-
Wheat haul in England estimated to be down by 21%, with Britain’s wine producers also hit hard
England has suffered its second worst harvest on record – with fears growing for next year – after heavy rain last winter hit production of key crops including wheat and oats.
The cold, damp weather, stretching from last autumn through this spring and early summer, has hit the rapidly developing UK wine industry particularly hard, with producers saying harvests are down by between 75% and a third, depending on the region.
Continue reading...
-
With clean air projects receiving just 1% of aid, activists say nations ‘cannot continue polluting practices at expense of climate stability’
Foreign aid for fossil fuel projects quadrupled in a single year, a report has found, rising from $1.2bn in 2021 to $5.4bn in 2022.
“This shocking increase in aid funding to fossil fuels is a wake-up call,” said Jane Burston, CEO of nonprofit the Clean Air Fund, which conducted the research. “The world cannot continue down this path of propping up polluting practices at the expense of global health and climate stability.”
Continue reading...
-
As average population falls reach 95% in some regions, experts call for urgent action but insist ‘nature can recover’
Global wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 73% in 50 years, a new scientific assessment has found, as humans continue to push ecosystems to the brink of collapse.
Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the steepest average declines in recorded wildlife populations, with a 95% fall, according to the WWF and the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) biennial Living Planet report. They were followed by Africa with 76%, and Asia and the Pacific at 60%. Europe and North America recorded comparatively lower falls of 35% and 39% respectively since 1970.
Continue reading...
-
Badenoch, Cairngorms: Graceful as a folk tale queen, they’re throwing out their arms, feathery green and bearing clusters of bright red berries
The early October forest is at the turning point, that enchanted time of year when everything is changing form and colour. It havers, slipping backwards and forwards across the threshold between dark and light, the underworld of woodsy rot and the sky-song of geese, the realms of substance and spirit.
Last night, the stars were fiercely bright and this morning we woke to frost. It still clings to the shadowed hollows of the ground cover and the lacework of spider webs. Higher up, the trees are stirring softly, like a great mystery is coming. The cascading birch boughs are tinged with yellow, the upright aspens a spangling of gold, paper-thin coins trembling against the high blue.
Continue reading...
-
Prof Pedro Arrojo-Agudo says regulator Ofwat ‘complacent’ about water firms putting their shareholders before public
The privatised English water system has been singled out for criticism by the UN special rapporteur on the human right to clean water.
Prof Pedro Arrojo-Agudo said water systems should be managed as a publicly owned service, rather than run by private companies set up to benefit shareholders.
Continue reading...
-
The Joides Resolution has contributed to our understanding of climate crisis, the origin of life, earthquakes and eruptions. But funding cuts mean it may have sailed its last expedition
In the early summer of this year, a ship set sail around the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. But this wasn’t any ordinary ship. For almost 40 years the Joides Resolutiondrilled into the ocean floor to collect samples and data that helped scientists to study Earth’s history and structure. Expeditions on the vessel have made a vital contribution to our understanding of the climate crisis, the tectonic plates theory, the origin of life on Earth and natural hazards such as earthquakes and eruptions. Yet the two-month voyage around Svalbard was to be its last.
The National Science Foundation (NSF), the US agency that provided scientists at Texas A&M University with funds for the ship, announced last year it would not give money for the drilling vessel past September 2024. It was a declaration that shocked the global scientific community and meant that Svalbard would be the ship’s final outing.
The vibration isolated television is attached to the drillpipe and is used to image the seafloor before drilling begins. Photograph: Lisa Crowder/IODP JRSO
Continue reading...
-
Illness had robbed me of my health, my confidence and my joy. But when my mum brought me something to care for, I regained my sense of purpose
The life I loved came to an abrupt end when I was diagnosed with severe myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, in 1997. For years, my world revolved around bedpans, bed baths, wheelchairs and stairlifts. Then an unexpected gift began to revive a sense of joy I thought I had lost for ever.
I grew up in a gardening-mad household. As a child, I would help my dad tend his prize roses, rake the lawn and carry home the weird-looking leeks and cauliflowers he grew on his allotment. He was my hero and I was never far from his side until he died when I was just 11. From that moment on, gardening lost its appeal: the memories were just too painful. I turned my back on all things green.
Continue reading...
-
Firefighters are stoic about the risks they face but say climate change has affected every part of the job
A short drive and a world away from the tourist-thronged old town of Split, past retirees clambering out of cruise ships and stag parties stumbling into beachside bars, Ivan Sanader studied a smouldering hillside that stank of smoke.
The night before, he had fought a fire that charred the slope and threatened to engulf a roadside restaurant. Now, the commander of a mobile firefighter centre in Croatia was issuing orders to stop it flaring back up.
Continue reading...
-
This year’s damp high season wasn’t terrible, just typical – but now we judge it against the scorching temperatures of the 2020s
By general consensus the British summer of 2024 was a bit rubbish – even though the numbers say it was about average. What is behind this clash of perceptions? The Met Office socio-meteorologist Helen Roberts says it is because recent hot summers have changed our expectations.
“There have been multiple heatwaves in recent years, including the unprecedented extreme heat in 2022 as well as the long, hot lockdown summer of 2020,” says Roberts. She says that two psychological effects, recency bias and the availability heuristic – in which we perceive things through the lens either of recent events or memories that spring readily to mind – “mean we get used to these extremes and then expect more of the same”.
Continue reading...
-
As Hurricane Milton approaches many cities were largely deserted but some people decided to shelter in place
Most left when they were told to. But some chose to stay, even though officials warned Hurricane Milton would turn their homes into coffins.
Along Florida’s Gulf coast, where millions of people were urged to get out of harm’s way, cities were largely deserted on Wednesday afternoon as time ran out to evacuate. Those who remained were advised to shelter in place as best they could. Others who fled spoke of their dread at what, if anything, they would return to once the storm had passed.
Continue reading...
