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Everything felt like it was swelling, and despite my diligent consumption of water and Hydralyte, I couldn’t quite escape the persistent, low-level nausea. Even thinking took longer
My mother grew up in Warracknabeal, a speck of a town four hours from Melbourne, Australia, in the wide, wheat country of the Wimmera – that part of Victoria where the sky starts to stretch, where you can see weather happening 100 kilometres away.
Once or twice a year, our family would pack into the rattling old LandCruiser and drive up to visit my grandmother. It can’t always have been blistering weather but my memories of those trips are shot through with summer heat: the peeling paint of my grandmother’s house, the blasted-dry grass of the reserve over the road and its ancient metal monkey bars, so hot they burned your hands. Once, a dust storm blew up while we were there, engulfing the small weatherboard house in howling dirty orange.
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Popularity of EVs in country is part of global trend of emerging markets spurning fossil fuel cars at surprising speeds
When Berke Astarcıoğlu bought a BMW i3 in 2016, he was one of just 44 people in a country of 80 million to buy a battery electric vehicle (BEV) that year. By the time he bought a Tesla in 2023, BEVs were no longer a complete oddity in Turkey, making up 7% of new car sales.
Fast-forward two years and electric cars are selling so fast that Turkey has caught up with the EU in its rate of adoption. Its market is now the fourth largest in Europe, behind Germany, the UK and France.
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West Dartmoor, Devon: It’s quite normal for greater spotteds to start staking out territories in January, less so on a plastic box near my bedroom window
The electrical junction box, fixed to the top of the roadside telegraph pole, displays a yellow sign that warns “Danger of death”. Not that the bird perched on top seemed the slightest bit concerned – the acoustics are exceptional.
I was first woken one snowy morning early in January to short bursts of drilling outside the window. While I’m familiar with the territorial sounds of woodpeckers in my village, which lies close to the historic landmark of Brentor church, this noise was different. It had the resonance of someone impatiently tapping their fingers on a desktop, with the speed of a marching band snare-drum roll.
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Manufacturers use method that labels plastic as ‘circular’ and climate-friendly, despite being mostly fossil-based
Europe’s supermarket shelves are packed with brands billing their plastic packaging as sustainable, but often only a fraction of the materials are truly recovered from waste, with the rest made from petroleum.
Brands using plastic packaging – from Kraft’s Heinz Beanz to Mondelēz’s Philadelphia – use materials made by the plastic manufacturing arm of the oil company Saudi Aramco.
This article is part of a cross-border investigation, supported by IJ4EU and coordinated by the independent journalist Ludovica Jona, with the media outlets the Guardian, Voxeurop, Mediapart (France), Altreconomia (Italy), Público (Spain), Investigative Reporting Denmark, Deutsche Welle (Germany) and with reporters Lorenzo Sangermano and Lucy Taylor
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Fifteen years after a tsunami caused the Fukushima nuclear accident, only bears, raccoons and boar are seen on the streets. But the authorities and some locals want people to move back
Norio Kimura pauses to gaze through the dirt-flecked window of Kumamachi primary school in Fukushima. Inside, there are still textbooks lying on the desks, pencil cases are strewn across the floor; empty bento boxes that were never taken home.
Along the corridor, shoes line the route the children took when they fled, some still in their indoor plimsolls, as their town was rocked by a magnitude-9 earthquake on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 which went on to cause the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chornobyl.
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Scientists expect 41% of the projected global population to face the extremes, with ‘no part of the world’ immune
The number of people living with extreme heat will more than double by 2050 if global heating reaches 2C, according to a new study that shows how the energy demands for air conditioners and heating systems are expected to change across the world.
No region will escape the impact, say the authors. Although the tropics and southern hemisphere will be worst affected by rising heat, the countries in the north will also find it difficult to adapt because their built environments are primarily designed to deal with a cooler climate.
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It took an FOI request to bring this national security assessment to light. For ‘doomsayers’ like us, it is the ultimate vindication
I know it’s almost impossible to turn your eyes away from the Trump show, but that’s the point. His antics, ever-grosser and more preposterous, are designed to keep him in our minds, to crowd out other issues. His insatiable craving for attention is a global-threat multiplier. You can’t help wondering whether there’s anything he wouldn’t do to dominate the headlines.
But we must tear ourselves away from the spectacle, for there are other threats just as critical that also require our attention. Just because you’re not hearing about them doesn’t mean they’ve gone away.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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After debris balls closed Sydney beaches in October 2024, Guardian Australia reported they could be linked to sewage outfalls. Authorities were less keen to talk
Last week, after torrential rain in Sydney, fresh poo balls washed up on the beach at Malabar, the closest beach to the problematic Malabar sewage treatment plant.
Signs were erected on the beach warning people not to touch the “debris balls” or swim. But authorities didn’t let the wider community know. There were no other warnings issued by Sydney Water, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) or the state government.
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As the temperature nears 49C in the Mallee region, residents take refuge in air-conditioned rooms
In the slanting, late-afternoon summer sun, the fields around the small Australian town of Ouyen – almost 450km north-west of Melbourne – turn the colour of honey. The edges shimmer with silver, that old cruel trick of feigning water where it hasn’t rained for weeks.
Summer is always hot out here in the sparse, flat Mallee, but this year is shaping up to be particularly harsh. Just two weeks ago, on Thursday 8 January, Ouyen got to 47.5C. On Monday it reached 44.3C.
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Therapy lights, sunrise alarm clocks and infrared saunas can all help shake the winter blues as the weather drops
As a lifelong Canadian, I’m no stranger to that familiar sinking feeling in my chest as the days get shorter, dimmer and colder. I suffer from seasonal affective disorder (Sad), which also affects about one in 20 people in the US.
“Sad is a type of depression that happens at certain times of the year, usually in the fall and winter when there’s less sunlight,” said Dr Stefanie Mazer, a licensed psychologist and founder of the psychology practice Mindwise, Inc. Changes in sunlight can affect your body’s internal clock and levels of serotonin and melatonin, which influence mood and sleep, Mazer explained. People with Sad often feel low energy, sadness and irritability, with noticeable changes in sleeping or eating.
For gentle wake-ups in the morning:
Hatch Restore 3 Sunrise Alarm Clock
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