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Event is likely to be largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into a world already in a climate crisis
The El Niño climate phenomenon is “supersizing before our eyes”, the UN has said. The event is near certain to shatter temperature records, according to the latest forecasts.
The El Niño is likely to be the largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into an atmosphere where temperatures are already rising rapidly due to global heating. The combination means 2027 is set to “blow apart” the record and be the hottest year ever recorded.
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Huge rollout of farms could harm ecosystems and threaten food sources of vulnerable communities, say experts
Nearly half of the world’s wild fish catch will be ground into animal feed for farmed fish if plans to expand aquaculture go ahead, a report has found.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is aiming to increase aquaculture – where fish are farmed rather than caught in the wild – production by 75% by 2040.
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Climate crisis could increase incursions of Aedes aegypti, which can transmit Zika virus and dengue, experts say
An invasive mosquito capable of transmitting tropical diseases has been found breeding in homes in east London, with experts warning that the rapidly warming climate will lead to greater “incursions of invasive mosquitoes”.
This is the first time the species has been identified breeding in the UK and the fourth time it has been detected.
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As graduates of an online training course gather from across the continent, the consensus is overwhelming: computers and saving animals go together
On a bitingly cold night in Lapalala Wilderness nature reserve in South Africa’s Limpopo province, Duncan Kanyakera watches as instructor Jacques Viljoen deploys a thermal drone in search of a lone cheetah. Once the drone has disappeared into the inky sky, Kanyakera, from Tsavo in Kenya, and 20 other conservation professionals from across Africa turn their attention to the open-air screen in anticipation.
Many of the students – from 11 African countries as far flung as Benin, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Madagascar – witnessing the demonstration have earned their places at Lapalala after performing well on an online training programme for protected area technicians (PAT) run by the Connected Conservation Foundation (CCF). Also on the course, are five members of Peace Parks staff in training.
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Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps more than 80 times as much heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and causes 25% of global heating today. We definitely don’t want this gas spewing needlessly into the atmosphere, but in 2023 that’s exactly what environment editor Damian Carrington found was happening when he reported on 1,000 super-emitting methane leaks across the globe. Now Turkmenistan, the worst country for mega-leaks, has begun to plug them. Damian tells Madeleine Finlay why some experts call stopping leaks the climate ‘emergency brake’ and reveals which countries are still failing to act.
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Appledore, Devon: By-the-wind sailors have been washed up in great numbers this summer. I stumble on a single one of these bright blue beauties
Amid the hot grit of the estuarine beach, a cool light glints. Not the habitual shade of mussel shells, nor even the shimmer of sea glass, this is a blue so bright that at first I mistake it for a kind of plastic, perhaps the discarded part of a pair of goggles.
I’m about to pick it up when something prompts me to pause, mid-swoop; an inkling that this is not synthetic, but animal.
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Study reveals that pesticide poisoning kills 11,000 people each year, with India accounting for nearly 60% of fatalities
Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found.
Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year.
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Each year, people from across the world gather in a grove sacred to the Yoruba goddess Osun to be healed, conceive or realise their deepest wishes. But toxic lead, mercury and cyanide is leaching into the river
7Devotees in white clothing line the riverbank, praying as they carry offerings of fruit, kola nut and sacrificial animals in supplication to Osun, the Yoruba goddess of fertility, beauty and healing, whose carved form stands with arms outstretched a few metres away in the Osun River.
It is the final day of Nigeria’s annual Osun Osogbo festival in honour of the African deity, in a tradition that has existed for hundreds of years and draws people from across the diaspora.
Yeye Omifunto Ojo performs a sacrifice at the Osun River
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A fragment of temperate rainforest lies on the edge of Dartmoor, and following years of conservation work, its owners have now opened up a sustainable campsite next to this fragile ecosystem
Mist blankets the valley as I wheel my camping gear down the small hill towards a clearing ringed by trees and shrubs. A picnic bench sits at its edge, angled towards the reason why I’m here: one of the last remaining fragments of temperate rainforest in Britain. I’m pitching my tent at Wray Valley Camping, a low-impact site on Dartmoor’s eastern edge between Lustleigh and Moretonhampstead, where I’ll spend five days on one of the site’s “nearly wild” pitches.
Also known as Atlantic woodland, temperate rainforests depend on a rare combination of high humidity, rainfall and consistently mild coastal temperatures where the sea moderates the climate. They once stretched from the western Highlands of Scotland down to Cornwall, covering 20% of the UK, and sheltering rare and delicate lichens and plants. Today more than 95% of our temperate rainforest cover is gone, but Devon’s near-constant dampness and its exposure to the Atlantic make it one of the last strongholds for this rare habitat.
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El Niño is associated with weaker monsoons in India – but research suggests it can also bring more extreme rainfall
The world is bracing for a “super” El Niño, and its effects are already being felt in India, where the monsoon has brought less rain than average but more intense downpours.
Meteorologists predict that the current El Niño, which is developing over the Pacific, could be one of the strongest in living memory. India is likely to be heavily affected, particularly later in the monsoon, when El Niño’s influence tends to strengthen.
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