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Extreme heat ‘the new normal’, says UN chief, as authorities across the continent issue health warnings
A vicious heatwave has engulfed southern Europe, with punishing temperatures that have reached highs of 46C (114.8F) in Spain and placed almost the entirety of mainland France under alert.
Extreme heat, made stronger by fossil fuel pollution, has for several days scorched Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece as southern Europe endures its first major heatwave of the summer.
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Rapporteur calls for defossilization of economies and urgent reparations to avert ‘catastrophic’ rights and climate harms
A leading UN expert is calling for criminal penalties against those peddling disinformation about the climate crisisand a total ban on fossil fuel industry lobbying and advertising, as part of a radical shake-up to safeguard human rights and curtail planetary catastrophe.
Elisa Morgera, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change who presents her damning new report to the general assembly in Geneva on Monday, argues that the US, UK, Canada, Australia and other wealthy fossil fuel nations are legally obliged under international law to fully phase out oil, gas and coal by 2030 – and compensate communities for harms caused.
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Warm weather and wet conditions caused by the climate emergency could trigger huge swarms of winged ants this July, experts warn. But why do they all take to the skies at once?
Name: Flying ants.
Age: Their ancestors have been with us since the end of the Jurassic period.
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Forever chemicals have polluted the water supply of 60,000 people, threatening human health, wildlife and the wider ecosystem. But activists say this is just the tip of the Pfas iceberg
One quiet Saturday night, Sandra Wiedemann was curled up on the sofa when a story broke on TV news: the water coming from her tap could be poisoning her. The 36-year-old, who is breastfeeding her six-month-old son Côme, lives in the quiet French commune of Buschwiller in Saint-Louis, near the Swiss city of Basel. Perched on a hill not far from the Swiss and German borders, it feels like a safe place to raise a child – spacious houses are surrounded by manicured gardens, framed by the wild Jura mountains.
But as she watched the news, this safety felt threatened: Wiedemann and her family use tap water every day, for drinking, brushing her teeth, showering, cooking and washing vegetables. Now, she learned that chemicals she had never heard of were lurking in her body, on her skin, potentially harming her son. “I find it scary,” she says. “Even if we stop drinking it we will be exposed to it and we can’t really do anything.”
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Views on apex predator still polarised, says Natural England head, as activists apply for trial release in Northumberland
The head of the government’s wildlife regulator has said he remains enthusiastic about reintroducing lynx to Britain and would be “absolutely delighted” if it could be achieved during his two-year term.
But Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England, said debates over the animal’s release were “still quite polarised” and more engagement was required to understand how communities would be affected.
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North Wessex Downs, Hampshire: Predators are increasingly drawn by the shooting-season escapees. But, miserably, other ground-nesting birds and their eggs are being taken, too
Away from where arable fields have enriched the down to coarse grasses, meadow anthills are floriferous pillows, pimpling the smoothness. On them, strange, wrecked prizes are arranged: eggshells; the light, keeled sternum of a pheasant; a stripped, raw‑red bone; a jewel-bright French partridge’s head, topping the beads of its neck vertebrae like an umbrella handle, or a brooch, pretty and gruesome.
As far as the eye can see, shooting estate borders shooting estate. Skylarks, linnets, yellowhammers and whitethroats sing, but by far the most numerous birds are pheasants, followed by corvids; and this year’s gamebirds haven’t yet been released for winter’s shooting.
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Swarms in South Korean capital trigger heated debate over pest control as experts say rising temperatures partly to blame
Seoul residents are grappling with an invasion of so-called “lovebugs” that have swarmed hiking trails and urban areas across the South Korean capital, with experts debating how to handle the infestations that are surging as the climate crisis draws them further north.
Viral footage shared on social media shows Gyeyangsan mountain in Incheon, west of Seoul, with hiking trails and observation decks carpeted black with the insects.
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Renewable energy and critical minerals projects often want to mine on sacred lands but minority groups are fighting back through the courts
Located in Wikieup, Arizona, at the meeting point of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, H’a’Kamwe’ has for centuries had sacred significance for the Hualapai tribe. They regard the hot spring, fed by water naturally stored underground in volcanic rocks, as a place for healing that symbolises their connection to the land.
So when an Australian mining company announced plans to begin exploratory drilling for lithium at 100 locations on Hualapai land, including as close as just 700 metres from H’a’Kamwe’, they regarded it as a potential desecration.
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In one of the world’s ‘hottest hotspots’ of biodiversity, an all-female team have turned a patch of forest into a haven for orchids, ferns, succulents and carnivorous plants
The previous night’s heavy rainstorm had brought down several large trees in the forest and broken branches were strewn about the ground. Walking through the felled trees, Laly Joseph spotted an orchid clinging to one of the snapped boughs. She gently secured the plant and carefully transplanted it on to a standing tree.
At the Gurukula botanical sanctuary, where Joseph, 56, is head of plant conservation and the most experienced “rainforest gardener”, every plant is considered precious and an all-female team strives to give them the best chance of surviving an increasingly harsh climate.
Laly Joseph, the head of plant conservation at Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, has spent most of her life learning about and caring for plants.
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These starfish relatives have lots of remarkable features and are a keystone species. My hope is that we will recognise how vital these charismatic creatures are
Brittle stars have a lot of remarkable features as a species. Many of them are bioluminescent and can flash blue light; some will have patterns and do displays. These slender relatives of starfish can be very beautiful to look at and come in a range of colours – in the tropics, for example, they can be red, black or orange. And they’ve got spines all over them, so they can look quite ornate.
They can also regenerate. Fish and other creatures will often nip off bits of their arms – known as sublethal predation – so they are constantly regenerating themselves. You can even break off all their arms, and sometimes even half the disc, and the brittle star will still regenerate.
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