There are few ways in and out of Nepal’s Jumla district. The Karnali highway, considered one of the world’s most dangerous roads, provides the only land link, splicing through the Himalayas to connect Jumla’s terraced valleys to the rest of the country. As such, the 120,000 people that live there are almost entirely self-sufficient, with most of them eating and selling what they grow.
It’s a tenuous existence, plagued by food insecurity and malnutrition. In recent years, local beekeepers have bemoaned languishing hives and dwindling honey production, observing that roughly half of their bees seem to have vanished over the past decade. These concerns, however, ignore an even more insidious impact.
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As the US shuts its doors to most refugees, there’s little hope of a new system to help those forced from home by climate impacts
Millions of people around the world are having their lives upended by floods, storms and heatwaves worsened by the climate crisis. Those forced to flee their home countries, however, are finding that the door to the US is more firmly shut than ever.
Neither US nor international law recognizes environmental hazards, such as climate-related displacement, as a valid cause to claim asylum or gain entry through other migration pathways, despite the mounting toll of disasters caused by an overheating planet.
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US energy secretary Chris Wright featured in seminars to judges when he was a fracking executive
As cities and states sue big oil for billions in damages over allegations that it covered up the dangers of its products, rightwing organizations are attempting to discredit the wave of litigation. They claim the lawyers behind it are teaming up with an environmentally focused legal education non-profit to bias federal judges against oil companies.
But it is actually fossil fuel-backed organizations that are attempting to sway the judiciary in their favor, one of those law firms is countering. Evidence of this includes judicial seminars hosted by one such group featuring pro-industry speakers such as the current energy secretary, Chris Wright, in his former occupation as a fracking executive.
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Pacoima is hemmed in by highways and heavy industry, and its residents are fighting pollution with hyperlocal air quality monitoring
Jose Luis Salas looks up at the ladder. “Are you ready?” he asks Shance Taylor, an environmental project manager who’s holding a white container, about the size of a shoebox, covered with wires and numbers.
Taylor nods and climbs up to reach the side of Salas’s tidy house in Pacoima, a neighborhood in Los Angeles’s north-east San Fernando valley. The curious box in their hands is known as Aeroqual sensor – part of a community air-quality monitoring program run by Pacoima Beautiful, a local environmental group.
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pub. Verso, London, New York, 2012
pub. Random House, 2006
