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‘Megaberg’ known as A23a has rapidly disintegrated in warmer waters and could disappear within weeks
Nearly 40 years after breaking off Antarctica, a colossal iceberg ranked among the oldest and largest ever recorded is finally crumbling apart in warmer waters, and could disappear within weeks.
Earlier this year, the “megaberg” known as A23a weighed a little under a trillion tonnes and was more than twice the size of Greater London, a behemoth unrivalled at the time.
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Polanski ruffled feathers during at-times grumpy contest and now has to bring the party with him
OK, now they’ve got your attention. In electing Zack Polanski, a media-friendly former actor with an eye-catching vision for a mass movement of “eco-populism”, the Greens have taken a step into the unknown. And the first task for Polanski is to bring the party with him.
Green leadership contests are generally quite polite. This time it has been different, in part due to the personalities but mainly because of the very different visions on offer.
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Longstone Edge, Derbyshire: Coming across a wasps’ nest in disarray, with tell-tale paw prints everywhere, one can only imagine the drama that unfolded
The field we walked is a former quarry site called Deep Rake, which has been backfilled with spoil and is almost desert-like in its stoniness. This summer, the ground is even more dry and hard, yet as we crossed, we chanced on something that was as beautiful and unexpected as it was dangerous.
It was a wasps’ nest. About 10 inches underground, it had a limestone slab over the core and occupied the space of a deflated rugby ball. The outer structure comprised papery scallops overlapping like roof shingles. Every one had multicoloured bands – a pattern arising (one assumes) as the workers laid down the pulp, mouthful by mouthful, but from a multitude of timber sources. Each change of hue thus represents both hours of work and marginally different colours of wood. In a way, the nest is this entire landscape rendered through the art of paper-making, and all over its delicate detail were the artists themselves.
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MPs on Commons committee describe figures as a waste and say money should have been used to fix infrastructure
English water companies have spent £16.6m fighting legal action against regulators and campaigners over environmental breaches such as illegal sewage spills.
Correspondence from the companies to the Commons environment, food and rural affairs (Efra) committee published on Tuesday reveals that millions of pounds of billpayers’ money has been spent over the past five years on expensive external lawyers enlisted to reduce liabilities for regulatory breaches.
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A future of extreme heatwaves, drought and collapsing habitats awaits if we continue to ignore the danger signs
What does British summertime mean to you? Blackberries? Picnics? Festivals? Ticks? This summer has been the hottest on record in the UK. As human-caused climate breakdown intensifies, the outdoor areas we spend time in are changing – and so, too, are our relationships with the land and the ecosystems we live in.
My home is in the south of England, near beautiful woodlands. Since moving there in 2016, the number of ticks my family has picked up in the woods has increased each year, but this summer has been astonishing. For a few weeks, our four-year-old came home from nursery with a tick almost every day. I’ve had many: some tiny nymphal ones that could be easily missed. We spend time in Scotland, too, and find ticks often when we go there now.
Lucy Jones is a journalist and the author of Losing Eden and The Nature Seed
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The past few months are likely to have suited this drought-tolerant plant that thrives in heat
The ground-pine (Ajuga chamaepitys) is found in only 32 sites in Britain and is endangered. Listed as one of 15 priority species in Bedfordshire, it sits alongside charismatic species such as the hazel dormouse, water vole, brown trout and nightingale. A member of the mint family, it is a primitive plant that appears in only three places in the county.
It was popular in Tudor times for its medicinal qualities and its smell of pine when crushed – hence its common name – although it is also called dwarf bugle, yellow bugle or bugleweed.
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Over 85 top climate specialists lambasted administration’s review, calling it a ‘shoddy mess’ that downplays risks
A group of the US’s leading climate scientists have compiled a withering review of a controversial Trump administration report that downplays the risks of the climate crisis, finding that the document is biased, riddled with errors and fails basic scientific credibility.
More than 85 climate experts have contributed to a comprehensive 434-page report that excoriates a US Department of Energy (DOE) document written by five hand-picked fringe researchers that argues that global heating and its resulting consequences have been overstated.
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US schools were built for a cooler climate that no longer exists. Now they face record-high temperatures
As schools are returning to session following one of the hottest summers ever recorded, districts are faced with a new problem: how to handle increasingly extreme heatwaves, both in and outside the classroom.
Unbearably hot days are no longer just a summer problem. In the US districts from the north-east to the mountain west to the deep south are shortening days, delaying openings, and reworking calendars as temperatures spike during August and September, the typical back-to-school months.
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Politicians have long promised the critical metal will rescue the economy but Indigenous locals say the push to exploit vast reserves threatens the ecosystem and their livelihoods
• Photographs by Sara Aliaga Ticona
Growing up near Bolivia’s Uyuni salt flats, Franz Alí Ramos remembers playing in the high-altitude wetlands near his home during the rainy season. “It was a beautiful recreation area for us and for animals,” he says.
Now, the wetlands have given way to cracked, sunbaked earth – a change that Alí Ramos blames on nearby operations by Bolivia’s state lithium corporation, Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB). The government has recently signed lithium mining contracts with two foreign companies – one Russian and the other Chinese – and residents fear more serious damage is yet to come.
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In Belém, motels known for sex chairs and mirrored ceilings are stripping risqué features for climate negotiators
Guests at the Love Lomas Pousada in the Amazon city of Belém receive an email from reception before check-in with two questions, one conventional, the other unforeseen.
“Could you kindly let us know what time you expect to arrive at our establishment,” the message reads. “And one other thing, our rooms feature erotic chairs. Would you like to have it removed?”
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